Early Risers.

[bbishop]

A quiet shift yesterday, normally an evening shift would be enlivened by the effects of falling down water, but not at the moment.  So instead we were parked up in an ambulance station forecourt (facilities to hand) observing a couple of the local double decker bus services, obviously from different garages but both outer suburbs routes.  One was middle entrance, no payment and limited to twenty passengers; the other was front entrance, payment, no limits.  Most people were masked except the younger generation.

 

Travelling regularly on trains, I  would be comfortable with 40% - 50% loading, just so long as everyone used masks and hand sanitation.  But then you get the idiot who sits in the aisle seat nearest the entrance and blares into his / her mobile phone.  I would be tempted to spray them with sanitiser, except I'm wearing St John Ambulance uniform.

 

Lurker, been there a couple of weeks ago, got the puncture wound, result within 48 hours.  Bill

[Barry O]

We still have a 10 minutes interval bus service into town. It becomes 30 minutes at 7pm just when you used to go for a beer (!)

Baz

[Mark Saunders]

Just now, Barry O said:

We still have a 10 minutes interval bus service into town. It becomes 30 minutes at 7pm just when you used to go for a beer (!)

Baz

How civilised every thirty minutes in an evening, I was happy with one an hour till the local council pulled all busses in evenings! North Yorkshire County Council has turned into a money raising venture rather than a service for residents over recent years! 

[southern42]

' afternoon  all from red dragon land.

 

4 hours ago, roundhouse said:

A long time friend and other half should have been on a new ship around now but instead they went for a day out to Swanage and Weymouth, where they could seee various cruise ships anchored in the bay. He works for Southern so has had to take his allocated leave.

 

Had things been different, we would probably be at Didcot, after leaving here

on the Holyhead-Euston train on Thursday to catch

the 23.00 Paddington-Penzance Sleeper with

an off-peak day return for yesterday to the Bodmin & Wenford Rly, then

a few hours in Penzance, retuning

on the 21.00 Sleeper back to Paddington to see the Cornish countryside as the sun went down (assuming it was shining, of course), arriving for breakfast at Paddington, followed by

an off-peak day return to Didcot Rly Centre and returning back home

on the 18.10 Euston-Holyhead train.

A bit of midsummer madness!  Next year, maybe? That is what we said last year, when the dates would have coincided with the solstice but things getting in the way of going... Yet, strangely, I am not disappointed.  I guess it is because I am having the time at home to do and enjoy the things I usually have not got the time for!

 

Intermittent sunshine.  Good enough for me.

At least, I will manage a bike ride on the terrace.

 

HH, superb picture of our terrace you posted, by the way.  Close.  Very close. 

And here is our view of it....

 

I had to fight tooth and nail to keep the "Moon at Night" slab.  The builder was going to turn it over!

Yes, in truth, it is purely the build up of several past sprayings of various m*d*ll*ng bits and other paint jobs but I saw it as another part of the lump of slate's history.  Besides, I saw it as a work of art to keep and who wants to pay for someone else's when you can have your own for free and for nothing (yn rhad ac am ddim) as we say round here? 

 

The first of our G waste collection goes out this Thursday, then we can start working round the overgrown areas and make the place look a bit tidier.

 

Time for lunch.

Fitt   and  Elfie working up an appetite.

 

Take care and play safe.

_________

Best wishes

Polly

Edited June 20, 2020 by southern42

[Tony_S]

The bus stops near our house enable us to go to Basildon, Southend or Canvey Island. Fairly frequent services. Once upon a time you could go to Chelmsford or Romford. At least the bus to Southend goes via Southend Hospital now. It used to be a journey involving bus changes or walking some distance. The bus stop outside the hospital must be one of the most polluted places in Southend as it full of smokers evading the no smoking on hospital property rule. 
Tony

[southern42]

Happy anniversary, Simon. Have a lovely day.

