Castle Aching

[Nearholmer]

My father’s family solved the problem at least as far back as C16th, and in all probability a lot longer ago than that, by calling all first-born boys Roger. My aunt traced them back, and ran to an end in 1556, when extant the parish records started, but got utterly confused between generations, because there were many periods with three or even four Rogers in circulation simultaneously (and, they all worked at the same trade, stonecutters, for hundreds of years).

[Compound2632]

11 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

My father’s family solved the problem at least as far back as C16th, and in all probability a lot longer ago than that, by calling all first-born boys Roger. My aunt traced them back, and ran to an end in 1556, when extant the parish records started, but got utterly confused between generations, because there were many periods with three or even four Rogers in circulation simultaneously (and, they all worked at the same trade, stonecutters, for hundreds of years).

 

I hope you will forgive a little levity at the expense of your ancestors. This demonstrates that the use of "roger" to signal "message understood" predates radio communications:

Consider the scene: expectant father pacing in the parlour; midwife bawls downstairs: "It's a boy"; father shouts back: "Roger".

 

Amongst the early Puritan settlers in New England, there was a very rigid naming system:

 

1st son - named for maternal grandfather

1st daughter - paternal grandmother

2nd son - paternal grandfather

2nd daughter - maternal grandmother

3rd son - father

3rd daughter - mother

4th son - free choice

4th daughter - free choice.

Edited October 22, 2019 by Compound2632

[Regularity]

Airplane:

 

[St Enodoc]

1 hour ago, Hroth said:

Earlier, I was going to mention the staff of the University of Walamaloo, with their distinctive naming strategy, but ...

 

Here's their tutorial on philosophers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9SqQNgDrgg

 

G'day Bruce!

 

That's Woolloomooloo, on Sydney Harbour to the East of the city centre - just down the hill from Kings Cross (no, not that one).

 

Easy way to remember the spelling:

 

sheep-toilet-cow-toilet

 

Note to pedants: Australia abolished the use of apostrophes in place names years ago, hence such oddities as Frenchs Forest.

 

Bruce.

[Regularity]

6 minutes ago, St Enodoc said:

Australia abolished the use of apostrophes in place names years ago, hence such oddities as Frenchs Forest.

How would they feel about exclamation marks?

 

Westward Ho!

[Marly51]

21 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

My father’s family solved the problem at least as far back as C16th, and in all probability a lot longer ago than that, by calling all first-born boys Roger. My aunt traced them back, and ran to an end in 1556, when extant the parish records started, but got utterly confused between generations, because there were many periods with three or even four Rogers in circulation simultaneously (and, they all worked at the same trade, stonecutters, for hundreds of years).

Some of them must have had ‘by-names’ when at least two were around at the same time? If only some of our old records had noted ‘by-names’s  which were sometimes linked to location, as well as character or trade, it would have benefitted today’s family researchers. 

[Regularity]

3 hours ago, drmditch said:

I'm not sure the LNWR was very good with tyres.

 

2 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

I'm curious to understand what is behind your statement that the LNWR wasn't very good with tyres?

He didn't make a statement, he just expressed doubt and uncertainty - albeit a rigidly defined area of such.

[Regularity]

4 hours ago, Marly51 said:

Some of them must have had ‘by-names’ when at least two were around at the same time? If only some of our old records had noted ‘by-names’s  which were sometimes linked to location, as well as character or trade, it would have benefitted today’s family researchers. 

I used to go out with a girl whose father and brother were both "John Patrick", but had different second middle names. No problem for her or her sisters: "Dad" and "John" were very distinct.

Her mother referred to junior as "Little John".

Wouldn't help anyone else, though: neither were very tall.

Edited October 22, 2019 by Regularity

[St Enodoc]

10 minutes ago, Regularity said:

How would they feel about exclamation marks?

 

Westward Ho!

Don't know!!

[TheQ]

We had several generations named alternately Herbert George then next generation George Herbert.

My Brother has my Scottish granddads first name and my brothers middle name is our dads first name, My brothers son has my dads middle name.

My sisters each have one of my mothers name + one other name.

 

Me.. I'm as far as I know I'm the only one in the world, named after a battle in Ethiopia / Eritrea

[St Enodoc]

2 minutes ago, TheQ said:

Me.. I'm as far as I know I'm the only one in the world, named after a battle in Ethiopia / Eritrea

Reminds me of the West Indian cricketer Everton Weekes. When Fred Trueman asked him how he got his name, he replied that his father was an Everton supporter. Fred's riposte was that it was a good job he didn't follow West Bromwich Albion.

