Northmoor

TV and film makers do make a lot of effort to get things "right" with things like period clothing, so it's odd that a generic steam train often seems sufficient. I suspect it is often driven by what location is available. If you want to film a Southern station for four days in summer, Horsted Keynes might not be available because it's operating! I can even live with incorrect trains but what often jumps out at me is 21st Century language used by WW2-1960s era characters. There are a lot of terms common speech that have evolved only since availability of the Internet became commonplace within the last 20-25 years. More sensitively, TV dramas show a level of widespread liberal tolerance that I suspect wouldn't have been common in the era represented.

This is the main benefit of oil-firing, you don't stop operating steam - which is what the public will pay a premium for - no matter what the drought. The Snowdon Mountain Railway has never, to my knowledge, had to suspend services. Converting 4965 is smart thinking if it means Vintage Trains don't have to cancel and refund passengers, while everyone else is. Note though that the Ffestiniog used to run on waste oil collected by it's members and I think, topped up with domestic heating oil when supplies were low, or probably the other way around. It wasn't bunker oil, that has long been illegal to burn outside international waters (most ocean going vessels capable of using it start and run on diesel until sufficiently far from land). They converted to coal when the price difference became not worth worrying about and since the quality of waste oil couldn't be controlled, they couldn't guarantee their emissions met regulations.

London Underground get round this by (as well as passengers not opening the doors) using CSDE (Correct Side Door Enable). A transpondery-thing under the far end of the platform releases the doors on that side only, with no input from the driver (sorry, operator).

Most of Venice is goodness-knows-how-many-hundred-years-old and all its buildings stand on wooden posts driven into the alluvial mud. Apparently any removed are as hard as stone.

I remember years ago a piece in a preservation society mag - Ffestiniog I think - about placing and securing some very sturdy posts. The writer insisted that the problem many had was setting them in concrete instead of packed round with stones. I can see the logic; concrete is porous and if in very wet ground, will hold water long after the ground has drained. With stones, as the ground drains, the wood can dry out as well. There is the other advantage that it's probably easier to adjust the position (and re-pack with more stones if the hole starts to open out).

A former neighbour of my parents was a cookbook writer, specialising in gluten-free cookery. She believed her books were unusual in that the author had actually made all the recipes, multiple times, to make sure they actually worked. I know they weren't Iain Rice's work, but many of Railway Modeller "Plans of the Month" suggest no-one had ever actually tried to fit them into the claimed space. I can certainly remember one or two where putting a ruler to the page suggested some curves were less than 15" radius, in OO.

Dad's cars: NWW 191K, TDE 916, HBX 188N, B39 YDE, D157 YFR, D222 PEJ, then UBX 383T (my first car). The only ones I don't remember are the Mk1 Cortina we bought off the neighbours and only ran for a few months, and the side-valve Minor Dad still has but its re-registered with an A-prefix which I can't commit to memory. Its original number was OWL 501, which the previous owner sold for more than the car fetched without it. For some reason the registrations of cars I've owned as an adult don't stick in the mind in the same way.

When Dame Vera Lynn was withdrawn in Greece, it was oil-fired. It had to be converted back to coal-firing after repatriation to and during restoration in the UK.

That's because glass sheets are made of float glass whereas bottles etc. are made from blown glass. They aren't chemically identical.

I believe the same logic is occasionally applied on Death Row in America, in the instances where executions have been delayed as the condemned person was ill and they were waiting for them to recover.

I've just reminded myself that Second Generation DMUs are now approximately as old as the First Generation DMUs were when the last were withdrawn.......

Look at it this way, you have the excitement of finding a model(s) you forgot you had, or hadn't seen in a long time, for a cost of nothing. There are people currently surfing model shop websites to get the same endorphins and spending money to do it.

This is why I walk all our broken glass to the bottle bank at the end of the road. One broken bottle in your bin contaminates the whole load, diverting it to landfill. I can't understand why roadside collection still accepts glass, for this reason. Mind you, I still can't understand why so many adults think it's OK to leave litter everywhere, something that has definitely got worse in the last few years, it's like people have just stopped caring. Moan over (for now).

Mainline 75001 was I think, my first "really good" model loco (as opposed to Hornby train set locos of the era). I don't care that the current Bachmann/Hornby/whoever's model is superior, I will never part with my 75001, although it hasn't been run for years I will always treasure it. It's worth reminding ourselves that the model was released about 45 years ago. Mainline and Airfix really did bring Hornby kicking and screaming into the 1980s. Yes, the mechanism design turned out to be a poor choice in the long term, but everything about the proportions of body and tender on the Standard 4 look excellent to me.

