Railway 200

This is what happens when the "woke" brigade take over. Rewriting of history and certainly no burning of coal as another shovelful will send the planet spinning off balance. It looks like an event that's best avoided.

 

Nothing to do with "woke", everything to do with an industry that doesn't know how to celebrate it's heritage and exhibition creators who have their own agendas rather than focusing on what the core activity

 

Ah... Godwin's Second Law has just applied.

 

Is there some confusion here?
I think there are 2 locations with Shildon being for the NORTH EASTERN 200th and DERBY for National 200th

 

Having just looked at the prgramme, I wouldn't call it "good" at all - just typical modern woke nonsense that only serves to illustrate just how far we have declined as a nation since S&D 150 in 1975.

 

Blaming cows for global warming sums it up!

 

I'm calling Godwin's Second Law.

Again.

 

More to the point, as someone who doesn't use the word "Woke" and other such terms, put it another way - There is absoloutely nothing of interest in that programme that would encourage me to travel 300+ miles and stay (and spend money) in the area to see the various special events they are offering. At the end of the day the whole point of such things is to finacially benefit the organisations and economy of the area concerned. In this, it totally falls flat in my opinion........

 

Site available at Shildon isn't that big though is it?

 

And on that point, I would agree with you. There's precious little of interest to the average railway enthusiast, most of whom aren't known for their interest in the arts. It might appeal to "metropolitan liberal elite" educators who take the Guardian and/or the New European but otherwise, no.

Somehow, I acquired a programme for the 1975 celebrations via my godfather (and I wish I knew where it was now) but I have an overwhelming sadness that I never got to see it. I will have to live with the programme on BBC iPlayer and the LP "Steam In Stereo" from BBC Records and Tapes instead.

 

Careful - you'll have the anti-Bovaer brigade (like that twerp Lembit Opik) out blaming Bill Gates for something he had nothing to do with.

 

A fiftieth anniversary as well in 1875 - during which there were such non-railway activities as a "programme of music" and a firework display ...

We probably owe the survival of some early locomotives such as "Derwent" to that event, when the NER really started to get interested in their own history. Of course, that interest - and the event it spawned - had its own political subtext, of wishing to portray the non-conformist leading lights behind the development of railways in their rightful place: fifty years earlier, many of those people had had to make their way in society quite isolated from the pillars of the establishment.

What I do find a bit sad - in this event is that by branding it "Rail 200" (rather than "S&D 200") - and having a big celebration in Derby - it moves away from the context of the actual events that happened 200 years ago. There is no particular reason why the 200th anniversary of railways should be counted from 1825 - you could make a case for "uncertain", "1801", "1804", "1822", "1825" and others as all being significant dates in the development of railways.



Tom

 

With regards to the randomness of saying it is "Rail" 200, given that the NRM held an event celebrating that exact same anniversary 20 years ago it highlights the issue.

John

 

A point I had felt, but to those outside enthusiast community surely S&D 200 would mean very little, Rail 200 will grab more attention from wider public, then on your interpretation you can explain why. 1975 was billed as Rail 150 so ties in with this.

2004 while very much billing as rail bicentenary, very much was celebrating earlier uses of rail, (think they also celebrating 400 years of some of the earliest uses of railways?)

 

I wonder when the word ‘railway’ was first used.

 

Allegedly:

"According to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), the words "railroad" and "railway" originated in 1681 and 1757, respectively. Both first referred to the rails or tracks miners used to transport coal in wagons."

 

How much space is there now at Shildon in which to house any major exhibition?

 

A bit more than there was, since the "new" building was opened.