Is it national "Scrap our heritage transport" month?
First the Manx Horse Trams and now the BBC reports that the last two cross-channel hovercraft are to be destroyed so a property developer can make a few quid.
Well done.
I travelled on both hovercraft in their penultimate weekend. I won't say it was salubrious, both needed a refurbishment. Neither was it quiet. What it was was fascinating.
Obviously I am disappointed by this but I suppose we live in a country where knowing how something works is a reason for derision on TV panel shows whereas lobbing up a few houses in the space a unique and irreplaceable machine is sitting is perfectly sensible.
Absolute disgrace, I thought they were in a museum. We went on it in 1999 and it was superb fun. Noisy, yes but another engineering triumph. Is there a campaign to stop this. The Airfix models were fine but not as good as the real McCoy.
ReplyDeletePetition here: https://www.change.org/p/homes-and-communities-agency-save-the-princess-anne-the-last-remaining-srn4-hovercraft-for-the-nation
ReplyDeleteI'm in the middle of reading On a Cushion of Air http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0956897819 . It is a fascinating read and makes this news even sadder.
ReplyDeleteIn a strange coincidence the Audi has German plates with the 'ES' letters, which is our local designation...
ReplyDeleteI'm perhaps too unromantic, in that I feel it would be very, very expensive to keep the Hovercraft in reasonable cosmetic, let alone working condition, so I think this would end up happening sooner or later, but it does seen symptomatic of the way theUK thinks: throw anything away as long as we can make a fast buck.
And what is it with the derision of people who know what they are talking about? I don't get that either.