Paragon

Late to the party, nevertheless interest registered for 92030. Regards Jon Paragon

Still a load of circular signs outside Leeds city station platform 1 approaches advocating 'North Sea Gas' , 'Opencast Coal', one with an intercity swallow on, another with Wallace Arnold (coaches) and lastly Leeds Bradford Airport which has Concorde and an old biplane on Must date back to the late 80s/ 90s surely! Also, anyone spotted the phantom lift shaft on p1 at Leeds from the Parcels and Mail days? It used to lead up to an over bridge to Wellington street sorting office. Now demolished,there is a signpost to 'Royal Mail' still visible in the taxi/ drop off turning circle outside the 'new entrance' by the long stay car park at Leeds which has had a white vinyl sticker put on it to obscure the fact it was torn down years ago... There's also an old mural to WYPTE Metro branded trains at Shipley which includes an artistic depiction of a class 158 still visible, it's on the triangle junction for the line direct from Forster Square to Keighley/ Skipton. Can't remember the platform number... Also, signs which have 'Great Northern Electrics' on them as a title at Moorgate above the escalators down to the old BR platforms from the old BedPan terminating lines and the City, Hammersmith and Met platforms... Paragon

Hmm Well, I've got more than one interest on the simmer at the moment: The 'master plan' is Tilbury Riverside to Barking on the LTS in NSE era The more realistic side to me however is demanding a junction with some sidings to practice Templot and hand built EM before embarking on the big 'un Current thoughts with Gaer Junction or somewhere down Avonmouth in sweaty BR blue because some people won't stop leading me astray with all their posting photos of West Country freight workings of the era or snippets of TOPS documents and Conditional and Sectional WTTs and appendices with loads of trip workings and siding shunts to reincarnate. Sigh, the joys of the interweb! Paragon

Dave, I have more than occasional dealings with Stobart through work! (The company on behalf of whom their rail operations section operate the intermodal with the Less-CO2 branding) Would you like me to ask through them if Stobart's would be agreeable with the reproduction? We (as in my employer) have been making a lot of noise about the benefits of the service recently and I know our UK director is supportive of it as he was recently photographed there at the loading point alongside a Malcolm Rail 66 and the container flats! Might be worth a go if you were wanting to do one? Jon Paragon

92030 is a winner, Dave. All the best Jon Paragon

A bit close to home, therefore not as funny to 'non-insiders' Went to another store yesterday which is having a refurbishment. Normally, the rule is if you can pinch it for yours, pinch it, because anything that gets ripped out gets replaced, not stock of course because it's a blooming well organised venture to strip all the saleable articles out and it's all categorised and labelled before being fed back to our depots and superstores for a week whilst the fitting out is done, and we all value our jobs too much to get caught nicking! Before I could even ask 'can I have that shelf/ poster/ filing cabinet?' The lead manager pulls all the rest of us managers together and says 'don't bother pinching anything because I'll just search you on your way out'. Cue a massive pile of stashed items (not stock!) appearing by the exit to the store and one smug looking manager. It did make me smile, at least I wasn't the only one who'd gone with a shopping list of sundry items of paperwork, fixtures, fittings and files to try 'rehome' in my branch! Jon.

That's my bad, thanks for the correction I should have spotted the lack of a MAD boom on the Airseekers! The confusion is due to the fact it replaced an operational capability fulfilled by Nimrod, and it is of course a different airframe and sensor package in itself. Duly noted Paragon

Don't forget that for every ship on the surface you see steaming around all pink gins and popguns , there's an awfully large amount of Subs bristling with torpedoes to put a few holes in the officers mess at drinks time! I forgot to add that the carriers are a wasteful shame if they were that much of a difference maker in this day and age then the Ark wouldn't have been retired leaving a capability gap of what, 10+ years? We need more 'Jacky' Fisher's and, dare I say, daringly outspoken First Sea Lord's stalking around Whitehall. Paragon (With a mighty wink to the silent service!)

If I may (I'll keep it brief) Two friends in the Senior Service (one on T45s as an engineer the other commissioned in the RFA on Mounts Bay last I heard of her) for legitimacy Last surface battle was what, 60+ years ago? Falklands highlighted a serious lack of anti air defenses, and battle management. Last conflicts since had negligible use of naval power in anything beyond 'force projection' (Balkans, First Gulf, TELIC (second gulf) and HERRICK (Afghanistan) except keeping the Iranians away from the tankers. The Cold War was largely ASW forces bolstered by what was the last gasps of Coastal Command in the Nimrods Nowadays the RUSI and Janes studies would depict an interim force of Anti Air destroyers bolstering a pair of hunter killer subs in the North Sea and more in the Atlantic if we tangled with say the Russians breaking out of the Baltic Otherwise it's Force Projection, i.e. Mobilising the RFA 'Mounts' class and protecting HMS Ocean and her Wildcats ferrying stores ashore for an amphibious battle group of Commandos. This is fulfilled by the T45s and existing frigates. The only real 'Blue Water' defences are the Sabres in Gib fending off the Spanish trawlers and Guardia gunboats and the Falklands Defence Ship but again, the Argentinian fleet is still minus a battleship and would suffer to put a fleet to sea themselves. Even the Germans are a Submarine heavy navy, the Americans are bullish with the Chinese and Russians about surface power, but tight themselves relying on AEGIS missile cruisers and Tomahawk Hazard Perry class destroyers and smaller frigates. Nowadays, most nations focus on an aerial battle space supremacy approach alongside a submarine spearhead force to put down a hypothetical enemy's fleet, which negates a strong surface presence. Hence the defence requirements for Astute H/Ks and Type 45s. What would be interesting would be to see the next gen frigates, which I imagine will be ASW/ Air defence same but smaller as the Daring classes. The question is, where is and who is the next enemy, and what do they bring to the battlefield? China is checked by the Anericans and South Korea and Japan, Russia by the Americans except in the Black Sea which is Turkey's playing field and the Baltic has Germany, Denmark, France and us, all largely coastal fleets/ subs and air power. The real question here shouldn't be bemoaning the lack of a 'fleet' per se, that is inevitable with the current and previous threat assessments and conflict experience and expectations, what really should be the question is 'where are we with regards the Fleet Air Arm, no Nimrods, how good are the Rivet Joints at finding subs (they can't!) and why did we buy those over the new Poseidons the Americans are rolling out to replace the P-3s As I once told RAF Marham's station commander who agreed entirely with my view when asked on the subject of modern armed forces, the army goes as far as the land, the navy as far as the seas but the air forces cover all of them! Fly Navy! Paragon.

Never heard one on the juice before Mind you, only ever seen the one sat at decoy yard pan down in EWS TTG with beastie sticker over the old RfD diamonds Must be about three year or so back That's largely because I lived off the ELL and the NLL at Stratford by the junction with the GEML so it was all 86s and 90s and the rarer 70 or 66. Jon

I'm in... Alas I'll only need one for my CTRL/ Ripple Lane project. Jon

Oi!I never! I deny everything! (That's a lie!) By "froth" I meant speculation as to which Vans and when! Big wink! Jon (All in good spirits!)

Dave, Put me down for a rake of said ferry vans Here's hoping we don't end up with another froth topic Jon

Bickershaw colliery, albeit over t' Pennines in Lancashire, had green painted steel framework around their buildings... Paragon