Early Risers.

[iL Dottore]

29 minutes ago, grandadbob said:

Nothing steamy will be happening here tomorrow.  

There’s pills available for that, nowadays!

[Coombe Barton]

2 minutes ago, iL Dottore said:

There’s pills available for that, nowadays!

Also made by Pfizer?

[The Stationmaster]

Morning all,

 

The bins have bin done - a bit later than normal - and we are currently having an inter-rainum with much more of it promised for this evening.

 

 Some much brighter news a is that the Good Doctor heard yesterday afternoon that she has been accepted for nurse training duly sponsored by the Oxford University Health Trust - which will save her about £16,000 in fees although her salary will drop. Tthe practical training will be in the Trust's hospitals etc - which alas extend as far north as Banbury just to be rather awkward - and the Uni/degree part will be with the Open University. 

 

Nothing else of major import thus far today but my new Driving Licence has arrived and actually has the correct details and dates on it this time.

 

Have a good day one and all and stay safe.

[The Stationmaster]

9 minutes ago, Coombe Barton said:

Also made by Pfizer?

So do you have to take two 21 days apart before they actually do anything?

[jamie92208]

1 hour ago, New Haven Neil said:

 

Morning.

 

Sold a few of those to folk around this forum (and others) over the years!  Shame he waited until we had stopped trading!

 

Trainspotting at Panama brings back a memory of watching a switcher, SW1200 or similar, rushing about while we took bunker oil one evening.  I hadn't realised at the time the Panama railway was a funny gauge (5 foot?) but I think it has been relaid to standard gauge now?

 

 

Yes indeed the original Panama Railway, which was the first railway across America, despite what Union Pacific say, was 5' gauge. That was taken over by the canal company and used during the construction of the canal and afterwards.  A few years ago, it was taken over by the Owners of Kansas City Southern from the US who standard gauged the mainline and instituted a service taking refrigerated containers from coast to coast from ships that were too heavily loaded to go through the canal. They used ex Amtrak F40's with Head End Power to keep the reefers cool. 

Not brilliant taken through a bus window en route to the station for a train trip to Colon and back (No sniggering at the back there) Here is one of the aforementioned uglies.

This cut off the trackwork in the various canal compound which are still 5' gauge used by mobile cranes like this one.

and assorted plant.   The cut off trackwork at each of the sites still runs up towards the now standard gauged main line.

  Our transit of the Canal took a full 12 hours on the P & O cruise and was a fabulous day.

Two other little things,  Try working out the geometry for this turntable. 5' gauge plus side contact conduit electrical supply.

This is the strange sight of conduit trackwork being rebuilt in 2007. It carries the supply to the mules that hold the ships in position. 

Jamie

[polybear]

1 hour ago, grandadbob said:

 

She is fully aware of what is being done.    It has nothing to do with small wheeled items that run on strips of metal.

 

But:

"Aware" doesn't equal "permission"......

"Small two-wheeled" doesn't rule out "large two wheeled"....

 

Bear is currently washing down the ceiling with sugar soap.  It's killing me man....

 

[simontaylor484]

Iirc viagra was made at Pfizer in Sandwich the factory was constructed around 2000 it was a big Bison job that went wrong. We ended up with trailers stood down there with concrete on for weeks

[New Haven Neil]

Thanks Jamie - whilst I made several transits of the canal in both directions when on smaller ships (our larger were too big to get through, there is such a thing as 'Panamax'  designs, we only had one that I didn't sail on, about 80,000 dwt but a bit narrow for their size IIRC, we had many much larger vessels) I was always too busy to have time to grab a camera and take any photos - a junior officers lot!  Pah.

[The Stationmaster]

I have known several people who have crewed on these things as Deck Officers and the ships have two problems .  The obvious one - as with many ro-ro vessels - is the way they are loaded and unloaded and the way the cargo weight is distributed (hence the Southampton Water capsize).  And because the long distance vessels load higher above the water line than most ferries this adds to the potential problem.

