...of space ships and railway trains ...

Friday 6 January

Is there a connection between Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy and that great British institute British Rail? Yes. For those no HHG fans read on. So what got me off on this thread I hear you ask, well would if I could hear you through the computor but obviously I cannot so you will have to imagine that I could.

Starting point was an item in this evenings paper saying that last year the London underground carried a total of 4.17 million in  one day, December 9. Helping to make a total of 24.9 million for the week ending December 10. My brain can’t to the kind of maths to figure out how many an hour that would be apart from saying that it would be lots and lots.

And now for something completely different, also in the paper was a tiny little mention about a woman  who had a major disagreement with her 60 year old partner and while she had him tied to a bedshe chopped off his sticky out bit and chucked it in the bin. What I want to know is how she managed to get him tied down so well and naked too, when they were obviously not very happy with each other.?

Back to the original thought. Where was I…?

So leaping from the huge passengers to the secret railway that runs, or did run under London. Yes you read right a secret railway. Apparently the congestion on the road in the 1800’s lead the Royal mail to develop a quicker way to get the mail from one part of London to another So what did they do? Well they build or is that dug a tunnel that snakes around the passenger tube. Their very innovative system was electric and automatic, meaning it was the first driverless railway. And just to move mail. The system continued to work really well dealing with huge quantities of mail. Until, enter the internet and email. So there was so little mail that it didnot matter if the delivery trucks get held up in traffic as they crossed London.

The HHGG connection? Well one end of the secret railway was Fenchurch Railway Station. Still none the wiser? Arthur Dent’s girlfriend was called Fenchurch, supposedly because she was conceived in a ticket queue at said station. Want to know more… I can recommend the books, or the Audio of the series. So there you are. OK so it is a bit of a loose connection but you have to admit it is a connection, lol