The Night Mail

[AndyID]

It's still Hogmanay here and will be for several hours. I'll try not to wake you up when next year arrives.

 

(The origin of the name is obscure but it might be derived from French hoguinané)

[jamie92208]

Good moaning from 2023 in thecCharente.

 

Jamie

[iL Dottore]

Happy New Year, one and all.

[Happy Hippo]

Rain, wind and hail.  

 

This is not a salutation but the real time weather in Telfland at present.

 

We also have thunder in the background.

[SM42]

34 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

Rain, wind and hail.  

 

This is not a salutation but the real time weather in Telfland at present.

 

We also have thunder in the background.

 

Rather a pleasant sunny day  next door. 

 

Andy

Edited January 1, 2023 by SM42

[SteveyDee68]

Happy New Year to all those who partake of TNM

 

Steve S

[bbishop]

13 hours ago, bbishop said:

CFR duty in South East London until 1am.  Hoping we don't get a shout before midnight. Bill 

The shout came at two minutes past midnight!

[SM42]

8 minutes ago, bbishop said:

The shout came at two minutes past midnight!

 

Always seems to go that way. 

 

Nothing and then it all kicks off in 10 minutes. 

 

Andy

[coastalview]

Happy New Year to all TNMs. My New Years resolution has been to put together an Inventory of all my rolling stock, Having hauled this out of the garage I'm slightly discombobulated at the number of boxes I appear to have. 

 

As I'm doing this for insurance purposes  I think I might be wise to keep this under wraps as the total sum spent in the bottom right corner of the spreadsheet is growing at a rather fast rate.

 

Have a great 2023 all

[Happy Hippo]

8 minutes ago, coastalview said:

As I'm doing this for insurance purposes  I think I might be wise to keep this under wraps as the total sum spent in the bottom right corner of the spreadsheet is growing at a rather fast rate.

You have to really worry when the value of your railway modelling items exceeds the value of your house.

[Gwiwer]

12 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

You have to really worry when the value of your railway modelling items exceeds the value of your house.

The spreadsheet which I maintained in Australia became frightening.  It's fine to have a record of what you own and what you have spent but when it came to the regular addition of sundries such as paints, fixings, adhesives and all the other paraphernalia we need, but which can get overlooked in the cost of things, the bottom line blew out to a seven-figure sum 😲

 

That was in Australian Dollars and two of those figures were to the right of the decimal point but hey - that's still a lot of moolah.  And a lot more when you try to insure "new for old" at face value.  I never did.  It was (and it is) all fully insured but not at £ for £ cost.  

[Gwiwer]

We appear to have reached 2023. 
 

Bledhyn Noweth Da dhe oll Post an Nosyow (or the equivalent in your regional language of choice) 

 

 

[Northmoor]

A selection of greetings from various parts of the UK I've lived in:

"Shwmae?" (Pembrokeshire)

"Ar-right?" (Liverpool)

"Ey-yup, me duck?" (Worksop)

"Ah ya dooin?" (Dunfermline)

 

Happy New Year to all NMs and in 2023 may we continue to amuse ourselves as before.

[New Haven Neil]

19 hours ago, Winslow Boy said:

You see you go in full of enthusiasm and little by little it's stripped away until all you look forward to is the Friday afternoon when you can finish at half three and then count the hours to Monday comes around.

 

Ah, NHS lower management was exactly the same, 

 

I ran away.

[DenysW]

44 minutes ago, Northmoor said:

"Ey-yup, me duck?" (Worksop)

In my travel-the-Midlands days,  "Ey-yup, me duck?" was more south Notts & Derbs and all of Leicestershire. By contrast Worksop, Bakewell, and Alfreton was the (only) area I got called "youth", but this was, I fear, flattery.

[Gwiwer]

55 minutes ago, Northmoor said:

A selection of greetings from various parts of the UK I've lived in:

"Shwmae?" (Pembrokeshire)

"Ar-right?" (Liverpool)

"Ey-yup, me duck?" (Worksop)

"Ah ya dooin?" (Dunfermline)

 

Happy New Year to all NMs and in 2023 may we continue to amuse ourselves as before.

Add "Right are 'ee my duck*?" from my neck of the woods.  To which the reply is "Are 'ee too"

 

* other terms are used interchangeably including c0ck, ansum, lover, bird, beauty and others  

 

Never in a million years would I greet anyone in London with the words " 'ow be doin' my c0ck?"  I value still having all my own teeth 🤣

[polybear]

58 minutes ago, New Haven Neil said:

 

Ah, NHS lower management was exactly the same, 

 

I ran away.

 

Bear recalls witnessing a Patient on a Ward saying to the Nurse on the drugs trolley:

"You're quite new to Nursing, aren't you?"

"Yes - how did you know?"

"I worked for the NHS for twenty years - the enthusiasm soon wears off, believe me....."