[southern42]

5 minutes ago, Tony_S said:

The bus stops near our house enable us to go to Basildon, Southend or Canvey Island. Fairly frequent services. Once upon a time you could go to Chelmsford or Romford. At least the bus to Southend goes via Southend Hospital now. It used to be a journey involving bus changes or walking some distance. The bus stop outside the hospital must be one of the most polluted places in Southend as it full of smokers evading the no smoking on hospital property rule. 
Tony

 

Our bus service, goes via the hospital, but it was a bit of a walk to the entrance and it gets mighty wet and windy up there!  Recently, it was moved close to A&E and the Main entrance - a lot more friendly.  If it is still sited there during the current situation I do not know.  Hopefully, I will not need to find out!

 

[45156]

Afternoon All

 

Sorry to say that I have been AWOL for several days, due to 30747 monopolising the laptop for getting ahead with her mandatory training for work, which she decided to undertake while on furlough - but as I am needed to navigate (and indeed remember the facts so that "she" we I gets a decent score on the questions at the end.  She used to have these courses in house or somewhere like the Holiday Inn - but nowadays, they are all done online, of course.

 

Happy Anniversary to Simon and Mrs.

 

Generic greetings are, of course, on offer to all fellow ERs as well.

 

Forecast for tomorrow is for heavy rain, then showers all day, so we won't be attending the A6 car boot unless things change dramatically overnight.  It will also put the mockers on any painting of the last gate.   No doubt there will be more "training" to undertake.

 

Regards to All

Stewart

[TheQ]

Afternoon awl, 

Lead melted,  to within a 1/4inch of the top of the mould. Weight 152kg, close enough,  Two sheets of lead left over. 

The keel bolt holes now need drilling,  then the wooden keel stub, trial fitted, any adjustments done,  with a fiberglass pad, bonding between the two. 

 

During melting time, two door frames were made,  one is installed with net,  just needs a latch making,  the other is just a bare frame at the moment. 

 

At that point I retired fried,  just too hot and humid in the sun. 

 

We then watched the recorded final episode of a house through time,  roughly knowing the area,  I checked a map to find its Just a couple of hundred yards from where I with RAF Locking MRC exhibited a layout in a building by the docks in about 1977.

Then a programme came on where they recycle stuff from a council tip,  and what did I see.. That building. 

Meanwhile on this tablet,  it came up that 10 Guinea street is up for sale,    £800,000 for a nice house unfortunately surrounded by tower blocks.  They are probably hoping the TV will help sell the house, but with the programme mentioning the first two owners of the house being slave traders,  and Guinea street being named after the Guinea coast where the slaves come from, that might not have the effect they want at this present time. 

 

 

 

 

[chrisf]

Why wait till tomorrow for these?  Happy anniversary to Simon and Mrs G, and many thanks to Tony S for that delightful pic of the koala. If you give them a bit of tree to sit on it is more likely that they will sit still while being weighed.  That's koalas, not the anniversary couple.

[JohnDMJ]

20 minutes ago, chrisf said:

Why wait till tomorrow for these?  Happy anniversary to Simon and Mrs G, and many thanks to Tony S for that delightful pic of the koala. If you give them a bit of tree to sit on it is more likely that they will sit still while being weighed.  That's koalas, not the anniversary couple.

 

More than just one post per day seems to be permitted hereon!!

[PhilJ W]

Afternoon all from Estuary-Land. I got one of those 'Something went wrong with your TV licence payment' e-mails the other day. I can't believe people still fall for this rubbish. Apart from the spelling and grammatical errors the date was given as 06/16/2020. Its now in the spam folder and the sender blocked. I've ordered my new wheelbarrow through e-bay, £60 including p&p. Now to do a bit of shed clearing, be back later.

[tigerburnie]

Had a lovely morning, daughter, son in law and two grandsons arrived for a picnic in the garden, still social distancing, but it looks like someone's been spoilt for fathers day. Then a 10 miles cycle ride, made the mistake of taking part of the coast road, heaving with cars all over the verges as the car park is still locked. Whisky for dinner tonight not sure if any solids may accompany it yet...……………………..enjoy the day.

