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Not quite Chief Engineer, Brunel would not have put up with that! Initially he looked after the engines that Brunel had already ordered to his own specifications. Brunel was many things but one thing he was not was a mechanical engineer. His locos were rubbish and that is putting mildly, just like his Great Eastern engines. But just why he decided to knock out his own loco's spec instead of ordering ready made ones from Bobby Stephenson’s outfit at Forth Street is a mystery (Gooch learned his trade there as a draffie long before he met Brunel) and loco building by this time was a well known technology. Anyway poor ol’ Dan stood no chance and the GWR directors were non to chuffed with this state of affairs. He came very close to getting his P45. So what did he do? He did what any other Bedlingtonion would do in the same circumstances, he shopped the gaffa! Brunel was not too chuffed about it but it got Brunel off Dans back. Only one loco was worth talking about and that was the North Star (and even that did not conform to Brunel's specification but they had picked up on the cheap from Forth Street) it was a standard loco for the time and built by non other than Robert Stephenson & co. So what does Dan do? He uses his draffie skills, draws it up and emails the drawings to the family concern in Bedlington and calls the new engines Fireflys. Dan then is recorded as visiting Bedlington supposedly for a night or two on the beer with his old mate George Marshall, I don't believe it. I think he was up collecting his back handers from Longridge, and the rest, as they, say is history! In fact pulling Brunel out of the clarts became a bit of a habit. The South Devon for instance when Brunel got himself in a bit of a pickle with atmospheric propulsion it was good ‘ol Dan who got him out of bother, again, at a price of course. Dan wouldn’t charge a penny where a pound would do or two pound fifty in the case of Brunel. His selling of coal from his own pits to himself and charging the GWR for shifting it was classic. Ah, don’t you just love history?

Just a bit of an after thought, just imagine what Dan Gooch could have achieved with a Westridge education.......................

Merc's comment prompted a bit more research. It seems that German steel is preponderantly specialist steel (stainless etc), and Chinese is the basic stuff. So, we are mostly talking apples and oranges there. Chinese imports to the UK have quadrupled over the last few years, and are set to drive even higher. They of course have the advantage of low energy prices - largely from new coal-fired power - whilst we are stuck with Miliband's wind mills. Even if wages were similar we still couldn't compete. But the real clincher is huge Chinese subsidies to their industry to maintain full employment whatever it costs. We shouldn't be accepting this and need to retaliate, if we don't retaliate we are sending the message that we are an easy touch on this and other things too. Of course the USA has retaliated in a big way - which makes our own situation even worse. The problem won't go away as the Chinese have huge stockpiles of finished products they need to liquidate and those stockpiles keep on getting bigger. So long as we provide the prospect of an open door they have an excuse not to cut back, and if they can entirely trash what's left of our industry that's another reason to keep on overproducing. So the unions are dead right and EUCam needs to do something. What both they and Cameron won't accept is that the only thing we can actually do is to ignore EU directives. Inside the EU we'd face huge fines for doing that, so once again the only lasting solution to a major British problem is OUT! Interesting that even Ronnie Campbell has been forced to this conclusion, and has recently joined Kate Hoey's Labour MPs for Out campaign. He's written to pal Corbyn urging him to allow a free vote. I assume our own Lavery is simply too dumb to think this one through, but one can always live in hope. How about showing some real solidarity with British working people Mr Lavery? You could easily show us that you aren't actually the fully signed up party place-man that everyone assumes!

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Don't listen to Symp Brian, walk down Bedlington main street with any one of the above ............guess which puppy will turn the most heads