Travel – Page 4 – John Vincent

The Legacy of Beeching

Two hundred years is a long time. No, it isn’t. William the Conqueror, that’s the sort of name politicians crave, called for the building of Windsor Castle in England. That means, almost but not quite, a thousand years of continuous use. I guess in 2070 there’ll be a big celebration of the achievements of the Normans. Certainly, seemed to impress US President Trump.

If I had a time machine one of the destinations that I’d consider is 1963 and maybe 1965. I’d take a mass of press clippings and audio recordings about inadequate rural bus services and the high-speed railway saga (HS2).

History has a way of condensing a whole succession of events into a few simple words. William was a conqueror, but 1960’s civil servant Beeching was an axeman. That can be said to be unfair, since he was mandated to produce a report and, in the context of the times, British railways seemed like they had overexpanded and wouldn’t be brought back into profitability.

This happened when I was a child. I can just remember on my way to primary school stopping at a railway crossing and waiting a steam train to pass. It could have been the milk train. At that time milk was transported from west country dairy farms, in churns, to the local milk factory. Then loaded onto a London bound train. All this activity disappeared as I grew up. It was displaced by road tankers forcing their way along country roads.

I was born in a small Somerset railway town. Got my first pay packet in that small railway town. Had a couple of weeks of my engineering apprenticeship in the former railway shed. Spent time in the small motorcycle shop next to the railway embankment.

Beeching’s reports resulted in thousands of stations and thousands of miles of railway line being closed. The Somerset and Dorset (S&D) railway line was one of those that vanished. It was on 6 September 1965, the consent for closure was issued for most of the railway line.

Strangely, it was a newly elected Labour government that promised to reverse railway closures that closed the railway. A campaign to save the line was lost. Now, I think, what if, what if the new government of 1964 had not been so beguiled by modern road building and the white heat of technology. The internal combustion engine and purveyors of tarmac had won the day.

My message is to commission reports with a wider remit than merely improving economic efficiency. It’s a concern that is as ap today as ever it was. State of the art technology is alluring. Sloganising it’s easier to say that we are moving forward to a new dawn than it is to say we will update and improve the machinery we already use. There are good cases for scrapping past ways and means. Surely, it’s as well to try to look beyond immediate pressures.

Had Beeching’s axe not been so readily swung then we’d have an alternative to ever more road building and the billions ploughed into it. Remember those feeble promises to invest in local busses to replace the lost trains. How such recommendations are so quickly forgotten.

What will we say about robotics and artificial intelligence in 60-years’ time. Or even 200-years’ time. If we are still here.

Autumn’s Arrival

It’s the season of mellow fruitfulness. Hey, I didn’t even know I was quoting Keats with that apt short line. It’s so embedded in my thoughts.

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,

Close bosom-friend of the maturing Sun;

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;[1]

It’s so appropriate to the day. To the week. We are in that spot of the year that marks a transition. Summer is behind us. The ground is covered with acorns and conkers. Leaves are contemplating the end of the duties. A mist hangs over the grass in the early hours.

Just to be clear, I don’t live in a picture box thatched cottage in some hidden English valley. That said, from one long-standing vine, this year, I’ve collected a mass of grapes. This vine, being so deep rooted, it hasn’t suffered the desert like conditions that prevailed for weeks.

Autumn can be a wonderful season. For a few weeks the siren sound of the winter’s coming is held in suspension. There’s time to think about whether to turn on the heating or not as the temperature dips at night.

Transitions are political too. In Britain, it’s the season of conferences. A time for the faithful to gather and spend a few days running around like headless chickens. A harvest of policy papers and last-minute speeches. Condemnation of opponents. Accolades for friends and good company. Tee-shirts, hats and posters plying slogans old and new.

It’s difficult to explain. Might seem tiresome to those who have never spent 4-5 days at the seaside in September but mostly indoors or waving banners in the sea breeze. This week the Sun has blessed all concerned. Those of us who went to the south coast to share time with family and those who went to change the world.

For the party of government, they may be asking:

Where are the songs of spring? Ay, Where are they?

