Early Risers.

[brianusa]

20 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

  Presumably this is part of 'settling in'?

 

That is part of the fun to cat people, you never know what going to happen next.  Non cat people will never understand!

     Brian.

   

[brianusa]

10 hours ago, Debs. said:

Le livre est arrivé!

Elle est impressionnée.

 

Books are feminine?

     Brian

[JohnDMJ]

7 minutes ago, brianusa said:

 

Books are feminine?

     Brian

 

Er, no!

 

Books are masculine but pound Sterling or pound weight are feminine!

 

Debs: google translate worked well for you!

 

Le livre - book

La livre - £ or lb

Edited November 13, 2019 by JohnDMJ

[Simon G]

I do recall drinking Courage back in my youth in Berkshire.  They had more than one brewery, and the one in the centre of Reading did produce a very nice beer, called Directors.  The equivalent from other breweries wasn’t the same quality.  Sadly, Courage opened a new ‘keggery’ brewery on the outskirts of Reading and closed the town centre one.  The resultant product was not good!

 

Stiff neck and shoulders are responding to the hot water bottles and have eased off somewhat.  Hopefully it will be better again tomorrow, as I have to go visit the relatives of a Railway modeller who recently passed away, and they want some advice and valuation on his collection.

[tigerburnie]

G'night all

[Barry O]

Goodnight all!

Baz

[PhilJ W]

Evening all from Estuary-Land. Glad that Tony had his chest problems examined. What can seem like a minor ache could be signs of a more serious problem. As in my brothers case, he put down the back ache he suffered to doing a lot of bending at work. It turned out to be a kidney stone blocking the tube from kidney to bladder. I am fortunate that when I had a kidney stone it passed through without blocking anything. Just before it did so I suffered some backache which I had put down to arthritis but thinking back it was not on my spine but to one side. 

[BSW01]

Good evening everyone 

 

Well the rain stopped just before I went out to Waitrose, so I didn’t get wet. Sheila was a happy bunny when I got back as I managed to get everything she put on the shopping list. I even called in at the butchers on my way home and ordered some pies for Friday nights tea!

 

Once I’d got back home and put away all the shopping, which didn’t take long as there wasn’t a great deal of it, Sheila made me muggertea No2, which I drank before putting away all my soldering equipment. After that I then decorated the carrot cake ready for tonight. Tonight’s tea was a relatively easy one, pizza! so all I had to do was just put them in the oven. Not long after getting here Ava wanted a bit of quiet time, so she and I spent most of it in the kitchen, she was reading a book, whilst I perused the rmweb and did a few sudoku puzzles. Having separated Ava and Max for most of the evening, it wasn’t as traumatic as it could have been. I think, having Ava reading at the kitchen table could well be the way to go in the future.

 

The possibility of an ER’s meet up sounds like a good idea, I’ve had a quick look on line for trains to and from Derby, Manchester to Derby via Sheffield takes between 1 1/2 - 2 hours and is less than £30, so assuming there are no family commitments, it’s definitely do-able, I just need confirmation of a date and venue. 

 

Goodnight all. 

[bbishop]

Someone came down from Head Office to the Stroke Club this afternoon.  I was told that our club already had two first aiders so my certificate wouldn't be renewed unless I was prepared to relocate to another club.  I know that I'm merely a volunteer but they are treating me as a resource who can be moved around as required, without consultation.  Feeling very unhappy.

 

Bill

[NGT6 1315]

What‘s wrong here?  
 

Night, awl...

[PhilJ W]

Goodnight all.

[brianusa]

1 minute ago, NGT6 1315 said:

What‘s wrong here?  
 

Night, awl...

Depends which way you want to go.

      Brian.

[The Stationmaster]

2 hours ago, Simon G said:

I do recall drinking Courage back in my youth in Berkshire.  They had more than one brewery, and the one in the centre of Reading did produce a very nice beer, called Directors.  The equivalent from other breweries wasn’t the same quality.  Sadly, Courage opened a new ‘keggery’ brewery on the outskirts of Reading and closed the town centre one.  The resultant product was not good!

 

Stiff neck and shoulders are responding to the hot water bottles and have eased off somewhat.  Hopefully it will be better again tomorrow, as I have to go visit the relatives of a Railway modeller who recently passed away, and they want some advice and valuation on his collection.

