The Y Files

The line was then level for a stretch from Hopton to Parsley Hay, where a junction was made with the London & North Western Railway (LNWR) line from Ashbourne to Buxton, part of which is retained to service the stone quarries in the area, the traffic now leaving the district from the Buxton end. The Cromford & High Peak Railway (C&HP) route then leaves the Buxton line, and wends its way over the moors to Harpur Hill.

There, a former mines research establishment in a very remote spot has become the British Approvals Service for Electrical Equipment in Flammable Atmospheres (BASEEFA). This establishment is the main testing base for things like industrial and mining hazardous area electrical equipment, explosion suppression systems and the like. Its remote location protects the general populace from the fires, pops and bangs that occasionally happen there. The now-out-of-use expression "Buxton certified" relating to electrical equipment originated from here.

From Harpur Hill the route winds its way down the valley to Whaley Bridge, where a final rope-worked incline lowered the vehicles down to the canal wharf, while pulling others up, and provided another rail connection with the Buxton lines.

Steam Locomotives

The motive power for the C&HP was for many years an ancient collection of steam locomotives that would have done any museum proud! Small types from the former LNWR stable were used for a while, and then some beefy 0-6-0 side tank locomotives originating from the former North London Railway took over. In the 1960s, the "Austerity" 0-6-0 saddle tanks in turn sent the North London tanks packing – the Austerities were a standard industrial design and the London & North Eastern Railway (LNER) inherited a few following cessation of world-wide hostilities in 1945.

Locomotive water supply was always a problem in this district, and for many years locomotive and indeed domestic water was transported along the line in surplus tenders from withdrawn LNWR tender locomotives, often with the centre of three wheel-sets removed to enable the vertical curves at the ends of the inclines to be passed without incident.

One of the North London tanks has been saved for posterity and is active from time to time on a heritage railway in southern England.

Several representative Austerities have also been saved and are still in use in Britain, though all of these are the ones used by industry, as compared to the ones used by the LNER, none of which survive.

Diesel Locomotives

Diesel locomotives were tried on several occasions, though none could really do what the steam engines did with ease, combining power that could be mortgaged on the inclines and paid back on the level together with a short, flexible wheelbase.

A goods line to the end, the route saw a number of "enthusiasts' specials" during the middle-to-late 1960s, as it was clear that this anachronistic and anarchic railway could not have lasted much longer.

The line closed in sections up until 1968, along with a number of other lines in this remote part of Derbyshire.

Today, the route passes through an area designated as the Peak District National Park, an area of much natural beauty where development is heavily protected. Much of the line is now a protected cycle path and bridle path, and passes along of some of the inclines. Middleton, Hopton and several others can all be walked, ridden or cycled upon. There is a visitor centre at Middleton Top, a picnic area both at the top of Hopton and at Parsley Hay, and much of the route is still clearly visible from the A5012, A515 and A5004 main roads that pass through the district. The transshipment shed at Whaley Bridge still stands, though its function has changed since the line closed.

Though the track has been lifted long ago, the notoriety, and indeed the romance, of the Cromford & High Peak Railway remains!

Editor's Note: CR4 would like to thank PWSlack for this series. Click here if you missed Part 1, which ran earlier today.

The Cromford & High Peak Railway (C&HP) was one of the oddest railways ever built. It was conceived originally as a canal, intended to connect the Cromford Canal at Cromford, Derbyshire with the Macclesfield Canal at Whaley Bridge; however, issues with the water supply to some of the higher levels (much of the route is above the 1000-ft contour) convinced the proprietors to build a railway instead of a canal.

The original Parliamentary plans and sections needed to support the controlling Act authorising the route had been based on canal technology, being a series of inclined planes connecting long stretches of level formation, the achievement of which in such hilly country was extraordinary. So that's exactly what the railway turned out like, and that is why it was such an oddity.

Starting from the station at Cromford, a long rope-worked incline transferred vehicles from the wharf up to the first level. The remains of this 1 in 8 slope can still be clearly seen adjacent to the A6 trunk road not far from Cromford town itself, though it is not generally accessible today.

Rope-Worked Inclines

On rope-worked inclines there are usually two tracks. Loads were so arranged that the up-going load very nearly counter-balanced the down-coming load, a stationary steam engine supplying the balance of power needed to perform the lift. Halfway up the first incline was a catch pit, arranged so that out-of-control vehicles could be diverted safely into an abrupt and spectacular halt, though on at least one occasion a run-away wagon shot through Cromford Wharf at speed, hopped over the Midland main line, and ended up in the canal!

Further rope-worked inclines at intervals along the mainly level formation brought the line up to a long stretch of level track. At intervals, private sidings to various industrial concerns led onto the line to supply the traffic it was built for, being agricultural and mineral produce.