[New Haven Neil]

I've described before how months of work and money was thrown in the bin by a Consultant who changed his mind about the project just as was about to implement it.  The straw that broke the outpatients service administration manager's back!  Perhaps that's why it has collapsed this week then, 20 years later!  Some people have too much control, and the really high level managers that should control them, bottle it.

[Oldddudders]

6 minutes ago, New Haven Neil said:

 Some people have too much control, and the really high level managers that should control them, bottle it.

That is at least in part what led to the abolition of the BR Traffic Divisions in 1984. In less than three decades they had become the preserve of the 'office cat' - as one Divisional Manager described them - competent clerical staff who made key decisions and kept everything humming, to the satisfaction of their manager. All good - but in so doing they often overrode local managers who were senior, but found themselves impotent to make change that was needed. As a station manager I certainly felt as if I had responsibility but no authority! 

[Doncaster Green]

1 hour ago, Northmoor said:

 

"Ey-yup, me duck?" (Worksop)

 

Most definitely a greeting known to me from my days growing up in Newark, mainly between family and friends in the  older generations.  Interestingly, my paternal Grandfather often addressed my Grandmother as 'me ducks' and he was from Sarf Lunnon, she was a shepherd's daughter from deepest Wilsher.

 

John

[Northmoor]

20 minutes ago, New Haven Neil said:

I've described before how months of work and money was thrown in the bin by a Consultant who changed his mind about the project just as was about to implement it.  The straw that broke the outpatients service administration manager's back!  Perhaps that's why it has collapsed this week then, 20 years later!  Some people have too much control, and the really high level managers that should control them, bottle it.

This reflects my experience of working both in management consultancy and in a public sector organisation employing them.  MCs require firm management, in the, "I paid you to do XYZ, now you've completed XYZ, please surrender your pass and leave the building.  I'll call you when I might need you again". 

Unfortunately too many consultants - and this is no secret, it's the accepted business model - are invited to implement a pet project which is designed so that they are a critical dependency (e.g. bespoke software from that consultancy) to it's continuing operation for several years afterwards.

 

The #1 priority of a management consultant is NOT "The customer", it is "Signing up the next customer".  One of the best things the MoD ever did (round about when I was made redundant from consultancy) was to identify all those consultants with an MoD Main Building pass who did NOT have a current contract, and immediately de-activated their passes (which should have been done anyway).  Instructions were also issued that all meetings in the building were to be pre-arranged.  Previously, there had been dozens of consultants booking a short morning meeting then rather than being escorted out, were walking the floors for a couple of hours touting for business.

[Winslow Boy]

2 hours ago, New Haven Neil said:

 

Ah, NHS lower management was exactly the same, 

 

I ran away.

 

I wasn't so fortunate I'm afraid.

 

Still at least I'm here to contribute to this erudite and learned ........... your have to hang on as i can't think of what to describe TNM as. This may take some time so talk amongst yourselves.

Edited January 1, 2023 by Winslow Boy

[Happy Hippo]

37 minutes ago, Winslow Boy said:

 

I wasn't so fortunate I'm afraid.

 

Still at least I'm here to contribute to this erudite and learned ........... your have to hang on as i can't think of what to describe TNM as. This may take some time so talk amongst yourselves.

The word you require for the collective is Cluster something or other.

[New Haven Neil]

@Northmoor The Consultants I refer to were Medical Consultants, not, er, Management Consultant Consultants! Or something...

 

Regardless, they are Gods in the NHS, and have too much power in some cases.

 

The Trust set up a system of management that had paired medical and administrative managers at all appropriate levels, as a previous experiment of purely medical senior management upon the formation of the first NHS Trusts resulted in the year's budget being spent in 5 months. They aren't good managers. no mater how good clinicians they may be.  This worked for a few years, but slowly the rot set in after the red-hot CEO left, and his replacement slowly caved in to 'Consultant Power'.  

 

In my lowly case I worked in partnership with the senior clinician in the 'ology' we managed at almost 50,000 appointments a year, but somehow this Consultant worked his way into an inappropriate position of power over us, countermanding the overall Outpatients Director we reported to.  He wasn't even in our speciality! 

 

We both walked as a result of this behaviour, which as Winslow mentions, we were lucky to be able to.  My wife and I came here to start a new life (which was a huge risk), and the clinical manager became a CEO of another Trust, down BoD's way.  She was good.

 

Phew, I think that was a rant!

[Happy Hippo]

After a few days of the grandchildren being here, I have come to the conclusion that the shouts and squeals of joy they generate are at the same pitch as my teeth require to go on edge.

 

In quieter moments we have been looking at various different little houses.

 

Tomorrow, I'll introduce them to sound fitted shunters on the rolling road.

 

I mighteven be starting them off on a new but life long constructive hobby.