Early Risers.

[45156]

17 minutes ago, simontaylor484 said:

Very impressive both the railway and garden. Definatley a lotto winning dream for me.

Swmbo likes the folly I am sure I have seen an advert for a firm that supplies them

I believe that Mike built the folly from scratch.  To get a lot more on this railway, why not join the facebook group.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/LittledaleLightRailway

It's a private group, so your membership has to be approved by Mike or Chris but there are quite a few members.

 

 

Edited June 27, 2022 by 45156

[NGT6 1315]

Cheers all. Clouding over after a hot and unpleasant day, so maybe I should do a rain dance to ensure the forecast does indeed materialise!

 

And in ze meantime, may I demonstrate zat us Germans do haff a highly refined sense ov humour indeed… 😂🤣

 

[PhilJ W]

Afternoon all from Estuary-Land. I did intend to start on the garden this afternoon but the rain had other ideas so the foxes will remain undisturbed for now. Now time to put the kettle on, be back later.

[grandadbob]

Evenin' each,

Plenty of rain earlier and rumblings of thunder as promised.  At least I won't have to water the garden.  Another lazy afternoon the highlights of which were the sun returning,  eating scones & cream and then later opening a bottle of London Pride which has curiously disappeared.  🤔  Now on the Aussie Shiraz I opened yesterday and it is Bonza!  

       

 

Not really a tennis fan so I will pass on all that for the next couple of weeks.  I think it's time to don the headphones and listen to some music.

 

 

Edited June 27, 2022 by grandadbob

[Ozexpatriate]

Day three of our 'heat wave' continues. At noon it's 30°C on the patio, headed for a forecast high of 34°C. Less hot than yesterday and tomorrow will be much closer to 'normal' for this time of year.

 

The air conditioning of course is a huge benefit, but even with the thermostat set for 24°C, it's >25°C on the sofa where I am sitting (watching evening tennis from SW19) and am feeling the residual heat from where (until recently) the sun was shining on the window treatments*.

 

* When I had them installed I did not opt for blackout shades in the living room like I did in the bedrooms upstairs. Days like today make me wonder if that was a mistake.

[PhilJ W]

Just finished watching the cricket highlights on BBC4, I deliberately avoided the news  so I didn't even know the result. Well worth the wait.

[simontaylor484]

As we get to changing blinds we are changing them all to Thermal blackout blinds. Those that have been changed already make a big difference.

 

[BoD]

20 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

Just finished watching the cricket highlights on BBC4, I deliberately avoided the news  so I didn't even know the result. Well worth the wait.

It’s cricket, Jim, but not as we know it.

[Coombe Barton]

... The wave is upon us. Is it yet a tsunami? ...

 

https://johncolby.wordpress.com/2022/06/27/r-number-markedly-up-above-1/

 

[zarniwhoop]

1 hour ago, simontaylor484 said:

As we get to changing blinds we are changing them all to Thermal blackout blinds. Those that have been changed already make a big difference.

 

I'd never heard of them until reading these posts. But a quick google suggests not all thermal blinds are blackout, and that paler thermal blinds allow light in while still insulating. Or is there a benefit in typical British temperatures from making the room dark at the cost of having to put the lights on ?  I know that in London Town and often in the home counties the temperature can get hot, but on the Sussex coast that is rare.

 

Where I live, in a good year I've had at most 3 weeks where some days or nights are warm enough to use a fan - so far, only 2 days this year where I've used a fan at all.

[simontaylor484]

@zarniwhoop the thermal blackout blinds we have used are foil backed. There are a couple of reasonswe have used them.

1 the front bedrooms face East and get bright sun early mornings and it wakes the boys up. Also at night time it keeps the flow of the street lamps out.

 

Our bedroom is  West facing so we use them to keep the strong sun out to keep the room cooler and not too bright to sleep.

 

Also in winter time they help to keep the heat in

[Gwiwer]

Well well well. 
 

