The Modelworld Project

[PR19_Kit]

I once did Bridgend to Cambridge and back in a day in a Transit: that was a joy.... not........

Oh my life, rather you than me! 

I've driven from here to Norwich and back in a day, on that route I just mentioned, but the outward was in the early morning and the return was early evening. And it was also in a Subaru Legacy Estate so it was relatively painless by comparison to your trip.

[Rheged]

I once did Bridgend to Cambridge and back in a day in a Transit: that was a joy.... not........

OOOUCH!!!

About 40 years ago, I did Carlisle to Tilbury and back in just over a day.......Taking  elderly neighbours to their cruise ship during a rail strike. About 700 miles, most of it motorway. I used my father's newish Hillman Hunter, so it wasn't too bad......but I was glad when it was over!

[zenrat]

...sat on the train and ended up in Amsterdam at the end of the day. Told a few people at the hostel that night and got some very funny looks...

The looks were because you got back from Amsterdam, not because you got there.  I could tell you some stories but this is a family forum...

In August 1997 I did Brighton to Ardnamurchan on a 900 Triumph.  600 miles in 1 day.  Great roads North of the border but not at that end of the run.  And being Scotland it rained.
It helped that I could cruise at 95mph on the motorways.  Try that here and see what happens (ker-ching)...

[kitnut617]

During the one time I've returned to the UK (after 21 years being away) me and the missus visited family.  Mine being down in Poole Dorset, and hers being up in St Helens Lancashire.  We spent a week with each so to get to each place we went the short route, M5 to M6, starting in Poole.  My Uncle was helping with the route planning and he asked where did we want to 'stop-over'  --- it was like,  

I said -  -  it's only 240 miles ----   

[Steel Penguin]

a few years ago ( before I had a car) to ensure that my wife and I saw our family's over the crimbo week we would hire a car, and do the rounds, the company's always looked funny when I went for the slightly more expensive  unlimited mileage option, the one year we did my sister in laws in Liverpool and back, my family in Bristol and back, and her family in ross on wye and back ( to the west midlands), in 3 days, we then did Whitby over the moors and flilingdale , via York and back, and the last day was the royal armouries in Leeds,  the look on the desk persons face when I casually handed the keys back and they found id added a thousand miles in a week was priceless,  " its why I didn't wan the pay per mile option" I said with a big smile.
but the biggest problem is that most motorways run N-S  or to London ( yes the M4 is E-W but...)
the fast A roads tend to be very busy and even they have a nasty habit of suddenly deciding to go through a town centre, just to snarl you up, and get you good and lost.

[PR19_Kit]

....but the biggest problem is that most motorways run N-S  or to London ( yes the M4 is E-W but...)
the fast A roads tend to be very busy and even they have a nasty habit of suddenly deciding to go through a town centre, just to snarl you up, and get you good and lost.

Exactly, the result of typical 'London-centric' thinking on the part of our road 'planners'. 

It took them DECADES before they realised the need for roads like the A14 cutting across the country and there are still glaring needs for such roads that they just ignore.

[Librarian]

I asked my Dad about this recently when countries like Spain have such superb roads and railways. The problem with the UK (and Scotland ) apparently is not so much a lack of road/rail building but the simple fact that whenever one is proposed the countryfolk (ya-ya and ooh-ar both) immediately oppose it. I had the opportunity some months back to have a yack with Boris and proposed that anyone opposing a new runway/airport should simply be given a blanket life ban on flying anywhere. If you don't like airports etc then don't fly....I actually got a laugh .

[Weaver]

It also doesn't help that at my end of the country, there's a damned great range of hills down the middle known as the Pennines, much of which is "untouchable" national park/areas-of-outstanding-beauty etc. No doubt these are immeasurably enhanced by the nose-to-tail HGVs crawling along the single-lane road over the Woodhead Pass...

[kitnut617]

It also doesn't help that at my end of the country, there's a damned great range of hills down the middle known as the Pennines, much of which is "untouchable" national park/areas-of-outstanding-beauty etc. No doubt these are immeasurably enhanced by the nose-to-tail HGVs crawling along the single-lane road over the Woodhead Pass...

I actually had a big laugh when we crossed the Pennines from Manchester to Sheffield, we got to the top of the hill where a big sign proclaimed it was the highest pass in England  --- all of 1800 ft       I live at 3000 ft out on the flatland ---    But as an aside, when I drove the pass from Lake Tahoe back to Carson City, it tops out at nearly 8000 feet ---and it was a six-lane road too --  

[Weaver]

Yeah, can you imagine trying to drive a motorway through the Peak District National Park these days? By the time you'd had the protests, the legal challenges, the inquiries, the inquiries into the inquiries, the procurement and design cock-ups and cost overruns, the inquiries into the cock-ups and cost-overruns and the last-minute re-design of the whole programme to avoid the protected habitat of a particular species of butterfly, it'd be finished just in time for the invention of anti-gravity to make it obsolete.....

Seriously: there's been a plan to drive some sort of bypass past my house on one route or another since before I was born, and it still hasn't happened yet. It's made it into the AtoZ a couple of times in 45 years, but never into reality...

[kitnut617]

and the last-minute re-design of the whole programme to avoid the protected habitat of a particular species of butterfly,

We know about that, when my parents died, the property they had was prime for some developer to put 8 or 10 houses where only two were before, only it was all nullified because there just happened to be a particular sand lizard species that lived at the bottom of the garden that didn't live anywhere else in the world --- just our kind of luck --- 

[PR19_Kit]

I actually had a big laugh when we crossed the Pennines from Manchester to Sheffield, we got to the top of the hill where a big sign proclaimed it was the highest pass in England  --- all of 1800 ft       I live at 3000 ft out on the flatland ---    But as an aside, when I drove the pass from Lake Tahoe back to Carson City, it tops out at nearly 8000 feet ---and it was a six-lane road too --  

Well it is, but this is a TINY country, only about 600 miles at full stretch from one end to the other. Whereas the US, Canada and Oz are THOUSANDS of miles wide and long so there's a lot more opportunity for big hills and things to occur.

Of course we do have LOTS more recorded history here..........

[kitnut617]

I actually had a big laugh when we crossed the Pennines from Manchester to Sheffield, we got to the top of the hill where a big sign proclaimed it was the highest pass in England  --- all of 1800 ft       I live at 3000 ft out on the flatland ---    But as an aside, when I drove the pass from Lake Tahoe back to Carson City, it tops out at nearly 8000 feet ---and it was a six-lane road too --  

Well it is, but this is a TINY country, only about 600 miles at full stretch from one end to the other. Whereas the US, Canada and Oz are THOUSANDS of miles wide and long so there's a lot more opportunity for big hills and things to occur.

Of course we do have LOTS more recorded history here..........

Well that is a matter of conjecture Kit, evidence is beginning to be gathered in the USA that Druids were in this part of the world.  'Course much later the Vikings were here too ---- so if these people could get here, I'm sure others could too, just a matter of finding the evidence.

[Librarian]

Look at the current situation in the UK. Protect the Water Vole etc so don't dredge/damage the waterways and we're all wading to work. Ballard and Milligan may be proved right....a drowned world with heavy underwater artillery .

[jcf]

... and of course there were all those non-Europeans with their own records.