"It is proposed that the OHLE over Maidenhead railway bridge will use
masts with wires suspended from cantilevers, since these will be
visually lighter structures than the gantries to be used along other
parts of the route. The masts will however, have a significant
adverse
landscape impact: they will affect important views along the river
and
the character of the river corridor; they will affect the setting of
the
Riverside Conservation Area; and they will affect the setting of the
listed railway bridge and the setting of the adjacent Grade I listed
road bridge.
This is a railway, not a national park - who cares what it looks like
Would you say the same about electricity pylons through a National
Park?

Once a bit of ageing has occurred, a railway doesn't look too bad at all -
just part of the scenery. Compare a four track with overhead wires to any
motorway, and tell me what looks best. And motorways will continue to chip
away at national parks and ancient forests if people continue to oppose the
much less ugly rail solutions. It's known as "Brain Free Conservation", and
has ensured that lunatic road schems STILL get much more investment than
slightly disruptive rail schemes. Go figure. No, actually, don't waste your
brain power.

And in areas where it really does matter, rail has the option of third
rail - though that can limit the service in may ways, at least until someone
applies some original thinking. Third rail outside urban areas is
technically in the dark ages, with no significant development* since about
1923, since there's been no real incentive to make that effort.

As for Brunel; while many of his schemes - including that historic bridge -
are beautiful, that was never his priority; he was single-mindedly (and not
always successfully!) intent on the best engineering solution. If we had a
few clear thinking engineers today, we'd probably not have half the problems
with lard-butt trains, wrong kind of snow, entry gates etc., as they'd have
been engineered for simplicity, not for sophistication and press releases.
Mind you, with today's micro-management from DaFT, Brunel would have
emigarted to a sane country 20 years ago.


--
Andrew


If you stand up and be counted,
From time to time you may get yourself knocked down.
But remember this:
A man flattened by an opponent can get up again.
A man flattened by conformity stays down for good.
- Thomas J. Watson Jr.

*OK, there has been some tinkering with alloys, to save money on good old
fashioned steel - but while that works on metro sytems, it has not really
helped on the main line.