RMweb Premium Compound2632 Posted May 12, 2022 RMweb Premium Share Posted May 12, 2022 7 hours ago, alastairq said: Poor old horse if they're all intending to travel? :) As @petethemole says - and horse drawn street trams we bigger. Though this one is a two-horse car: [Unknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.] 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nearholmer Posted May 12, 2022 Share Posted May 12, 2022 Horse-trams are very, very lightly built though, and I’d be less sure about that Dandy Car. Ic you get a chance, crawl over a horse tram in a museum. First time I did, I was amazed by the lightness of the sections of timber used. It’s all much more like furniture-making than anything one sees in railway vehicles. 1 3 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Compound2632 Posted May 12, 2022 RMweb Premium Share Posted May 12, 2022 34 minutes ago, Nearholmer said: Horse-trams are very, very lightly built though, and I’d be less sure about that Dandy Car. Yes, but it's the bodies that pile up. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nearholmer Posted May 12, 2022 Share Posted May 12, 2022 People were smaller in the old days, especially the sort of people who used horse trams. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Johnson044 Posted May 13, 2022 Share Posted May 13, 2022 Haven't had any poetry here for a while. "From a railway carriage" with sincere apologies to Robert Louis Stevenson, who lived in a very different world. Faster than fairies, Faster than witches The travelling hoodies converse with their bitches. One look in the eye and you're in for a battle, Down on the floor in the beer and the spittle. Estuary English? Assault on the senses! Morrisons, Homebase, unclimbable fences. Democratically classless, hermetically sealed. A burned-out Fiesta marooned in a field. And once in a while, with a desolate sigh An un-staffed station shuffles by. Here's a child with a spray can: A corner to linger. Looks up from his artwork and raises a finger. And here are the Pikies, the Chavs and the Wallies- And there is the river for tipping the trollies! And here's B&Q! And there's Land of Leather! Each a glimpse And gone for ever. 1 2 5 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
alastairq Posted May 13, 2022 Share Posted May 13, 2022 An old style double deck bus [not a modern plastic-fantastic]...with close to 90 including standing passengers, ran to around 19 or 20 tonnes! London dockers weighed even more. i recall the first time I drive a London Transport RT decker, pre-6 a m, with half a shift of dockers going to Surrey Docks...all upstairs [smoking..I thought the bottom deck was near empty [a few char ladies]...Upstair would have been full [I had a conductor, so had no idea what was upstairs]...went around a bend a bit too rashly, the bus leaned over so far, I thought I was sliding out of the seat [I was]....a bit more circumspection required for the next bend. Those RT's could lean for Scotland.....But the pedals and steering wheel stayed upright with the chassis...Very odd when the seat goes out of sync with everything else... Routemasters [Sundays only on 'my' route] were like Cadillacs in comparison..oh so smooth and comfy to drive. Easier too, with no gearchanging necessary.... Modern day bus drivers never had it so good... 3 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nearholmer Posted May 13, 2022 Share Posted May 13, 2022 Watch yourself Oh, self satisfied of Pinner, Travelling home to early dinner, Perhaps a wisp of introspection Could make you see your own reflection, looking back from toughened glass As you sneer at all you pass. Are you so truly separated from all of those you have berated? Are you made from different clay? When hungry worms do nibble away, Will it be their pleasure to savour From you a rare and sweeter flavour? Could what you see as widespread yobbery Be just a product of your snobbery? Of long minutes between stations Contemplating explanations Of why you deserve what you have got While lesser mortals, they do not. So the face that’s your face looking back Is likely old, and tired, and slack, Blank of signals of compassion, As is the usual timeworn fashion, Of those who set themselves above Their fellow men who they should love. With no apology to anyone. 5 2 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Compound2632 Posted May 13, 2022 RMweb Premium Share Posted May 13, 2022 This is all a bit grim! “Romance!” the season-tickets mourn, “He never ran to catch his train, But passed with coach and guard and horn— And left the local—late again!” Confound Romance! . . . And all unseen Romance brought up the nine-fifteen. Kipling, The King. And before you ask, no, I've never kippled. 