All articles in Transport & Industry
6th September, 2018 in Maritime, Transport & Industry
Seven things you (probably) didn’t know about Portsmouth Dockyard
The history of Portsmouth Dockyard can be traced back over 800 years. During that time it’s been the country’s first dry dock, ordered in 1495 by King Henry VII, and later played a part in the construction of the Dreadnought. But how much do we really know about Britain’s oldest…
3rd July, 2018 in Transport & Industry
Mallard and the Railway World Speed Record
On Sunday 3 July 1938, during a series of high-speed brake trials on the main line between Peterborough and Grantham, the opportunity was taken to make an attempt on the world speed record for railways, using the A4 locomotive No. 4468 Mallard. Although the load was far less…
20th June, 2018 in Military, Transport & Industry
From socks to scout cars: How to supply the army at war
Anything from socks to eighteen inch guns was the business of Ordnance Services in World War One; in World War Two the socks were still there, but the emphasis had moved from massive static guns to mobile armour. Bomber Command had taken over the business of carrying tons of expl…
9th April, 2018 in Local & Family History, Transport & Industry
The recasting of Big Ben
The great bell on which the Westminster clock would strike the hours was to be the largest ever cast in Britain. Sir Charles Barry’s (he had been knighted in 1852) original plan called for an hour bell of 14 tons together with eight quarter bells of various sizes, but Edmund Beck…
27th March, 2018 in Local & Family History, Transport & Industry
10 facts about the first Irish railway
Author Kurt Kullmann takes us through 10 historical facts about the very first Irish railway which ran from Westland Row to Kingstown (now Dún Laoghaire). 1. When the first Irish railway was opened in 1834, it did not go the whole way from Dublin (Westland Row) to Kings…
20th February, 2018 in Local & Family History, Maritime, Transport & Industry
A short history of Sheerness Dockyard
The Isle of Sheppey, some nine miles long and half as wide, lies on the southern side of the Thames estuary and is separated from the north Kent coast by a narrow channel of the sea called the Swale. Sheerness in the mid-seventeenth century was a short, beak-shaped point of uninh…
24th January, 2018 in Transport & Industry
Road frights of the paranormal kind
Because dangerous driving is so prevalent, travelling by road in the crowded UK is potentially hazardous and frightening. But as retired clinical psychologist Dr Peter McCue points out – people sometimes have puzzling and disturbing experiences of other kinds on our highways…
22nd January, 2018 in Transport & Industry
Wonders of the UK’s waterways
It was during the eighteenth century, when Britain was bursting with trade, industry and commerce that the great age of canal building was born. Manufacturing was changing – local craftsmen were being replaced by factories where goods could be mass produced, on an unprecedented s…
11th January, 2018 in Maritime, Transport & Industry
The Falkirk Wheel: Building a waterway wonder
In 2002, British Waterways (the government department that managed Britain’s canal network at that time) conducted a poll of those interested in the inland waterways, asking them to choose the ‘Seven Wonders of the Inland Waterways for the 21st Century’. The Falkirk Wheel in Cent…
19th December, 2017 in Transport & Industry
The birth of British Railways
“Happy New Year, sir!” Sir Cyril Hurcomb may not have been so sure of the groundsman’s greeting as he walked through the morning cold and mist of St James’s Park. He was on his way to the office, for the first day of his job as Chairman of the newly-formed British Transport Commi…
6th December, 2017 in Transport & Industry
From discomfort to joy: Dunlop’s pneumatic bicycle tyre
The credit for the pneumatic tyre must go to two men: John Boyd Dunlop, who developed it in Ireland in 1888, and Robert W. Thomson of England who had patented it 43 years earlier in 1845. By a strange coincidence, the two men invented the same thing decades apart, although neithe…
5th December, 2017 in Transport & Industry
Eight things you might not know about the black cab
The London black taxi cab is known all around the world and a ride in one is a ‘must’ for visitors to the capital. It is known for its safety and reliability and its drivers are renowned for finding their way through London’s maze-like back streets and thoroughfares. The origins…