Early Risers.

[Judge Dread]

Afternoon all, the dreaded letter has finally arrived. I am summons to appear at the Castle Hill hospital on Wednesday 11th Feb for heart surgery. A valve replacement. That, I am told, will be a half of the battle. To get it to operate I will be put on a course of Warferin (Rat poison) and if not immediately successful,  a pacemaker will go in. I am already threatened with the spare bedroom because of a new noise that it will bring, that of "clicking". That will be low down on my list of worries.

In the mean time I must put certain matters in order, the first being the layout we at the East Riding Fine Scale group are working on. I have already sub contracted the wiring to Tappa, but feel I should supervise.

 

Thanks everyone for your Friendly/supportive messages. 

I have to survive this operation as my good lady wife has invested in me by buying me a new pair of pyjamas and a dressing gown.

Although the latter does not have my name across the shoulders. 

The very latest update and I post this without wishing to make any comments on the state of the N.H.S. mainly because my wife is a retired S.E.N.

My date for my operation, Feb 12th was put back to March 2nd but on the very morning I received that news I had a phone call to tell me that a new date was being offered, that of Feb 16th.

I have also being informed that a young lady who was born shortly after moving in next door, too many years ago is now the Matron at the hospital I shall be going into next Sunday afternoon. She has promised to look after "Uncle John". Her mother and my wife have been friends for the last 42 years. I'm boned!

[Oldddudders]

Tony_S, on 07 Feb 2015 - 21:32, said:Tony_S, on 07 Feb 2015 - 21:32, said:

I was a bit worried earlier that she was a bit delirious as she told me that "timetabling is fun".

I'm sure Stationmaster Mike would agree with Aditi.

 

Siblings? As part of the run-up to our wedding, Sherry and I are having a quick tour of the UK to meet each other's nearest and dearest. These include my twin brothers, one of whom I have successfully avoided for over 10 years, despite living in the same foreign country for all that time. He's not a bad bloke, I wish him no ill, but we have so little in common. Some of us are born to embrace all others, some of us are not.

Edited February 7, 2015 by Oldddudders

[roundhouse]

Got up late this morning at 05.30 then straight onto working on the layout so apologies for missing the posts on here.

 

Hope all is well in ER. Will have another beer for those that appreciate it.

 

Shepherd Neame Whitstable Bay Black

[roundhouse]

I'm sure Stationmaster Mike would agree with Aditi.

 

Siblings? As part of the run-up to our wedding, Sherry and I are having a quick tour of the UK to meet each other's nearest and dearest. These include my twin brothers, one of whom I have successfully avoided for over 10 years, despite living in the same foreign country for all that time. He's not a bad bloke, I wish him no ill, but we have so little in common. Some of us are born to embrace all others, some of us are not.

Been there a few times.

 

Oddly one of my brothers that used to deliberately break my models is slightly closer then the other one who used to like them but his other half does not approve!!!

[bbishop]

So, guys, I have advanced from the retreat, held in a Quaker Meeting House!  Being Church of England, we had to bring our own booze. The lay members decided we need to organise a diocesan lay conference; all well and good, but the only date that suited everyone else is Saturday 5 September, which is the first day of Guildex.  Oh shucks, kept my mouth shut so  seems I'll be going to Guildex on the Sunday.

 

I've sort of caught up with ER, watched the rugby, visited the invalid in hospital, now it's bath and bed.

 

Bill

[Tony_S]

I think my mother worked at keeping my brother and me apart. She also did quite a good job of keeping us apart from other relatives. We have tried to rectify this over the last few years!

Aditi has a lot of cousins though I think only her mother fully can explain the degree of the relationship. Being an only child Matthew quite likes having cousins no matter how remote.

[lightengine]

Evening all.  Great weekend….England beat Wales and Spurs beat Arsenal.  Does it get any better?...….

Agree with those. Kind of makes the end of season food poisoning by Wengers 'chef' a few seasons ago a bit better.

[laurenceb]

I would have liked to have siblings when I was young but by the time we met it was to late, I am a loner the habits from formative years to set. But it was interesting to find we had similar interests in railways and aviation.

[Tony_S]

I would have liked to have siblings when I was young but by the time we met it was to late, I am a loner the habits from formative years to set. But it was interesting to find we had similar interests in railways and aviation.

