Interesting factoid confirming Newtonian gravitational physics. On a forty mile trip from sea level to my brother in the Peak District it does about 48mpg. Coming home, downhill all the way, it does about 56mpg for an overall 52mpg for the round trip. This shows the conversion of kinetic motional  energy to gravitational potential energy and back again. Yes I'm an engineer!

This reminds me of the story my friend told me many years ago. He had just bought a brand new Rover 45 and took it on his first long drive from Newcastle to London. In the back was his wife and his daughter (a policewoman). My friend was quite pleased to find the mpg was 46.

On the return from London to Newcastle he was disappointed to see that he was only getting 40mpg and said so to his wife and daughter. Both replied well it was to be expected !! "you travel down to London go up to Newcastle" 🤣

 

 

To be pedantic (which I most definitely am!) I was taught that you go UP to the capital 😁

Just now, agraham said:

To be pedantic (which I most definitely am!) I was taught that you go UP to the capital 😁

I always thought it was based on whether the place you are going is above/up (North) or below/down (South) on a map from where you are?

When I was young an up train would be heading towards London and a down train away from it. And as I said when I was at school 65 years ago we referred to going 'up' to London as the capital city, but maybe the common usage has changed in those intervening years.

I'm on the South coast so most places are up from here.

I'd probably only say down if going to Cornwall.

2 hours ago, agraham said:

When I was young an up train would be heading towards London and a down train away from it. 

Yes, that's still the railway parlance. I often cross the ECML (where work always seems to be ongoing) on walks (using an official crossing!)  and hear the lookout man calling out "up main" if an approaching train is heading south, "down main" if heading north.

It gets a bit more complicated for railways that run east-west though, which usually follow the naming convention laid down by whichever old railway company first built them.

(Goodness - how this thread has strayed!😀)