Dry stone walling is common in this area and to cross undulations in the landscape the Engineers built larger dry stone-walls and placed the track on top of them, rather than fill the undulations with excavated soil embankments. Almost all of these structures survive.

Gotham Curve and Hopton Incline

In later years, the C&HP achieved notoriety in railway enthusiast circles far above that which befitted its status and contribution to the nation's traffic. Part of that notoriety was caused by the "Gotham curve" which, sharper than 4 chains (80m) radius was possibly the sharpest on any standard gauge running line in the British Isles. The curve was fitted with a third "check" rail throughout and speeds round it were always slow. The remainder of the notoriety came from the Hopton Incline which, at 1 in 14, was possibly the steepest section of adhesion-worked standard gauge railway line in Europe.

Hopton was originally a rope-worked incline like all the others, though a trial proved that if the load was light and the incline were "rushed" then trains could make it to the top using locomotives only. So the rope-worked double track at Hopton was singled and the winding engine and rope equipment removed.

Speed Unrestricted

Approaching the bottom of Hopton afterwards, the driver was faced with a daunting prospect. The track in the distance tilted up alarmingly. So the track was maintained in top condition and a number of speed restriction signs were erected at intervals on the approach, indicating that speed could rise. The final one stated, famously, "speed unrestricted", at which point the locomotive was then fully extended and blasted its way up the incline at ever reducing speeds until the top was reached. Sometimes they made it. Sometimes they had to drop back down the slope, divide the train into smaller parts, and then have another go.

Editor's Note: CR4 would like to thank PWSlack for this series. The link to Part 2 will become active at 5:05 PM (EST) today.

"Why does the country that produced Walter Chrylser, Alfred Sloan, and the original Henry Ford have so much trouble making and selling cars competitively?", wondered Lee Iacocca in 1984.

The leader of a then-resurgent Chrysler Corporation, Iacocca wasn't your typical American corporate titan. Credited with saving Chrylser from financial disaster (the first time), the Lehigh graduate was educated in engineering rather than business.

He also had a record of moving products instead of paper, most notably as "Father of the Mustang" at Ford Motor Company.

Hail Caesar

In his conclusion to Iacocca: An Autobiography, this son of Italian immigrants lamented America's position in the industrialized world. Then, as now, the United States faced strong industrial competition from the East. Japan, the Land of the Rising Sun, practiced what Iacocca termed "Veni, Vidi, Vici economics" – a reference to Julius Caesar's famous line, "I came, I saw, I conquered".

In a memorable line of his own - and one which he might now rewrite by changing Japan to China - Lee Iacocca explained that "our dependence on Japan will continue to grow until we establish some practical limits to their enjoyment of our markets". The Japanese government's rebates to Japanese manufacturers - a commodity tax rebate - was legal under the General Agreement on Tarrifs and Trade (GATT).

Protectionism and Policy

Twenty-five years after Lee Iacocca finished his autobiography, Chrysler faces severe financial difficulties and an uncertain future. Today, however, the cries for protectionism aren't as strident as they were during the 1980s. Yet many of issues that Iacocca raised in his Autobiography still apply.

Does America's emphasis on "high technology" come at the expense of "our basic industries" – autos, airplanes, electronics, and steel? Does the United States need an "industrial policy" that, as Iacocca explains, doesn't involve "picking winners and losers", but which involves "restructuring and revitalizing our so-called sunset industries"?

The answers to the second question is, of course, highly political (and therefore beyond the scope of my blog entry). But there is an Iacocca assertion regarding the first question that I'd like to get your opinion about.

Hope and High Tech

In a chapter called "Making America Great Again", the former Chrylser CEO claims that "high tech will never employ the number of people that our basic industries do today." Is Iacocca's claim out-of-date?

The "lesson we should have learned," he explained in 1984, came "from the demise of the textile industry". Between 1957 and 1975, almost 675,000 New England textile workers lost their jobs. Despite the region's "booming high-tech industries" during that same era, only of these displaced workers found new employment in the computer industry.

"In other words, if you lost our job in a textile mill in Massachusetts, you were five times as likely to end up working at K-Mart or McDonald's than at Digital Equipment or Wang", Iacocca explained.

Resources:

Iacocca: An Autobiography (printed copy)

Don't misunderstand me. The GM engineers that I knew worked hard. But was it really necessary for them to put in so many non-productive hours just to keep up appearances? GM was often dubbed "Generous Motors" for its lavish benefits packages, but when it came to giving an engineer a weekend off, the company wasn't exactly Santa Claus.

