The Night Mail

[Compound2632]

My experience of Poland generally - this was in the early 90s - was of German rules with French attitudes. Whether that's the best of both worlds is another question!

 

I rather enjoyed French loanwords in Polish, e.g.:

• seen at railway stations: bagaż
• and in art galleries: pejzaż

the ż being pronounced just so and not at all like dz or dż.

[PhilJ W]

When I first went to Germany nearly fifty years ago now. A lot of the pre-war Autobahns had not been upgraded. I was pulling into a rest/parking place for a comfort break and the slip road after a few metres became cobbles. I was still moving at about 40mph but was able to stop safely. The vibration loosened a filling it was so bad.

Edited October 27, 2021 by PhilJ W

[Happy Hippo]

Spot the errors!

 

https://fineartamerica.com/featured/walnut-tree-viaduct-richard-picton.html

 

Looking at the background this picture was painted to represent 5611 just about to enter Garth Tunnel.

 

So where is WTW Signal Box and the lineside hut, the crossover and the entrance to the Dolomite works and all the signalling?

 

Knowing the way they ran trains down the line, almost invariably the loco should also be running bunker first.

 

Artistic licence or poor research?

 

You decide!

[jamie92208]

55 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

Spot the errors!

 

https://fineartamerica.com/featured/walnut-tree-viaduct-richard-picton.html

 

Looking at the background this picture was painted to represent 5611 just about to enter Garth Tunnel.

 

So where is WTW Signal Box and the lineside hut, the crossover and the entrance to the Dolomite works and all the signalling?

 

Knowing the way they ran trains down the line, almost invariably the loco should also be running bunker first.

 

Artistic licence or poor research?

 

You decide!

And there was me thought it was a Hall, or a Castle or some other prouct of Swindon or is it an old pannier where everything has gone south.

 

Jamie

[polybear]

2 hours ago, Happy Hippo said:

You can ask!  It is educational rather than for profit.

 

And if the photo is of the inner workings then one clock is pretty much the same as another (of the same make/model) and therefore unidentifiable to a particular owner - unless you were to include a serial number, for example.

[TheQ]

Saudi was particularly worrying when driving... 

Motorways that finished at a T junction,

Dual carriageways built from opposite ends and when they met they were a few feet out, so at 70mph there's a sudden shift of the lane by ten feet left or right over 20ft of tarmac..

Motorways where you join in the "Slow lane" and have to cross all three lanes to the slipway out of the "fast lane" 200 yards later.

 

Then the drivers.. indicators what are they for?

Speed... warp factor nine even in heavy fog, or a sand storm.

if you are one car behind the white line on a three lane road junction how many cars are parked in front of you?

8...   

4 squeezed into three lanes and a row in front of the white line, Oh and the one on the right might turn left and the one on the left might turn right..

The wealthy pay for someone else to take the test for them, the poor just don't bother with a test.

 

Outside our compound there was a water tanker parked 50ft off the road, a Mercedes car ran into it...  11 adults on board!!! most didn't survive..

 

Edited October 26, 2021 by TheQ

[pH]

13 minutes ago, TheQ said:

Dual carriageways built from opposite ends and when they met they were a few feet out, so at 70mph there's a sudden shift of the lane by ten feet left or right over 20ft of tarmac..

Motorways where you join in the "Slow lane" and have to cross all three lanes to the slipway out of the "fast lane" 200 yards later.

 

My cousin was a road engineer in Scotland. He showed me examples of similar things (though not as extreme) on motorways around Glasgow - a kink in what should have been a straight road for no obvious reason and distances between fast lane entries/exits and the following slow lane entries/exits that were right on the edge of the minimum allowable.

[Compound2632]

43 minutes ago, TheQ said:

Saudi was particularly worrying when driving... 

 

I dare say standards have improved since women have been allowed to drive.

[tetsudofan]

Had to be up at the crack of dawn this morning so I could walk up to the town for my Covid-19 booster jab in what used be a Debenham's store.

 

Previous jabs were Astra-Zeneca but today's jab was a Pfizer. Keeping my fingers crossed that I don't suffer any side effects as am hoping to make my monthly pilgrimage to Faversham for some retail therapy on Friday - it's my turn to drive and get breakfast provided at the local Wetherspoons.

 

Had a surprise when I got home and found a parcel from RoS containing a sound-fitted black/silver gas turbine loco - RoS only emailed yesterday afternoon advising that the parcel was on its way which I did not expect to arrive until tomorrow at the earliest. 

