Re: Pendennis Castle

[Jackson Harding <jaxsonjo@camtech.net.au>]

Rod Gayford wrote:
> 
> The point is that a foreign company that has exploited Australian workers
> for years and has been in the vanguard of the conservative reactionary
> forces attempting to destroy collective bargaining in this country has
> chosen to donate this locomotive to a UK based group and to my mind that
> says "stuff you Aussies" we will show you where our loyalties lay. Well, if
> all us gutless Aussies just want to lie back and be pissed over by this
> group then let it go. For me, I am contacting the Maritime unions and any
> other industrial union to have a black ban placed on its export. I bet
> Hamersley will back down once this gets in the papers and shows them up for
> what they are. I suppose I should not be surprised at the intelligence of a
> section of rail fans in Australia as they have been tipping money into that
> far northern NSW scrap yard for years.
> 
> Cheers
> 

What are you smoking and where can I get some?

Firstly civilized individuals don't suggest the best way to correct a
mistake is with another mistake.  The purchase of Pendennis Castle by
Hammesley was a mistake, plain and simple.  It was always out of place
on Hammersley's lines, and although any railway enthusiast anywhere
should be aware of the importance of the locomotive and of the Great
Western Railway in railway history, this particular locomotive is not
part of Australia's railway heritage.  The locomotive is now isolated
and unable to be run as signaling technology on the line has moved on to
the point where it is impractical to install the appropriate safeworking
equipment in Pendennis Castle, an installation which would incidentally
move the locomotive further away from it's original condition.  

Keeping Pendennis Castle in Australia is nothing more than the railway
equivalent of the European practice of removing culturally significant
artifacts from indigenous and native peoples to display them in museums
in London, Paris and New York.  Just as people are now wising up to this
and returning Australian aboriginal, native American and ancient
Egyptian artifacts to the communities who's heritage they represent, so
to Hammersley have decided to return Pendennis Castle to England.  It is
a significant part of UK railway heritage and it is destined for a world
class museum that will be able to care for the locomotive and with the
ability to steam it on a regular basis.

To suggest that we should block this move because you don't like the
industrial policies of the current owners and the past diffidence and
arrogance displayed towards Australia by some in the UK simply leaves
you open to accusations that you are small minded and petty.  Don't
lower yourself to their level, rise above them.  Support what is a
generous offer in anyone's terms, a major company is donating (i.e.
GIVING AWAY) a culturally significant artifact back to the people who's
heritage it rightfully represents.  

Don't be mistaken, I would love to see Pendennis Castle up close, and if
it had come to SA I would have taken every opportunity to see it run or
to travel behind it.  I will however get a bigger thrill out of possibly
seeing it at Didcot, or on the West Somerset or South Devon Railways
where it is in it's native habitat, hauling a rake of chocolate and
cream coaches through winding West Country river valleys or belting
across the moors.

Jackson


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Jackson & Jo Harding
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