The brewery in the centre(ish) of Reading was Simonds who produced some quite good beers.  They amalgamated with Courage in 1960 but nothing really changed for a decade.  But then their pubs were rebranded 'Courage' as were their beers although the message duly advised out was that the brew would not change.   It seems that either the message was wrong or the 'unchanged' brew wasn't quite as unchanged as it was advertised to be.  I was a consumer of beer back in those days and Simonds best bitter was quite a palatable drop of stuff but after the name change and the 'unchanged' change to the brew it had a distinctly 'soapy' sort of taste to it and the gravity was reduced.

 

Their original premises in Reading was sold for redevelopment after they got involved with Scottish & Newcastle and they built a very modern 'fizz beer' chemical plant out near the M4 and at one time they actually proposed to move the brewing of Newcastle Brown there.  But instead the chemical plant was closed down c.2007 and the brewing was moved elsewhere - I think that was after Youngs took over.

 

22 minutes ago, bbishop said:

Someone came down from Head Office to the Stroke Club this afternoon.  I was told that our club already had two first aiders so my certificate wouldn't be renewed unless I was prepared to relocate to another club.  I know that I'm merely a volunteer but they are treating me as a resource who can be moved around as required, without consultation.  Feeling very unhappy.

 

Bill

Oh dear, sorry to hear that Bill.  Alas they are obviously the sort of organisation which doesn't know how to deal with volunteers and nurture them to encourage their commitment, not good.

[Tony_S]

13 minutes ago, NGT6 1315 said:

What‘s wrong here?  
 

Night, awl...

Leaves near the line?

[The Stationmaster]

10 minutes ago, NGT6 1315 said:

What‘s wrong here?  
 

Night, awl...

Quite a lot if you had received an indication that the points were properly set for a facing movement.   If you had gone ahead through them they would have been well and truly split.

[newbryford]

Busy few days at work and home, including our annual MRC show - it seemed to mostly go well.

(Second) new phone received. This one seems to do what it says on the tin.

 

Two days off before a straight 14 days on - my rostered days off coincide with the Warley show, but I'll be there in a paid capacity - so little chance of escaping for a RMweb meetup. ( I may manage some time off from work either side of Warley to break up the run of 14 though)

 

Re: a ER meet up. Whatever time/date/location is chosen, it will fall into "you'll never please all of the people, all of the time". 

 

There may be some golf tomorrow morning and a trip to Wakefield Friday afternoon/evening.  Other spare time may be involve the harming of plywood in a controlled manner, that will be detailed on my workbench thread.

 

Have a good end of the week folks.

 

Cheers,

Mick

 

 

 

[newbryford]

21 minutes ago, NGT6 1315 said:

What‘s wrong here?  
 

Night, awl...

 

Has somebody removed the over-centre spring..............?

[The Stationmaster]

G'night all

[pH]

We have returned from the Land of the Subarus - the West Kootenays of British Columbia, centred on Nelson. I reckon about 1 local car in 10 is a Subaru, of all models and ages. Apparently, they are known as "Kootenay Cadillacs". With all-wheel drive and a set of proper winter tires, they'll go almost anywhere, even in the worst of weather. And the local dealership is very well thought of, which must help with repeat sales.

 

Snow was falling overnight on Monday, but we were going to take two days to the journey anyway, so we waited till it eased off on Tuesday before we tackled the first and highest pass on our route home. By the time we got there, it had been well plowed and gritted and wasn't a problem.

 

Weird sight today - a "convoy" of 6 high-end SUVs stopped on the side of the road out in open country, just starting to move off as we passed, so that one was in front of us, and the others followed us. Those behind us passed us fairly soon afterwards, all speeding significantly, and a couple crossing double yellow centre lines ("do not cross") to do so. Five out of the six had Ontario registration plates - four provinces and more than 1300 miles east of where this happened. Politician(s) on a road trip? High-powered investors - Canadian or foreign - looking at possible real-estate investments (there was a 'For Sale' sign on a large rural property where they had been stopped when we first saw them)? Prisoner(s) being transferred? Once they passed us, they all took off at a speed well beyond the limit, and we didn't see them again.

[roundhouse]

6 hours ago, newbryford said:

 

Has somebody removed the over-centre spring..............?

Or its had a track short and the decoder has recentred the turnout once the short has cleared, well that happened on a friends Swiss layout untill he reprogrammed them to not do that (you will know the decoders Mick)

 

Monring all. Been in shed checking out 'Lapford' still ran after further weathering. Also still trying ot work out why a brass loco has an intermittent short. Think its the motor as the decoder wiring had definitely been isolated form the chassis where it needs to as it has been running fine.