6 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Hroth Posted May 13, 2022 RMweb Gold Share Posted May 13, 2022 2 hours ago, Compound2632 said: And before you ask, no, I've never kippled. But he makes exceedingly good cakes! 2 1 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nearholmer Posted May 13, 2022 Share Posted May 13, 2022 He was the chap who wrote “Puck of Puffed Pastry” wasn’t he? 2 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Hroth Posted May 13, 2022 RMweb Gold Share Posted May 13, 2022 (edited) 3 hours ago, alastairq said: An old style double deck bus [not a modern plastic-fantastic]...with close to 90 including standing passengers, ran to around 19 or 20 tonnes! London dockers weighed even more. i recall the first time I drive a London Transport RT decker, pre-6 a m, with half a shift of dockers going to Surrey Docks...all upstairs [smoking..I thought the bottom deck was near empty [a few char ladies]...Upstair would have been full [I had a conductor, so had no idea what was upstairs]...went around a bend a bit too rashly, the bus leaned over so far, I thought I was sliding out of the seat [I was]....a bit more circumspection required for the next bend. Those RT's could lean for Scotland.....But the pedals and steering wheel stayed upright with the chassis...Very odd when the seat goes out of sync with everything else... Routemasters [Sundays only on 'my' route] were like Cadillacs in comparison..oh so smooth and comfy to drive. Easier too, with no gearchanging necessary.... Modern day bus drivers never had it so good... A London Transport Diesel engined 97 Horsepower Omnibus! There's a fair bit of patter to lead in.... On the mix cd I have in the car, this segues unaccountably into Spizz Energis "Where's Captain Kirk"... So as I'd feel confused without it, And that's followed by the Albion Country Bands performance of "The New St George", which is a bit Castle Aching, so here it is... I'll stop now, before I've reconstituted the entire CD! Edited May 13, 2022 by Hroth 3 1 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Compound2632 Posted May 13, 2022 RMweb Premium Share Posted May 13, 2022 33 minutes ago, Hroth said: "The New St George", which is a bit Castle Aching, so here it is... Back in the late 70s, he was a spotter on the end of platform 8A, in among the BRUTES, looking out for 45s. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pacific231G Posted May 13, 2022 Share Posted May 13, 2022 (edited) 1 hour ago, Hroth said: A London Transport Diesel engined 97 Horsepower Omnibus! There's a fair bit of patter to lead in.... I used to love Flanders and Swann but my Auntie Nell (not an actual aunt but one of the cousins) was married to a London bus driver and he got absolutely furious when he heard it at our house. Mind you, they had a budgie so I didn't take them too seriously. Thanks for posting this. It led me to a few others I'd all but forgotten, a few I'd never heard such as the still alarming "twenty tons of TNT" and of course "The Slow Train" that brings a tear to the eye even now, almost sixty years after Beeching, I did like this line in a monologue abotu flying that I assume preceded it. "If God had meant us to fly he wouldn''t have given us the railway" Edited May 13, 2022 by Pacific231G 4 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schooner Posted May 13, 2022 Share Posted May 13, 2022 1 hour ago, Hroth said: I'll stop now... If you're gonna end on a dance tune, make it a banger! Thanks, enjoyed all those :) 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Hroth Posted May 13, 2022 RMweb Gold Share Posted May 13, 2022 Niiiice! Is that Dizzy Gillespie on shawm? :-) I used to perform in an "early music" group for dancers, but we tended to be a bit more conservative in our interpretations.... 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pacific231G Posted May 13, 2022 Share Posted May 13, 2022 (edited) On 05/05/2022 at 19:21, Nearholmer said: PS: I collected another in the series “Places of Assembly in Buckinghamshire” today, this one in Buckingham itself, just up the hill from where the GCR terminus wasn’t. The inscription above the door seems appropriate in the light of that bloke dressed in dayglo pink. Is that near where Buckingham Cathedral also isn't? The Cornish vicar's Buckingham certainly grew into a very different place from the one in our universe (I never did figure out why so many of the cathedral city's residents needed to get to Leighton Buzzard, the joke being that he