TheSignalEngineer

More on the petrol front. Queue onto the road again this morning and price had gone up by 5p since last night. No queue this afternoon. Despite price increase they had sold out.

I had a long trip to do yesterday so I went for my usual top up during vehicle pre-check on Thursday morning. Only two cars in the 12-pump local Tess CO2. Where I was today the two petrol stations in the town both had queues onto the road. Don't know where they all came from as the local popularion is only about 3000.

When we bought our first flat just before we married most of our stuff took one trip in Dad's Austin 1100. Anne brought over her personal stuff and clothes in a black cab a couple of days before the wedding.

Walsall was an LNWR station, being primarily served by the South Staffordshire line from the GWR at Dudley through Lichfield City to join the Midland at Wichnor Junction for the last few miles into Burton on Trent, and the Cannock line from Ryecroft to Rugeley. There were LNWR lines from the South Staffs at Pleck Junction joining the Grand junction line to Birmingham at Bescot and Wolverhampton at Darlaston Junction. It also had connections both ways from the Midland's Water Orton to Wolverhampton line coming in at Ryecroft Junction. There was an area of sidings south of the station which pre-grouping included an engine shed which was known as Midland Yard. The yard itself lasted until recent times. Stopping passenger trains from Birmingham to Walsall via the Midland route ran until c1964.

Just checked we are not in ERs so I can talk trains. On his last visit we set about devising a new puzzle. It's a multi-location job, based on an LMR through line, WR branch and industrial branch. The idea is that the goods yard has several wagons for the other three lines to be sorted by the station pilot. Trains will come in on the LMR and WR lines with wagons for the yard and industrial branch. The LMR train drops off and picks up at the yard. The WR arrives and the stock is sorted between yard and industrial traffic. The industrial branch loco comes in with the outgoing traffic and goes back with branch traffic from the yard. The station pilot sorts the wagons arrived from the industrial branch and the WR loco then takes its lot back to the WR fiddle sidings. The whole thing takes about an hour to run through, requiring 4 locos and about 30 wagons. An added complication can be introduced by running a passenger or through freight train in each direction on the LMR line and a Flying Banana or parcels car on the WR line through to the LMR line.

I keep a spreadsheet of my stock, with original cost and an idea of what items may be worth on the market. It's useful for keeping track of what I have and a starting point when I put surplus stock on the market. When I go I don't know if it will be used, although my 9 year old grandson shows a lot of interest in railways and is a real whizz at shunting puzzles set up in the three sidings of my goods yard.

There are several photos of LMS stock ex-works heading south of Wolverton in 1961 with steps removed and freshly painted black ends. A lot of GWR stock still had the steps in 1964 but usually types which were restricted from other areas.

I think there's one in the Permanent Way Institute book on track but can't get at my copy to look. There's certainly tables of dimensions in there.

I'm not sure of the exact date but removal started on the LMR around the time that the AC electric service began running between Crewe and Manchester. It gradually spread around the country over a period of about five years, probably as workshop visits were due unless the stock was booked to run under the wires. There were some coaches where the steps had been roughly cut off and others had been carefully removed and the bolts put back in the holes but the paint not touched up. Given the amount of stock of all regions that could run via Crewe or Birmingham on booked trains let alone specials I would doubt many if any got to the blue/grey era with end steps intact.

Compression is one of the compromises. A real 15mph trailing crossover on a standard six-foot would be about 30 inches long measured to the ends of the stock rails when transferred to 4mm scale.

I think the last time I polished my leather shoes and wore full formal clothing was Mom's funeral in 2015.

I knew some old steam drivers who always referred to it by that name. I think it got the later name after diesels and electrics gor headlights and you could see the bats flying around at times.

The same is claimed for the disused railway tunnels at Highgate which were once LNER but which should have become the Northern Line tube. The history of why they never did has been told where it matters. We used to refer to the former Up Empty Carriage line tunnel at Camden as the Bat Cave.

Not seen it. Would that be a man eating bear meat or a man-eating bear eating a man?

With the way supplies are going at the moment, is Bear a good alternative to turkey?

Act like a politician. If you break the rules you imposed just tell everyone that they were really just advice or guidance.

You are probably better off half filling the tank. Diesel weighs about 850 grams per litre so in my car half a fill from the warning light coming on is 21 kilos less than filling right up. A lot less weight to carry around.