Aditi was 39 and I was 40 when Matthew was born. When he was 12 he commented that as he was clearly going to be an only child could we have a dog. Aditi had been resisting the acquisition of a canine companion but couldn't bring herself to say no to that argument hence the arrival of Robbie a few weeks later.

[jamie92208]

I only have one brother and we get on well but don't communicate very often.  However there were twin sisters born in between us, who died shortly after being born.  My mother never spoke about them except as "The twins" and always called out daughter "The little girl".  I later foubd out from my dad, shortly beofre he died, that they ahd actually been named and would have been called Ruth and Mary.  For some reason it was very comforting to know their names and ever since then i have come to regard them as my sisters but would like to have known them.   Looking at the dates and the family blood groups they may well have sufferred from the then undiscovered rhesus factor.

 

Had a good day today and have helped our daughter move out to a new house.   Then had a quiet evening in catching p on here and trying to reduce the pile of unread railway magazines.

 

Jamie

[Barry O]

Evening all!

A long day but worthwhile with 9 people attending the intro to scoring course at Netherfield today.

Threlkeld Cc tomorrow then home, tea, cricket ...sleep!

I have oneone elder sister and very few blood relatives so we all meet up for a weekend once a year. If you have a small family group it makes a difference in how you communicate.

 

Sweet dreams everyone!

 

Baz

[andyram]

Evening all. I hope you have had an enjoyable start to the weekend - very jealous of those who saw the Duchess today. 2015 has yet to bring me a steam fix of any kind.

Illness status: Amber is better, Sarah is well enough to go out, as planned, with her Mum to see the Kaiser Chiefs at Nottingham Arena. As for myself the back is still giving me some aches and pains and I felt very tired all morning. After some debate I did go out to see the mighty Rams thrash Bolton 4-1 this afternoon. The walk to and from the ground may not have done me too good however but the result did help!

 

 Father in law spent some time sharing his thoughts on the Stafford show last week. I am still not quite over the disappointment of missing it yet I must admit. It his birthday on Tuesday and Sarah had hoped to get him some model railway stuff. That may be difficult.

[The Stationmaster]

Our trip to Enfield tomorrow may not happen as Aditi seems to be coughing. We will see how she is tomorrow, perhaps her swigs of Armagnac will have killed the germs. I was a bit worried earlier that she was a bit delirious as she told me that "timetabling is fun".

Tony

 

I'm sure Stationmaster Mike would agree with Aditi. 

 

I'm sure various TOCs 'south of the river' are always looking for willing and able recruits - with a bit of experience under her belt I'm sure she could take on Southern and Thameslink combined and we'd hear no more of the travails of those heading for London Bridge every morning .  

On the other hand if she sticks to college timetabling she might just remain of the view that the process is 'fun' (but has she yet put the timetable to those she has timetabled - that might be when it ceases to be fun?)

[PhilJ W]

My brother only lives 10 miles away but we haven't communicated for a year or two, not that we have fallen out just that we seem to have very little in common. I am a lot closer to my sister but she lives an hours journey away as I've found that as I've got older travelling for any distance has lost its appeal.

[Donw]

I think the word fun applied to timetabling is perhaps a bit optimistic an interesting challenging exercise yes but when you are trying to balance conflicts it can be very frustrating. My experience with timetabling was detailed timetables for changeovers. Trying to minimise outages while introducing complex changes and having to include back out plans for when something falls over. Not quite the same as railway timetables but some of the same problems and there was usually no previous timetable to adapt.

 

I have always found railway and bus timetables interesting you can often recognise the how the shifts between rush hours and quiet periods relate to the number of units required to operate a timetable. Of course sometimes when you find yourself hanging around on some windswept platform waiting for a connection it seems apparent that that connection hadn't played much part in the timetabling.

Don

[Tony_S]

I am not sure that telling Aditi that I thought her timetable was very pretty was entirely the correct thing to say when I delivered another cup of tea earlier.

[Tony_S]

I'm sure various TOCs 'south of the river' are always looking for willing and able recruits - with a bit of experience under her belt I'm sure she could take on Southern and Thameslink combined and we'd hear no more of the travails of those heading for London Bridge every morning .  

