The Night Mail

[Happy Hippo]

If you are an instrument technician in the aviation industry you have to be wary of WWII era aircraft as the luminescent materiel used in certain aircraft instruments is mildly radio active.  Since it tends to manifest itself as dusty particles, great care has to be taken not to take any on board via inhalation, ingestion or absorbtion.

 

Railway stuff got off to a good start today because as soon as Nyda left for North Wales I was into the car and hightailing it off to Llandrinio.  Whilst I was there I got into a conversation with Richard Webster (of Lionheart Trains and Dapol) about production engineering techniques and quality control.  We also broached the subject about what 7 mm engines and stock Dapol should be looking to produce in the near future.

 

I was most tactful and suggested that although I would very much welcome various ex GWR locomotives, I felt it only fair that other railways needed to be considered (but only after 2075).

 

I did suggest one in particular and was told it would be happening, but naturally, as it was commercial in confidence, I cannot divulge any more.

 

 

Edited June 14, 2022 by Happy Hippo

[polybear]

7 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

If you are an instrument technician in the aviation industry you have to be wary of WWII era aircraft as the luminescent materiel used in certain aircraft instruments is mildly radio active.  Since it tends to manifest itself as dusty particles, great care has to be taken not to take any on board via inhalation, ingestion or absorbtion.

 

Bear recalls seeing photos of the ladies that used to paint the dials for clocks, watches etc. using luminous paint - a very skilled job.  They used to pass the end of the brush thru' their lips to shape the bristles.  For some strange reason many of them had large growths on the sides of their necks.....

[jamie92208]

6 hours ago, Happy Hippo said:

There is also one about having worked for a foreign intelligence agency:

 

If I answered yes....one of yours, I do not think they would see the irony.

Good call, our cousins across the pond are not renowned for their sense of irony.

 

Jamie

Edited June 14, 2022 by jamie92208

[Tony_S]

9 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

given that the Americans masterminded “Operation Paperclip“

Did that result in the Microsoft assistant “Clippy”?

[Tony_S]

9 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

parameter by which I would be better off in America than in Switzerland (I can even buy a semi automatic rifle here in Switzerland

Probably explains why there are more firearm murders in Switzerland than than the UK. Perhaps easier access to firearms does have an effect. 

[jamie92208]

Strangely enough there is data produced in the Holocaust that is still used. There are tables of survival times in open water that are based on data produced in the Concentration camps when the Luftwaffe was concerned about the low survival rate of their pilos shot down in the North Sea. A very interesting ethics question.

 

Jamie

[Tony_S]

1 hour ago, Happy Hippo said:

 

I was most tactful and suggested that although I would very much welcome various ex GWR locomotives, I felt it only fair that other railways needed to be considered (but only after 2075).

They seem to be releasing 7mm kits for Midland and L&B buildings. So perhaps a nice Midland loco or a 7mm NG Manning Wardle could appear?

[simontaylor484]

25 minutes ago, jamie92208 said:

Strangely enough there is data produced in the Holocaust that is still used. There are tables of survival times in open water that are based on data produced in the Concentration camps when the Luftwaffe was concerned about the low survival rate of their pilos shot down in the North Sea. A very interesting ethics question.

 

Jamie

Modern crematoria are also based on technical details from concentration camp ovens.

[simontaylor484]

1 hour ago, polybear said:

 

Bear recalls seeing photos of the ladies that used to paint the dials for clocks, watches etc. using luminous paint - a very skilled job.  They used to pass the end of the brush thru' their lips to shape the bristles.  For some strange reason many of them had large growths on the sides of their necks.....

Women who worked at Bryant and May matches also ended up with strange facial growths from Phosphorus it was known as Fossie Jaw

[polybear]

38 minutes ago, Tony_S said:

Probably explains why there are more firearm murders in Switzerland than than the UK. Perhaps easier access to firearms does have an effect. 

 

The murder rate in the UK is double that of Switzerland though.  Does this mean that people in the UK are better at improvising?  There's a thought to ponder with.....