called it Leighton Buzzard (Linslade) which is exactly where the actual Leighton Buzzard station is located.) Edited May 13, 2022 by Pacific231G Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pacific231G Posted May 13, 2022 Share Posted May 13, 2022 On 12/05/2022 at 18:51, Nearholmer said: Horse-trams are very, very lightly built though, and I’d be less sure about that Dandy Car. Ic you get a chance, crawl over a horse tram in a museum. First time I did, I was amazed by the lightness of the sections of timber used. It’s all much more like furniture-making than anything one sees in railway vehicles. And it's also worth remembering that the rolling resistance of a steel wheel on a steel rail is as much as ten times less than a tyre on a road. The Musée des Arts et Métiers in Paris used to have a very nice exhibit to demonstrate this. Basically, you cranked a handle to wind in an axle fitted with three sets of wheels, wooden tyre, pneumatic and railway and in the display case were models of three types of terrain, a rough country lane, a metalled road, and a section of railway track. The difference in effort required was astonishing. (The museum also had an internal railway laid in the floor of its galleries but that's another story.) The difference is even more pronounced with water. A horse could pull forty times as much weight in the form of a canal boat than in a cart. 3 1 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Johnson044 Posted May 14, 2022 Share Posted May 14, 2022 14 hours ago, alastairq said: An old style double deck bus [not a modern plastic-fantastic]...with close to 90 including standing passengers, ran to around 19 or 20 tonnes! London dockers weighed even more. i recall the first time I drive a London Transport RT decker, pre-6 a m, with half a shift of dockers going to Surrey Docks...all upstairs [smoking..I thought the bottom deck was near empty [a few char ladies]...Upstair would have been full [I had a conductor, so had no idea what was upstairs]...went around a bend a bit too rashly, the bus leaned over so far, I thought I was sliding out of the seat [I was]....a bit more circumspection required for the next bend. Those RT's could lean for Scotland.....But the pedals and steering wheel stayed upright with the chassis...Very odd when the seat goes out of sync with everything else... Routemasters [Sundays only on 'my' route] were like Cadillacs in comparison..oh so smooth and comfy to drive. Easier too, with no gearchanging necessary.... Modern day bus drivers never had it so good... I found this in my book of Eagle cutaways. I had an uncle who used to drive double-deckers in East Kent in the '70's- based in Deal. He said that by gently rolling the wheel from side to side he could get the old girl swinging like a pendulum - it was especially good fun on a school run when the teenagers upstairs were being particularly obnoxious. When the screams got a bit loud he thought he should ease off a bit. 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Johnson044 Posted May 14, 2022 Share Posted May 14, 2022 11 hours ago, Hroth said: A London Transport Diesel engined 97 Horsepower Omnibus! There's a fair bit of patter to lead in.... On the mix cd I have in the car, this segues unaccountably into Spizz Energis "Where's Captain Kirk"... So as I'd feel confused without it, And that's followed by the Albion Country Bands performance of "The New St George", which is a bit Castle Aching, so here it is... I'll stop now, before I've reconstituted the entire CD! Hold very tight please Ting Ting! As this is May and involves railways this is rather appropriate too: 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Johnson044 Posted May 14, 2022 Share Posted May 14, 2022 BTW - has anyone come across the splendid new figures from Modelu? 5 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
alastairq Posted May 14, 2022 Share Posted May 14, 2022 (edited) 1 hour ago, Johnson044 said: I found this in my book of Eagle cutaways. I had an uncle who used to drive double-deckers in East Kent in the '70's- based in Deal. He said that by gently rolling the wheel from side to side he could get the old girl swinging like a pendulum - it was especially good fun on a school run when the teenagers upstairs were being particularly obnoxious. When the screams got a bit loud he thought he should ease off a bit. Whilst the bus wouldn't actually 'fall over'', the impression it gave to the driver is another matter altogether!! The training a new driver undertook at Chiswick Works, was quite comprehensive, and a good example of where an employer takes/took 'training'' very