The Night Mail

[Florence Locomotive Works]

Afternoon,

 

School inspected today, math was almost unbearably loud as they are attempting to put a new roof on the building. Well I don't think so, sounded more like they were driving herds of cattle through the attic. Anyways my dog appears to be getting paralysis, very very slowly according to the vet. 

 

On a more positive note, its been staying very green outside, as we've had a noticeable shortage of 100+ degree days this summer, so most of the vegetation has survived to fall. Speaking of fall, its finally cooling down here in Northeast Oklahoma, but getting back up to 89-90 tomorrow. Mercifully the temperature should fall down some at night, something it doesn't do during the summer. As a result of the lower temperatures, the population of Moss that lives on the former railway sleepers that make up the wall of our garden beds has grown exponentially.

 

Yesterday a good 30 minutes was used to go around my room and dust and oil anything that needed said treatment, slightly 1-step-forward-2-steps-backwards as the oil just collects more dust.

 

Douglas

 

Mossville 

Edited September 29, 2020 by Florence Locomotive Works

[Happy Hippo]

1 hour ago, Dave Hunt said:

 

 

The one bright spot was that although the hospital is in Greasy Wet and Rusty territory i didn't see a single pannier all day.

 

Dave

But they saw you!

 

Hiding in the bushes was they.

 

Described your exit from the carpark as very red with steam bursting from ears.

[Steamport Southport]

Red pan ears?

 

[BR60103]

12 hours ago, bbishop said:

Telephonic physiotherapy on my tendon this morning; off to give blood; zoom German lesson this evening; then fall into bed.  Bill

Sign on a clinic today:  Starve the mosquitoes: Give blood.

[pH]

I’ve just lost a post which took me about 20 minutes to type, fighting predictive text all the way. Bother! (Other words are available.) I am to bed going! I will make another attempt on the morrow.

[AndrewC]

9 hours ago, Dave Hunt said:

My hospital appointment yesterday for a colonoscopy was a disaster. Because no-one had thought to send the relevant department my hospital notes they didn't know that i had only been discharged from hospital four weeks ago following admission for a perforated bowel. Hence after taking all the horrible preparation stuff on Sunday I spent nearly three hours  in the endoscopy unit yesterday morning before being told, sorry we can't do it today as it has to be a minimum of six weeks after discharge. I wonder if the fact that the NHS trust in question is under special measures has anything to do with it?

 

The one bright spot was that although the hospital is in Greasy Wet and Rusty territory i didn't see a single pannier all day.

 

Dave

[Happy Hippo]

The weather has turned rather damp, so gardening was put on hold this morning.  Unfortunately, the alternative was house cleaning,

 

Having scrubbed, dusted, polished and washed, (not necessarily in that order,) I have more apple processing to carry out this afternoon.  As usual the menial tasks are allocated to me whilst far more interesting experimentation with the next batch of jelly will involve some oranges and Cointreau.  Of course, this is well above my pay grade and level of responsibility, and is probably a good thing.

 

I would probably overdo it on the testing and sampling to order to pass it fit for others consumption.

 

A return to railway modelling is now just over the horizon.

[Northroader]

I got an idea, skip the colonoscopy, Dave, and stick a few pictures on here for the assembled Brains Trust to check for you?

[Tony_S]

19 minutes ago, Northroader said:

I got an idea, skip the colonoscopy, Dave, and stick a few pictures on here for the assembled Brains Trust to check for you?

He would need quite a long lens to get all the way up to the appendix. 

[Happy Hippo]

22 minutes ago, Northroader said:

I got an idea, skip the colonoscopy, Dave, and stick a few pictures on here for the assembled Brains Trust to check for you?

I've identified these so far.........................

 

[Happy Hippo]

A discussion was had after lunch to discuss disposing of surplus 'stuff'.

 

This will downsize our stock of junk and upsize the house, garage and workshop.

 

The axe has already started to fall, but the  4 mm railway stuff, which resides dormant in various boxes will remain.

 

It was agreed that the increasing fleet of grandchildren might like a model railway to use when they visit the hippodrome, so rather than just have a box of track and a load of mechanisms full of carpet fluff, a 'portable' layout that can be placed over the dining room table has been agreed.  The placement includes a sensible overhang, although I suspect that it might make more sense to have it on it's own set of legs.

 

The argument is that disposing of the 4 mm stuff now, and then having to buy more in a few years time at today's prices (even second hand) might be a false economy.

 

Parts of the old SG baseboards might be resurrected sooner rather than later.

