The Night Mail

[Happy Hippo]

It's getting ever closer to completion.

 

[Dave Hunt]

Lookin' good HH. Looks like a perfect setting for a nice fully lined crimson lake locomotive and a rake of clerestories.....

 

Dave

[newbryford]

2 minutes ago, Dave Hunt said:

Lookin' good HH. Looks like a perfect setting for a nice fully lined crimson lake locomotive and a rake of clerestories.....

 

Dave

 

I cansee a yellow Structure Gauging Train checking out the bridge.......

[Dave Hunt]

1 hour ago, Tony_S said:

AditI’s cousin’s wife is a wealth advisor for Credit Suisse, I suspect she may be available for consultations soon. 

 

I knew they should have stuck to making cuckoo clocks but would they listen?

 

Dave

[Dave Hunt]

1 minute ago, newbryford said:

 

I cansee a yellow Structure Gauging Train checking out the bridge.......

 

Isn't that a bit extravagant, a train just for gauging yellow structures.....

 

Dave

[Dave Hunt]

As you can see, I've got time on my hands this afternoon as my sciatica has decided in the last few days to be a right b'sterd and I'm stuck in the most comfortable chair in the house with a hot water bottle against my lower spine and regular doses of codeine and paracetamol. As the Bear would put it, turdycurses.

 

Dave

[Winslow Boy]

Getting back to alternative reality could you il Dottore senior, have a quiet word with junior and get the Credit Suisse negotiations to be done in a shed? That way when there finished I could have it.

 

It would have to be delivered though, but I'm certain that one of Capitan Cynical minions could 'borrow' one of his bosses helicopters and fly it over, especially if he told him it was for WB who has done those horticultural favours for him to keep Mrs il Dottore sweet. You won't believe how difficult it is to get pineapples to grow in Switzerland.

Edited March 20, 2023 by Winslow Boy

[polybear]

1 hour ago, iL Dottore said:

.......or @polybearbeing smitten by a young lady in 2022 and has learned to cook properly for her)

 

Er, why would Bear become smitten for a young lady that can't cook??

Come to think of it, best not go there.....

[Northmoor]

1 hour ago, iL Dottore said:

Speculating “what if?“ might be great intellectual fun, it’s still - nonetheless - not something you should unhealthily focus on 

Depends what you consider to be "unhealthy".  I once started to compile a list of more strategic "What if?s" where a major industry or political event did or didn't happen.  See if you can add to these which I posted in the Imaginary Railways thread some years ago:

1. If the Irish potato famine never happened, trade with Ireland would have been considerably greater.  Fishguard Harbour wouldn't exist, Brunel would have built the harbour 50-60 years earlier at Abermawr about 10 miles further west, in deeper water.
2. The Grouping was a much less extreme event than actually occurred, with the companies consolidated into perhaps a dozen and not four. Larger regional companies, perhaps the financially more secure, survived.  Perhaps the GER might have stayed independent? With more companies, would they have all retained their own works or would have been increasing use of contractor-built and standard locos and rolling stock?
3. Electrification planned by the NER and LMS actually went ahead in the 1920s and progressively extended. The initial Crewe - Carlisle would be extended to form a NW England network with branches to Liverpool and Manchester where conveniently, it would link with the 1500V Woodhead route electrified by the LNER!
4. Nationalisation didn't happen, instead the government offered low interest loans to the companies to invest in modernisation but still created a BTC to offer standard designs of diesels, units etc.  There would have been less variety but also considerably fewer redundant/duplicate designs built by contractors without the skills to build them properly.  
5. The Beeching report was implemented, but nothing that WASN'T listed in the report was closed.  
6. We've all dreamed that steam wasn't hurriedly abandoned in 1968 but was continued in a few small areas where there was a concentration of traffics with no advantage of diesel over steam (e.g. short distance, slow-moving, unfitted coal trains).  Newer steam locos, such as 9Fs were retained until they were worn out, the traffic was lost or modernised such that steam was no longer appropriate or cost-effective. 
7. The Channel Tunnel project was completed in the early 1970s.  What might the rail network look like now? Would the GC have been mothballed then upgraded as the main line to the continent, with Tonbridge - Redhill - Guildford - Reading a major freight route.

[PhilJ W]

4 hours ago, polybear said:

 

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK...............😱

 

You could've warned us it involves Big H and a full frontal shot........

Bear is scarred.......

 

 

Scared or scarred (for life).

