TheSignalEngineer

Good morning Chris, I started a bout of some lurgi after travelling by train on family visits over Christmas. It reached its height of runny nose effects early in the New Year, then after a couple of days settled to the dry coughing fits. These were about two-hourly day and night but have now subsided to almost none in the day and waking me after six hours last night. Hopefully yours will now start to ease. Looking back at the course of it there are a couple of things that stand out. When the grandchildren started school and I got dragged into the school run I had frequent colds etc for over a year. I then seemed to develop immunity to all of the local strains. Just before this bout I travelled on crowded public transport in an area where I hadn't done that for about five years. The other different factor was this year I had a routine appointment for some checks with the doctor. The nurse gave me shingles and pneumococcal injections and also the flu jab. I have declined the latter for the last three seasons because the last time I had a sore arm for weeks and the worst winter colds for years. Hope you symptoms now start to recede before you have to carry out more diplomatic negotiations to get past Checkpoint Charlene. Eric

Found a Daily Wail article about that Now I keep getting adverts about funeral planning.

I picked up a few scrap trimmings from the flashing when we had our conservatory built.

Halfpennies were a cheap way of weighting rolling stock kits. They were in modern terms 25.48mm diameter and weighed just under 6 grams. The monetary equivalent of one of our present pennies weighed about 28 grams. Still got a bag for use in box vans, much cheaper than lead.

Except for pairs of Class 20s. I did the signalling alterations in the power station to cater for extra space needed to run round and unload.

My modelling is based on a part of the LMR c1956-61. I had a copy of the 'Crewe and South Thereof' Sectional Appendix from 1960 covering the end of that period. The previous full issue for the LMS Western Division which I managed to pick up from ebay was 1937 IIRC. By a stroke of luck when looking for something totally different a copy of Supplement No.6 which dated from 1956 came up recently.

Jump to 17 December 2019 again now.

https://flic.kr/p/8Z4UDr Worcester in 1974

Worcester? Blind reading Great Malvern? Edit Andy posted while I was typing

In the late 1980s Mrs SE was working for a large High Street bank. Some of the staff started school after decimalisation so she got called in to explain and convert whenever old files and passbooks for long-dormant accounts had to be dealt with. There was nearly a boycott of my local when one of the prices was changed from 2/3d to 12p, a rise of 0.75p (1.8d) or 6.67%.

Just had two more instances, first a random appearance of a blog post seven years ago then a jump back to 17 December 2019.

Bury Bolton Street has a similar signal at the north end of Platform 3. The platform starter had a disc banner alongside to repeat the signal beyond the bridge. It is mechanically operated and slotted by the main arm.

Most were oil lit, but if a suitable power supply was available there was a type with a convex back and internal lamp which could be used.

Denton was used quite a lot as a water stop as it was convenient to get a hose to. Don't know if still done as you would probably get a ticket for parking the tanker in the Bus Lane.

And even the NHAs could be a bit hair-raising, especially if they got a bit of a tail waggle when on the back end.

I'm surprised that so many of these original signs are still just screwed to fences and walls at preservation sites. The prices some fetch are crazy, into four figures. A GP Government Tea sold recently of Ebay for £430 and a Will's Honey Cut for about £250.

Had the same thing happen again today when looking for a post I had made 7 hours earlier. Got back six hours, calendar entry then jumped nearly a whole day. Can be cured by refreshing the page on some occasions, but it will happen again you can be sure. Previous discussion here

Had a session like that with a boss of mine. We had been playing in an office cricket match and got delayed in a bar by some ladies from the opposition office. He missed his last train home so set off an 8-hour three-leg journey on trains used by enthusiasts for positioning moves. He got back in time to start work the next morning.

The shortage of BSKs c1966/7 led to a number of LMR Porthole Brakes being painted Blue/Grey for use on the Euston to Manchester/Liverpool trains via Birmingham. An entertaining ride at 100mph+ if the driver forgot/ wasn't told they had one on as they still had the original bogies and were stencilled for 90mph max. When services went over to later Mk2/Mk3 stock there were very few compatible brake vehicles so BGs upgraded to run at 110mph were used. My highest recorded speed on a train with one was 116mph near Milton Keynes after a delay due to livestock on the line. The guard came and sat in the 1st class as his van was too lively.

Thankfully I managed to fend off this morning's suggestion that the Tuesday MTB ride should be resumed following the bout of lurgi. My argument was that I would probably set a Garmin PB for Hadfiled to Woodhead but need a tow coming back, and the rain radar was looking ominous. About an hour later it was p!$$!ng it down so I was in the clear to disappear to the Railway Room to impart some liquid colouring to the fiddle yard baseboards. Between coats a sticky bolt on the garage door was freed and a bit of bike maintenance was fitted in thus maintaining my current favourable status within the household. Hope it lasts long enough for me to sneek off after tea to do some m*****ing

A point made on numerous occasions by engineers in the railway's rush to bigger and more complex control centres. Yes, we can interrogate an interlocking in Australia from the UK, but why should we trust a system working across a globally-routed 3rd party computer network to control a train outside the signal box?

May wait until after Credit Card bill comes at end of week. If she has bought a big item I'll be OK.

Had that a few times, there's mention of it on another thread. Usually seems to happen when a calendar entry gets revived or certain people make a blog post.

Looks like a bonus night for wind power, feeding 35% of demand.

Mrs SE has just been making favourable comments about a red and cream banana shaped thingy on rails marketed by a company near Wrexham that was up on my computer screen. Should I strike whilst the iron is hot and get the Stourbridge-allocated one to keep its mate from the previous batch company or will that lead to me stopping the hot iron in its tracks?