TheSignalEngineer

Wrong kind of footbridge

A few engineers wagons should keep us going for a while. I've got a fleet (or should it be shoal?) of Dogfish and some Catfish on the go. Suppose I could make some Shark Fin Soup as well. Unfortunately my bogie hoppers were deemed out of time so were sold a while ago, no Walrus Burgers I'm afraid.

Think I could do with a bit of isolation. I've got three locos, six coaches, two parcels vans and several wagons in need of attention or finishing touches. Instead I have to go and see if the vultures have left anything on the shelves at Alco or Tesdi. Failing that it could be sitting on the edge of town to hijack a delivery truck.

The graphic I posted on the previous page shows the modern German plate. After the EU flag it can have 1,2 or 3 letters at the start, then come the official state and inspection discs followed by one or two letters and 1,2,3 or 4 numbers. The maximum number of characters is 8. The use of the hyphen was discontinued in 1994.

@coline33 is your man for all china clay wagon and traffic matters. He used to run the Yahoo Group dedicated to it before Yahoo made a pig's whatsit of them all.

I remember visiting the Chesterfield/Mansfield/Nottingham area around 1962. There was a yard at Langwith full of ex-POs all red-carded. Oh for some pictures of them now.

This is from 1952. Still got British Railways on the tender and an LMS liveried coach in the background. https://www.warwickshirerailways.com/lms/lnwrbns_br351.htm

At your date in the early 1950s trains on secondary services still had a fair mix of period 1 and 2 coaches as well as some Staniers. I spotted a coach still in LMS livery but the crest painted out on a BTF film produced in 1954.

The Mibland would probably have put the Down Home off-scene. The signalman would have replaced it to danger when the train stopped in the platform so that it had a red signal to the rear. This was originally done to give an extra protection if a train ran by the starter in rear. They would not have a signal at the boc end of the platform. The Midland were tight on the number of signals they used so as a rule of thumb before later LMS and BR additions they would provide a Distant, Home and Starter on running lines unless a second Home was needed as in the case of your exit from the Down sidings to the left. For sidings connections, exits to running lines had a ground signal if within Station Limits or a full signal into a Block Section (although I worked on at least one Block Released ground signal). They were reluctant to provide signals for crossovers outside the box or connections into sidings where the signalman could give the driver a hand signal.

Explanation of German plate from a German manufacturer.

Getting back to the topic, all traders and layout owners / demonstrators need to be aware of this couple of thieves. On previous form they may well turn up at the weekend. They were in Rails of Sheffield the day before the Doncaster Show and were active last week before the theft at Leamington.

I refer the Honourable Gentleman to the comment I made earlier:- That was the set-up day for the Doncaster Show, about 40 minutes drive away. I wonder if they've been recorded at any venues with CCTV?

Otherwise deliberately using a car with foreign plates to make tracking more difficult. A former neighbour of mine was a bit of a fly boy and conman. He used to go around in a car with Dutch plates. Mr Plod took an interest when he was caught up in an incident which caused a big delay on a busy trunk road and he ended up with an all-inclusive break at Her Majesty's Hotel.

On several occasions I got up at some unearthly black hour to write down an idea for solving a work problem that had been bugging me for days.

My experience of 111 was not good. I had a back pain which made it difficult to get out of bed one morning as it was also affecting the top of my left leg. I called 111 for advice and after a short Q&A session the operator didn't think it was life threatening. She then said "If you start to lose the use of you limbs call 999". I couldn't resist replying "If I lose the use of my limbs how do I use the phone"

Post 1960 after Bath Road stopped doing steam some GW locos were allocated to Barrow Road. Later the remaining ones from St Philips Marsh went there.

There was a big one in Birmingham on a building at the corner of Navigation St and John Bright St.

Passing through Buxton I noticed this, probably because the vegetation is thin at the moment. Picture from Google as I couldn't stop to take one, but it is next to Aldi car park. Can't correlate it with any old stuff so I think it is probably from Peak Rail's use of the site.

I never got a taste for the Park Royal Guinness. About 25 years ago my son introduced me to the Dublin brew. His lady friend since university days is from the north of Ireland. When he went on to study in London and she was back in Ireland they would regularly meet up in Dublin. He would come back on the late boat into Holyhead and catch the train to see us in Birmingham on his way back south. He used to turn up on the first train out of Moor St with as much Guinness as he could carry.

You can get some interesting results from other words with geographical connections.

Depends on what size you are looking for. Buxton has a population of about 23000. The market place is just over 1000ft ASL, whilst houses in the Harpur Hill area of the town go up to about 1300ft.

Birmingham Snow Hill had them at the scissors crossovers in the middle of the main platforms.

Possible connection there, Bulleid was indeed Gresley's C&W man in LNER days. Doing a quick unscientific trawl through the internet and a couple of books the very early GNR Gresleys seem possibly to be top fill only. New builds / rebuilds up to the late 1930s mostly seem to have roof pipes, for instance a 58' Buffet Car rebuilt in 1933 from a GNR coach of 1913 pictured at New Street in 1960. An early picture of the 1938 Hook Continental stock shows no roof pipes. I've just found two pictures of the BTO diagram I am doing running in the early 1960s without roof pipes so I am going to work to those.

On some of the rural roads in this area it was easier to find a working phone box in 1992 than it is to get a mobile signal now. Even the Emergency Services complain that they can't get calls through on their own system.

The Peak Forest Tramway which ran from Bugsworth Basin near Whaley Bridge to roughly the location of the present yard at Peak Forest was laid to a gauge of 4' 2 1/2". Incidentally it had the distinction of running in three centuries, being built between 1795 and 1799, passing from the ownership of the Canal company which was bought by the MS&L through to the LNER before closure in 1925. The last stone was thought to have been carried in 1924, still using horses and gravity to move the wagons.