On the other hand if she sticks to college timetabling she might just remain of the view that the process is 'fun' (but has she yet put the timetable to those she has timetabled - that might be when it ceases to be fun?)

I think her cunning plan is that if anyone doesn't like the timetable she will invite them to improve it.

[laurenceb]

Night all

[Barry O]

Morning!

Its Sunday and very quiet at my hotel.

 

I never sleep well in a different bed but got the regulation 8 hours in last night!

 

Have a great day!

 

Baz

And trev still missing.....

[Tony_S]

Morning greetings from Essex. Frosty and dry.

Tony

[Coombe Barton]

Cold and foggy/misty. And Sunday. Today we'll take it as it comes.

[NGT6 1315]

Morning all. Temp around freezing and looking a bit windy, so I've every reason to stay on the sofa, wrapped in a blanket. I also have the distinct feeling that the throat thing I've been battling for the past two-and-then-some weeks isn't completely gone yet, so perhaps it'd be wise to see the GP again...

 

But, on to things more pleasant and a few snapshots from our Ore Mountains trip yesterday!

 

An officially designated health resort since 1935, Oberwiesenthal is located immediately near the German-Czech border and with a mean altitude of 914 meters is Germany's highest city (the legal definitions of a city of course being variable internationally), with a population of about 2,231. The city is very popular among those inclined to skiing, which I myself only did once as part of a school excursion more than twenty years ago...

 

 

Oberwiesenthal is also right beneath the Fichtelberg, which is 1,215 meters high. Furthermore, the Klínovec or Keilberg, 1,244 meters high and the highest summit in the Ore Mountains, is not too far away, on Czech territory.

 

 

 

And, the city is the southern terminus of the Fichtelberg Railway, a 17.3-kilometer long 750 mm narrow gauge line starting in Cranzahl where it connects to the standard gauge line from Vejprty to Annaberg-Buchholz and on to Flöha.

 

The Fichtelberg Railway is owned and operated by Sächsische Dampfeisenbahngesellschaft (SDG), the company also holding the Radebeul Ost-Radeburg and Freital-Kipsdorf narrow gauge lines, known as Lößnitzgrundbahn and Weißeritztalbahn respectively. These here are the SDG workshops where stock from all three lines is maintained.

 

 

 

99 1773, one of the typical 2-10-2 tanks of this line, is standing by to work the down P 1002 service departing at 10.13.

 

 

We then started hiking through snow which in many places turned out almost knee-deep, which made this one of the most exhausting endeavours I've undertaken in a long time!

 

 

 

 

The Hüttenbachtal Viaduct, just outside Oberwiesenthal Station.

 

 

 

 

99 1785 blasting uphill on the P 1001 service. I should add there were numerous gricers around!

 

 

 

 

 

It's interesting to note that the south side of the valley, seen here in the distance, is already Czech territory!

 

 

 

There are various bits of heritage stock with Deutsche Reichsbahn lettering stabled at Hammerunterwiesenthal, including a transporter wagon with a four-wheeled standard gauge van on it.

 

 

 

Border crossing at a footbridge in Hammerunterwiesenthal. The sleepy village on the Czech side is called České Hamry, alternately known as Böhmisch Hammer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Among other bits of information, this sign says the border crossing is open from 8 am till 6 pm in the period from 1 October till 31 March, and from 6 am till 8 pm during the remaining months.

 

 

 

…or else!

 

 

 

More historic DR style freight stock at Hammerunterwiesenthal...

 

 

 

…appropriately lettered for Karl-Marx-Stadt!

 

 

 

Here, 99 1773 was rolling downhill on the P 1006 service. 

 

 

 

 

Given that this gravel hopper has old-style couplers, I suppose it is no longer in regular use.

 

 

 

We then rode uphill on the P 1005 service, headed by 99 1785. The steam locomotives used on the Fichtelberg Railway are ex-Deutsche Reichsbahn class 99.77-79 engines, built 1952-1956 at the People-Owned Karl Marx Locomotive Works in Babelsberg. A total of 26 were built to provide the still-extensive 750 mm narrow gauge lines with modern motive power to relieve and replace the potpourri of pre-WW2 locomotives. Overall length is 11.3 meters; service weight, 55 tonnes; power output, 600 hp; maximum speed, 30 kph.

