Derailed train lifted off the rails near Cruachan Power Station on Loch Awe, Argyll, Scotland

 Hiya
You will have heard about the train derailment near Cruachan Power Station on Loch Awe, Argyll, last Sunday evening. Eight people had to be taken to local hospitals, luckily only with minor injuries. The derailed carriage at the head of the train was hanging down the steep slope, anchored by the rear carriage and some trees. Due to the location of the incident, above the outflow of the reservoir and overhanging the road platform built out above the loch, the road had to be closed to traffic. It took some time to reinforce it for the heavy crane.
Once again, we have experienced just how tenuous links can be to the "outside world": whole villages were cut off from their trains because replacement buses had to make the long detour via Ballachulish, Glen Coe and Rannoch Moor. It is only since yesterday that a mini-bus service has been put on between Oban and Taynuilt:
http://forargyll.com/2010/06/a85-closure-scotrail-to-run-oban-taynuilt-minibus-from-11th-june/

 
Yesterday, 11th June, the de-railed carriage was at last lifted off the rail. According to the Oban Times, "a one thousand ton crane" was used. It is hoped that the road will be reopened by Wednesday. When the trains will run again still remains to be seen.




and
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/8736322.stm

21 Sep 2009: Wake-Up Call on Climate Change

Wow, what a day! Even Oban contributed to a wake-up call sent to the world's leaders to take effective, binding, fair action to mitigate climate change. The Oban Times of 24th September has an article on p. 2 with a good photo (better than mine, above); ForArgyll.com has an interesting article and follow-up on their news site. And, of course, the Sustainable Oban blog, Sustaining Oban, has some information.

Click here for a video put together and published by avaaz.org, the organisation that launched this particular boat. Avaaz comment on the video page:
"On 21 September 2009, at more than 2600 events in 135 countries across the globe, we joined together to issue a deafening wake-up call to world leaders on climate change. The breadth and creativity of events is breathtaking, and our message broke through to leaders and international media."

And in a message to those who signed up, Avaaz wrote:
"The Wake Up call was covered by hundreds of major news outlets and made the evening news everywhere from Germany to New Zealand. Europe's environment chief praised 'the mobilisation of so many people by Avaaz.org', and the Spanish environment minister called the action 'extraordinary'. After a deluge of votes and phone-calls from the UK, Prime Minister Gordon Brown became the first major world leader to agree to our demand to go to Copenhagen, taking a phone-call personally and saying that with 'the pressure that can brought by organizations like yours...what people think is impossible can become possible'.
"World leaders have heard us. But as Tuesday's UN summit showed, one day of action won't be enough to get real progress on climate. We need to come back again and again, louder and louder, until we get a fair, ambitious and binding climate treaty.
"We'll keep the pressure high through the TCKTCKTCK campaign until Copenhagen, with another global day of action on October 24th, and start planning right now for the LARGEST CLIMATE MOBILIZATION IN HISTORY ON DECEMBER 12th, in the final days of the Copenhagen negotiations.
"Avaaz is now 3.6 million members strong in 14 languages, in every country of the world. On Monday, our movement took a huge step forward -- we showed that we can not only send millions of messages to leaders or donate millions to worthy causes, but that in just a few days we can flood the streets and crash phone lines from Mexico City to Mumbai.
"If we stick together, anything is possible.
"With hope and excitement for the future,
"Ricken, Ben, Paul, Milena, Alice, Luis, Brett, Taren, Margaret, Iain, Pascal, Graziela, Paula, Benjamin, Rajeev, Veronique, Raluca, Julius, Yuri, Saravanan, Vladimir, Tihomir, Sam, Emma and the whole Avaaz team
"PS - the video above was made from over 10,000 wake up call pictures and 600 videos uploaded to Avaaz in just 24 hours! There were many tears among people making the video as we saw the amazing dedication of everyone, from the Avaaz community to our TCKTCKTCK campaign partners to people joining the first climate action of their lives. Click here to see the video of this amazing worldwide movement in action."

Way to go! Let's get ready for another global day of action on 24th October!