 

Soon after that the Postie delivered the latest copies of Model Rail and Today's Railways-Europe and what I thought was the latest copy of the The Tramway Museum Society magazine but turned out to be the Annual Report and Accounts. Plenty of bedtime reading for the rest of the week!

 

Not quite sure what to do this afternoon, examine, test run and set up the gas turbine on my Z21 or plant in the garden some tulip bulbs purchased this morning......... Decisions, decisions......

 

Keith

[SM42]

43 minutes ago, tetsudofan said:

 

Not quite sure what to do this afternoon, examine, test run and set up the gas turbine on my Z21 or plant in the garden some tulip bulbs purchased this morning......... Decisions, decisions......

 

Keith

 

Plant the bulbs whilst you have the weather and daylight

 

I've just been out on a jolly and was reminded, as I used it, of a junction  off a fairly new dual carriageway road,  an S road in fact, so a high speed road, that makes a sharp right turn at the end of the slip lane and plonks you into a roundabout after about a car length.

 

Another favourite is the squashed half  clover leaf,  trumpet where you drive a mile to go 100yds.

4 slip roads and a roundabout would be easier

Check the A2/S11 junction south west of Poznan. 

It's an art form

 

Andy

Edited October 26, 2021 by SM42

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, SM42 said:

Another favourite is the squashed half  clover leaf,  trumpet where you drive a mile to go 100yds.

4 slip roads and a roundabout would be easier

Check the A2/S11 junction south west of Poznan. 

It's an art form

 

Yes, I had a look: going north to west is a particularly entertaining detour!

[Northmoor]

5 hours ago, polybear said:

 

And if the photo is of the inner workings then one clock is pretty much the same as another (of the same make/model) and therefore unidentifiable to a particular owner - unless you were to include a serial number, for example.

I don't know about larger clocks but with wrist-watches, that is certainly NOT the case and mechanisms can be attributed to individuals.

 

One of the best Antiques Roadshow climaxes was a couple of old ladies (sisters presumably) who brought in a very nice watch that they obviously thought might be valuable, perhaps £500-1000?  The AR expert looked at the exterior of the watch and agreed with them, but then opened the back and showed them the mechanism.  He said the design was clearly from a particular watchmakers shop which made it rare, but the mechanism was almost definitely the work of one individual, which made it exceptionally rare.  Hence the watch was valued at something like £25,000.

[Happy Hippo]

Valuations are a strange thing.

 

Apparently my brain is worth more than Einstein's.

 

Not that it's any bigger or smaller but unlike Einstein's, mine has never been used!

[Tony_S]

4 hours ago, tetsudofan said:

ound a parcel from RoS containing a sound-fitted black/silver gas turbine loco -

Mine arrived a while ago but the sound effects on mine are very close to some original film from when the loco was being tested in Switzerland. I learned a new German word from watching the video “Stummfilm”.

[AndyID]

6 hours ago, pH said:

 

My cousin was a road engineer in Scotland. He showed me examples of similar things (though not as extreme) on motorways around Glasgow - a kink in what should have been a straight road for no obvious reason and distances between fast lane entries/exits and the following slow lane entries/exits that were right on the edge of the minimum allowable.

 

Wasn't there a similar problem with the Erskine Bridge across the Clyde?

[J. S. Bach]

The old Roebling Bridge in Cincinnati, OH has traffic circles at each end. I went around them several times just to use that ancient bridge.

 

 

 

[SM42]

4 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Yes, I had a look: going north to west is a particularly entertaining detour!

 

I often travel westwards and turn north. Easier than going through town.

 

As I cross the A2, that I have just left, I look to my right and think, "in 2 minutes I'll be going over that bridge over the road I have just left."

 

It is not dissimilar to cruising  the Chesterfield Canal

 

 

Andy

Edited October 26, 2021 by SM42

[Florence Locomotive Works]

2 hours ago, Northmoor said:

I don't know about larger clocks but with wrist-watches, that is certainly NOT the case and mechanisms can be attributed to individuals.

 

One of the best Antiques Roadshow climaxes was a couple of old ladies (sisters presumably) who brought in a very nice watch that they obviously thought might be valuable, perhaps £500-1000?  The AR expert looked at the exterior of the watch and agreed with them, but then opened the back and showed them the mechanism.  He said the design was clearly from a particular watchmakers shop which made it rare, but the mechanism was almost definitely the work of one individual, which made it exceptionally rare.  Hence the watch was valued at something like £25,000.

Agreed, it can be completely the opposite though. I was going to buy an individually made pocket watch movement (fusee, key wind) made in Liverpool in about 1831. Sold for $28 on eBay. Of course that may have been because the watchmaker was virtually unknown.

