Yesterday was an exciting one for despite being there to collect container-loads of scaffolding tubes (dull), I chanced to spot this (not)! It was there hauling wooden pellets that had crossed the Atlantic from North America, over to power stations on the other side of the UK. Readers of the blog will recall this is because (a) Margaret Thatcher hated the working class and coal-miners in particular and (b) because this ticks 'green' boxes in ways that reopening coal mines wouldn't, even if it were more efficient and provided more jobs.
A further disappointment beside it working for Drax ~ a fairly corrupt corporation as a cursory Google search attests ~ it is in fact only a 'tribute' locomotive. It has the nameplate and motif 'Falcon 2' on the side beside its shiny green livery is a nod to a prototype loco produced by the Brush Works and Maybach during the 1960s... and Brush's foundry itself was called the Falcon Works. Geddit?
Brush itself did not produce brushes, but produced much else and was named after a man with that name. It produced aircraft in WW2, afterward being sold to aircraft manufacturer Hawker Siddeley before eventually being taken over by Westinghouse in 2011: which decided to close the company and its illustrious works that can still be spotted should you be passing through Loughborough station.
It encapsulates British industry, today benefitting from 4% of investment sourced in the City of London whereas a century ago it was near 80%. Thus companies that once produced ground-breaking prototypes for land, sea or air are reduced to parts manufacturers or asset-stripped by private equity firms: fake trains, fake factories, fake people, fake content.
N.B. Colin is available for children's parties.
