TheSignalEngineer

I was surprised that I couldn't find any reference to it in the sources I looked through at the time of the accident. When I joined the rule of thumb was if you HAD to cross or work foul of sidings where there was a chance of vehicles being moved then keep at least 20 yards clear of any potential danger.

Depends how many you eat at one sitting.

Must have had a good thrashing on the SED as they were only about four years old.

And it looks as if there is one in section beyond the turnout. Testers must have left a strap in.

ShedbashUK has plenty of sightings at Exmouth Junction from 1953 onwatds. http://shedbashuk.blogspot.com/2016/10/exmouth-junction-1945-1965.html?m=1

Wasn't that an old distinction between the fitter and the foreman? The foreman washed his hands after using the toilet, the fitter did it before.

There's nothing like a good conspiracy theory when you've got bad news to bury. Come to think of it now would be a good time to publish the report into ________.(add your own favourite political topic).

In case of lack of antiseptics for oral use I have a couple of bottles of Single Malt and some 72% Poitin held in reserve.

My policy would be to take as much as you can as soon as you finish. I saw too many people work into their 60s then die not long after finishing. Unfortunately I don't think I or many others will manage my Dad's performance where he left the Fire Brigade on an index linked pension after 25 years service then lived on it for 42 years.

My wife was looking at some cycling stuff today. Previously quoted as expected in stock 20th March at the retailer but that date has now disappeared and they don't know when they will get the next batch.

Looking at the New Cumnock siding, I think it served three opencasts. They were well away from the railway, the loading site being fed by a conveyor system several miles long, so there was very little equipment at the railway end.

I got a pension estimate each year from my early 50s for retire now or work to retirement age. Factoring in being debt free as we could pay off the mortgage with a lump sum and not touch our existing savings and changes to outgoings I tracked the optimum date. It turned out to be around 57. At 56 I calculated the drop in disposable income per hour working and commuting and it worked out at about £1 closing quickly on zero, so I picked a convenient date and put my notice in.

The official holiday this year was from 24th to 30th January. Because of distances involved workers set off for rural homes about a week beforehand. Many factories start running down production a few days before that. It would be expected that production would restart a week or so after the break, but some workers don't return so it takes several weeks to get to full output. Last pre-break shipments from factories were expected by some importers to be made around 17th January with limited deliveries restarting around the beginning late February/ early March and full service by the end of the March. Door-to-door time of 6 to 8 weeks by sea are quoted by carriers depending on area of origin, so if for instance your supplier was sending a consignment in mid January from Shenzhen. you would expect it to arrive by the end of February. Your next delivery would probably not be here until April. A lot of high value goods, but not big in volume or tonnage terms, comes via air freight which takes about two weeks from factory to customer. If you were bringing stuff in by air then you would expect products in the warehouse before the break to start arriving again by the beginning of March. Add to the equation a bit of panic buying of components already in the UK by firms here and my original forecast was that we would see supply problems biting here around mid March.

Depending on the scale of the operation. Mid Cannock was quite big and I think they used big tipper trucks to take coal from the stacking grounds to the 'Boot' when the place was in full production. Blending was done where necessary to get a consistent quality of output coal to the customer's requirements. The 'wrong kind of coal' could be damaging to boilers etc. Logically you would have to know what was coming out of the early part of the preparation process to be able to tell if it needed additional stuff or was effectively too good to meet the contracted quality and needed toning down a bit. The preparation plant at Cannock also separated out stuff suitable for customers needing large lump coal. This was loaded via a different bunker to the power station stuff. I remember doing a lot of development work for a possible mine in the Trent Valley but although there were millions if not trillions of tons under there when the core samples were analysed it was found to have too high a salt content, therefore highly corrosive to the power station equipment and virtually unsaleable.

Besides the long-term loading facilities, in later years there have been some more basic ones. Not quite as fast as the old rapid loading bunkers in the days of proper collieries. Crowbandsgate Siding, New Cumnock. Ayrshire. by Adrian Nicholls, on Flickr

Just behind the Fire Station.

The Safety in Mines Research Board bought the site in the 1920s. Over the years various HSE related functions have been moved to the site. The British Approval Service for Electrical Equipment in Flammable Atmospheres is located nearby. Buxton Raceway is next door. That holds various events. There are plenty of bunker remains in the area. https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bunker,_Health_and_Safety_Laboratory_-_geograph.org.uk_-_161298.jpg#mw-jump-to-license

No, it's a test bed for HS3, running under the Pennines linking Manchester, Sheffield and Leeds using redundant Tube stock to reduce costs.

https://www.28dayslater.co.uk/threads/1983-jubilee-line-lu-stock-harpur-hill-hsl-buxton-june-2015.98034/

In the mid 1950s R1 4-coach sets 388 and 425 were allocated to Hastings/Eastbourne - Birmingham/Wolverhampton services.

You may joke about the Strategic Reserve, but the old Grin Low quarry nearby was used to hold the National Reserve Coal Stock in the 1950s. It was said to hold about 1 million tons. The pipe shown is visible on the Google maps satellite view and is within the site of the Health and Safety Laboratory. This used to be the Mines Safety establishment. In WW1 the area was used as a proofing range for trench mortars known as the Frith Range. It also carried out rectification works on armaments and munitions salvage. A connection about 1100 yards long was built to the LNWR line into Buxton. In WW2 the RAF built bomb stores which were covered with quarry waste in the area.

I used to look after my first grandson on a Friday when he was just about walking and talking. A regular trip was bus to Stockport, train to Piccadilly, visit Ian Allan shop and train back to Marple, sometimes via Guide Bridge changing at Romiley. He used to amuse the other passengers by identifying train operators and sometimes destinations by TOC livery. One day in Ian Allan he told the assistant that the Hornby Pacer had the wrong kind of doors for the livery. He was about three at the time.

An old friend of mine had most of an MG Metro in the front room of his house. His fiancee dumped him when he refused to get rid of it. He was a specialist at fettling engines, got banned from driving when he was clocked at 112mph by an unmarked police car on the M45 in what externally looked like a basic bottom of the range Longbridge product.

Just spent a week in a house with an AGA, four days back and still not acclimatised to central heating.

I had someone disagree with the location of one of my own pictures.