Since I wrote the recent article on the proposed extension of the Docklands Light Railway through Beckton and then on, using a new tunnel to be built beneath the River Thames to Thamesmead, and possibly on to Belvedere. I have had a number of readers contacting me asking for further details. Unfortunately I don't have them at this stage. The plan is very much in an early stage, and I do wonder how practical it will be bearing in mind the vast costs. As I recently wrote, it would seem to me that a tram service from Abbey Wood would be a far more cost-effective option, but I gather that TFL have discounted this at the present time. I do not know how any extension of the DLR would be funded, and normally when such a plan gets approved, the best way to discover what is actually going on is to follow the money. As regular readers may be aware, I worked for many years for one of the large four accountancy and consultancy firms in Canary Wharf. I was a senior IT consultant, and I have never had any qualifications as an accountant, but I worked with a lot of them, and some of their disciplines must have rubbed off on me. I do know for certain that where the money goes is where one needs to look for news about actual developments, rather than rumours and hearsay. I think it is far too early at this stage to actually know what is going on - if anything. Politicians are quite prone to - "Stick their fingers in the wind", and I suspect that currently this may well be the case with the proposed DLR extension. It is all very well wanting something to happen but it is not the same as it actually happening, as it needs finance, planning permission and involvement of local authorities on both sides of the River Thames. Thamesmead itself is governed both by the Royal Borough of Greenwich and also the London Borough of Bexley, and this will involve negotiation between the two local authorities, and one cannot guarantee that they will agree on everything. Personally, I would be somewhat cautious about the proposed project at this stage, as there are many things that could hinder the progress if it ever goes ahead, which at the moment I am not certain of. I wish I could give further detailed information but I'm not party to it, and to be honest I doubt that any of the local councillors also know any different at this stage. I think it is best to just watch this space and see what happens over time. Although the vast costs will need to be paid for, and at the moment it does seem to me that nobody wishes to foot the bill. Please let me know what you think.
There has been much publicity in the popular media over the last couple of weeks regarding the BBC and both the licence fee and the legal situation with US president Donald Trump. I'm not going to go into either of these issues, as they have been covered by a professional journalists in great detail, and I'm sure that many people are actually now quite weary of the whole whole situation. One thing I do notice is that the concentration on whether the licence fee should be replaced either with advertising or with a subscription based service along the lines of one of the streaming services such as Netflix, Disney plus or Amazon Prime has always concentrated on the television side of the BBC. Readers may not be aware that some years ago I briefly worked for a technology organisation which supplied consultancy and technical services to the BBC. Specifically, I was in charge of the technology used by BBC Wales, and I was responsible for the relationship between the organisation I worked for and senior management at BBC Wales. Historically, I had always been a major supporter of the BBC and its services. However, once I interacted directly with BBC management, I discovered to my discomfort that the attitude of the BBC was that of extreme entitlement and superiority. It was nothing like I anticipated it to be, and I was both disappointed and annoyed. It seemed to me and to my colleagues that BBC senior management felt that all they had to say was "we are the BBC", and any third parties would bow and scrape in deference to them. When in fact, they were merely public servants who were no better or worse than anybody else, but that they felt superior because of who they worked for. Back to the story. One thing I noticed from the coverage in the popular press was that there was a focus on BBC Television and the possible replacement of the licence fee, but no mention was made of the extensive BBC Radio services, which are an integral part of the media companies product. In an article published last week by broadcasting trade publication Radio Today, the following article stated:- "Commercial radio groups say the BBC Charter Review must rule out advertising as a future funding option for BBC radio services. The industry response follows the launch of the BBC Charter Review, which will examine the broadcaster’s future funding and regulatory framework as part of the process to renew its Royal Charter. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport has published a Green Paper titled Britain’s Story: The Next Chapter, setting out the government’s thinking on how the BBC should be funded and regulated in the years ahead. Radiocentre has welcomed the review but reiterated its position that BBC radio should not be funded by advertising. The organisation has previously published an economic study showing that introducing advertising on BBC radio would have a damaging effect on both the BBC and the wider market, with commercial radio revenues estimated to fall by 36 per cent under such a model. The industry body says advertiser funding would undermine the sustainability of BBC services while significantly weakening commercial broadcasters, reducing overall investment in UK radio and audio. It argues this would ultimately limit listener choice rather than expand it. Matt Payton, Chief Executive of Radiocentre, said: “The BBC holds a unique and privileged position in the UK media sector. We welcome the opportunity to work with government to help shape the right framework for the future.” He added: “Ad funding of BBC services is a fundamentally flawed approach. It could devastate commercial media businesses, undermine the viability of BBC services and leave audiences with a narrower choice of UK content.” The consultation is expected to attract significant engagement from across the radio and audio industry, with commercial broadcasters keen to ensure that future funding decisions protect a balanced and sustainable audio landscape across the UK". Comments and feedback to me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.