seriously indeed. Certainly more so than the often ad hoc 'training' one received when starting as a bus driver with the more far flung bus companies. [My experience was also with United Auto, EYMS, and even the likes of Western National....I was too tall to start as a driver on Plymouth Corporation!]Once one had passed the 'test' }' for the PSV licence...one then undertook several bits of training in addition. One was taken out , in a Routemaster often, [since one was also trained on the various bus types likely to be found in one's chosen depot]...which had the entire top deck filled with sand bags. This, to familiarise the new driver with the difference having a full top deck has on the way the bus performs. As part of the normal driver training, one had to pass an assessment on the skid pan as well. Interesting, in that LT were happy to allow visiting parties to Chiswick works to ride the top deck of the skid bus, when in use. Snowflakes weren't around in the 1970's, it seems? Thus one arrived at one's depot with a reasonable idea of what to expect during the course of a day's work. [in those days the PSV driving test was conducted under the auspices of the Area Traffic Commissioner, or in London's case, London Transport itself, with their own Examiners [who also dealt with the Met Police drivers], rather than under the watchful eye of what became the DSA, or MoT. Although, outside of London the Examiners themselves would probably be one & the same, for PSV and HGV.].... If a PSV driver actually moved areas to live or work, then technically a new driving test would need to be conducted, since one's PSV driver's badge would be exchanged for a 'local' number. I eventually undertook, and passed, three separate PSV bus tests within the space of 3 years....because I left London and moved up north. In those days, the PSV tests were categorised according to the type of bus used for test, plus gearbox type, etc. Hence I got a licence full of single deck manual [over a certain capacity], all-types auto, and all-types manual, licences for buses. The conditions of issue of a PSV licence were quite comprehensive and strict. They included stuff like criminal records , which barred one from being a bus driver..... Also, if convicted [or, reported,they were that quick!]....of a traffic offence, a bus driver not onl got it in the ear from the Courts, but also from the Area Traffic Commissioners...who could revoke one's PSV licence regardless of what anyone else thought. The Area Traffic Commissioner had a lot of power back then, and, still does...although it is probably less frequently exercised these days. What a lot of LGV drivers today don't realise is, the Area Traffic Commissioner has the same powers to suspend licence categories for LGV drivers, if they acquire evidence of poor driving behaviour. Not often advertised, though.....but the Commissioners also have the powers to revoke Operators licences...so a driver frequently reported for misdemeanours can incur the wrath of the wagon owner who may have had the number of vehicles they operate suddenly restricted....Trucks sat around unable to move to earn a living tends to focus their minds on the driver that caused all this upset! But, as I intimated, few have even heard of the Traffic Commissioners, let alone understand the full breadth of their powers...with regards to those who earn a livelihood driving on the UK's roads. Edited May 14, 2022 by alastairq 3 4 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Edwardian Posted May 17, 2022 RMweb Gold Share Posted May 17, 2022 In the news ..... Special Constables are are to be issued with tesars Might help even things up ...... 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Hroth Posted May 17, 2022 RMweb Gold Share Posted May 17, 2022 2 hours ago, Edwardian said: Special Constables are are to be issued with tesars Ken Dodd joins the Special Constabulary and poses with his newly issued tesars.... Special Constables with tasers? It'll end up all Hot Fuzz! 4 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Johnson044 Posted May 17, 2022 Share Posted May 17, 2022 Police brutality? Nothing new! 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Edwardian Posted May 17, 2022 RMweb Gold Share Posted May 17, 2022 12 minutes ago, Johnson044 said: Police brutality? Nothing new! Funny in a brilliantly observed but tragically (still) true sort of way. I wonder if the academic interest should not be the issue of whether satire ever changes those at which it's aimed? See also .... 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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