The optimism of last year has dramatically subsided. Now, they seem like the Mars company marketing gurus who rebranded the Marathon chocolate bar to Snickers[2]. A lesson in how to cause confusion for no material gain. Labour’s problem is clear. The chocolate bar is a good national trend indicator. Off the shelf, the bars are smaller, but you pay the same price or more for the pleasure. Arresting decline is proving to be difficult.

And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

For those who may wonder at this line, Keats didn’t have social media.

[An Aside: AI, and its unsolicited interventions, can be right plonkers. It suggested that I change the grammar of Keats poem. It offered to rewrite the lines above. So, billionaires are spending billions trying to prompt us to rewrite romantic poetry. What a mad mad world.]

[1] https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44484/to-autumn

[2] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-13873067/real-reason-Snickers-changed-Marathon-chocolate.html

Exploring the Greatness of Great Britain

What’s great about Great Britain? GQ has asked this question[1]. Produced a nice article that looks at this subject with a cultural eye.

It’s a bit retro. When we (Brits) start talking about how great pubs are there’s a tendency to forget how many we have lost in the last decade. If we loved them so much, then more would have survived crushing economic pressures.

Brit pop was a wonderful surge in creativity that swept across the country in the 1990s. It was good – mostly. Riding that wave, because we are romantic souls about the past, are the band Oasis with their multimillion £ world tour. Accounts of which are tremendously positive.

I think I can take a position about what’s great about Great Britain. Having lived in Germany and travelled a bit, my perspective isn’t too insular or defensive.

Because we are no longer the world’s premier power and imperialism is a fading memory, we’ve shed the stiff upper lip and bowler hatted civil service bureaucrat image. It’s there in film and television to remind us of former times. It’s few who want to return to all that deep seriousness.

That seriousness is the burden that the US carries. If they send a gun boat somewhere it means business. For Brits it’s more a symbol of still being on the stage. Don’t get me wrong, as a country we box way beyond our size.

For all the right-wing jerks who parade around with false patriotism, our great strength is diversity. Having that legacy of the world map once having been painted in a great deal of red, we can now engage with multiple cultures and benefit from them all.

Number one of the lists of inherited advantages is being able to speak to the world. Not in their language but in ours. English doesn’t belong to the English any more, it belongs to the world. They amount to a lot; the times I’ve had fun reading Brussels English and being amazed at how it’s being used.

Pick a discipline. Science, technology, humanities, art, entertainment, there’s always a Brit that can be named as shaping the world. Influencing others and providing a spark that sets off a flame.

Now, being more parochial, I’ll look around me, in this town, and see a diversity of styles from punks who never stopped being punks to suited tie wearing customer service executives. Welly booted farmers in the town for a day to young gamers stuck to their small screens.

Sport is another anchor. If we (Brits) didn’t invent it, then it’s a derivative of something we did invent. Top that with the eccentricities from international tiddlywinks[2] to stone skimming. Despite the school of hard knocks we still value fair play.

Comedy is taking a downturn, but the British legacy is monumental. Irreverent, rebellious or intricate, often all three, even if we (Brits) do invite in the bland factory-made stuff from the US. In a unregarded small corner there’s a someone writing hysterical lines waiting to be discovered.

So far, as a nation, 2025 won’t go down in history as our best year. I’ve every faith that the best is still yet to come. Unlocking that dynamic zest, that quirky imagination, that complex amalgam happens several times every decade. Let’s hope the spark is just about to be set off.

[1] https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/

[2] https://iftwa.org/history-of-iftwa/

Flag Displays

Traveling here, travelling there, it’s not usual to see a national flag displayed. Whether it be on public buildings, airports terminals or stadiums it’s up there to celebrate belonging. National flags come out most often when major sporting events are underway. They appear and then disappear like a tsunami. It’s a field day for retailers. From the finest natural materials to the cheapest plastics, every size and shape is available.

I’ve kept a flags few, rolled up waiting for a special occasion. One Union Jack, a cross of St George, the European stars, a German one and a flag of the city of Cologne. I did have a Somerset County flag but now can’t find it.