How is this rake braked? I thought all air-con Mk2s were air braked only and wasn't aware the Black 5 provided air braking, so presumably the 47 is there to provide brake pressure (but how is it controlled?). If Riley's Black 5s all have air braking then I have even less sympathy for WCRC than I started today with. CDL fitment is routine on air-braked stock, so WCRC could have used air braked Mark 1s all along, there are plenty of them around. This is, I suspect, why WCRC are stalling on CDL fitment; vacuum braking will become unacceptable on NR before too long so the company doesn't want to commit to the expense on stock that might have to be withdrawn altogether before they have earned the installation cost back. CDL is a red herring.

I'm not sure the FR/WHR would see it that way. It might be better to test the water with a heritage diesel shuttle (which doesn't compete with the FR/WHR product), perhaps providing some innovative catering and a running commentary over the PA, before considering how a regular steam service might be scheduled. There is a risk that the market for "train rides" is pretty saturated in Snowdonia (sorry, Eryri). If I wanted to start a regular steam service on NR in Wales, I would run something like Bristol TM - Cardiff - Port Talbot (attach steam loco in Margam yard) - Swansea District Line & Central Wales Line to Llandrindod Wells - Reverse to Llanelli - Return via SDL to Margam (detach steam loco) and then as outward. Lots of opportunities on the CWL for off-railway linked tours (National Botanic Gardens, Aberglasney House, Llandeilo itself); if not Llan'dod, terminate at Carmarthen where there's spare platforms, you've had the run up the Towy estuary and there's a triangle to turn the loco on. The downside of this is that starting at Bristol competes with the reasonably regular steam railtours to South Devon.

Agreed, plus the driving wheels further forward allows more room for the firebox.

I've not been on the platforms at Swindon recently, but Bristol Parkway still looked new last time I used it. I appreciate you don't like the architectural style, but is it actually decrepit and derelict? If it looks like it's not designed to last long that may be deliberate; passenger volumes and expectations can change rapidly so it is more cost-effective to build something modular that can be adapted or extended easily without having to be completely demolished and rebuilt anew, with all the disruption that brings. The original Bristol Parkway structures were remarkable and really did look temporary; little more than a couple of Portacabins but they lasted about 35 years! It may well be the most successful new station British Rail ever opened. Got to say, the recent entries on this thread, while still disappointing, don't come close to some of the decrepitude of the 1970s, thank goodness.

To anyone physically involved in any locomotive preservation scheme, the level of attention devoted to liveries by those NOT involved in that scheme, never stops surprising. When I was more actively involved in the AC Locomotive Group and used to host cab visits at Open Weekends, I reckon 80% of questions from enthusiasts were either, "When's it going main line?" or "What livery's it going to be next?". Questions from ordinary members of the public were notably more sensible. There have been multiple instances of appeals to preserve a particular example of a diesel class because it was in a unique livery, even when that example has one or more of: cabs stripped of wiring, scrap tyres, a flashed-over generator or minor fire damage. There have also been some despicable cases of personal abuse - from those objecting to some minor aspect of a livery's application - directed to loco owners who have paid for that repaint entirely out of their own pocket. I love this hobby but can't deny it does seem to provide a home for some serious obsessives.

That's a Hornby 47 (and signal) isn't it? They scrub up amazingly well for what it nearly a 50 year old moulding.

They are in good company, I would suggest most preserved railways have done this to rolling stock more than once. In the NYMR's defence, while replacing the cable is probably a relatively affordable component, is it a sensible use of resources if as @papagolfjuliet states, they already have three other cranes of up to 20T capacity? For the relatively few occasions when a >20T lift is required (even a decent sized loco boiler should be within that), it may be much more cost-effective to hire in a road crane.

I definitely have one green metal and one yellow plastic versions, somewhere..... That's it, the metal one is getting motorised. It's #96 on my to-do list.

While Mrs Northmoor visited the V&A Museum today, I took a few hours to go "spotting" around South London. A sign of the times that on a warm Saturday afternoon, I may have been the only enthusiast at the end of Clapham Junction's platforms..... I wasn't specifically photographing anything in particular, although I do have half an idea that recording 455s should be a focus for this year.

As is usually the way with these sort of issues, people only believe there is a problem when the victims are known to them. Since they didn't know anyone affected by opening slam doors, it obviously didn't happen. It is the same mindset that led a certain group to believe that the Covid-19 pandemic was all some enormous world conspiracy.

I always found it amusing that about 2 miles away from Rhodesia, is Wales!