Pity in Pontiac

During my stint at GM Truck and Bus in Pontiac, Michigan, I liked to escape the Model Shop for the Break Room. There, I'd catch bits and pieces of conversations between autoworkers who looked at underemployed college grads like me with a mixture of pity and contempt. Some encouraged me to apply for a job on the assembly line and even brought in the paperwork. Others planted nails in the parking lot that would puncture the tires of non-GM vehicles such as my old Ford Bronco II.

I'm not going to bash the United Auto Workers (UAW) here, or advance a discussion that would probably turn political. Simply put, there are usually some good apples and some bad apples in every barrel.

But let me say two things based on my personal experience. First, I wonder if workers at Honda and Toyota factories dump beer cans in their parking lots during the lunch hour. Second, I wonder about the truth of an "urban legend" regarding a back injury. According to one tale I was told, a GM worker broke his back on a Saturday, struggled with the pain on Sunday, and then arrived at work on Monday to "slip-and-fall" on the factory floor – all to fake a workplace injury.

On a Clear Day

Years ago, John DeLorean wrote a muckraking book called On a Clear Day You Can See General Motors. Not surprisingly, the father of the Pontiac GTO blasted GM executives for their blatant mismanagement. I didn't get to rub shoulders with any members of the automotive aristocracy, but I do believe that there's plenty of blame to go around when it comes to factory foolishness.

For example, I never understand why the Pontiac plant needed a full-time employee whose sole purpose was to book conference rooms. I was also dumbfounded by a trainer who sought workplace solace in duct tape. Sue was a strange duck to begin with, but she took "efficiency" to new levels by outlining the various parts of her desk with tape. And if you moved her stapler, you had no excuse for putting it back in just the right place.

Sometimes, it seemed like staplers were just about the only thing you could move. If you wanted to move a filing cabinet, for example, you were supposed to call a maintenance crew.

Aldous and Me

If you think I got some kind of perverse pleasure out of watching GM file for bankruptcy this week, you'd be wrong. This isn't some updated version of Michael Moore's Roger & Me. In fact, I just bought 150 shares of GM stock this week. At 66 cents, it was a bargain.

But as a blogger, I can't help but toy with Aldous Huxley's words and apply them to General Motors. Maybe the quote in this blog's description should read something like this. "All our business practices were just a cookery book," said General Motors, "with an orthodox theory of cooking that nobody was allowed to question".

Editor's Note: Did you miss Part 1? Just click here.

If you've ever read the description for this blog, you may have noticed the quote from Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. "All our science is just a cookery book," proclaims World Controller Mustapha Mond, "with an orthodox theory of cooking that nobody's allowed to question".

What you may not have noticed is that the blog's owner (yours truly) read Huxley's book while killing time as a temp at GM Truck and Bus. That was 15 years ago, but General Motors has been on my mind a lot lately. As the carmaker seeks to survive bankruptcy, I wonder about the engineers, managers, office staff, and autoworkers that I knew.

Many are retired by now, but their stories (or, more precisely, my memories of their stories) will live on in with what I'm about to tell you. There's plenty of anecdotal evidence for GM's demise here, but I'll leave it to the auto industry experts to draw the larger conclusions. For now, let's take a trip down memory lane to the Pontiac Assembly Center on South Opdyke Road in Pontiac, Michigan.

The year was 1993.

Not a Model Shop

My first assignment at GM was an assistant to a secretary who was losing her high school intern. I'm not sure why General Motors needed to procure unnecessary office services from Manpower, Inc., but I doubt that the placement firm was complaining about the money it was making. Because of the high cost of heath care, companies like GM were reluctant to hire full-time workers – especially office staff who contributed to overhead costs. Still, the fact that I was paid $10 an hour to read a book all day was mind boggling, especially since my college-bound predecessor had worked for free.

When the high school intern left, I helped the secretary answer phones in the Model Shop (as the prototyping facility was known) and would page engineers and autoworkers on the factory floor. Yes, at this point in my life, I wondered if going to college had been worth it. So if you're reading this blog entry and are out of work, please take heart. Life gets better.

The engineers whose messages I took and whose names I paged knew this bit of wisdom already. They worked 7 days a week for months at a time. So you couldn't blame them if they talked a lot about retirement, when life really would get better - preferably on a beach in Florida.

Some engineers, even the line managers, wondered why they needed to be at the Pontiac plant so often. It's tough to work 12-hour shifts, but also difficult to deal with boredom. Imagine showing up at for work at 7 AM on a Sunday morning because you were told to be there by a manager who didn't understand that you really didn't need be there at all. You'd rather be fishing "up North", but GM engineers had to work hard - even if they were hardly working.

Editor's Note: Part 2 of this series will be available after 5 PM EST today.