 

Much as I would like a steam fleet, I suspect that a mixed period Diesel type line would be a better option, although there will be a few steamers just in case.  The period running from about 1970 through to Post Privatisation.  It will be colourful from a livery perspective rather than realistic.

 

More planning is going to be required!

Edited September 30, 2020 by Happy Hippo

[tomparryharry]

Covid lockdowns have begun to take hold here, with rationing taking place.

 

Tesco are:- 4 toilet rolls, 2 packets pasta, and 500ml fresh cheese.

 

Asda & Morrisons are:- 4 toilet rolls, 2 hand sanitisers, 1 packet dried pasta.

 

Waitrose are:- 1 lobster, 100g Ardennes pate, 2 scented candles. 

 

AldI  are:- 1 mig welder, pink sports bra, 2 trumpets. Oil filter for a Tesla saloon.

[chrisf]

I don't understand the high demand for bog rolls.  How many  ars  backsides do these people have?

 

Chris

[New Haven Neil]

It doesn't give you the trots either!

 

Dave's predicament put me in mind of an occasion many many years ago when I was in a treatment room, divested of clothes and gowned up, and told to wait until the doctor got to me. I waited, and waited....thinking well emergencies happen, they must be busy.....and waited, finally took to wandering around the department looking for someone, all a bit....closed.....gone for lunch sort of thing.......they had forgotten about me!  The kicker - it was the hospital I worked in at the time!  Words were had.  Then they had the cheek to say my blood pressure was a bit high!

[jamie92208]

1 hour ago, Happy Hippo said:

I've identified these so far.........................

 

And there was me thinking you'd taken photos of some negligent discharges.

 

Jamie

[BokStein]

Good evening.

 

6 hours ago, Happy Hippo said:

The weather has turned rather damp, so gardening was put on hold this morning.  Unfortunately, the alternative was house cleaning,

 

And there was I under the delusion that Hippos loved water!

 

3 hours ago, chrisf said:

I don't understand the high demand for bog rolls.  How many  ars  backsides do these people have?

 

Chris

 

It is perfectly logical! When the dreaded virus first raised its ugly head, our antipodean cousins panicked as their bog roll was, it seems, a product of China which went into lockdown fairly quickly. Said cousins, not wishing to be caught by a shortage, created one by panic buying. Unfortunately, for want of a better phrase, this craze went viral!

 

Tip, ChrisF, recall the Hotel Speer in Rapperswil! No paper required!

[Happy Hippo]

31 minutes ago, BokStein said:

Good evening.

 

And there was I under the delusion that Hippos loved water!

I do!

 

It was the household authority that re-tasked me.

 

I suspect the anticipated muddy footprints may have been the catalyst for the veto on gardening.

[pH]

A few years ago, I ordered a book on a local railway from Abebooks. What arrived was a Canadian cookbook. Between us, the bookseller and I worked out what had happened. I got a refund of the purchase price, and was told just to keep the cookbook.

 

I'm thinking again about getting a copy of that same railway book, and am looking again on Abebooks. It's obvious that the same problem is still there. There are entries for books on offer which are a mixture of the details of the railway book and the cookbook, but all with the title of the railway book and an image of its cover. The prices fall into two groups: $23-$29 and $46 upwards. Going by the author name shown, which is different between these two groups, the cheaper ones are copies of the cookbook. The problem is caused by both books having the same ISBN. I have worked in libraries, and seen a few problems with ISBNs, but this is the only time I've seen this particular one.

 

There is a peculiar twist to this situation. When I first tried to buy the railway book, and got the cookbook instead, I was playing soccer with the owner of the local company which had published both of these books. (He's now retired from playing soccer; I don't know if he still owns the publishing business.) He was very surprised when he told him the details. He said ISBNs are assigned by a central national organisation, which is true, so it wasn't his company's fault. However, it appears publishers associate the supplied number with the actual title, so it is likely to have been their fault.

 

Anyway, I now know what to look for to get the actual book I want. (I hope!)

[Adam88]

6 hours ago, Happy Hippo said:

It was agreed that the increasing fleet of grandchildren might

 

I was getting worried that they might be in line for downsizing too until I read a little further.  What it must be to have friends in low places.

[jamie92208]

2 hours ago, pH said:

A few years ago, I ordered a book on a local railway from Abebooks. What arrived was a Canadian cookbook. Between us, the bookseller and I worked out what had happened. I got a refund of the purchase price, and was told just to keep the cookbook.

