TheSignalEngineer

Hijacking this thread to save opening anything else, there's a few wagon labels for sale at the moment relating to coal, coke and grain traffic bound for Bury St Edmunds mostly in LNER days. https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/collectortony99/m.html?item=383600363189&hash=item59505d06b5%3Ag%3ARn8AAOSw6mZe75yr&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2562

AARGH Dyson. We had an upright in the early days, probably our shortest-lived machine. Our first hand-held wasn't bad but eventually died. The current one has abysmal battery life on full power. It keeps shutting down because it's difficult to keep the filters clean. Don't think we will be buying another.

It could be just the same on the railway. I remember one S&T man promoted beyond his brain power into a post in our office. When his new No.2 passed him some work he had completed he said "It's done like such and such in Nottingham. I want it changed to that way". No.2 snapped back at him "You're in Birmingham now, all of our depots like it presented this way, so that's the way it's staying."

Anne and I first met nearly 49 years ago. When I took my parents to meet her parents it turned out that our mothers knew each other having lived eight houses apart in inner city Birmingham in the early 1930s. My mother also remembered the funeral of Anne's great grandmother. Small world

Saw this on my FB feed and I thought of a previous conversation. Chelsea No.4?

Reminds me of my days of doing a bit of record dealing back in the 1990s. One rainy day in the Lake District I wandered into a newly-opened charity shop. Its last but one use was an old fashioned electrical shop. The lady serving saw me looking through the records and said that they had a box they found when they were cleaning out an old store room. It contained about 40 seven inch singles and EPs from around 1958-62 all in pristine condition. No ultra-valuable stuff but certainly worth my while making them an offer well above what they would have been put out on the shelf for to take the lot.

Wish I had one, it's about 7 years since my nearest one closed. Now it's at least 45 minutes drive to the nearest. By public transport it takes 2 hours each way. Fortunately there is a local art shop which stocks some modelling paints, filler, glues, etc. For most railway stuff ordering online is my only option, have used four members on here in the last month.

Our son has a large orchard in his garden in Ireland. I'm waiting for the travel restrictions to be lifted so he can replenish my stock of his home brew. It varies in strength from about 6% up to something akin to wine.

I would not be surprised if that came from a Bromsgrove man considering that their Jinties were a Fowlerisation of a Johnson design from the 1890s, indeed they did have a Johnson original just before the WR took over. The 94xx which replaced them were a more modern post-WW2 design, higher boiler pressure, more adhesion weight, 4F against 3F power class..... Their opinion of the 52xx tried by the WR as a replacement for Bertha was not good. Bertha was rated 2 Jinties for calculating banking power whereas the 52xx was rated as 1.5 so neither one thing nor the other.

Returning to tales of office vegetation, I had been asked to do a highly political job related to diversions for ECML electrification. A timetable had been published which did not fit the available infrastructure and I had just 20 weeks to get a solution designed, installed and commissioned where the gut feeling in the office was that a year would be difficult. My section said they would take the challenge so I negotiated with the boss that I would have first call on the office overtime budget and using other sections at weekends to assist my staff. I was also offered someone to fill a vacant post on my section. I went back to the staff who were happy with all except one point. I told them "the options for filling the vacant desk are N_____ or a cheeseplant." They unanimously voted for an extra cheeseplant.

Our office was a typical nationalised industry one, straggly pot plants until the bigwigs from Lundun were relocated to the block in 1985 when we got outsourced ones which came with a maintenance contract. The old office had Battleship Grey filing cabinets and dark varnished pine desks, although the hardwood draughtsmans tables made at Wolverton works were a fine bit of work. When we all had new furniture on becoming part of the regional HQ I bought mine for a fiver and made a garage workbench out of it. The steel filing cabinet became my tool cupboard.

If it is put me down for three.

Along with 5S. It amused some people that the 5th S was "Shitsuke". As the 5th S was supposed to mean make sure you always do 1S, 2S, 3S and 4S it doesn't take much imagination to guess what 5S became known as in our organisation.

Often employed as a contractor by Government departments, NHS, etc. He plays on a computer, tells the employing organisation what is wrong with their new toy and how much it will cost to fix it. Then he is entitled to claim his pile of cash as laid down in the consultancy contract. The employing organisation totally ignores his advice and commissions the system in a rush, usually for political reasons or to divert attention from the misdeeds of one of their number. Unsurprisingly it all goes t!t$ up. They then have to call in the contractor again. He gets another contract and is consequently paid twice for repeating the same advice in his role as a troubleshooter getting them out of the mess they are in.

We still shovelled from the wagons in the suburban coal yard in 1965. No such luxury as a hopper filled by a mechanical shovel or conveyor. That only really came on with remaining traffic being transferred to coal concentration depots and a lot of local merchants disappearing.

The trees to the north of Torside look wintery rather than summer drought.

From the same position today. Meanwhile at Torside, this was taken from about 20 feet to the left of where you must have been standing. Looking the other way, nothing to see here now But going onto the trail and standing roughly where the locos west of the crossing are, this is Torside Dam at the moment.

Woodhead Dam had to be rebuilt as it showed faults early on. Rhodeswood moved quite a bit when first filled apparently. Evidence of the railway can still be seen. A couple of buildings are still there and you can see the impression of the sleepers where it is used as a path at Crowden. It was electrified c1905. Power at the waterworks yard was generated by a hydro at Bottoms IIRC.

I've just put some new hybrid tyres on my old hardtail bike so I may take it up there for a test in the morning. Will see if I can get a shot or a screen grab from my body camera.

It's well down at the moment. Once again there is a problem with the Torside Dam, I think about the sixth or seventh big one in its lifetime. They have rigs up there drilling and pumping concrete into voids. They have just finished the same on Rhodeswood Dam, the next below it, where it took about nine months of concrete pumping over a 50 yard stretch to fill the holes. Must have been like Swiss cheese inside, and people up here are a bit twitchy about dams since Whaley Bridge last year.

From my occasional holiday work for a coal office managed by a relative c1961-65 around 8 tons per wagon was fairly common. Bagging coal was done straight from the wagon unless it was for stock when it would be shovelled out onto the lorry then off onto the stacks at the side of the office. It never came pre-bagged.

Hope so. I need a proper haircut.

The prohibition on use of Lowfits for containers was included in the BR20427 which gives all of the details in what can and cannot be used for different types. See section 4(b) for Lowfits. http://www.barrowmoremrg.co.uk/BRBDocuments/Booklet_BR20427_Issue.pdf The Barrowmore site also has the booklets on dealing with various items including overhanging long loads and use of wagon sheets. I'm not sure if there any site where it is possible to see the GWR 1936 General Appendx but IIRC that shows lots of examples of how and how not load wagons.

What provision would be made would depend on a number of issues such as date it was put in, region etc. Is B the end of the line? Can a loco be 'Shut inside' either B or C whilst another loco comes into the other line?

Yes Alun. The 36-026 is about 3mm shorter than R8099 or the Airfix coupler.