Happy Anniversary Simon and Boss

[J. S. Bach]

3 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

That’s really a spectacularly ugly vehicle. It looks like the result of an incestuous relationship between a transit van and a city hopper. The MB Sprinter conversion looks the dog’s danglies in comparison. Nor am I impressed by the livery: in a country where every mode of public transport seems to be daubed in violent, eye haemorrhaging colours, this is positively boringly drab by comparison. I thought the whole idea of liveries on public transportation is to make the vehicles carrying them stand out from the rest of the traffic. One could be forgiven for expecting this vehicle to have a ladder sticking out the back and somewhere on the sides, back or front the logo “no job too small, reasonable rates“

Would I be over optimistic in assuming that the ride comfort is good and the ticket price reasonable?

"That’s really a spectacularly ugly vehicle"; well, it is a Ford .  I do not know about the ride quality as I have never ridden it. The service is a blend of dial-a-ride and fixed route and the fare structure is not familiar to me.

 

Speaking of system colors, I worked for Broward County Transit in Ft. Lauderdale, FL;

The first (oddly, the 60 was the route that I lived closest to, about a half-block walk to the nearest stops):

 

the second color scheme (the first was before I worked there):

 

The third (and best imnsho):

 

The fourth:

 

"public transport seems to be daubed in violent, eye haemorrhaging colours" I think ours were mild compared to some most that I have seen. But, having said that, a former co-worker sent me this a month or so ago, apparently marketing went crazy and now I am in agreement with you !

 

 

Edited June 20, 2020 by J. S. Bach

[AndrewC]

4 minutes ago, J. S. Bach said:

"That’s really a spectacularly ugly vehicle"; well, it is a Ford .  I do not know about the ride quality as I have never ridden it. The service is a blend of dial-a-ride and fixed route and the fare structure is not familiar to me.

 

Speaking of system colors, I worked for Broward County Transit in Ft. Lauderdale, FL;

The first:

 

the second color scheme (the first was before I worked there):

 

The third (and best imnsho):

 

The fourth:

 

"public transport seems to be daubed in violent, eye haemorrhaging colours" I think ours were mild compared to some most that I have seen. But, having said that, a former co-worker sent me this a month or so ago, apparently marketing went crazy and now I am in agreement with you !

 

I love the old fish bowl bus. A classic design. 

[The Stationmaster]

We did have a town 'bus service until it was locked down before it fell down.   Reading Transport were the operator on contract but it wasn't making much (any?) money and they were going to give up the contract but lockdown beat them to it, just. More for amusement (amazement?) rather than. utility I have kept a copy of the timetable handy since the service started and that fully illustrates why it was a failure - only one route of the three actually made any sort of sense, one of the others went round the town in what amounted to the wrong direction and was the only one which served the station but wasn't any use at all if you wanted to catch a train as it missed the train by 9 minutes leaving a 21 minute wait until the next one and was in any case no use at all for commuters.  Apart from that it had to go to the roundabout at the entrance to Tesco in order to make a right turn easier but it wasn't timed to stop there!    The third route was little more than a time filler - according to the timetable the outward leg took all of 4 minutes end-to-end although the return leg took 5 minutes (the extra minute was presumably to circumnavigate the town hall?).

 

We do have a good service to reading - a route from Marlow and High Wycombe which does serve various villages on its way but as a. through route to Reading it's much slower than the train journey (or rather slower than the train journey was before Crossrail trains arrived on the main line) so I've only used it once in the past 60 years (it is obviously a different operator nowadays. but the present Arriva operated route is very little different from The Thames Valley operated route of over 60 years ago.

[Florence Locomotive Works]

Morning all,

 

Just got back from another drive in the Alfa, the city is awash with police for Trumps arrival. Currently going down to ye olde workshop to silver solder the condenser onto the engine, so that will be interesting.

[Simon G]

23 minutes ago, Florence Locomotive Works said:

Morning all,

 

Just got back from another drive in the Alfa, the city is awash with police for Trumps arrival.

 

 

Are they planning to arrest him then?

