Seventies Monorail Project

[peterw]

Falls — thought you might like to know that the tunnel you spoke of re. the Liverpool Overhead Railway still exists and has been spruced up by Liverpool City Council.

[peterw]

Falls — found this relating to Huskisson Dock. Year was 1942: “In Huskisson Dock, incendiaries set fire to an ammunition ship, the S.S. Malakand, which blew up the entire dock and ripped a section out of the Overhead Railway. Despite this, only four people seem to have been killed by it - two crew who were trying to scuttle the ship and, tragically, a newly-married couple whose car was hit by debris.”

[Falls]

Hi Falls — one ship that caught fire and was destroyed was the Lucania, in Huskisson Dock, but that was in 1909. I’m looking to trace later fires but no success yet. Liverpool commemorates the ship with a Lucania Street. In fact the city commemorates a lot of the great liners.

 

 

Hi Peter,

 

Bingo!!! I found it.

 

Ref: my comments about the burnt out ship I saw in one of the Liverpool Docks during my ride on the overhead railway.

.

It was Canadian Pacific's Empress of Canada (formally the Duchess of Richmond). It was being worked on in the Gladstone Dock and caught fire. January 25, 1953. They pumped so much water into her to put out the fire that she did go over and ended-up laid on her side in the bottom of the dock.

 

See: http://www.merchantnavyofficers.com/empcanada.html

 

Regards

[peterw]

So, that’s that cleared up to our mutual satisfaction! Well done, Falls. I was searching the wrong dock, but an ammunition ship blowing up — that must have been a real frightener!

[Falls]

Hi Peter,

 

Ref: Munition Ship Explosions

 

This is 100% off-topic but exploding ships is a whole topic in itself. Here in Canada, there was a terrible ship collision, and subsequent explosion, in the narrows of Halifax Harbour, Nova Scotia, in December 1917.

 

Over 2000 people were killed and it devastated a large section of the city. It was reputed to be the worlds largest man made explosions until Hiroshima in the Second War. The anchor from one ship was blown clear over the city and landed about 3-4 miles from the blast site. The city authories left it where it landed and that became the memorial site.

 

There is a very good book on the subject, published in 1963(?) by an English writer. He went to Halifax and interviewed just about all the survivors who were still alive.

 

There was also another bad munitions ship explosion in Bombay(Mumbai) in the early 1940's. I was there in 2001 but nobody I spoke to knew anything about it. All too young.

 

Regards

[peterw]

There was another in the United States when two ships collided. I remember seeing reference to in online, but can’t remember where now. However, this all started when someone asked about Sheffield’s monrail! I think it time we let them get back to it. No chance of getting one, but nevertheless … let them dream on. A monorail would certainly solve a lot of Sheffield’s traffic problems.

[Falls]

Hi Peter,

 

Agree we should get back to Monorails, that is if the subject hasn't already been exhausted.

 

I have mixed feelings about monorails. Obviously, they are clear of road or walking areas below; however, I haven't seen one that is really unobtrusive. The well known one at Wuppertal in Germany, has been going for a century or more with considerable sucess; however, I think this runs over a river for part of the way which reduces the visual intrusion and some of the noise.

 

Of course with the suspended type, where the stations are also elevated, it takes a lot careful designing to reduce the climb up and down to a minimum. Also, there are no simple solutions to make the stations easily accessible for people with physically disablilities.

 

The City of Niagara Falls here in Southern Ontario, has been talking about building a monorail for more than 30 years. This would be to move tourists between the various attractions during the summer. In the early 1970's a section of elevated track was actually constructed to show the public what it would be like but it was eventually taken down. Since then, the subject has been raised from time to time, usually by people or groups who thinks its a good idea but have no money.

 

The problem is they aren't cheap to build and so far, nobody has stepped forward with the cash to do it. The Niagara main tourist season only last for 100 days: not long enough to pay for the investment.

 

Regards

[peterw]

Yes, I guess they are VERY expensive so no chance in Sheffield then. In fact no chance anywhere else in England. Despite the Government’s call for a greater use of integrated public transport systems (which no town, city or village has yet achieved), it’s become penny-pinching in the realms of trams. Every city that wants to extend its system lacks the money and can’t get it, and Liverpool can’t even get the money to build one! I keep telling them, jokingly, that they’ll have to go back into the slave trade. They made a fortune in those days.

[Tony]

They manage to run one at Blackpool Pleasure Beach.

 

Mind you - they do it for profit and don't have the endless lines of civil servants with vested interests and internal funding requirements

[peterw]

In the 1980s Blackpool Pleasure Beach wanted to build one all the way into the town, but the Council were having none of it! Daft really, because they could have claimed some rights over it and brought in lots of money. In earlier days when Blackpool Pleasure Beach gave the Corporation a piece of land which would allow them to turn their trams round, the Beach stipulated that they’d only give them the land if the Corporation would put ‘Blackpool Pleasure Beach‘ in the Destination Box of trams coming back from Fleetwood. This still works well even today.