Castle Aching

[Nearholmer]

That’s a faux castle.

 

Which is another name for the front bit of a boat.

[Annie]

Now that would make a most excellent project.

 

[Northroader]

I know, Laura’s Tower at Shrewsbury station (I’m just killing time it the boss shows up)

[Northroader]

And a bit bigger tower, named after the Thomas Russell Crampton at Broadstairs.

[Edwardian]

Piel Station, it's on my BLT bucket list. Little Sharpie 2-4-0s ran there. 

 

Merry Christmas everyone!

[Shadow]

18 hours ago, Annie said:

Now that would make a most excellent project.

 

 

We've been here before. Page 48  (July 2016)

and page 256 (Dec 2017) 

 

MERRY CHRISTMAS to all.

 

 

Edited December 25, 2020 by Shadow

[sem34090]

Merry Christmas everyone!

[sem34090]

Actually, whilst I think about it, I've also been experimenting with coach liveries for this fantasy project. We're intentionally going for something a bit weird, and it doesn't much if it's not a livery that could actually have been applied way back when.

The base colour is black, then (Left to Right) Humbrol RAF Blue, Humbrol BR Coach Roof Grey, Vajello White, Home-Mixed Light Grey, Revell Brass, Revell Bronze, Revell Steel and Humbrol LNER Garter Blue.

[Nearholmer]

Revell bronze makes a surprisingly good LSWR salmon.

[sem34090]

14 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

Revell bronze makes a surprisingly good LSWR salmon.

That's what I thought, though unfortunately it's obviously a bit metallic so probably isn't much use for that purpose.

 

In other news, I also committed a crime against a Triang Nellie;

[Northroader]

While we’re radiating Christmas Bonhomie, best wishes to the chief recorder, or whatever he is, Mr. Runs as Required.

[sem34090]

I settled on a coach livery and have done a couple of test pieces;

(Ignore the LNER Insignia; That's coming off)

[ChrisN]

Ummm, chocolate phone.  Don't eat it all at once!

[sem34090]

It's not a very nice colour; It's a 1980s GPO 746 (I think they gave it a different number, but it's basically a 746) that I bought very cheaply to experiment with, the plan being to investigate options for connecting it to my mobile.

(A joke shot of it plugged into the RJ11 Ethernet Socket on the wall in my room - Interestingly it did make sounds when the receiver was lifted despite having a BT, not RJ11, plug on it. Obviously it wasn't going to work.)

Turns out there's a nice little Bluetooth box that can be bought, and which happily takes Pulse dialling. Plug the 'phone into the box, connect the mobile via Bluetooth and it's done. Then plug into a laptop to change it from US ringing (Ring, Pause, Ring) to UK ringing (Ring Ring, Pause, Ring Ring) and it's perfect.

 

Now I've tested it with this 746 I'm thinking of investing in something older and nicer looking (a GPO 300 Series would do nicely, if anyone has one; A pre-war 200 Series would be amazing!) that fits better with my general tastes.

(That's a 300 Series)

The 746 isn't a bad prop though, if disguised well enough. From this angle it looks like it could be 706 which would at least be in-period. I don't think they ever did the 706 in brown though.

[Annie]

I found this just now and I thought it might be of interest.  An adaptation of Charles Dickens's 'The Signalman'.

 

 

Edited December 25, 2020 by Annie
fumble brain

[jcredfer]

9 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Revell bronze makes a surprisingly good LSWR salmon.

I recently checked Crediton Signal Box with Google street scene, it now has a colour that I don't recall from my youth around there.  Just saying'.

 

Julian

 

[wagonman]

I thought the GPO Telephone service was like Henry Ford: you could have any colour you liked as long as it was black.

[Pacific231G]

1 hour ago, wagonman said:

I thought the GPO Telephone service was like Henry Ford: you could have any colour you liked as long as it was black.

Now that's the sort of myth (like the Eurosausage and BR being incompetent rather than underfunded) that people want to believe so do.

GPO telephones could be had in colours other than black as early as 1932, though black was still the norm, but the standard phone from 1959 (the 706) came in a range of seven colours and once domestic phones moved away from bakelite to plastic I don't remember black being all that dominant. 

In the 1960s the GPO went wild and introduced the Trimphone!

[Nearholmer]

33 minutes ago, Pacific231G said:

GPO telephones could be had in colours other than black as early as 1932

Fascinating. Are we talking dark charcoal grey, vanishing green, and exceedingly deep ultramarine here, or actual colours?

[sem34090]

Actual colours, including Red, Green, Ivory, Grey and Blue. Then the fact that the later ones (746, but maybe the older 706 too) essentially consist of four parts (Main Case, Dial Surrounds, Handset/cord assembly and button blank) so two-tone variations, or even more if one swapped parts between several 'phones, were possible. I think the grey and green were two-tone as standard.

[Donw]

In my days as a apprentice telephone engineer I only ever saw Black and Ivory of the pre 746 ones apart from a possible siting in the RAF signals office where they had a red one looked like a 300 type but I am not sure it was connected to a normal telephone line. We never touched it. 

Also back in those days they had WB400 equipment which was used for a nuclear attack warning. I was working with a fitter to change over the switchboard at workingham police station. Having removed the old board we left the incoming lines connected to ordinary phones overnight. When we got there in the morning there was a chap complaining that we had left the WB400 disconnected. We wouldn't have known if there was a nuclear attack he moaned. I could hardly keep a straight face. Quite what he expected to do in the 4 minutes that the warning hoped to give, unless he was going to drive hell for leather to the nuclear bunker a few miles away and needed to get there before the doors were shut when it all went bang.

 

Don

[Edwardian]

3 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

 

GPO telephones could be had in colours other than black as early as 1932, though black was still the norm.......

 

As in "contrasting stripes of Telephone Black and White White"

 

 

[St Enodoc]

6 hours ago, sem34090 said:

Actual colours, including Red, Green, Ivory, Grey and Blue. Then the fact that the later ones (746, but maybe the older 706 too) essentially consist of four parts (Main Case, Dial Surrounds, Handset/cord assembly and button blank) so two-tone variations, or even more if one swapped parts between several 'phones, were possible. I think the grey and green were two-tone as standard.

We had an ivory one in the early 60s. No idea which model but it was one of those with the little pull-out tray for your list of numbers.

[ChrisN]

We had a red one, fairly certain it was 1960 as my dad had been made redundant the year before in the autumn and his redundancy money paid for a television, the telephone, and my TT gauge railway!  

[Edwardian]

11 minutes ago, ChrisN said:

We had a red one, fairly certain it was 1960 

 

Was that the hotline for Khrushchev, or, possibly, Batman?