I believe that some readers don't realise that I rely heavily on inputs from third parties, including other readers for stories and suggestions on articles that I could publish. As I am sure you are aware, running the blog is a hobby for me and I make no money whatsoever out of it. This week I have to say a major thank you to long time reader and occasional contributor Gary for the suggestion. I know that articles that I write on the history of modern technology are welcomed by quite a large section of my readership though they're not suitable for absolutely everybody. This time Gary suggests that we have just had a very important milestone in the history of the internet, or more accurately. The World Wide Web which is a technology layer which sits on top of the internet. Last week marked the 31st anniversary of the launch of the world's first mass market and popular web browser Netscape Navigator. It was by no means the very first web browser, but it became the most popular by far for several years until circumstances changed and what were at the time. Some very dubious practices by Microsoft, eventually killed off Netscape as a company. Netscape Navigator was a series of the now-discontinued Netscape line of proprietary web browsers released during the 1990s. It was the flagship product of the Netscape Communications Corporation and was the dominant web browser in terms of usage share in the 1990s, but by around 2003 its user base had all but disappeared. This was partly because Microsoft bundled Internet Explorer with the Windows operating system. The business demise of Netscape was a central premise of Microsoft's antitrust trial, wherein the Court ruled that Microsoft's bundling of Internet Explorer with the Windows operating system was a monopolistic and illegal business practice. The decision came too late for Netscape, however, as Internet Explorer had by then become the dominant web browser in Windows. The Netscape Navigator web browser was succeeded by the Netscape Communicator suite in 1997. Netscape Communicator's 4.x source code was the base for the Netscape-developed Mozilla Application Suite, which was later renamed SeaMonkey. Netscape's Mozilla Suite also served as the base for a browser-only spin off called Mozilla Firefox.editor caused it to lose market share to a very large extent. Netscape announced in its first press release (October 13, 1994) that it would make Navigator available without charge to all non-commercial users. The full version 1.0 available in December 1994. However, two months later, the company announced that only educational and non-profit institutions could use version 1.0 at no charge. When the consumer Internet revolution arrived in the mid-1990s, Netscape was well-positioned to take advantage of it and the influx of new users it brought. With a good mix of features and an attractive licensing scheme that allowed free use for non-commercial purposes, the Netscape browser soon became the de facto standard, particularly on the Windows platform. Internet service providers and computer magazine publishers helped make Navigator readily available. An innovation that Netscape introduced in 1994 was the on-the-fly display of web pages, where text and graphics appeared on the screen as the web page downloaded. Earlier web browsers would not display a page until all graphics on it had been loaded over the network connection; this meant a user might have only a blank page for several minutes. With Netscape, people using dial-up connections could begin reading the text of a web page within seconds of entering a web address, even before the rest of the text and graphics had finished downloading. This made the web much more tolerable to the average user. Industry observers forecast the dawn of a new era of connected computing. The underlying operating system, it was believed, would not be an important consideration; future applications would run within a web browser. This was seen by Netscape as a clear opportunity to entrench Navigator at the heart of the next generation of computing, and thus gain the opportunity to expand into all manner of other software and service markets. With the success of Netscape showing the importance of the web (more people were using the Internet due in part to the ease of using Netscape), Internet browsing began to be seen as a potentially profitable market. Following Netscape's lead, Microsoft started a campaign to enter the web browser software market. Like Netscape before them, Microsoft licensed the Mosaic source code from Spyglass, Inc. (which in turn licensed code from University of Illinois). Using this basic code, Microsoft created Internet Explorer (IE). By the end of the decade, Netscape's web browser had lost dominance over the Windows platform, and the August 1997 Microsoft financial agreement to invest $150 million in Apple Computer required that Apple make Internet Explorer the default web browser in new Mac OS distributions. The latest IE Mac release at that time was Internet Explorer version 3.0 for Macintosh, but Internet Explorer 4 was released later that year. Microsoft succeeded in having ISPs and PC vendors distribute Internet Explorer to their customers instead of Netscape Navigator, mostly due to Microsoft using its leverage from Windows OEM licenses, and partly aided by Microsoft's investment in making IE brandable, such that a customized version of IE could be offered. Also, web developers used proprietary, browser-specific extensions in web pages. Both Microsoft and Netscape did this, having added many proprietary HTML tags to their browsers, which forced users to choose between two competing and almost incompatible web browsers. In a 2007 PC World column, the original Netscape Navigator was considered the "best tech product of all time" due to its impact on the Internet. On December 28, 2007, the Netscape developers announced that AOL - who had bought Netscape, had canceled development of Netscape Navigator, leaving it unsupported as of March 1, 2008. Microsoft then became the dominant web browser company for many years, until the advent of Chrome by Google.