Twice I’ve been to the last night at the Proms[1]. One of the fun parts of that evening is spotting the more unusual flags and trying to work out where they represent. Don’t tell me you know what the Northumberland flag looks like. I certainly didn’t until it was explained to me. By the way it looks like alternating red and yellow Lego bricks stuck together.

For me, as it is for most people, waving a flag is for a special occasion. Carnaval, a parade or Royal occasion. The Eurovision song contest, World Cup or Olympics. These are events where we come together as a community.

Frankly, going around and painting roundabouts red and white with the cross of St George, with cars whizzing around, is plain foolish. It detracts from the importance of the national symbol. What a grown man, in the recent News reports, thinks he’s doing with his tin of paint, I can’t fathom.

Flying Union Jacks, often upside down, from Motorway bridges is juvenile. Today, I saw one or two and it made me think that there’s likely three reactions.

One: ambivalence. That is, either not to notice or to ignore the display as much as ignoring the writing on the side of a large truck. Conveying no message other than what a waste of time.

Two: annoyance: That is, to go back to my point about degrading the symbol. Seeing the fixer as a pompous twat or intimidating bully with time on their hands. Stirring up political divisions for the sake of it.

Three: acclamation. That is, being distracted enough to put a big thumbs up to whoever bought the flag and tied it into position. On-board with plastering every road bridge with flags as an imagined rebellious act.

Doesn’t take much to figure out which one of those I might be. On this subject it’s as well to be as generous as possible. These acts of putting up flags for no reason obviously makes some people happy. Given that they are ranked number one in the world, I’d like to think that the flag waving is in support of England women and rugby union. Somehow, that’s a stretch given the utterances of the flag painters and the bandwagon jumping political stirrers.

Where public property is concerned it’s the duty of public authorities to take them down. Not to tolerate the defacing of public property. However, I can imagine this is just the provocation that some people are inviting.

POST 1 : Talk about utterly desperate bandwagon jumpers. Kemi Badenoch: It is shameful of councils to remove St George’s Cross flags | The Independent

Post 2: Now, I do approve of that. On the main A34 road someone has put up a County flag Berkshire Flag | Free official image and info | UK Flag Registry

[1] https://www.royalalberthall.com/tickets/proms/bbc-proms-24/prom-73

International Collaboration in Space

It’s only taken 20,000 years for Homo sapiens to migrate to the American continent and then decided to industrialise the Moon. Just imagine what the next 20,000 years has in store.

Putting nuclear power on the Moon is a possible enabler for a future Moonbase. Considering the length of time it has taken since the last footsteps on the Moon, a Moonbase is long overdue. That said, going to a faraway place where there’s an abundance of solar energy potential it’s an interesting development that nuclear power is given a priority.

My view is that exploration beyond Earth is a matter for the whole of humanity. Going to the Moon should be an international endeavour. There’s good reason to cooperate when it comes to exploration. For a start space exploration is incredibly hard to do. Rockets explode with an unsettling degree of frequency.

Modern humans have gone from tens of thousands on one continent to what may top ten billion on Earth. It’s no wonder space, the final frontier, beckons. Trouble is we have evolved as specialist on this planet. Not well adapted to the space environment. If our wandering species is to venture into the void, we need to be mighty determined. This will be hard. The hardest effort ever made.

It would be absurd for individual nations to establish separate camps on the Moon. The space race is a concocted nonsense. More flag waving PR than serious sense. Why do I say this?

One: Demand on resources, to build, develop and maintain, a space presence is high. Sharing costs has benefits when planning for the long-term. Continuing costs can be volatile.

Two: In the event of the almost inevitable failures and setbacks, better to have partners to create different ways and means to recover or mount rescues in the worst-case scenarios.

Three: Partners can specialise. Not everyone has to do everything all the time. Afterall, that’s how our modern society came about in the first place.

Four: Cooperative planning means more gets done at the same time. Duplication and fragmentation of efforts don’t serve the great goal of exploration.

Five: Earth’s people are interconnected and interdependent. Even small Moon based colonies will inevitably be the same. Reliant on connections, locally as much as to a distant home.

As a spin off, making exportation an international endeavour can bring us together on this divided planet too.

