Reorte

Higher than now, lower than pre-pandemic is a definite possibility, but it's too early to know how things will really shake out.

Thanks, I didn't think I'd imagined it, but it was bizarrely hard to find mention of it online. A contender for the thread, or not one that should really count? IIRC they were outright given the boiler (making one out of scrap would be a bad idea, to put it mildly) and the engine (no chance of building one out of scrap, or finding one). Won too IIRC, whereas my bets were on the diesel.

A silly reply this but I can definitely remember a Scrapheap Challenge episode where they built one (think it was one of the specials, since it was three teams, doing steam vs diesel vs electric, although the electric suffered from having to be battery powered). That might qualify, IIRC all three teams were given a bogie off, erm, something as the basis of their build. I've not managed to find any sign of it from a bit of Googling, but I'm sure I'm not imagining it (it wasn't the rocket train or muscle-powered train one).

Definitely, it always seemed a bit of an odd one to miss in the original version, since it's such a short branch.

That's just down to the angle I took the picture from. Here's another one trying to roughly match your first picture:

It's the 1970s (I think), so rather reduced, just the single line. It's available on Steam as "Woodhead Electric Railway in Blue."

There's a later (BR Blue era) version of that route which includes Glossop. Downside to that one is reports of buggy scenarios, and I've had it crash on me.

Quite like the Netherfield route, although I'm not at all familiar with the area. Had a couple of scenarios where I was unable to stop in time, don't know whether that was my bad driving (too fast for the load) or whether the distant signals weren't as far away as they should be (and I'm sure I've encountered a signal at danger following a cleared distant). Could just be me and an illustration of why route knowledge is so important. I'm also not keen on scenarios where I have to really thrash it, could be unrealistically tight scenarios but again it might simply be my lousy driving not getting

This is a very big generalisation (way bigger than locomotives), and maybe the 60s are old enough so that it doesn't apply, but often older designs of things in general are easier to reengineer due to their initial simplicity and not every component depending precisely on every other component, all integrated together throughout.

Can't say I'm the most enthusiastic about the current H&S environment (but then again I'm not working in close proximity to fast-moving heavy machines, which might change my views a bit if I was) but having to walk down a tunnel and possibly dive into the 6' very much sounds too far to the opposite extreme to me! Having toilets flushed on me doesn't really appeal either (having to have retention tanks and retrofitting them always sounded like a definite positive change), perhaps I'm softer than I thought.

One of my regular walks crosses the Manchester - Sheffield line a couple of times, and I can also see if there's anything on the Buxton line. It also passes the site of the Gowhole sidings. There are some signs of what was once there, earthworks and bridges, and the turntable pit's still there.

I spent 15 months in France a while back, and whilst I don't remember noticing quite so many litter issues we have that sort of vandalism seemed much more common. Variety amongst societies, places and cultures is part of what makes the world an interesting place, I suppose that it inevitably means variety in the means of anti-social behaviour too.

Many seem so obsessed with their phones that I honestly think there's nothing they'd fear more than losing the phone, even the car.

No society's perfect, shouldn't stop us wanting to emulate the good parts.

Something I've often thought about when people talk about driving whilst on the phone - confiscating the phone would probably be a more significant deterrent than points on the licence and a fine (particularly if they're not allowed to take out a new contract on a new phone for a while). edit: reading on I see someone's said just that!