The Hastings Line is a secondary railway line in Kent and East Sussex,
England, linking Hastings with the main town of Tunbridge Wells, and
from there into London via Tonbridge and Sevenoaks. Although the line
primarily carries passengers, a gypsum mine served by the railway is a
source of freight traffic. Passenger trains on the line are operated by
Southeastern. The railway was built by the South Eastern Railway in the
early 1850s across the difficult terrain of the High Weald. Supervision
was lax, and contractors skimped on the lining of the tunnels, causing
deficiencies that showed up after the railway had opened. Rectifications
included a restricted loading gauge along the line, requiring the use of
specially made rolling stock. Served by steam locomotives from the time
of opening until the late 1950s, passenger services were then taken over
by a fleet of diesel-electric multiple units built to the line’s
loading gauge. Freight was handled by diesel locomotives, also built to
fit the loading gauge. The diesel-electric units were in service until
1986, when the line was electrified and the most severely affected
tunnels were singled.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hastings_Line>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
54:
Claudius, the first Roman emperor to be born outside Italy, died
mysteriously, most likely by poison administered by his wife Agrippina.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claudius>
1307:
Agents of King Philip IV of France launched a dawn raid,
simultaneously arresting many members of the Knights Templar, and
subsequently torturing them into "admitting" heresy.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knights_Templar>
1885:
The Georgia Institute of Technology was established in Atlanta
as part of Reconstruction plans to build an industrial economy in the
post-Civil War Southern United States.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_Institute_of_Technology>
1911:
Prince Arthur, a son of Queen Victoria, became the first
Governor General of Canada of royal descent as well as the first Prince
of Great Britain and Ireland to hold that position.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Arthur,_Duke_of_Connaught_and_Strathearn>
1958:
The first book featuring the English children's literature
character Paddington Bear (statue pictured), created by Michael Bond and
Peggy Fortnum, was published.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paddington_Bear>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
cenote:
A deep natural well or sinkhole, especially in Central America, formed
by the collapse of surface limestone that exposes ground water
underneath, and sometimes used by the ancient Mayans for sacrificial
offerings.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cenote>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
The nature and intention of government … are social. Based on
the idea of natural rights, government secures those rights to the
individual by strictly negative intervention, making justice costless
and easy of access; and beyond that it does not go. The State, on the
other hand, both in its genesis and by its primary intention, is purely
anti-social. It is not based on the idea of natural rights, but on the
idea that the individual has no rights except those that the State may
provisionally grant him. It has always made justice costly and difficult
of access, and has invariably held itself above justice and common
morality whenever it could advantage itself by so doing.
--Albert Jay Nock
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Albert_Jay_Nock>