[Nearholmer]

"Some of them must have had ‘by-names’ ......."

 

They must, but given that they all lived in the same parish, and worked at the same job, my surmise is that the by-names must have picked on physical characteristics or obscure bits of history. My grandmother was known as "Watcheer" (actual names Ruby Mary), I have a cousins known as Binny and John-Henry, neither of which bears any relationship to their actual names, while my brothers are known as Jeff and Drobus, again no resemblance, so maybe we've always considered given names rather like NHS numbers, something you neither need or nor remember.

[Compound2632]

2 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

@drmditch, I'm curious to understand what is behind your statement that the LNWR wasn't very good with tyres?

 

25 minutes ago, Regularity said:

 

He didn't make a statement, he just expressed doubt and uncertainty - albeit a rigidly defined area of such.

 

Sorry, yes, let me re-phrase my question:

 

@drmditch, I'm curious to understand what leads you to doubt that the LNWR wasn't very good with tyres, or at least, poorer than other companies?

 

For myself, if I make a statement of fact, I try to include a reference to my source if possible; if I make a statement of what I think may have been the case, I try to signal that with "I think" or similar, as drmditch has done here. I do have a reference for the Puritan New England naming system, somewhere, and can dig it out if anyone is sufficiently curious.

[Compound2632]

17 minutes ago, St Enodoc said:

Reminds me of the West Indian cricketer Everton Weekes. When Fred Trueman asked him how he got his name, he replied that his father was an Everton supporter. Fred's riposte was that it was a good job he didn't follow West Bromwich Albion.

 

"Baggie Weekes". But I'm not sure "Toffee Weekes" would be much better.

 

"Villa Weekes" just sounds like a holiday letting firm.

Edited October 22, 2019 by Compound2632

[K14]

6 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

 

Thank you both. Neither of those popped up on a Google search. However, the quoted dates are very different so I still don't know the answer...

 

Found this:—

 

Gibson, J.

Carriage & Wagon Superintendent, GWR, Wolverhampton: retired 1864. Inventor of "Gibson Ring" tyre fitting.
See Holcroft's The Armstrongs of the Great Western p. 53:

 

http://www.steamindex.com/people/engrs.htm

 

So that backs it up to pre-1864 on the GWR. I'd expect that it was patented & thus expensive to implement for 'foreign' companies; by the time it had expired (1880s ?) I'd guess that bolt-ons had become SOP for many & it took a while to catch on. The 1932 date given in the LMS paper ties in with the arrival of Stanier from Swindon.

 

I can remember seeing bolts on the tender wheelsets of the Super D when it was being overhauled at Crewe & being surprised/shocked that it had such antiquated fastenings for something so relatively modern.

 

Pete S.

[drmditch]

8 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

@drmditch, I'm curious to understand what leads you to doubt that the LNWR wasn't very good with tyres, or at least, poorer than other companies?

 

For myself, if I make a statement of fact, I try to include a reference to my source if possible; if I make a statement of what I think may have been the case, I try to signal that with "I think" or similar, as drmditch has done here. 

 

Yes, I didn't look up my references earlier this morning, so I did qualify my remark.

I don't want to take too much time today looking them up, as I actually have a day to work on my railway!

 

There were two incidents I was thinking about:-

One was a report of Rugby station being bombarded with tyre fragments. 

The second was that W.A.Stanier had a problem persuading Crewe Works to finish turn tyres. He saw the problem with rough-turning was that it could leave small imperfections which could spread and form the basis of a crack.

 

I am not an expert on turning/machining, neither am I an expert on the LNWR, or any other railway for that matter, although my loyalties lie with the NER and LNER and perhaps I was being slightly mischevious!

 

Perhaps someone who knows more can supply more information!

 

Caroline Middleditch

('drmditch')

[Martin S-C]

On 15/10/2019 at 18:22, Edwardian said:

My involvement with the Rails SE&CR van was also revealed; Guy Rixon's crucial involvement had been previously disclosed.  A couple of production vans were on display - not samples - so these will be delivered to customers over the next few weeks. 

 

 

I haven't purchase one or two of these due to no pre-grouping livery which seemed a really curious decision. I hope Dapol will be releasing an SECR one in due course.