Why 12,500 Pounds?

Regulation is a strange business. It often means drawing lines between A and B. Bit like map making. Those lines on a map that mark out where you are and the features of the landscape. You could say that’s when all our troubles start but it’s been proven unavoidable. As soon as our vocabulary extends to words like “big” and “small” someone somewhere is going to ask for a definition. What do you mean? Explain.

For a while you may be able to get away with saying; well, it’s obvious. That works when it is obvious for all to see. An alpine mountain is bigger than a molehill. When you get to the region where it’s not clear if a large hill is a small mountain, or not then discussion gets interesting. Some say 1000 ft (about 300 m) others say much more. There’s no one universal definition.

[This week, I drove through the Brecon Beacons. Not big mountains but treeless mountains, nevertheless. Fine on a clear day but when it rains that’s a different story. This week Wales looked at its best].

Aviation progressed by both evolution and revolution. Undeniably because of the risks involved it’s a highly regulated sector of activity. Not only that but people are rightly sensitive about objects flying over their heads.

For reasons that I will not go into, I’ve been looking at one of these lines on a regulatory map. One that’s been around for a long time.

I cannot tell you how many discussions about what’s “minor” and what’s “major” that have taken place. That’s in terms of an aircraft modification. However, these terms are well documented. Digging out and crewing over the background material and rationale is not too difficult, if you are deeply interested in the subject.

The subject I’m thinking about is that difference between what is considered in the rules to be a “large” aeroplane and a “small” aeroplane. Or for any American readers – airplane. So, I set off to do some quick research about where the figure of weight limit: maximum take-off weight of 12,500 pounds or less originated for small airplanes (aeroplanes).

I expected someone to comment; that’s obvious. The figure came from this or that historic document and has stuck ever since. It seems to work, most of the time. A confirmation or dismissal that I wanted addressed the question, is the longstanding folklore story is true. That the airplane weight limit was chosen in the early 1950s because it’s half the weight of one of the most popular commercial transport aircraft of that time.

There is no doubt that the Douglas DC-3[1] is an astonishing airplane. It started flying in 1935 and there are versions of it still flying. Rugged and reliable, this elegant metal monoplane is the star of Hollywood movies as well as having been the mainstay of the early air transport system is the US. Celebrations are in order. This year is the 90th anniversary of the Douglas DC-3[2].

What I’ve discovered, so far, is that the simple story may be true. Interestingly the rational for the weight figure has more to do with economic regulation than it has with airplane airworthiness. The early commercial air transport system was highly regulated by the State in matters both economic and safety. Managing competition was a bureaucratic process. Routes needed approval. Thus, a distinction established between what was commercial air transport and what was not.

POST 1: There is no mention of 12,500 pounds in the excellent reference on the early days of civil aviation in the US. Commercial Air Transportation. John H. Frederick PhD. 1947 Revised Edition. Published by Richard D. Irwin Inc. Chicago.

POST 2: The small aircraft definition of 12,500 pounds max certificated take-off weight first appears in US CAB SPECIAL CIVIL AIR REGULATION. Effective February 20, 1952. AUTHORIZATION FOR AIR TAXI OPERATORS TO CONDUCT OPERATIONS UNDER THE PROVISIONS OF PART 42 OF THE CIVIL AIR REGULATIONS. This was a subject of economic regulation in the creation of the air taxi class of operations.

[1] https://airandspace.si.edu/collection-objects/douglas-dc-3/nasm_A19530075000

[2] https://www.eaa.org/airventure/eaa-airventure-news-and-multimedia/eaa-airventure-news/2025-07-17_dc3_society_celebrate_90_years_douglas_dc3_airventure25

Fuel Control Switches

I’ll not go any further than the investigation report that’s in the public domain. The Air India AI171 Boeing 787-800 Preliminary Report is published for all to read. The aircraft’s Enhanced Airborne Flight Recorder (EAFR) has been replayed. Sadly, this report raised questions as much as it closes down erroneous theories.

It warrants saying again, and again. My thoughts are with the friends and families of those affected. They deserve to know exactly what happened and as far as is possible, why. Not only that but the global travelling public need to be confident that any necessary corrective action is being taken to prevent a recurrence of such a rare fatal accident.