Out of stock at our local store.

Another putting right job today. Test riding a new MTB. Set-up was rubbish, most screws other than suspension not tightened correctly. Anne tried riding round the block, absolute bag of nails. Checked out and adjusted gears which were well out, and noticed while doing it that chain was fitted inside out. Fortunately it had a quick link so removed and correctly installed. That reduced the gear noise but made the front end more noticeable. Tried different pedals but not the problem. Checked crank, bolts not torqued up correctly. That reduced the problem a bit but not completely. Took out bottom bracket, Shimano ones are rubbish, put in better one from the spares box. Hey presto, all works fine. Proper test tomorrow to see if all of the ills cured, but it shouldn't have needed lots of work. Given some of the comments in other threads it's a good job these people only have problems in getting their blue or red box toys to work. Just lucky I had all the tools needed and Anne bought a good stock of spares pre-Brexit and Covid so no problems getting bits.

If I'm not logged in l get all sorts of problems on my phone and using some browsers on a laptop or desktop. The paid version doesn't seem to give any problems and when I joined that it was cheaper than the magazine subscriptions included. On the desktop or laptop I use Firefox or Brave. Both are free and can be set for blocking ads which helps. I've noticed recently that some other sites have become almost unusable pn my phone because of ad banners blocking where buttons or content should be. I understand our leader is currently looking into the issue and will report back later, unless of course one of the ads manages to devour his site access permissions.

He was last heard of b*ll ***ing. He may be gone for some time. (But seriously, he is alive and muddling his way along.)

Threads given a deep clean and properly coated. It's amazing how little grease the manufacturers use and the lack of care on assembly on expensive kit these days. I now end up giving it a full check over and often find things with zero lubrication or not assembled correctly. It's just the same as having to make adjustments to get expensive r*****y m****s running properly.

Bit of a slack day today as I had a flu jab yesterday and my arm is a bit sore. Alternatively it may have been the effort of lifting the results of 24 potato plants yesterday. At least those are all out now and allotment preparations for next year are getting underway. My Dad used vegetable growers as an example in one of his sermons about belief. His point was that we prepare the ground and sow the seed not knowing what tomorrow brings but in the expectation that the crop will grow and we will be here to eat it. Component replacement work has been completed on Anne's ebike. The chain was stretched by about 1.2% mainly due to roller wear. The drive cog and rear cassette rings were noticeable worn so have been replaced. Running much better now so that should keep her happy. I came across my usual bugbear when removing the front cog. The original design of the motor had a plastic locking ring but that wasn't man for the job so the manufacturer started using a metal one. When will they learn that an aluminium nut on a steel shaft will lock itself very tight due to the invisible surface corrosion on the aluminium. It's even worse when there isn't anything to put some force against. After a couple of attempts I resorted to techniques of the last millenium and gently headed the lockring with a hot air gun. When it was warm to touch it came off easily due to the different expansion if the two metals. I had one yesterday telling me that my McAfee subscription had expired. As I last had one several years ago I transferred it to the spam folder along with the 'Click here to enter the draw for a £500 Morrisons Gift Voucher" and the "complete the survey for a chance to win a £500 Tesco Gift Voucher" emails that seem to be prevalent at the moment.

I wasn't directly involved in TMD depots but was for a long time based on shared sites and sometimes in shared buildings. Colours would probably depend on the history of the depot and the date being modelled. During the BR period much of the furniture came from the same suppliers as standard government stuff. Desks and tables could be wood or metal. Wooden office desks were often made in-house, my plan desk in the design office was made by Wolverton Carriage Works. They were usually varnished and had brown, grey or black wipe-clean tops. Over the years the colour of the common 'Bisley' 4-drawer filing cabinet used changed from olive green similar to military vehicles, then mid grey and during the 1980s we started getting ones with a dark brown case and beige drawers. Steel cupboards, 3 feet wide by 4 feet and 6 feet high, followed the same progression. Racking and storage trays were mainly mid grey as in Tony's picture linked above. In earlier times the radiators in my offices were sometimes the same colour as the walls, usually cream. In 1990 I had blue ones a bit darker than Rail Blue. I think that was in the Network Southeast period.

The gauge at about 3.5" could possibly be 1" to 1' for 3'6" so 1/12 scale?