As to the discussion on bus services, what bus services??  Our last service, which was rubbish anyway, disappeared about 10 years ago.

 

Thanks for all the anniversary greetings.  The lasagne is now in the oven, so I am having a short break while it cooks.  A bottle of red is awaiting us, and home grown strawberries to follow for later.  Having been slaving over a hot stove for a while, I will be suitably peckish when everything is ready.

 

 

[Florence Locomotive Works]

15 minutes ago, Simon G said:

 

Are they planning to arrest him then?

As to the discussion on bus services, what bus services??  Our last service, which was rubbish anyway, disappeared about 10 years ago.

 

Thanks for all the anniversary greetings.  The lasagne is now in the oven, so I am having a short break while it cooks.  A bottle of red is awaiting us, and home grown strawberries to follow for later.  Having been slaving over a hot stove for a while, I will be suitably peckish when everything is ready.

 

 

I wish, it would save us a lot of trouble. Happy anniversary to you as well.

[Ozexpatriate]

1 hour ago, The Stationmaster said:

the only one which served the station but wasn't any use at all if you wanted to catch a train as it missed the train by 9 minutes leaving a 21 minute wait until the next one

With my understanding of the reliability of timely bus service, with a 21 minute buffer, maybe you could actually catch the train.

 

Actually some of the local suburban buses here are so untroubled by passengers that they keep time very well. Trimet in Portland is a different story.

[Ozexpatriate]

1 hour ago, J. S. Bach said:

... I worked for Broward County Transit in Ft. Lauderdale, FL;

The first (oddly, the 60 was the route that I lived closest to, about a half-block walk to the nearest stops):

 

 

1 hour ago, AndrewC said:

I love the old fish bowl bus. A classic design. 

I'm not much of a bus person but I'm thinking of Jason Shron's New Look Bus (fish bowl) from Rapido Trains.

 

Yes, no?

 

He ran so many liveries that there might already be one very close.

[J. S. Bach]

23 minutes ago, Ozexpatriate said:

 

I'm not much of a bus person but I'm thinking of Jason Shron's New Look Bus (fish bowl) from Rapido Trains.

Yes, no?

He ran so many liveries that there might already be one very close.

Corgi did one also but it was too small for O at 1/50; the same with their American PCC trolley . Edit: I forgot to add that U.S. O scale is 1/48.

Edited June 20, 2020 by J. S. Bach

[AndrewC]

5 minutes ago, Ozexpatriate said:

 

I'm not much of a bus person but I'm thinking of Jason Shron's New Look Bus (fish bowl) from Rapido Trains.

 

Yes, no?

 

He ran so many liveries that there might already be one very close.

Very likely. The GM new look bus was a staple of many transit systems through the 70s an 80s. I rode one daily for school 78-80 then work 80-88. Comfortable. Warm in winter but bloody greenhouse on a hot day. 

[J. S. Bach]

1 hour ago, Florence Locomotive Works said:

Morning all,

 

Just got back from another drive in the Alfa, the city is awash with police for Trumps arrival. Currently going down to ye olde workshop to silver solder the condenser onto the engine, so that will be interesting.

Nice windshield wipers !

[polybear]

5 hours ago, Tony_S said:

I saw this “How to weigh a Koala” on Twitter. 
I thought ChrisF might like to know how they do.

 

I recall a story about a large area of forest being felled illegally during, or just after the fires in Oz, which of course meant an added big problem for the local wildlife population including Koalas.  Do any of our ER'ers based in Oz know the outcome of this (i.e. did the scrotes responsible get strung up by the goolies?).

 

5 hours ago, Happy Hippo said:

Obviously they all married hairdressers.

 

 

 

 

*Some* of whom *may* not have looked twice at (now) Hubby had they been a dustman and not a footie player.... 

 

5 hours ago, bbishop said:

But then you get the idiot who sits in the aisle seat nearest the entrance and blares into his / her mobile phone.  I would be tempted to spray them with sanitiser, except I'm wearing St John Ambulance uniform.

 

 

Better still, an axe thru' their phone.