 

[PhilJ W]

49 minutes ago, Tony_S said:

Probably explains why there are more firearm murders in Switzerland than than the UK. Perhaps easier access to firearms does have an effect. 

 

2 minutes ago, polybear said:

 

The murder rate in the UK is double that of Switzerland though.  Does this mean that people in the UK are better at improvising?  There's a thought to ponder with.....

 

The most common murder weapon used in the UK is the knife but you can't  stand in the doorway and lethally spray bullets into a classroom with a knife. A good comparison would be Switzerland vs. the US. This would demonstrate the effectiveness of the gun controls in Switzerland. 

[New Haven Neil]

1 hour ago, Tony_S said:

Did that result in the Microsoft assistant “Clippy”?

 

I miss Einstein - and his big watch when he was getting stroppy with waiting for you to do something!

[iL Dottore]

56 minutes ago, Tony_S said:

Probably explains why there are more firearm murders in Switzerland than than the UK. Perhaps easier access to firearms does have an effect. 

Indeed -  there are: 0.09/100’000  gun related murders in Switzerland vs 0.02/100’000 in the UK (wikipedia). But given that Switzerland has the highest gun ownership in the world outside of the US (which has 4.46 gun related murders/100’000) it’s a testament to the sensible Swiss approach to guns.

The big gun problem for Switzerland is gun related suicide - although the fundamental problem here is suicidal ideation rather than gun ownership. Sadly, for very complex reasons, Switzerland has a high suicide rate (although not as bad as the rates in Scandinavia)

 

Gun related murderers are still so unusual in Switzerland that they make the National nightly news, unlike in the US where gun shootings have  just become background noise unless they involve huge numbers of the victims!

[Tony_S]

I have started to restore the landscape on the layout as a result of moving track.  A road got moved, hedges and farmhouse temporarily removed too. 
I was going to print a tiny sign showing the replacement bus service. However I wasn’t sure about Google Translates offering in Welsh. It seemed to use the same phrase for railway replacement bus as new railway bus. Probably better to put an 00 person next to the bus. 
The remaining ballasting and other rail treatment will be done soon.

[Dave Hunt]

6 hours ago, Happy Hippo said:

If you are an instrument technician in the aviation industry you have to be wary of WWII era aircraft as the luminescent materiel used in certain aircraft instruments is mildly radio active.  Since it tends to manifest itself as dusty particles, great care has to be taken not to take any on board via inhalation, ingestion or absorbtion.

 When I joined the RAF and for a good few years afterwards, the luminous paint on the dials of aircrew watches was radioactive I wore one for a long time and it didn't affect me at all. Mind you, I don't really need a luminous watch anyway on account of my left wrist glows in the dark. 

 

Dave  

[Dave Hunt]

4 hours ago, New Haven Neil said:

 

I miss Einstein - and his big watch when he was getting stroppy with waiting for you to do something!

Nowadays he's got a TV contract trying to persuade everyone to get so-called smart meters. He should have stuck to the computer job.

 

Dave

[br2975]

Took a break from my Saturday luncheon at The Miner's Arms, Whitecroft in order to witness the passing of Small Prairie 5541, wending its way toward Parkend.

.

This image won't win any prizes, but (to me) highlights the cliched overgrown lineside path.

.

And just look at that lineside fence, just imagine the comments from barrier hanging exhibition experts ?

[Tony_S]

26 minutes ago, Dave Hunt said:

Nowadays he's got a TV contract trying to persuade everyone to get so-called smart meters. He should have stuck to the computer job.

 

Dave

I find the fact that someone has licensed the image of Einstein to publicise something to be a bit tacky. It isn’t really an homage to his intellect. 

Edited June 14, 2022 by Tony_S

[Florence Locomotive Works]

Evening all,

 

After a bit more emergency work the website is now properly done (took down my last post as I wasn't sure the link would work), so here's the finished website.

