WITH a need for speed, Didcot has always been at the forefront of engineering, even in the 19th century.

Of course Isambard Kingdom Brunel was right about the wider broad gauge railway track when he built the Great Western Railway from London to Bristol.

The land, tunnels and embankments and billiard table gradients might have cost more but perhaps now we would have 400mph plus trains and maybe short haul aviation would be dead.

He was an exceptional man with an incredible foresight commitment and range of skills, working at an incredible time when Britain understood real innovation.

We at the railway centre have a replica of one of the type of broad gauge steam locomotives “Iron Duke” that claimed the world speed record in 1848.

The record was set when it left Paddington and reached Didcot station in just 47 minutes.

It was worked out that the average speed was 67.5mph which was fast by 1848 standards when before the railways the fastest man had travelled was on horseback.

Didcot was central to the Great Western Railway, being at a crossroads between the east to west and north to south railways that were being constructed.

So Didcot, Brunel and the Great Western Railway were at the forefront of engineering and speed.

Now in 2016 Didcot is yet again at that forefront of with the Bloodhound SSC car project.

The project hopes to inspire the next generation by setting a new World Land Speed Record of 1,000mph.

The car will be powered by both a jet engine and a rocket, which together will produce more than 135,000 horsepower, which is more than six times the power of all the Formula 1 cars on a starting grid put together.

Richard Nobel, the project director, has said the 200 man engineering programme, which will run next year to 800mph, is based in Avonmouth with funding coming from the capital.

So, yet again Didcot makes really good positioning.

And there is one other reason, the Bloodhound is dedicated to education and the project has some 7,000 UK schools studying the project in order to offset the very serious national shortage of engineers.

The schools are now all building rocket cars and this past week 1,000 schools signed to join the rocket car programme with Microsoft.

And of course with that dedication to education, the head office is located at the new Oxfordshire Didcot UTC in Greenwood Way.

I think Mr Brunel would have approved.