h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hiya, I'm just (finally!) subbing your entry on the Blackstone Valley (sounds like a nice place to visit ).

One quick question, in the sentence "A train could move about as fast as a canal ship, and never have to stop for locks", it seems to me that a train would be quite a bit faster than a canal boat. Is there a 'twice' or 'three-times' missing in there somewhere?

BTW, the edited version is at http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A618941 if you want to look it over before I send it back.

Regarding the speed of trains: A train today *is* much faster than a canal boat, but a train in the 1840s wasn't. The point might be made that trains got faster over time, but canal boats didn't.

I like the edited version of the entry. (I'll have to start using more second-level headers.) I have one update, though:

I have access to last year's census figures now. With one possible exception, my statement about the population of Blackstone Valley towns (all 5000 inhabitants or less) holds true. That exception is Northbridge, which now has 4000 people or so - but Northbridge contains a village called Whitinsville, whose population was tracked separately as 6000. Don't ask me what's going on, I just live here.

Lately I haven't had much time or motivation to write new entries, so I don't have a lot of complaints about entries taking lots of time to edit. Thanks for the input.