[SM42]

Here are a few urban roads I used today. ( I did stop and get out to take the pics, hence no main road pics)

 

Reasonably new estate  road with vicious speed bump. 30kph is the limit, but you are likely to leave some car on the road. This one is gentle to one I went over yesterday at 15ish Thought the wheels would come off. 

 

 

180 turn now to next section

 

 

It gets very dusty round here when it is dry.

 

Finally the transition point I used later. Fortunately  I missed the big holes  out of shot on the right and only used a few yards of this rally stage. You can see my tyre tracks curving to the left.

 

 

 

The railway line to the left was the reason I was here, train watching, but I didn't get any easily available pics unfortunately as I used my old camera. 

 

Andy

Edited October 26, 2021 by SM42

[AndyID]

While we were walking Shona yesterday there were far more vehicles on the road than usual, some of them traveling well above the 25 MPH limit (as in 20 MPH above the limit!) There's another road that runs parallel to ours. Turns out is was blocked all day because of an accident and traffic was being diverted around our way.

 

An articulated truck had come off on a twisty bit of the road, gone down a steep slope and hit a tree. Sadly the driver did not survive. The truck was still down there when I drove past the spot this morning. That road has a 35 MPH limit. I can take those nasty bends at that speed in the spider but I wouldn't dare try it with a big rig.

[AndyID]

4 minutes ago, SM42 said:

Here are a few urban roads I used today. ( I did stop and get out to take the pics, hence no main road pics)

 

Reasonably new estate  road with vicious speed bump. 30kph is the limit, but you are likely to leave some car on the road. This one is gentle to one I went over yesterday at 15ish Thought the wheels would come off. 

 

 

180 turn now to next section

 

 

It gets very dusty round here when it is dry.

 

Finally the transition point I used later. Fortunately  I missed the big holes  out of shot on the right and only used a few yards of this rally stage 

 

 

 

The railway line to the left was the reason I was here, train watching, but I didn't get any easily available pics unfortunately as I used my old camera. 

 

Andy

 

Interesting transmission line on the right. Three wires so presumably three-phase. The ones around here have four wires. Three phase conductors and a neutral. You don't really need the neutral if the phases are all properly balanced but if they are not you can get some slightly funky voltages between the phases

 

 

[SM42]

Just to bring some balance back to railways from  roads, here is EU07 302  passing Gadki. Another favourite spot I visited today.

 

 

Looking closely I may have caught an arc off the pan

 

Andy

Edited October 26, 2021 by SM42
To add a comment

[SM42]

3 minutes ago, AndyID said:

 

Interesting transmission line on the right. Three wires so presumably three-phase. The ones around here have four wires. Three phase conductors and a neutral. You don't really need the neutral if the phases are all properly balanced but if they are not you can get some slightly funky voltages between the phases

 

 

 

Might explain my confusing power cut the other day. 

 

Andy

[Tony_S]

18 minutes ago, SM42 said:

Here are a few urban roads I used today. ( I did stop and get out to take the pics, hence no main road pics)

 

Reasonably new estate  road with vicious speed bump. 30kph is the limit, but you are likely to leave some car on the road. This one is gentle to one I went over yesterday at 15ish Thought the wheels would come off. 

 

 

180 turn now to next section

 

 

It gets very dusty round here when it is dry.

 

Finally the transition point I used later. Fortunately  I missed the big holes  out of shot on the right and only used a few yards of this rally stage. You can see my tyre tracks curving to the left.

 

 

 

The railway line to the left was the reason I was here, train watching, but I didn't get any easily available pics unfortunately as I used my old camera. 

 

Andy

There are roads like that but slightly narrower in Benfleet. Paved roads come to an end in Thundersley woods and continue as a track to small clusters of houses. There used to be a sign stating “unsuitable for motor vehicles” but I don’t think it is there now. I know pedestrians use the route as a short cut to the sixth form college on the A13. Where I used to work in Stanford le Hope had some similar roads. Often one side was paved and the other wasn’t. 

Edited October 26, 2021 by Tony_S

[SM42]

1 minute ago, Tony_S said:

There are roads like that but slightly narrower in Benfleet. Paved roads come to an end and continue as a track to small clusters of houses. There used to be a sign stating “unsuitable for motor vehicles” but I don’t think it is there now. I know pedestrians use the route as a short cut to the sixth form college on the A13. Where I used to work in Stanford le Hope had some similar roads. Often one side was paved and the other wasn’t. 

 

I have in the past followed a diversion due to a bridge closure. 

 

It took us down a forest track with very deep sand to the sides and it  was very busy road with not a lot of room to pass. 

 

Andy