[Happy Hippo]

1 hour ago, Dave Hunt said:

As you can see, I've got time on my hands this afternoon as my sciatica has decided in the last few days to be a right b'sterd and I'm stuck in the most comfortable chair in the house with a hot water bottle against my lower spine and regular doses of codeine and paracetamol. As the Bear would put it, turdycurses.

 

Dave

I bought Nyda an electric heating pad that wrap around your shoulders, and another one that goes around the abdomen.

 

They are very good, and do not have to be refilled to keep  them warm. another advantage is you don't have to take them off to move round as the flex is quite long.  A bit like an umbilical cord.  If you do need to change room, you just unplug and then plug back in at your next destination.

 

She also uses the abdominal band to wrap around her feet when they get to lump of ice levels.

[Tony_S]

18 minutes ago, Northmoor said:

If the Irish potato famine never happened, trade with Ireland would have been considerably greater.  Fishguard Harbour wouldn't exist, Brunel would have built the harbour 50-60 years earlier at Abermawr about 10 miles further west, in deeper water.

During the potato famine, Ireland was still a net exporter of agricultural produce. It was the potato crop that failed. This was a subsistence crop grown by poor agricultural  workers. It was only recently that the population of Ireland had exceeded that of pre famine Ireland, 

[J. S. Bach]

7 hours ago, Dave Hunt said:

 

One of the best (IMHO) bumper stickers I saw in America was at Pier 39 in san Francisco; it had a cartoon figure of  woman and read, "I'm out of oestrogen and I have a gun - BACK OFF!"

 

Dave

Similar to this on that I saw: "I have PMS and a handgun!"

[TheQ]

My N gauge layout is based on the fact grouping and nationalisation never happened so is Highland Railways 1963. The governments of the time gradually went from excess taxation of the railways to subsidisation of economically depressed areas railways and strategically required railways.

 

A large part of the Highland clearances and voluntary emigration was caused by the potato famine there.

If you can't feed yourselves, you can't pay your rent....

 

Edited March 20, 2023 by TheQ

[J. S. Bach]

3 hours ago, Dave Hunt said:

Lookin' good HH. Looks like a perfect setting for a nice fully lined crimson lake locomotive and a rake of clerestories.....

 

Dave

Nah, six SD45s and a hundred or so hundred-ton hoppers headed to Morgantown.

[DenysW]

2 hours ago, Northmoor said:

See if you can add to these

8.  Churchill et al. nationalised the UK railways in 1919/20 and the resulting rationalisation closed all of the railways that were there solely there to provide competition between big players. Farewell: Heads of Valleys; M&GN Joint; Somerset & Dorset; 50% of SE&C; GCR London Extension; Midland Mainlines Derby-Manchester and London via Melton Mowbray; etc. etc. etc. Further standardisation decides that all express locomotives are to be finished in crimson lake - all other locomotives in unlined black. Copper detailing outlawed.

[PhilJ W]

1 hour ago, TheQ said:

My N gauge layout is based on the fact grouping and nationalisation never happened so is Highland Railways 1963. The governments of the time gradually went from excess taxation of the railways to subsidisation of economically depressed areas railways and strategically required railways.

 

A large part of the Highland clearances and voluntary emigration was caused by the potato famine there.

If you can't feed yourselves, you can't pay your rent....

 

The potato blight also affected Southern Holland and Northern Belgium as well as some small parts of England. However the populations in those areas had the opportunity to migrate. In England to the growing industrial towns and cities (also in Belgium) and in Holland to areas unaffected by the blight.

[J. S. Bach]

Night Owl from the Piedmont.

[Happy Hippo]

4 hours ago, J. S. Bach said:

Nah, six SD45s and a hundred or so hundred-ton hoppers headed to Morgantown.

Change that to three Class 37 passing Morganstown and you are not far off the mark. The Welsh contingent are all thinking TVR twixt Radyr and Walnut Tree Junction (Taffs Well).

[The Johnster]

5 hours ago, DenysW said:

8.  Churchill et al. nationalised the UK railways in 1919/20 and the resulting rationalisation closed all of the railways that were there solely there to provide competition between big players. Farewell: Heads of Valleys; M&GN Joint; Somerset & Dorset; 50% of SE&C; GCR London Extension; Midland Mainlines Derby-Manchester and London via Melton Mowbray; etc. etc. etc. Further standardisation decides that all express locomotives are to be finished in crimson lake - all other locomotives in unlined black. Copper detailing outlawed.

 

Rail nationalisation following the Great War would have more likely been the brainchild of David Lloyd George than Winston Churchill, and Lloyd George was in a far more powerful and influential position at the time.  Some duplicate lines would have gone, but I suspect Lloyd George would have been more concerned with an integrated nationalised network covering road, rail, and waterways.  This is what was actually attempted in 1948, but half-heartedly; Lloyd George would have been less influenced by private industry lobbying.

