The genie in the railway lamp

Mine would be to settle all heritage railway disputes. Think if it. The WHR & WHHR getting along, the WSR back to its old strength, no missing steaming fees or loco owning groups asking for suprious steaming fees etc.

 

Irrespective of how genies do what they do, I suspect the outcome, at least, has to conform with the laws of nature .... but Hey! I'm never one to knock ambition .....

 

OK Genie. Your mission is to go back in time and tell George Stephenson his structure gauge is far too small and get him to make it about a foot bigger all round, maybe 18 inches taller...

 

If said genie could have prevented WW2 it would have been a very interesting period of loco developement, and probably not the headlong rush to dieselisation or rationalisation.

 

If the genie's powers can remove any law that stops railway projects, does that extend to the Second Law of Thermodynamics?

 

.... and while you're about it Mr.Genie, the distance between the rails could do with being bigger too. Whoa! Nobody said anything remotely like 'Breitspurbahn', just 2'-33/4" bigger ought to do it....

 

Baised as I work on her, but 75079 restored so all Southern Region 75000 can meet.

 

If that happened I would disappear, because my mum and dad only met as a result of WW2.

Dave

 

Road commercial transport was developing at a great rate before 1939 both for passengers and freight. WW2 put it "on hold" and post-war austerity held it back for a further period. It is arguable that sheer economics would have brought about something like the Beeching era upheaval a good deal earlier had the war not happened.

PH

 

Prior to WW2 the UK was the most 'motorised' nation in the world after the USA

 

Trying to derail a thread again? The wish was to see what would have happened with steam locomotive development and musing that it may have led to different paths being taken (as have most wishes - they are about paths not taken).

 

Add to that a number of locos now preserved were about to be scrapped before the War broke out and they were required after all and I think, on balance, the heritage railway world is better off with WW2 having occured, which in itself is a slightly daft statement in isolation!!

 

You're not the only one!

 

You could also argue that there wouldn’t have been a postwar labour shortage forcing up costs etc etc

If you wanted to play counter-factual history then any of WW1, the Great Depression and WW2 could be seen as changing the direction of politics, society, economy and hence the development of railways. Would grouping have taken place if WW1 had not taken place? What would have happened to interwar railways if there had not been the economic crises of the period?

It is a classical argument as to whether war accelarates or stunts transformation and change. Ie women get the vote at the end of WW1 and it is argued that this is a result of WW1, alternatively, the suffrage movement had been extracting concessions for years prior to 1914, the war itself led to splits within the suffrage movement and potentially delayed women getting the vote. You can argue the case either way for most things.

 

The thought of a posse of genii opening a can of whoopass on these thread drifting wibbles amuses me!

 

If my grandmother had dangly bits .......etc

 

The end of thread drift on NP??

Seriously though one wish has led to someone making an interesting point, surely rather than decrying this it is in fact a logical part of the conversation

 

Then you should take her to the doctor and get her checked out.

If you've noticed quite a few wishees have wanted to go back in time and change things. These are all counter-factual wishes and the genie is happy to accommodate them, but with a health warning attached. They can not be responsible for the alternative version of history that takes place. (As noted, various posters would not exist and we can't assess what impact no labour shortage would have had etc etc).

In fact, because genies have a sophisticated view of history this is why they decided to reduce the number of wishes to one because they know that mono-causal explanations are a nonsense believed only by television presenters and 5 year olds. As every genie tells everyone who thinks going back and shooting Hitler will prevent WW2, 'this is a stupid idea and won't achieve your intended aim'.

 

It's all down to Hitler's parents! He was illegitimate but if his parents had got married WW2 wouldn't have happened. His surname would have been Schickelgruber, I just cna't think that the hoards at Nuremburg would stand up to chant Heil Schickelgruber!!

 

Except it wouldn’t have been. Hitler’s father was illegitimate with no father listed. Adolf Hitler’s grandmother was Maria Anna Schicklgruber. Hitler is a version of Hiedler (sometimes spelt Huttler or Huettler) which is the name of the man who married Hitler’s grandmother and whose name Hitler’s father adopted.

So what you actually mean is that if Hitler’s grandmother had not married Johann Georg Hiedler, WW2 would not have happened for the reasons you claim. (But if we are going to do counter-factual we should at least get the starting point right).

Less your granny and more Hitler’s granny.

Given your interest in dangly bits, I can offer no evidence on allegations surrounding the number or state of Hitler’s.