[Compound2632]

20 minutes ago, Martin S-C said:

I haven't purchase one or two of these due to no pre-grouping livery which seemed a really curious decision. I hope Dapol will be releasing an SECR one in due course.

 

The brake gear as modelled is only appropriate for the liveries depicted. A vehicle in SECR or earlier Southern livery will require brake gear of a different and curiously non-standard type; @Edwardian or @Guy Rixon can explain the technicalities, which I haven't got my head round. 

 

What Rails have chosen to do has evidently been commercially sound, since the models sold out to pre-order!

Edited October 22, 2019 by Compound2632

[Martin S-C]

On 20/10/2019 at 09:03, Nearholmer said:

I never use the digital zoom on phone. If I want just part of a view, I will snap the whole lot, then crop afterwards, which seems to give a better result.

 

Not sure why, and maybe I’m kidding myself, because the bare truth is that ‘digital zoom’ or cropping both involve using fewer pixels - only by using good quality optical zoom does one get a full image.

I am pondering the logic of this. If you use a digital zoom lens camera at the widest lens setting, your 4000 pixels across the image cover, say 10 feet on a model. If you zoom in your 4000 pixels cover say 3 or 4 feet, so surely zooming in should give a far crisper image? Or am I confusing digital and optical zoom? If digital zoom works the way you say then it seems entirely useless. You may well be right but I can't see how such a technology can even exist.

[Martin S-C]

On 20/10/2019 at 18:32, Edwardian said:

There is a superb slot-in-post signal that I was pleased to examine, as I've long thought that some might have survived on the WNR, which is of a suitable vintage for them. I had a good look at the scotches, which might still have been found in the remoter corners of the WNR. 

 

 

Otherwise I was floating in a heavenly sea of disc and bar, bridge rail and baulk road. Annie, I'm sure, will appreciate these.

 

 

Thank you very much for the images of the scotch blocks and the signalling equipment. The early GW has always been my first love and I probably only never went into BG modelling due to limited skills with metal kits and soldering irons. I have always liked the early GW signals and a number will adorn my own layout. I have an actual functional use for the scotch blocks at one location so may incorporate a working one. Another of my favourites is the early rotating ground signals of which I installed several working copies on my digital Highworth branch in MSTS many years ago,

[Martin S-C]

On 21/10/2019 at 10:00, Andy Hayter said:

Back then this was a ruin.  Now it would be a half million do-er up-er.

Roye England's biography has some very upsetting sections where he was working as fast as possible measuring rows of half derelict thatched cottages at the same time that workmen were pulling them down. Thank heavens this would never happen today but before we entered this age of the recognition of the value of these things, far too much was lost.

[Martin S-C]

20 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

And Star Wars wasn’t stretched out?

The whole young hero to adulthood story is in the first film. The rest was money making.

[Martin S-C]

2 hours ago, Regularity said:

Airplane:

 

You snuck in some steam train sound effects there. Well done.

[Edwardian]

1 hour ago, Martin S-C said:

I haven't purchase one or two of these due to no pre-grouping livery which seemed a really curious decision. I hope Dapol will be releasing an SECR one in due course.

 

It's not a curious decision in the context of this being a limited-run test product, pioneering the application of a new technology. That's why you only get one version.

 

In the future, new product can take advantage of the flexibility of 3D-print v. injection moulding in order to produce different physical variants within the same production run.  In theory, if you wanted, you could print 9 wagons on a bed, each one physically different.

 

Nevertheless, the intention has always been to do an early version of this test product in a subsequent run.  My brief was to select a SE prototype covered wagon that could span the full livery period of a certain RTR Wainwright locomotive.

 

That is always a tall order; in general locomotives had longer working lives than wagons. D1424 was built from 1904 and lasted, albeit in small numbers, into the mid-'50s, so managed to fulfill the brief. 

 

The earlier version should, IIRC, take us back as least as far as 1909 and be good for early SE&CR livery, late SE&CR livery and early SR livery.  It will need Hills brake gear and roof vents.  Those will be the principal physical differences to the printed wagon.  It will need to be fitted with Alan Gibson 12mm Mansell wheels.   

[Edwardian]

2 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

"Baggie Weekes". But I'm not sure "Toffee Weekes" would be much better.

 

"Villa Weekes" just sounds like a holiday letting firm.

 

Honeysuckle Weeks