chris p bacon

Aaaaah, I see, they still wear a uniform but it's Homburgs and Volvo's.

As that's an urban fox, are the hunt kitted out on Bikes and 4x4's wearing read tail coated hoodies ?

Excellent. Many moons ago I did a "Management training course" which involved some orienteering (leadership skills). The end point turned out to be here, and as it was also a time trial if you were late it was 4 or 5 hours until the next service back. Made it with 10 minutes to spare which turned out to be the projected timescale.

There were "InterCity" DMU's which were intended for some fairly lengthy journeys, although the Cravens certainly wasn't one of them. My memories of them are returning from KX in the dark after a days spotting in London, if you nodded off and your head hit the glass you were soon woken with "Vibration Forehead"

Dad was born Feb 29th 1920 so technically he wasn't able to take his test until 1988 when he reached his 17th birthday. As was common practise his birth is registered as the 28th Feb. I just looked it up and he was actually right, if you took your bike test they gave you a car licence.

Dad was born in 1920 and always said he had to take the test which his older brother Arthur hadn't, turned out dad took his test on a bike and they gave him a car licence too.

By co-incidence I've been archiving some society papers including plans of the GN & City Railway, it has some plans and cross sections of culverts and lift shafts but sadly not tunnels.

Sandy was a little different as it had some of the longest* wire operated turnouts (exit from down yard to main ) they were installed in the 1920's and could be a little troublesome for the signalman if he didn't throw the lever in one go. * Length of wire/distance from box to turnout. I understand the levers etc are in the NRM now.

I only had the one spam call in the office yesterday, it was Bupinder from "MS Security" I let him waffle on for a few minutes then used my Fart App (on the iphone) and said I had to go. As he didn't fix my "Error reports problem" he's sure to call back.

His previous conviction was for not having any insurance (or licenses & mot) so I doubt he'll stress about it. I like the Irony that he came here for "Safe Haven" but his presense has made it more dangerous.

One was planned at Herston Halt but after a fair amount of civils work was stopped. The long term plan is to get hold of what was the old BP site at Furzebrook but negotations are still ongoing.

Sadly Swanage Railway doesn't have any undercover storage, Carriage & Wagon restoration is in either the Goods shed at Swanage or the open air.

Same here, 1970's from Sandy to Biggleswade I couldn't see the advantage of the twin steer as it was one of the few buses that had to take to bites at getting through the school gates. Buses serving the school were a selection of local operators, Cooks, Fairway, Saffords, Horseshoe, most were pretty ropey.

Off topic I know but it made me think of this.

I'm not saying that this is the case with the bridge in question but you'd be surprised just how little work is done to rectify any problems with a bridge such as this. I have at present some pre-grouping railway documents I'm helping to archive and there are a few instances where every ha'penny is accounted for and not a penny more spent than need be. So it's quite possible that there was a perceived fear of subsidence hence the needles, but the complete replacement of the bridge with a new deck may be a cost too great to bear.

OT a bit but yes it was. The Flyover (the ECML) at Sandy was renewed at great cost to increase axle loading. 2 of the beams from the flyover now form the main Sandy to Potton road bridge at the North end of the station. East West rail should hopefully correct this mistakem closure.

Oooh Yes, I like the idea of this. Ok this is/was the closest one to me. Girtford Halt on the outskirts of Sandy. I took some pics in Oct 1981. This is looking East with the platform edging of the halt on my right, the bridge takes the A1 over the trackbed of what was the Bedford to Cambridge line. This is looking Westwards towards Blunham and Bedford Info can be found here. http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/g/girtford_halt/ You purchased tickets in a Cafe which was on the Northbound carriageway, needless to say it didn't much traffic and didn't last long. I have seen the first tickets purchased (0001 0002) for a trip to Sandy station, but not for some time. There were also a couple of sidings for the loading of vegetables which lasted a bit longer. For a recent view I've taken these from Google Streetview. The trackbed now forms a roadway to access the A1 at the North end of town. Looking West this is now Route 51 cycleway which you can use to Bedford. The site of the halt is now under the verge and pathway.

We have a couple of pairs......they have the nickname of "Sparrowhawk food" as they seem so easy to ambush.

Isn't it "The Good Samaritan" law. IIRC some Journo's fell foul of it when Dodi & Diana crashed as they took pictures but didn't attempt to help.

I can eat most things, but I prefer not to if after 2 minutes with a vet it's back on its feet.

I thinks that's not so much respect, but they think that no matter how bad things are, they don't drive one of those....

It's ok "Microsoft internet security" have now been on the phone too, so they must all be on the case...... On a slightly related theme I get a few calls asking if I've had a recent accident. I tend to reply "yes" and when they ask the nature of the accident I say "I sh*t myself" but they all seem unable to help....

It's generally in the Northern part of the country, funnily enough where there's Grouse shooting and the like. It's the rare BoP that are missing and have been persecuted to protect commercial shooting. In a way if there were just low numbers it could be attributed to differing reasons, but when a complete body of wildlife is missing even though the food chain is there, is shows how some are willing to treat nature as an inconveniance while claiming to be "Guardians of the Countryside". Herts has similar problems to Beds with travellers and Hare Coursing. Apart from the cruelty they are extremely destructive to land. I appreciate the Police have quite a job on their hands though, when you take into account the recent shootings between travellers. It's also a very difficult sub culture to penetrate. Back on topic. More fledgeling Starlings in the garden this morning, so many airborne near misses.

And yet Bupinder from "BT internet security" who telephoned me this morning never mentioned this email.

As an update on this. I've called in a couple of times to see how the driver is but had no luck finding anyone in. I eventually spoke to his son this evening who was very grateful for me calling in as he still had no idea what had actually happened. His Father (the driver) was still a little confused and extremely sore but is generally ok. It seems the son had tried many times to stop his Father from driving without success and hopes this will finally stop him. It seems that after the ambulance took 1 hour and 20 minutes to arrive after the 999 call things didn't improve. At 2pm they then took him off to Bedford A&E, when there they popped him in a wheelchair and left him in the A&E queue. Only when the son arrived at 4.30pm when the Police got hold of him, did they realise that he was still there. Turns out they had been calling him for an hour but as he has poor hearing he had no idea and they didn't bother checking if the old man facing the wall was the one they wanted. After treatment he was discharged that night. I had put his age at mid 70's but seems he's actually 86! As annoying as it is to lose a reliable truck, it's only metal. All my neighbour and I have been concerned about is the health of the driver as I'm sure when he set out that day, he didn't intend to end up in A&E. As for the various pillocks posting on a local Farcebook page, seems I wasn't far from the truth when I said the ones who didn't stop were heading off to post an "OMG guess what I just saw" post, I don't do FB but I've been shown a few coments where someone saw it but was "too busy" to stop and others have chipped in with ""I know, but I hope the drivers ok" ....F..em...useless waste of space.