The Electric Brae
A first class
lounge
The White Swan Inn at
Alnwick in Northumberland boasts a very fine dining room within its
portals. The first class lounge from the S.S Olympic, 1910-1936, (twin ship
to the legendary S.S Titanic), is reconstructed within the White Swan. When the Olympic was broken at Jarrow in
1936, the fixtures and fittings were sold off in lots, and the owner of the
White Swan who had often travelled on the ship, bought the lounge and other
fittings for just £40.
Robinson Crusoe
A very fine statue is to
be seen above the doorway of a small cottage in Main Street Lower
Fargo in Fife . An inscription reads :
‘ In memory
of Alexander Selkirk, mariner, the original Robinson Crusoe,
who lived on
the island of Juan Fernandez
for four years & four months.
He died in
1723, Lt. Of HMS Weymouth, aged 47 years.’
Selkirk was born in the
cottage in 1676. In 1694 he was
employed as sailing master on board ship bound for the south seas. Due to dissension between the Captain and
crew and a feeling that the boat was not seaworthy, Selkirk asked to be put
ashore and was marooned with just his basic belongings.
His story inspired Daniel
Defoe to write his celebrated book, Robinson
Crusoe.
Tay Bridge
Disaster
The Tay Railway Bridge
some two miles in length and built in 1883-1888 is the successor to the
ill-fated original bridge carrying the main line between Edinburgh and
Aberdeen. The original bridge was blown down in a gale in 1879 whilst a train
with six carriages was crossing and with heavy loss of life.
The original bridge had
been complete in 1878 to the design of Thomas Bouch who was responsible for the
construction and maintenance of the bridge and he was knighted for his work
shortly after Queen Victoria had used the bridge, At that time it was the
longest bridge in the world.
When the bridge collapsed
it was thought that some 75 people were on the train and there were no
survivors.
A Court of Inquiry found
that the fall of the bridge was occasioned by the insufficiency of the cross
bracing and its fastenings to sustain the force of the gale. Bouch died within
a year of the disaster his reputation in tatters.
The disaster is one of the
greatest bridge failures and is still one of the worst structural engineering
failures in the UK.
A railway tragedy
Two gravestones in the
churchyard of St John the Baptist at Bromsgrove in Worcestershire tell their
own story :
‘ Sacred to
the memory of Thomas Scaife, late engineer on the Birmingham and Gloucester
Railway, who lost his life at Bromsgrove Station by explosion of an engine
boiler on Tuesday the 10th of Nov. 1840. He was 28 yrs of age, highly esteemed by his
fellow workmen for his many amiable qualities, and his Death will be long
lamented by all those who had the pleasure of his acquaintance. The following lines were composed by an
unknown friend as a memento of the worthiness of the deceased.
‘My engine
now is cold and still, No water does my boiler fill.
My coke
affords its flames no more, My days of usefulness are o’er.
My wheels
deny their noted speed, No more my guiding hands they need.
My whistle
too has lost its tone, Its shrill and thrilling sound has gone.
My valves are
now thrown open wide, My flanges all refuse to guide.
My clacks,
although once so strong, Refuse to aid the busy throng.
No more I
feel each urging breath, My steam is now condens’d in death.
Life’s
railway’s o’er each station’s pass, In death I’m stopp’d & rest at last.
Farewell dear
friends and cease to weep, In Christ I’m safe in him I sleep.’
This stone
was erected at the joint expense of his fellow workmen 1842.
‘ Sacred to
the memory of Joseph Rutherford, late engineer to the Birmingham and Gloucester
Railway Co. who died Nov 11
1840 Aged 32 yrs.
O’h! Reader
stay, and cast an eye, Upon the grave where I lie.
For cruel
Death has challenged me, And soon alas! Will call on thee.
Repeat in
time, make no delay, For Christ will call you all away.
Mt time was
spent like Dew in Sun, Beyond my cure my glass is run.
This stone
was erected by his affectionate relict 1841.
The Train
DARLINGTON is an engineering and railway town in
the Tees Valley.
Sited at Morton Park alongside the
A66 road at Darlington, is a huge sculpture, loosely based on the famous steam
train, The Mallard and used 185,000 bricks at a cost of £750,000 to build. Commissioned in 1997, by Morrison’s Supermarkets
and Darlington Council and supported by lottery and other funding, this 120
feet long sculpture was designed by David Mach, to commemorate the world’s
first scheduled railway service between Darlington and Stockton. It is a major feat of design and engineering
depicting a steam train emerging from a tunnel in the hillside, and was so
constructed as to be a suitable habitat for bats.
The highest Railway Station
A railway snowplough
A rather unusual railway
snowplough can be seen in a siding at Goathland Station on the North York
Moor Railway.
Railway bench
A relic from the time when
railway excursions brought hoards of visitors to the sea-side at Scarborough is a railway bench. It stretches along the platform for some 90
yards and is the longest station bench in the country.
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