 

Can't accept that the Heads of the Valleys M,T,&A was a duplicate of anything, much as the LNWR tried to divert traffic off the N,A,&H on to it.  It was more a formalisation and upgrading of the pre-existing tramway network along the 'Top', and an integral part of local industrial and commercial networks in that area, which wasn't always the forgotten failed backwater it is nowadays!  Same may be said (to an extent at least) of the Somerset & Dorset.

 

There were at one time three main line railways, an industrial line, a canal, and two main roads in close proximity to each other threading through the Tongwynlais Gap north of Cardiff.  The three railways are often quoted as examples of wasteful competition, but there was plenty of traffic for all of them at the time, the Cardiff only being prevented from realising it's potential by the TVR managing to stop them with a court order.  Even in the 70s one could see coal trains backed up along the relief on the TVR as far as Taff's Well and beyond in the late afternoon and early evening queueing up on the permissive block awaiting entrance to Radyr Yard, suggesting that, had the Cardiff been successful, it would still have been handling it's share of traffic and relieving congestion on the TV even then.  One man's competition is another man's share of the traffic; is it really competition if you are taking on traffic that your competitor cannot find paths or siding space for anyway?

[SM42]

For a personal alternative history

 

The Russian revolution of 1917 was put down by the Tsar, but alarmed by what had happened, introduced sweeping reforms to placate the masses and ultimately Russia developed a political system very similar to that of Great Britain.  The net result being that  Lenin, Stalin et al never came to power

 

A  few years later and an Austrian corporal got nowhere in his political ambition and Germany continued on its way with the Kaiser in charge and the middle of the 20th century saw  peace throughout central Europe. 

 

As a result of this Mrs SM42's uncle was not being shot at by either Russians or Germans and did not find himself seeking the comparative safety of British shores. 

 

He did not meet and marry and English woman and thus 50 years later his niece had no reason to visit the UK.

 

A certain SM42 would possibly still be single, maybe have married an English woman, not had a compelling reason to visit Poland regularly and thus not discovered the delights of Polish cuisine, Polish culture and of course the PKP.

 

Thus the thought of getting onto that slippery slope of modelling  PKP may not have even have begun to speculate about crossing his mind.

 

He most likely would not be known as SM42

 

Maybe I would have been richer, maybe not, but I would certainly have been poorer in terms of culture, travel  and life experience

 

Andy

Edited March 21, 2023 by SM42

[monkeysarefun]

13 hours ago, Dave Hunt said:

 

When I was in Mauritius some 25 years ago I was told by a local history buff that although slavery may have been abolished in 1833 it effectively carried on in the sugar cane plantations there for a good many years after that .

 

Dave

"Blackbirding" , the term used to describe the abduction or coercion of natives of  South Pacific islands such as Tuvulu, Fiji, New Guinea and The Solomons to work for little or no pay  on plantations owned by European colonists in Australia, Hawaii, Fiji and Tahiti commenced in the 1840's and continued until the 1930's and later.

 

Modern day blackbirding is still undertaken in Central America where Indigenous people are kidnapped at gunpoint to work as plantation workers. 

[AndyID]

1 hour ago, SM42 said:

For a personal alternative history

 

The Russian revolution of 1917 was put down by the Tsar, but alarmed..............

 

 

Had I not attended a tennis club disco in Paisley 54 years ago I'd probably still be in Paisley 🙁

[AndyID]

Without straying too far into the quagmire of US politics there is an interesting "what if" in the news here at the mo.

 

There is a story that messages were conveyed to Iran towards the end of Jimmy Carter's presidency and prior to the election that they should not release the hostages while Carter was still in power because Regan would make them a better deal. Of course it's virtually impossible to get to the truth now one way or the other but the odd thing is Iran did release the hostages a few minutes after Carter left office.

[polybear]

3 hours ago, SM42 said:

A certain SM42 would possibly still be single, maybe have married an English woman, not had a compelling reason to visit Poland regularly and thus not discovered the delights of Polish cuisine, Polish culture and of course the PKP.

 

Thus the thought of getting onto that slippery slope of modelling  PKP may not have even have begun to speculate about crossing his mind.

 

He most likely would not be known as SM42

 

Maybe I would have been richer, maybe not, but I would certainly have been poorer in terms of culture, travel  and life experience

 

Andy

 

It's quite possible that @SM42 might not spend his life permanently covered in paint specks either......🤣