 

I'm thinking again about getting a copy of that same railway book, and am looking again on Abebooks. It's obvious that the same problem is still there. There are entries for books on offer which are a mixture of the details of the railway book and the cookbook, but all with the title of the railway book and an image of its cover. The prices fall into two groups: $23-$29 and $46 upwards. Going by the author name shown, which is different between these two groups, the cheaper ones are copies of the cookbook. The problem is caused by both books having the same ISBN. I have worked in libraries, and seen a few problems with ISBNs, but this is the only time I've seen this particular one.

 

There is a peculiar twist to this situation. When I first tried to buy the railway book, and got the cookbook instead, I was playing soccer with the owner of the local company which had published both of these books. (He's now retired from playing soccer; I don't know if he still owns the publishing business.) He was very surprised when he told him the details. He said ISBNs are assigned by a central national organisation, which is true, so it wasn't his company's fault. However, it appears publishers associate the supplied number with the actual title, so it is likely to have been their fault.

 

Anyway, I now know what to look for to get the actual book I want. (I hope!)

ISBN's are funny things. I was involved in publishing tram books. The society bought a batch of 10 numbers and just used the next one on the list for a new book. The original 10 were bought in the 80's and sometime in the 90's numbers changed from 10 to 13 digits. My predecessor  couldn't work this out and thought the 13 digit version was a completely new number so managed to publish 2 books with the same number, only one with the 10 digit number and one with the 13. When he threw his teddy out of the cot and I had to take over, i had to learn everything from scratch but eventually worked out why the 2nd book didn't appear on any databases. I ended up talking to a nice young lady in Guildford who helped me sort things out. During the various coversations she told me that she had once had to try and explain the problem to an obstroculous old man in Yorkshire. I told her I knew who she was talking about. I managed to get the new book properly indexed but we had to have stickers printed with the correct ISBN to put on our unsold stock of books.

 

Jamie

[pH]

A walk this afternoon along a trail which, in part, follows a section of the trackbed of this railway:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Moody-Coquitlam_Railway

 

The railway was built by BC Electric to haul materials for the construction of the Coquitlam Dam, which diverted water in a tunnel under a mountain to supply a hydro-electric station at the outflow from a second artificial lake. The dam was completed in 1914/5, and a sawmill company in Port Moody signed a 25-year lease on the track to use it for logging in the Coquitlam River watershed.

 

The line of the railway is quite evident:

 

but this single rail is all that appears to be left of the track itself:

 

The trail ends at these falls, some distance before the dam: 

[Happy Hippo]

The remains of SG have shrunk by 1/3 as one of the OFMC has asked if he could have four of the boards for a project he is working on.

 

Today is the model railway restart day, so in preparation I've collected all my modelling paints together so that they are in one location.  Ditto the collection of brushes and thinners.

 

However, this will have to wait as the PH has asked for another morning's worth of help today which will involve weeding the pumpkin and courgette bed.  I also have to help carry a bed downstairs.

 

He has finished the work on the BMW, so it will now drive along without  the ABS/TP/Brake/4WD warning lights showing yellow and the speedo no longer bounces between 0 and 140.

 

Trying to get to sleep last night I realised that although the plan I'd drawn up for a new shunting plank would not allow through running whilst it was located in the workshop, there was nothing to stop me having an 'away day only' fiddle yard at the far end for when it is taken out to play elsewhere.  Since this is plan version XLI(b) I wouldn't hold your breath!

[Happy Hippo]

Well, I've collected the BMW and it seems ok.

 

I cleared the courgette and Pumkin patch, and I feel ok.

 

A sneaky garden tasking came my way over lunch, although I've been assured it will only be for an hour or so. I'm not quite sure of the length of time an 'or so' lasts for, but I'm going to find out shortly.

 

Railway work today will be to try and finish off my AA3 brake van.  when I built it originally it was rushed to get it ready for an exhibition, so it had the roof applied, but I forgot the glazing!  This might be a job too far, although nobody has ever noticed (or commented so far).  however, like all modelling jobs, the tasking might be overtaken by something a little simpler:  It depends how tired I feel after the 'or so'!

 

[bbishop]

On 30/09/2020 at 00:06, Steamport Southport said:

Red pan ears?

 

 

Ah, JSM.  The South Western Circle once produced a list of corrections to one of his books.  More lengthy than his text.  Bill

[bbishop]

You may, or may not, have noticed my absence. Internet was down.  I've cobbled together a solution!  May not last.  Bill