What requires a one or two words is one of the commonest ways we interact with electrical and electronic systems. The humble switch. In fact, they are far from humble and come in lots of shapes and sizes. The general idea is that a mechanical device, that can be manipulated with a purpose in mind, is used to control the flow of electrical current. There are non-mechanical switches, but I’ll not go there for the moment.

I remember conversations with my aircraft electrical engineering colleagues. It goes like this – you deal with the small currents (avionic systems), and we will deal with the big ones (power systems). Also, a mantra was that all electrical systems are, in part, mechanical systems. Switches, cables, generators, control valves, relays, bonding, you name it, they are in part, mechanical systems. In the past traditional electrical engineers got a but jittery when faced with “solid state” controls (semiconductors).

Switches. I’ve seen the words “cognitive engagement” used. In simpler terms, by design, pilots interact with switches with a purpose in mind. Equally, as in the world of human factors, unprotected switches can be operated in error, unintentionally or by physical force.

So, what are the chances of two protected Fuel Control Switches moving, within seconds of each other, at the most critical phase of an aircraft’s flight?

[There is a discussion to be had in respect of timing. Remember the record from the flight recorders is a sampling of events. The sampling rate maybe as low as one per second. Note: EASA AMC2 CAT.IDE.A.190.]

These cockpit switches are designed and certificated to perform as intended under specified operating and environmental conditions. That’s a wide range of vibration and temperature (shake and bake).

Switch operation is indicated by their physical position[1]. In addition, operation of these switches will be evident by cockpit indications. The concept being that a flight crew can confirm that the Fuel Control Switches have moved by their effect on the engines. If a crew need to take corrective action it is in relation to the information presented to them by the engine instrument system.

The report makes it clear that both mechanical switches transitioned from ‘RUN’ to ‘CUT-OFF’ almost immediately as the aircraft became airborne. That is a worst-case scenario. The time available to recognise and understand the situation, for training to kick-in, and then to take appropriate corrective action was insufficient.

This leads me to think that there may be a case for disabling the Fuel Control Switch function up until at least an altitude where aircraft recovery is possible. Now, these switches need to be available up until the V1 speed is achieved (Example: aborting a take-off with an engine fire). After that an aircraft is committed to becoming airborne.

I suspect the reason there is no inhibit function is the possibility of adding another potential failure condition. Inadvertent and unrecoverable disabling of ‘CUT-OFF’ are scenarios that would need to be considered. No doubt a reasonableness argument was used. No crew would shut-down both engines down immediately an aircraft became airborne, would they?

POST: I hope I haven’t given the impression that this is a case of simple switches and wires. The Boeing 787 is a digital aircraft. Mechanical fuel technology plays its part but control functions are digital.

[1] Designs that offer switch illumination are not used in this case.

Cynicism to Appreciation

A couple of things came together this week. I had the pleasure of enjoying 35 degrees in Brussels. The joy of the odious metro, the brutalist main station and the wandering herds of tourists. Overhead one couple saying do you know that they have a statue of a little boy having a wee. I flinched because I genuinely thought everyone in the world knew of the Manneken Pis[1]. How can anyone not know?

It was a Canadian who prompted me to undo a prejudice of mine. Loving the air conditioning in the hotel, I looked to my iPad for late evening entertainment. There was the man – Clarkson. Irritating prankster and motorhead. Not known for meaningful commentary. I’d resisted watching his series Clarkson’s Farm[2] on the basis that I’d want to throw bricks at the screen.

This week I watched the first series. Made pre-COVID. Fine, it’s not a serious documentary about the trials and tribulations of British farming in the 21^st century. True to form it’s pure entertainment. Edited highlights of comic moments and true to form tomfoolery.

My mind is changed. I started as a cynic. Here’s a moneymaking scheme for a wealthy landowner who made riches in the television world. To here’s a have a go spirit let loose on what people often assume is easy but, in fact, is mighty hard to do. The series is an engaging journey of discovery all but made for the small screen.

