MR Chuffer

Very clear, Stephen, I'll end the day much wiser than I started. I too have the Wizard kit, as yet unmade. And don't you love the Furness Railway photos featured up thread, such wagon owners diversity, a wagon spotters dream.

Doh, I went back to the original photo and bought up the MRSC search page again - a different one to before - and now I've found some stuff. I said I was old!! I'll read through but you can discount this query for now. Thx PS "The small side guard's lookouts or duckets, introduced in early 1902..." Item Number: 99-0300, I have my answer.

You're right, the cheapest by far but my interest in duckets doesn't stretch to that much commitment, I could buy one of your interesting pre-grouping wagons for that price...

Thanks, useful to know where to look but a bit pricey for only a passing interest in MR NPCS duckets

The D529 25 ft 4-wheel passenger brake van in this photo, can anyone provide more information or other photos? I see it has the old style guards lookout so how long did this variant last? No drawing appears on the LMS Society MR carriages drawing list (that I can find) and I drew a blank on the Midland Railway Study Centre (- but I am old...). Thanks

Didn't need the Midland to get to Skipton as the L&Y ran several goods trains a day through its end-on junction with the Midland at Colne and all the way to Skipton 11.25 miles over Midland metals. The more I look into this, the more fascinating it becomes. There ought to be a book in this somewhere but I'm suspecting that a lot of the wheeler dealing went on in smoke filled committee rooms - the "Club" anyone? - which probably mitigates against any authoritative account of turn of the century railway politics? My geography of interest, touched on up thread, was Midland traffic out of Liverpool Exchange (via Aintree for goods) over the L&Y to Blackburn and then north to Hellifield, and I believe there were reciprocal rights for L&Y traffic to venture beyond the line to Hellifield and over the S&C, just as they did to Skipton and Bradford. And then I was reading the other day, can't lay my hands on it right now, that around 1908, the LNWR did a deal with the L&Y for goods traffic to head westwards from Rose Grove to Preston eschewing the Blackburn to Hellifield route and there traverse the WCML with a train to Carnforth and one to Carlisle daily. And then there was the 3-way 1907 (yes?) traffic agreement between the LNWR, L&Y and Midland to share traffic to reduce costs. Much intrigue indeed!

Useful information, thanks, but you've unwittingly raised my ultimate interest, traffic exchange in the Northwest. I have 3 GW wagons, amongst ~150 MR and L&Y and including POs on my layout, the GW ones were coming in to East Lancashire in MR trains, via Phillips Park (shared with the LNWR and GC as well as the L&Y) and Blackburn via Bolton. So are you suggesting, these sporadic GW incursions would more likely travel in by L&Y, and it could be via the ELR route (Bury/Accrington)?

Out of interest, do we know if this Siphon G was travelling West to East or the reverse, and where would the interchange location(s) of GW traffic with the Midland have likely been? Phillips Park or Trafford Park, Manchester, or coming across the CLC from Warrington, for instance.

Somewhere upthread (or in another thread) there was a recent discussion that Train Control was introduced to passenger trains a few years later (pre- or early WW1?) and evidenced to demonstrate its effect on the reduction of MR "double heading".

Generally, diesel is supposed to take you further than petrol and therefore creates less CO2. That's not so in your stated case, we emit the same CO2 but it is diesel particulates that are the killer and, I understand, the driver behind many ULEZ zones, not CO2. And also, what's the price difference nowadays, north of 6% that you are paying extra? Plus zero road tax, I think my case still stands.

I've got a 13 year old Prius hybrid, I still get 60+mpg on long drives in the summer or stop/start motoring in large cities and high 40s just pottering around in the winter. And notwithstanding the much cheaper price of petrol to diesel and the lower pollution impact, I'm quids in.

..But continued to act like independent companies. Rover wouldn't let them use their engine so Triumph made their own by welding 2 four cylinder blocks together*. Same in the cotton industry in the early 20c, lots of small family owned businesses refused to amalgamate to take advantage of scale and pursue world markets. And then there were very few family owned businesses left. * I was an account manager for Rover in the late 80s/early 90s and heard this tale from several long standing employees.

Au contraire, they are building that many houses and there are so many Porsches, Lamborghinis and Ferraris, Clitheroe, Whalley and Longridge drip wealth, glad I got here before it all started. Manchester 1 hour on the train, Preston, and WFH is where it's at.

There are no brown fields sites in the Ribble Valley, 2/3 is an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Where there are plenty of brown field sites, Accrington, Blackburn, etc, no one wants to live there. Is someone going to force people to live there?

Hey look, the MR Brake van is travelling the "wrong way round".... Wouldn't have happened on the GWR, I bet! (irony)

And our boy has a lot of hair, a lot of it on my living room floor!

I've told her they eat them over there, to put her off looking into it.

Correct, stealing in the way that the UK has been "stealing" them from Kenya, Uganda, India, Pakistan, etc. over the decades. The boot is now firmly on the other foot. Many of her cohort at University are now abroad permanently and she is sorely tempted, but there's the issue of the dog, her dog. I'll get to keep it if she goes.... And yes, East Lancashire, a beautiful area to live in if you are not in the major towns (and we know which they are!) is offering, or was, a £20,000 signing up bonus but still can't meet quotas. There are not enough GPs out there, period.

But there are plenty of bankers and civil servants, certainly partying in Downing Street

As I've banged on about in another thread, we are currently unable to fill 1 in 5 GP posts at the moment; even with the so called new workforce plan, that will rise to 1 in 4 by the end of the decade (may even be 1 in 3). You can't fill a bath (with new resource) if you've left the plug out. My daughter resigned as a GP the other day, intolerable hours, 10 hour shifts plus 2 hours of paperwork at home. The NHS is a basket case - don't get ill!

To the contrary, you can pick and choose what jobs you want to do, you get paid more than salaried staff, and there is NO PAPERWORK. At the end of a 10 hour GP shift, she still has up to 2 hours of paperwork to do at home, or as the other night, 199 prescriptions to go through and process. This is why GP staffing is on its knees. 1 in 5 vacancies at the moment, 1 in 4 by the end of the decade. Forget the new staff plan, it's no point filling the bath if you've left the plug out.... The NHS is on its knees. Rant over!

You mean like some unscrupulous suppliers cheating customers by ramping up direct debits beyond the customers actual usage? Nah, think you've got that wrong... And I'm with Octopus, like you, so am in control of my direct debit. All the rest of your post, I can't relate to, I currently pay £50 pm for dual supply on the just ended tariff, hardly worth being in a sweat about, is it?

I was reminded by my daughter that "bank" is a term for locum staff in the NHS. As a GP having just quit - its a sh*t job - she is applying to be Bank staff at the local hospitals so that she can work as a locum i.e. called in as required to plug staffing gaps.

Good luck with that, heard dreadful stories of customer service faux pas from both of these. I was put on Octopus when my previous supplier went bust and have since recommended them to 3 friends who have netted £50 transfer fees each as I have for recommending them.

The other side of the coin is that I under read my meter on June 30 so I am paying the lower rate for electricity I've already used. I did the same last April 2022 when I over read the gas and am still using gas at last years rates. At the end of the day, my meters are at eye level on a new build house and easy to read, I'm in control, no worries....