 

https://www.mcdermottsliverpool.com/

 

 

Re watch dial and gauges. Radium is much more dangerous than the average person thinks, in fact most large scale watch repair company's have Geiger counters which the watches are passed by to determine their potential for harm. I'm not sure what they do with the bad ones, but i know there is a a trade in discarded radium loomed hands.

 

With regards to it messing with ones skin, that rarely happens in watch form. As an example of what can happen when radioactive substances come into contact with a human, radium and uranium used to used to be used medically help with headaches and other problems with the head, and often large brain tumors would result along with comas lasting 5-6 years.

 

 

Douglas

[SM42]

Anyone remember the (1970s?) game called Casper the Friendly Ghost

 

A plastic glow in the dark ghost  that you plugged into an assortment of glowing  bases in turn. If you got Casper to light up (via the internal lamp and battery that was activated by plugging him in the right way round) you won a plastic glow in the dark disc. 

 

Obviously a game designed to be played in the dark to make it more spooky

 

I dread to think what made it all glow in those far off innocent days

 

Andy

Edited June 15, 2022 by SM42

[J. S. Bach]

Probably phosphorus.

[iL Dottore]

11 hours ago, Happy Hippo said:

…I was most tactful and suggested that although I would very much welcome various ex GWR locomotives, I felt it only fair that other railways needed to be considered (but only after 2075).

What a wise Hippo you are!

[iL Dottore]

11 hours ago, jamie92208 said:

Good call, our cousins across the pond are not renowned for their sense of irony.

 

Jamie

Nor do they have a sense of humour (in 99.9% of the officials I have met).

So unusual is it to encounter an American with a sense of humour when on “official duties“ that I must recount the following:

 

One June I had flown to the US to attend a big medical congress, at the immigration desk at Chicago airport arrivals the official behind the desk asked me what I did – in a fit of mischievousness I said “I’m in Pharma, I would say I deal in drugs, but your colleagues in customs would get a bit upset“. He laughed, made a comment along the lines of “isn’t that the truth“, stamped my passport and let me into the country.

 

I reckon there must be a top secret facility in the US (maybe in Area 51 or at Langley) where all American officials are sent to have their sense of humour surgically removed!

Edited June 15, 2022 by iL Dottore
Typo

[iL Dottore]

10 hours ago, jamie92208 said:

Strangely enough there is data produced in the Holocaust that is still used. There are tables of survival times in open water that are based on data produced in the Concentration camps when the Luftwaffe was concerned about the low survival rate of their pilos shot down in the North Sea. A very interesting ethics question.

 

Jamie

You have put your finger on a particularly difficult area of biomedical ethics: namely, if you have valuable scientific data obtained by illegal, immoral and/or unethical means – should you use it?

 

There is a rather long and sordid history in the 20th century of governments/governmental organisations using unwilling and/or unsuspecting individuals (prisoners of war, people being “ethnically cleansed“, individuals within the country’s prison system, their own servicemen, etc.)  as test subjects for research that varies from scientifically valid (but difficult, if not impossible to do ethically) to sadistically perverse. Shockingly, the US has quite a track record in regards to doing this sort of “research“ – the Tuskegee syphilis study being just the tip of the iceberg (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_Syphilis_Study).

But at what point does the well-being of a society trump that of the well-being of an individual? For example: let’s say a disease emerges from the jungles of South America which has an 90% mortality rate; in vitro research shows there is a cure, but this cure would kill 50% of the individuals taking the medication but provide total, lifelong, immunity (acquiring and transmitting) to this disease to the other 50%.

Do we take such a medication from the laboratory bench into a human test population? And if so, who do we use as test subjects? Would the data generated by such studies be considered unusable ethically? And if shown to work, do we require the nation’s population to take the medication (a 50% chance of surviving the disease versus a 10% chance).

 

Definitely a fascinating topic to discuss eruditely over a glass of a good single malt whisky.

[polybear]

2 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

What a wise Hippo you are!

 

Not wise enough to realise that very large fruit cake he's got stashed in the cupboard is a plastic 3d print......🤣