That is how we found the family today - all three of them well 🤣

 

The Little Red Driving Box performed as faultlessly as usual. There was only light traffic on the roads in our direction of travel and good time was made easy, economical driving to the Sussex coast. 
 

I deposited some items in our group archive and was presented with one which doesn’t belong there but definitely needs a good home. 
 

My sister provided a very substantial lunch enjoyed in the company of BiL and Nephew-the-Youngest. 
 

Dr. SWMBO and myself then drove over to Ford where she was more than fascinated by The Engine Shed. She even made some purchases for herself!!!  I came away with some of the bits I require for muddling in the near future and was able to see for myself a number of recently-released items which may require the donation of modelling vouchers. 
 

We returned by way of a brief pause in Arundel and a slight unplanned deviation when I missed an unsignposted turn on the Billingshurst by-pass. I should have gone left but had in mind that we went straight. Straight wasn’t an option and we ended up facing east instead of north. A sharp left in Coneyhurst and a deft left in Broadbridge Heath saw the intended route regained. 
 

Now safely returned to the Hill of Strawberries I can peruse my latest acquisition. We can trace one other surviving copy of this (though more probably exist in private hands) which is held in the Manchester University library. 
 

I knew it was old when first offered it. There is no publisher’s date but a couple of adverts and the text clearly indicate 19th Century. 
 

The Manchester copy is dated to 1877 making this a remarkable find in a plastic storage box filled largely with 21st Century Bachmann catalogues. 
 

A whole series was produced for various railways. This one cannot be accurately valued but those for which more copies exist including at least one available for sale (such as LNWR and LSWR) carry proce estimates of £250 - £350.  Mine is in better condition.  The maps alone, of which mine is intact and only very slightly foxed, have sold for £200 and more. 
 

Quite a find. And now carefully kept in my collection. 
 

[Mike Bellamy]

4 minutes ago, Gwiwer said:

I can peruse my latest acquisition. We can trace one other surviving copy of this (though more probably exist in private hands) which is held in the Manchester University library. 
 

I knew it was old when first offered it. There is no publisher’s date but a couple of adverts and the text clearly indicate 19th Century. 

 

What a coincidence - after Bemrose the Printers left Irongate Derby, the site became the offices of Lloyds Bank - and that's where I worked when the Bank transferred me there from Leicester in 1980. I worked there and across the network of local branches until redundancy ended my ride on the Black Horse in 1997. 

The Irongate office has closed (along with 6 other branches in the area where I worked)  - it is a listed building and currently unoccupied like most of the City Centre - photo in link below.

 

Click for Link to Lloyds Irongate Derby

 

 Bemrose remained in Derby and became security printers producing most of the cheque books issued by the major banks.

.

[PhilJ W]

Evening all from Estuary-Land. Thats quite a find Rick, I have some books of similar vintage but not on railway subjects, one is about Pompeii and another is a motoring guide from c. 1904. I collect old maps, the oldest in my collection is a strip map of the Great North Road from London as far as Stilton dating from the 1790's. My favourites though are the railway rating maps, usually 25" to the mile O.S. maps annotated with the names of companies who lease sidings from  the railway company.

[PhilJ W]

8 minutes ago, Mike Bellamy said:

 

What a coincidence - after Bemrose the Printers left Irongate Derby, the site became the offices of Lloyds Bank - and that's where I worked when the Bank transferred me there from Leicester in 1980. I worked there and across the network of local branches until redundancy ended my ride on the Black Horse in 1997. 

The Irongate office has closed (along with 6 other branches in the area where I worked)  - it is a listed building and currently unoccupied like most of the City Centre - photo in link below.

 

Click for Link to Lloyds Irongate Derby

 

 Bemrose remained in Derby and became security printers producing most of the cheque books issued by the major banks.

.

When I started my first job after leaving school it was with Kearly & Tonge in the City of London. The main room ground floor of the office which was built c. 1880 was surrounded by built in desks. In the cupboards under the desks were old ledgers dating back to when the office was built. They were written in the most immaculate copperplate handwriting.