 

Their other problem is that for their overall length they have a considerable amount of windage which can cause problems both at sea and when docking or undocking apart from making them  occasionally uncomfortable sea boats.   Grimaldi do 'cargo voyages' for paying passengers and someone we know who tried one didn't find the ship uncomfortable (it was mainly around the Mediterranean).  But the food was far too consistent for her because every meal was pasta and the passenger (only her on that trip) had to eat with the Captain so meal times were a bit unreliable.

 

[Tony_S]

The only ship (though not for huge ships) sized canal I have travelled along is the Kiel Canal. The ship had on previous years needed a special licence or whatever they are called to transit the canal but at the last refit they had taken a metre off the mast specially. Aditi had been through the Suez Canal, but she doesn’t really recall it. She did remember that her Mum had bought her a toy camel in Aden and all the sand had leaked out by the time they got to Marseilles. 

[Tony_S]

We have just had an extra excitement today. A visit to the local recycling centre on Canvey Island. All very socially distant and organised. Aditi didn’t really want the cooker to be on the front lawn until scrap metal collectors turned up. I got rid of a couple of old pc cases and a dead printer too. We did travel over but fortunately not in salty water. 
Tony

[PhilJ W]

Afternoon all from Estuary-Land. Still feeling cream crackered, so when I've finished my muggatee a bit of eyelid examination is in order.

[john new]

A chapter covering the Panama canal mule locos is in our Eclectic Electrics book. See https://www.stephensonloco.org.uk/SLS book detail vol two.htm 

[jamie92208]

3 hours ago, New Haven Neil said:

Thanks Jamie - whilst I made several transits of the canal in both directions when on smaller ships (our larger were too big to get through, there is such a thing as 'Panamax'  designs, we only had one that I didn't sail on, about 80,000 dwt but a bit narrow for their size IIRC, we had many much larger vessels) I was always too busy to have time to grab a camera and take any photos - a junior officers lot!  Pah.

Thanks Neil, the daybwas the highlight of the cruise for me. We entered at dawn and exited at twilight. I believe that P&O paid something over $200,000  for the passage and garunteed entry times. They opened up the verandas below the bridge for the day and we had a tannoy commentary most of the day. Our cabin was on the starboard side with a balcony but if I wanted Port side pictures, it was a mad dash down two flights of stairs to the boat deck. It kept me fit but was a fantastic day. When I've finished doing my Random British railway pictures I'll start another thread for American railways from Panama to Alaska and will keep you posted. Engine rooms are definitely securely off limits but therecwere some very good lectures on our last cruise followed by Q and A sessions to various officers from different disciplines.

18 minutes ago, john new said:

A chapter covering the Panama canal mule locos is in our Eclectic Electrics book. See https://www.stephensonloco.org.uk/SLS book detail vol two.htm 

Thanks for that John. I'll order it. The mules are fascinating. The double cabbed early series were in some sort of encyclopedia I had as a kid. They are nowvon their 3rd set of mules. Most of the 2nd set are dumped on the Atlantic side by the lower lock where there is one of the early ones preserved. I do have a photo of it's cab roofs.

 

Jamie

[Barry O]

Hair cut completed successfully.. Lummy my ears are freezing!!

 

Time for a mugadecaff to warm me up!

 

Baz

[jamie92208]

7 minutes ago, Barry O said:

Hair cut completed successfully.. Lummy my ears are freezing!!

 

Time for a mugadecaff to warm me up!

 

Baz

You ought to have met the two drill Sgts I did in November 73 at Wakefield and then Newby Wiske, 3 haircuts in a fortnight, I was freezing as it had been shoulder length until then. It was dark brown then however.

 

Jamie

[J. S. Bach]

10 hours ago, chrisf said:

Greetings one and all ...snip... One day it will be a key link in my journey to Marrakech but it's on indefinite hold.

 ...snip...

