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There's terraced housing... and terraced housing. Around here (South Wales valleys) a lot of terraced housing sits in towns and villages with basically one narrow street. Parking is already restricted, either to just one side (where there's just about room for one car outside each house) or...

Is this in response to the Channel 5 programme tonight? From my personal point of view the key factors against getting a pure electric car are the initial cost (at least 50% above the price of an equivalent ICE car), the range - especially as the battery ages (see below) and the sheer...

Have to throw my 2p in. Apologies in advance for the rant. There may be some drivers for whom this technique is appropriate, and there are probably some roads on which it is appropriate but I'd contend that it's a dangerous technique to suggest for most drivers - myself included. It requires a...

The coal's not from our own mine of course - I was just suggesting that maybe there's an opportunity there. Can't imagine anyone else thinking the same though! M.

Big Pit at Blaenafon? You could dig your own bag of coal on the underground tour. I believe steam coal was one of the types produced when it was a working mine and ship it out on the Pontypool and Blaenavon Railway. Disclosure, I work at one of the museums run by the National Museum Wales. We...

What I don't see discussion of (regarding batteries) is usable lifespan. For most things a 6-year payback isn't too bad and even 10 years could be acceptable in some circumstances, but there are two problems with this regarding batteries. Firstly battery capacity decreases slowly over time, as...

No, you couldn't argue that. The devolved powers get their calculated amount and then it's up to them how they divvy it up between different budgets. If the Welsh government wants to increase spending on social care but Westminster's spending remains flat, there is no extra money via Barnet and...

There is also the dreaded Barnet Formula. For example, Health in Wales is devolved, so Wales can spend whatever it likes on Health, yes? Well, no. The West Lothian question states that because health is devolved in Wales (and Scotland), Welsh and Scottish MPs should have no say on health...

Drove past Bay Studios this morning and the coaches have moved such that I can only be certain of one of them, but certainly one (44015 with the bike logo) is still on site.

While it would be a lovely trip, I do wonder how practical it would be to re-open Carmarthen - Aberystwyth given how slow the journey used to be. I suppose it might encourage day trips from one to the other. I think there are several North - South problems. You can currently travel by rail...

Couple of things from my own experience - so far we've managed to avoid cars without spare wheels. In one case it was an optional extra at no cost (the gunk kit fitted in the wheel well in the boot, it was a straight swap), in another case it was an optional extra at some cost, but "thrown in"...

What a fantastic discussion, thanks all. Just one observation: Cornish. There's a fair few who would rather be "Cornish" than "English" even today. Of course this is probably entirely nothing to do with why he spent a lot of time in Wales - Celtic cousins of the Cornish. (Speaking as someone...

Sorry, didn't mean to make you wince. On the whole Wikipedia is fairly good these days, but it can be a little superficial sometimes. As I said, Merthyr - and indeed the museum I work for - has a kind of vested interest in the Coalbrookdale engine not being the first, but I don't think our...

The article referenced by Wikipedia was written in or around 1980, so long, long after the events in question. If the article's author has direct reference to a contemporary newspaper where the death was recorded, or a death certificate or a coroner's report or even a mention in one of the many...

If you are referring to the two week lockdown in Wales last October, it did actually work - to an extent. The numbers in Wales were going up, we had a two-week lockdown and figures dropped. Then they went up again. There were two big issues. Firstly, it was Wales-only and so much less likely to...

How about this then? Design the coaches to have as big windows as possible within the current regulations, make sure the seating is aligned. Have one coach per train where you fit plenty of table seats for families, have room for at least a dozen bikes on board (because then people will use the...

New Scientist used to run a regular column on Nominative Determinism, particularly as it related to the names on scientific research papers. I would post a link but the NS site is behind a paywall. Many surnames are, of course, based on occupations. The modern concept of a "surname" is...

You have quoted a Wikipedia article which quotes an article in a 1980 collection for Shropshire County Council which no longer seems to be in print so we do not know where the article's author - said to be John Denton - obtained his information. It might be worth seeking out this article or its...

I work at the National Waterfront Museum, Swansea where we host a 1980s recreation of the Penydarren locomotive and run it, usually three or four times a year (going to be a bit difficult now they've banned us from buying coal) on a very short section of track. It was built partly from a...

Great, thanks all. So effectively what happened was that the system saw a journey from Tower Hill to Picadilly Circus and reckoned we'd taken about three hours longer than we should have, so somehow we had been naughty. It therefore applied a penalty fare. Nice to know these things. Interesting...