 

 

 

You may actually remain on the coaches' entry platforms during the ride, so I managed to surprise this flock of sheep, and catch other vistas...

 

 

 

 

 

Coaches are steam-heated.

 

 

 

Grice and be griced! 

 

 

 

Approaching the viaduct...

 

 

 

…and passing clouds. Of steam.

 

 

 

99 1785 shunting out...

 

 

 

…and running around to the depot for watering.

 

 

 

 

And with that done, she is seen here returning to duty.

 

After that, it was time for a hot coffee and some cake for us!

 

 

Have a good one, troops...

Edited February 8, 2015 by 1216 025

[Smiffy2]

G'morning. Cold and dull in Carshalton-sur-Mer. The whelk fishermen won't be out today as the bulb has gone in the lighthouse.

Varnished shelves yesterday, varnishing shelves today. So it goes.

 

Best wishes to those in travail, and yes, where is Trev?

 

More coffee then down m'shed.

[jamie92208]

Just to reply to the comment about meeting up with relatives.  Due to my mother being one of 9 siblings I have many blood relatives inccluding 14 (surviving) first cousins and dozens of second cousins.   We do meet up occaisionally at weddings/golden weddings and sadly funerals.   However due to some unique circumstances we do keep in touch.

 

My mother was left an orphan at the age of 13 when my Grandfather died in 1929.  The youngest of the 9 was 4 and the eldest were out at work.  Their mother had died 2 years previously.   Various offers were made to adopt individual siblings but they decided, as a family that they wanted to stay together.  The ever caring church (My Grandfather was a minister) gave them one months notice to quit the manse so they asked their businessman uncle (The balck sheep of the family who had run away from school) to help them.  he bought themn a cottage in Headingley, in north Leedsand they then brought each othr up with no outside agency involvement.  The eldest ent out to work and the youger ones helped bring up the youngest ones.  All nine got some sort of professional qualifications and became teachers, dentists, doctors etc.   As the eldest left home and moved further afield they started to write to each other to keep in touch.   This became a regular round robin letter called 'The budget' that circualted round all 9 siblings.  Each would write a letter to "Dear Family" and put it into the package of previous letters then send it on.  A couple of months later it would return with 8 new letters and the writers previous one.  

 

As the siblings got older my generation gadually became invlved and the letter is still going the rounds.   The rule is that it should be handwritten apart from the two that live in Canada who are allowed to email their letters, which are then printed and put into the bundle.   It is a real joy to receive 12 new hand written letters every 2 or 3 moths and to hear about the various activities of the cousins.   

 

I was deemed mature enough to become a contributer in 1987, aged 35 and have kept all my own letters.  A couple of years ago my daughter found the file and read the story of her upbringing and thought it was a fabulous record.

 

It does mean that this widely separated family do keep in touch.

 

Jamie

[AndyB]

Morning all,

 

<Rant mode enable>

Has anyone else noticed that BT Yahoo email has gone a bit pear shaped? 

First of all a couple of days ago I noticed that there is no longer a tick box to keep me signed in. 

Then it would randomly tell me to sign in every couple of minutes, or 20 minutes or not at all.

Then I noticed that clicking on the Inbox hyperlink actually returned you to the website you were browsing before visiting BT Yahoo.

Yesterday they imposed some kind of funky theme colour on my page then gave me the option to change it for another theme - I opted for one as close to what I had before they @rsed it up. The theme actually has "low density grey" colour type and unread messages are about one notch up from "low density grey" colour, making it tricky to see which messages have been read and which haven't.

Then they started putting sponsored links at the top of the inbox list.

I followed some advice and visited the "gear box" settings which does remove the sponsored link, but pressing "save" only lasts as long as the session - if you close the browser it reverts to BT Yahoo's preference for you, namely to push sponsored links under your nose.

So, I've started to click on the sponsored links, visit the companies that are spending their advertising budget with BT Yahoo and fill in their contact sheets telling them in no uncertain terms that as they spammed me, I'm going to use up some of their time, too.

I also visited the links provided by BT Yahoo to manage adverts, clicked on updating my preferences and it made, erm, no difference and, you guessed it, didn't save longer than the time I was on the page.

 

Makes you wonder what they teach folk on web design courses these days.  

 

<Rant Mode Disabled>