Best wishes to all

Chris   

As soon as I read that, I thought of this song:

[pH]

We’ve only been on one cruise - to the eastern Caribbean. Friends who were avid ‘cruisers’ persuaded us to go with them and made all the arrangements. We did enjoy it, but that’s it ticked off the ‘to do’ list and we’ve not felt we really need to go on another. (After getting off the ship in Fort Lauderdale, we drove down to Key West. Now, that’s something I would happily do again!)

 

The one cruise I might want to do is the one that Jamie has described just above, through the Panama Canal. Every year (this, of course being the exception), all the cruise ships that have been sailing out of Vancouver to Alaska all summer re-position to the Caribbean for the winter. There’s another fleet moves the opposite way in the spring. There are usually bargains to be had on these trips.

[J. S. Bach]

10 hours ago, TheQ said:

 ...snip... When that's done another of those High accuracy Temperature meters has come in. So that should keep me busy for most of this week.

 

Time to... wander down to the lab to get started..

That should be easy; light a match under the sensor: if the needle moves up, it is working; if it moves down, you have the leads reversed. See, an easy job.

 

Oh, I forgot, if the needle does not move at all, you forgot to light the match!! 

Edited December 9, 2020 by J. S. Bach
To add a missing word.

[The Stationmaster]

6 minutes ago, pH said:

We’ve only been on one cruise - to the eastern Caribbean. Friends who were avid ‘cruisers’ persuaded us to go with them and made all the arrangements. We did enjoy it, but that’s it ticked off the ‘to do’ list and we’ve not felt we really need to go on another. (After getting off the ship in Fort Lauderdale, we drove down to Key West. Now, that’s something I would happily do again!)

 

The one cruise I might want to do is the one that Jamie has described just above, through the Panama Canal. Every year (this, of course being the exception), all the cruise ships that have been sailing out of Vancouver to Alaska all summer re-position to the Caribbean for the winter. There’s another fleet moves the opposite way in the spring. There are usually bargains to be had on these trips.

Someone is positioning their ship to the US Northwest by a more novel route next year - via the Northwest Passage.  The ship has a proper ice strengthened hull but the last time they tried to get one of their ships all the way through there was too much ice even in the summer so they had to turn back.

[New Haven Neil]

Didn't they try to get a tanker through in the 70's?  need to go Google.....

 

Edit - SS Manhattan, 1969.  Got through once, failed second time.

Edited December 9, 2020 by New Haven Neil

[iL Dottore]

6 hours ago, Coombe Barton said:

Also made by Pfizer?

Indeed, sildenafil citrate (Viagra) was discovered and developed by Pfizer. However it’s not the only PDE5 inhibitor on the market and Pfizer executives admit they are facing stiff competition...

[Ian Abel]

Blast, just missed moaning, it's now affernoon

 

So, somewhere along the way my ejumakashun seems to have been sorely remiss. In working on decoding various coded messages in our "solve a murder" game last evening, one of the encryption methods uses characters such as "*-&" etc to replace vowels.

Off I went  good as gold, trying to decode a message encoded with this method and was confused by a couple of words, until the Mrs pointed out that a couple of the letters that were hampering me were "y's"! 

"Y" isn't a vowel shouts me, whereupon I'm inform it actually is??

So did my schooling through the late '60s fail me? I've never before heard or been told that "vowels are a,e,i,o,u AND OCCASIONALLY Y"!

After large amounts of texting with the kids and friends I'm assured I'm the village idiot and the entire world knows "y" is a vowel <sigh>

Retiring to the corner with a dunces cap on.

 

Nothing else going on - internet failed four times today, I glanced out the window and there, large as life, is "man" on a ladder up the utilities pole!

Went and had a chat with him and they're replacing some dodgy equipment before there is a more serious failure - be nice if they had TOLD us???

 

-2 and sunny first thing, heading for 8.

 

Back to work, hopefully my IT knowledge is better than my English, and not lacking some fundamental details  

 

 

[Chris116]

If I had tried to tell my English teacher that Y was a vowel she would thrown me out of the lesson.

[BoD]

 Vowels are worth 1 point in Scrabble

Y is worth 4 points

Y is not a vowel

 

Q E D *

 

* ( 13 points)