[BSW01]

Good evening everyone 

 

Sainsbury’s was fairly quiet this morning, so I was back home before 11 o’clock, the shopping was put away and I was sat at the computer with a muggertea by 11:30. I’m now quite happy with the circuit for automating my layouts signals, the easiest thing to do is alter the MERG kit, which involves omitting a few components and changing the value of a resistor. This is necessary as I want to bring down the operating voltage from 12v to 5v, so that I won’t damage the PIC in other modules that I want to connect this to. I’ll also and add a Hall effect switch instead of supplied LDR, as the Hall effect switch will be easier to disguise in the track bed. I’ve tested this using my simulation software and I’m pleased to say it works very well. So the next step is to actually build one and test it in real life. 

[BSW01]

Goodnight all 

[PhilJ W]

Goodnight all.

[J. S. Bach]

Night Owl from the Piedmont.

[Ozexpatriate]

The seemingly endless stream of 'bad' news continues. Amtrak had two fatal level crossing collisions in two days. In the first, yesterday, a car crossing a remote, uncontrolled level crossing (no signals, no barriers) in California was struck. (There were three fatalities and two serious injuries to vehicle occupants.)

 

Today a train* hit what is being described as a dump truck loaded with boulders in Missouri at another uncontrolled crossing. Two locomotives and at least seven** cars derailed. Video shows passengers standing on top of the sides of derailed cars. There are three fatalities (two on the train and one from the truck) and multiple injuries.

 

* Which I am guessing is the eastbound Southwest Chief (LA to Chicago).

** Reports vary - one said eight

 

Edited June 27, 2022 by Ozexpatriate

[PupCam]

At last, an opportunity to do so more stargazing!  😀

 

I set the telescope at a spot of sky complete with a reasonably bright star, fired up the auto shutter release and took a good number of exposures of the same view ready for stacking.   It's too late to do that now but when I just had a quick look at the source material I note that yet another satellite has photo-bombed the scene!    Ah, pesky satellites 🤣.      Anyway, a good number of the images look pretty good so hopefully I'll get something half decent out of them.    I certainly seem to be getting more consistent results so I must be getting a bit better at this lark.   

 

 

Night Awl!

 

Alan

 

Edited June 27, 2022 by PupCam

[Ozexpatriate]

When I opened my squeaky front door to collect the mail this afternoon, the first thing I noticed was the local resident red-tailed hawk on my grassy verge. I closed the door and grabbed my camera, but it decided to focus on foreground shrubs instead of the hawk and after a couple of (futile) shutter clicks it flew across the street to finish whatever it was feeding on.

 

I don't know what it caught, but have noticed a regular Dark-eyed Junco flitting around in the front yard, though I can't tell if it was just one individual.

 

By the time I had collected the mail the hawk was circling above the open field at the end of the street.

[BR60103]

I had a log book from long ago in my possession. I forget actual dates, but it was pre-Confederation (1867) and looked to be sales of tickets between Chippawa (Niagara Falls) and Fort Erie. I liked to fancy that it was railway tickets. It came with my father's stuff and he wasn't around to ask.  Someone around 1876 had started to use it as a scrapbook and pasted cuttings from the newspaper in it -- may be 20 pages worth. My ancestors had a general store, so they may have sold tickets. I donated the book to the Niagara Falls museum as they might take better care of it than my sister's family.

 

Dad once said that the men in his family tended to marry women who threw things out.

 

 

[pH]

1 hour ago, BR60103 said:

Dad once said that the men in his family tended to marry women who threw things out.

As long as it wasn’t the men!

[chrisf]

As usual, Wimbledon is disrupting many aspects of the nation's life.  OK, that's a bit sweeping, but it is already clear that there is no point in buying the Radio Times during Wimbledon fortnight.  The BBC has done its best to make provision for matches that go on and on and on but it still needs to make a better job of announcing what are often last minute switches between channels.  Depending in part on how long Sir Andy Murray remains in the tournament, this is something that is likely to get worse before it gets better.  I do realise that tennis fascinates some viewers but it bores the pants off me!

 

Chris