I wrote at the beginning of this week's Blog update that there has been a debate about introducing a tram service between Abbey Wood and Thamesmead; what readers may not be aware is that Erith and the surrounding towns was heavily dependent on trams for local transport for thirty years at the start of the 20th century. The main line between Erith and Abbey Wood was heavily used; Walnut Tree Road was constructed to allow trams to go from West Street up towards Northumberland Heath; a branch line went from Pier Road all the way up to Northend. Strangely trams never ran from Erith to Upper Belvedere, as the residents of Upper Belvedere were strongly opposed to the idea. I would hazard a guess that as a good number of wealthy and influential people (including some of the owners of the factories in Lower Belvedere) lived in the big houses at the top of Picardy Road and in Eardley Road, they probably did not want the great unwashed flocking onto their doorsteps from working class Erith. There were also technical issues with the proposed route up Picardy Road, which for the most part is a one in ten, or steeper hill. A conventional tram would have difficulty in climbing such a steep incline. A copy of the brochure commemorating the inauguration of the service is held in the records of Bexley Local Studies and Archive Centre. The brochure says that the opening of the tram service "marks an important step in the progress of locomotion in the South Eastern district of London" and then went on to envisage the prospect of being able to travel from Erith to far flung places such as Maidenhead and Watford, purely by tram. Of course, this never came to pass; Erith Tramway was never a major financial success, as it was so small and limited in its' scope to generate income. It consisted on only fourteen tramcars in total. The coming of the trams meant that the small power station in Walnut Tree Road needed to be doubled in size (it was located where the old Erith Riverside Swimming Baths once stood, and is now private, riverside apartments). The tram shed was built on the opposite side of the road, on the college campus site. The existing level crossing over the railway at Lower Road was replaced with a bridge (locally still know as “the new bridge”) and a set of gates were constructed adjacent to the Ballast Wharf Siding in West Street, which is now called Chichester Wharf. Another tram siding at the bottom of Walnut Tree Road was protected by what was the longest level crossing gate in Britain. The rails, which weighed a total of 1,480 tons, were laid into a bed of six inches of concrete, lined with granite blocks, except outside of churches, schools and Erith Cottage Hospital, where quieter wood blocks were laid instead. When the tram service began on the 26th August 1905, there were a total of fourteen double decker trams servicing the Abbey Wood – Erith – Northumberland Heath line. Of these, only half had covered upper decks, which could not have been much fun if you were stuck on an open upper deck in the middle of winter. The trams were pretty impressive and grand looking, with maple lined interiors and gold coloured curtains. The original exterior paint livery was regarded as being initially a bit showy and garish – bright green and canary yellow. This was soon replaced with brown and cream, which was regarded as a more sober look. Financially Erith Tramway was not a great success. The only period where the tram company made any substantial profits was during the First World War. At that time the area had a great influx of workers to the munitions factories at the Vickers and Maxim gun works; after that time, the service began a slow decline. To make the complete journey from Abbey Wood to Northumberland Heath cost 3d. The drivers wage, for a minimum sixty hour week was 6d an hour. By 1933 Erith Tramway had 4.1 miles of track and a total of fourteen tram cars. At this point, the service was losing money, and the London Passenger Transport Board converted all local tram routes to the newer trolley bus technology. The last tram ran through Erith on the 9th of November 1935.
The end video this week is some vintage footage of the local area from the mid 1950's. All comments and feedback should be sent to me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.