How can you not make a profit out of a highly desirable spread of a thousand acres in some of the most beautiful countryside in Britain? Experience counts and when you have none, it counts even more. Watching the lights come on in Clarkson’s head is well worth a watch.

Farming with drone shots and a camera crew following is obviously not the real world. Nicely edited highlights tell the story on the page. Put aside any cynicism. The show has a way of story telling that brings out the awkward, funny and frustrating reality of farming. Folly, errors and mishaps are all part of what happens in that colourful industry.

There was a world pre-COVID. Going back even further, there was a world before the fireworks of the year 2000. It was summed up by the brothers Gallagher. Yes, I am talking about the getting back together of Oasis. A band that was a bit more than an everyday rock band.

Having survived watching last week’s televising of the one millionth Glastonbury festival (exaggeration), the memories of the “real” contrast with the artificial, bland and merely controversial for the sake of it. Those years in the mid-1990s were good ones, if only I’m using the trick of selective memory. Remember when people who supported leaving Europe were strange and social media was only a rare tacky e-mail.

Maybe I’m getting more Clarkson-like as time flies.

[1] https://www.introducingbrussels.com/manneken-pis

[2] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10558964/

Managing Risk After Aircraft Accidents

Let me clarify. I can no more predict the future than is illustrated in the humour of this news report. “Psychic’s Gloucester show cancelled due to ‘unforeseen circumstances[1]‘”

Predicting the outcome of an aircraft accident investigation is just as fraught with unforeseen circumstances. For a start, the evidence base is shallow in the first weeks of an investigation. As the clock ticks so increasingly, new information either confuses or clarifies the situation.

Despite the uncertainty, aviation professionals do need to try to anticipate the findings of a formal investigation before they are published or communicated in confidence. It’s not acceptable to sit back and wait to be told what has been found.

In aviation, post-accident there is an elevation of operational risk. The trouble is that assessing that elevation is hindered by the paucity of reliable information. Equally, a proliferation of speculation can escalate risk assessments beyond what is needed. The reverse is true too.

Let’s look at the difference between commentary and speculation. One is based on evidence and the other may not be. One takes the best professional assessment and the other may be more to do with beliefs, prejudices or the latest fashionable thinking.

In reality, it’s not quite as binary. Since speculation in the financial sense may be based on a lot of calculation and risk assessment. Generally, though there is an element of a leap of faith. Opinions based upon past experiences commonly shape thinking.

Commentary on the other hand, like sports commentary is describing what’s happening based upon what’s known. Sometimes that includes one or two – what ifs. In football, that match deciding penalty that was only missed but for a small error.

Commentary includes analysis and study of past accidents and incidents. Trying to pick-up on any apparent trends or patterns is of paramount importance.

Those responsible for aircraft operations, whether they be airlines or safety regulators, need to have an immediate response. That maybe done in private. Their decision-makers need to have a theory or conjecture based on as much analysis and evidence as is available. Like it or not, the proliferation of commentary and speculation does have an impact.

In a past life, one of the actions that my team and I took was to compile a “red book” as quickly as possible post-accident. That document would contain as much reliable information as was available. Facts like aircraft registration details, a type description, people, places and organisation details that were verifiable. This was not a full explanation. It was an analysis, compilation and commentary on what had happened. The idea being that decision-makers had the best possible chance of acting in a consistent manner to reduce risk in the here and now.

[1] https://www.gloucestershirelive.co.uk/whats-on/whats-on-news/psychics-gloucester-show-cancelled-due-7250094

It’s green

Daily writing prompt

What’s the most delicious thing you’ve ever eaten?

View all responses

Taste is not a fixed sense. It mingles and matches other senses. Taste and smell always seem to go together. What’s delicious is more than nice. It must have a distinct context. Appearance comes into the equation too. What was delicious is a shorthand description of an embedded memory. A memory of a sensation.

My offering is a sweltering hot day. Really hot and dry. A Sicilian piazza and a desperate need for ice cream. If there is better pistachio flavoured ice-cream on the global, I’d like to taste it. Sitting in the shade in Catania[1] my spoon scooped up something special.

[1]https://www.visitsicily.info/en/localita/catania/