Edited November 14, 2019 by roundhouse

[Robert]

Morning All,

 

It is a slightly milder morning today.

 

Interestingly enough, both a book (das Buch), and a pound (das Pfund - Sterling and weight) are neutral in German.

 

I probably have drunk Courage in the past, having lived in London for several years.  However, whenever somebody mentions it, the first thing that springs to mind is the "Take Courage" ghost sign in Park Street SE1 which can be seen from the railway between London Bridge and Waterloo East.

 

As for Dominik's Points - I used to have a set of Hornby points that did that!

 

Have a good day everyone...

[roundhouse]

13 minutes ago, Robert said:

 

 

I probably have drunk Courage in the past, having lived in London for several years.  However, whenever somebody mentions it, the first thing that springs to mind is the "Take Courage" ghost sign in Park Street SE1 which can be seen from the railway between London Bridge and Waterloo East.

 

 

I briefly worked on the old Courage site before moving company. The houses were being built ontop of the old brewery concrete slab with the drainage hung undernieth before being filled with fly ash. This was the 1980's and doubt that would be allwed now.

[chrisf]

Good morning one and all

 

I finished writing my seasonal greetings cards yesterday afternoon - at least I think I did.  To my surprise there are over 60 of them.  Some will be delivered by hand, because I know that I will be meeting the “lucky” recipients in the next few weeks.  Most are to be posted, and here I salute the kind person who invented self-adhesive stamps.  As far as C*****mas is concerned, I am firmly of the humbug persuasion and even have a “Bah Humbug” sweater. This does not stop me remembering friends and this time of year seems like a good time to do that.

 

My thanks to Happy Hippo for educating me about the type of sushi that includes rice.  Life is full of surprises where food is concerned.  Where possible, I eat in accordance with the customs of the country that I happen to be in.  This does not always work.  On one Swiss tour we were served fondue with no prior tuition and it was not well received.  The posh hotels where we stay tend not to offer rosti and we are compelled to forage for it, on one occasion taking the train from Luzern to Chur to do so.  The other point I need to make is that I prefer not to eat burgers, or cow pats as I call them, and with rare exceptions confine my visits to McDonalds to using the toilet.

 

Today’s evening meal will probably be in London.  A friend and I will be attending a concert at the Union Chapel featuring June Tabor and the Oyster Band.  Almost opposite the venue is a ‘Spoons which should be much less crowded than the one at St Pancras.  Although I cannot recall its name I have a certain affection for it because it was there that The Tie was first admired by a barman.  What will we eat?  Possibly fish, for today is not Friday.

 

Thoughts this morning to Jamie, who has had to abort his trip to the UK.  Without him the Brains Trust in a couple of weeks will be not unlike Hamlet minus the Prince of Denmark.  Thoughts also to Bill after the callous ingratitude shown to him.

 

Best wishes to all

 

Chris

[NGT6 1315]

Cheers, folks. Chilly outside, so currently having a cuppa before shuttling Annika to the nursery. At least I got the weekend off, when we'll be out for dinner on Saturday!

 

6 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

Quite a lot if you had received an indication that the points were properly set for a facing movement.   If you had gone ahead through them they would have been well and truly split.

 

There is an optical position signal on spring-loaded points like this one, so I could see something was amiss in time as this signal had been unlit. I had caught a fragment of a radio call before apparently referring to problems with some point, too, so I (correctly) assumed it had referred to this specific example. Control did have a lot on their hands yesterday in any case due to a previous route closure following a police response to an assault on a person, as well as a car vs. tram encounter elsewhere. Radio problems such as they occurred at the time were just the icing on the cake, if you will.

 

That being said, the point from my photo has a reputation for causing trouble of this kind occasionally. I understand there have been derailments there in the past even though it had been properly set, with no clear cause ever having been determined.

 

'avagoodun.

[Ozexpatriate]

1 hour ago, pH said:

We have returned from the Land of the Subarus - the West Kootenays of British Columbia, centred on Nelson.

Plenty of Subarus in the Portland area too. A relatively new dealership on the southern edge of the Portland metro area advertises itself as the "Largest Subaru Dealership in the US". This refers to the footprint of the building - they have a very large enclosed showroom and service centre.

 

According to one search result, Vermont seems to be the epicenter of Subaru ownership in the US and Oregon comes in at number 5. The Portland area probably has more of them than other parts of the state.