The Night Mail

[Florence Locomotive Works]

11 minutes ago, Tony_S said:

I sympathise. Every week Aditi asks if I would like anything to be added to the shopping order, I reply “black pudding please.” She just informs me she assumes I am joking and doesn’t order it. I have a cunning plan, I have an introductory offer for another online supplier of food items. They do black puddings (and white pudding) so I could make a minimum order of £40 for such products.  There might not be enough space in the freezer though!

It’s a bit harder here, as the stuff is illegal.

 

(I believe)

[Winslow Boy]

2 hours ago, Tony_S said:

I sympathise. Every week Aditi asks if I would like anything to be added to the shopping order, I reply “black pudding please.” She just informs me she assumes I am joking and doesn’t order it. I have a cunning plan, I have an introductory offer for another online supplier of food items. They do black puddings (and white pudding) so I could make a minimum order of £40 for such products.  There might not be enough space in the freezer though!

 

Here's a thought why not make up the bulk of the order with items that dont require freezing. So for example you could order £38.95 of pine cone scented toilet rolls or £36 worth of single malt whiskey. Other unfreezable items are of course available so I will leave it to your choice and creativity as to want you choose.

Edited November 22, 2021 by Winslow Boy
Bigger screen for fat fingers

[br2975]

7 hours ago, Happy Hippo said:

As promised, little bit more signal action:

 

The disc which is more in focus this time!

 

I'm awaiting the 3D printed lamp cases from Modelu, so this evening I'll concentrate on drilling out the pivots for the balance weight and replace them with brass tube. The tube will be split into two parts and will be pushed through the casting from each side to leave a gap which is just large enough for the etched balance weight to slide through.  This should stop it flapping around too much.  

 

The operating rod shewn fitted to the disc is 0.3mm brass rod, the untrilled pivot bar for the balance weight in 1.00mm dia, these give some idea of the overall size:

 

 

Whilst I've been sorting through my signalling bits, I found enough parts to start on a GWR lower quadrant home signal:

 

 

 

I am a follower of the Jon Fitness school of signal building, so the 1.00 mm dia axle for the signal arm is replaced with a 14 BA cheese head screw.  This is soldered into the lens and arm assembly, and can be tightened up to hold the arm in position for setting it up.  another JF system I've followed is another rod soldered (0.8 mm) in place, that prevents the arm from going beyond the horizontal.  It provides a physical stop against the main signal post.

 

The enlargement of the picture is rather cruel on my soldering abilities.

 

 

And now Sir, I'm even more convinced that "C2" working is the way forward..........for me 

.

Keep up the good work  HH

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[J. S. Bach]

1 hour ago, Florence Locomotive Works said:

 ...snip... On a different note it has been commanded that I cook black pudding hash Wednesday night, without the black pudding. I will try to not make a hash of this.

Douglas

I will keep an eye on the news for any environmental disasters from the Tulsa area!

[Tony_S]

2 hours ago, Florence Locomotive Works said:

It’s a bit harder here, as the stuff is illegal.

 

(I believe)

According to Wikipedia Polish style blood pudding is available in the US in places with ethnic Polish communities. Perhaps it is illegal to transport animal blood products across state lines! I have had Polish black pudding and it didn’t seem too dissimilar to English. I actually prefer the Irish version. Clonakilty products still seem to be available here in spite of recent sausage supply problems between here and the island of Ireland.

Tony

[AndyID]

2 hours ago, Florence Locomotive Works said:

It’s a bit harder here, as the stuff is illegal.

 

(I believe)

 

You could always use possum

[J. S. Bach]

Eat more possum*!

 

*Actually Opossum.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opossum

[BR60103]

On 22/11/2021 at 15:17, Florence Locomotive Works said:

 

Thanksgiving break begins Wednesday so it’s a short week for me. Most of our classes are doing nowt so I spent most of the afternoon reading about the ill fated Franklin Expedition to the Arctic during the 1840s. Very interesting. 

 

Douglas

Try this:

Stan Rogers - Northwest Passage - YouTube

 

 

(Sorry: thought I was providing a link)

 

Edited November 24, 2021 by BR60103

[pH]

7 hours ago, Florence Locomotive Works said:

I spent most of the afternoon reading about the ill fated Franklin Expedition to the Arctic during the 1840s. Very interesting. 

You might find this book on the subject interesting:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatal_Passage

 

The main character is John Rae:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Rae_(explorer)

 

the person who first brought back information on the fate of the expedition.

[iL Dottore]

8 hours ago, Florence Locomotive Works said:

It’s a bit harder here, as the stuff is illegal.

 

(I believe)

I think that it’s the case that many of the ingredients used in European charcuterie are banned from being fed to humans in the US (one example would be the ingredients of haggis - which includes heart, liver, and lungs).
 

This prohibition, I understand, stems from the days before Congress passed various food-safety and food-purity legislation when meat-packers and canners would use anything lying around the slaughterhouse in their products.

 

I would also imagine that the squeamishness against eating anything other than a few types of cuts of meat - which seems to be quite widespread in the US - has also contributed to the retention of these prohibitions.

[polybear]

1 hour ago, iL Dottore said:

I think that it’s the case that many of the ingredients used in European charcuterie are banned from being fed to humans in the US (one example would be the ingredients of haggis - which includes heart, liver, and lungs).
 

This prohibition, I understand, stems from the days before Congress passed various food-safety and food-purity legislation when meat-packers and canners would use anything lying around the slaughterhouse in their products.

 

I would also imagine that the squeamishness against eating anything other than a few types of cuts of meat - which seems to be quite widespread in the US - has also contributed to the retention of these prohibitions.

 

And like the US are experts on meat food safety:

 

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/oct/13/can-never-eat-chicken-again-antibiotic-resistance

[iL Dottore]

1 hour ago, polybear said:

 

And like the US are experts on meat food safety:

 

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/oct/13/can-never-eat-chicken-again-antibiotic-resistance

Well, quite! (but imagine what it must have been like before Congress passed various food-safety and food-purity legislation!)

Unfortunately, too much US legislation (federal, state and local) is pretty much dictated by “interested parties”…The meat industry being a particularly influential lobby…

[AndyID]

As the Texan said when asked how he would like his steak,

 

"Just saw off the horns an clean up the azz."

[PhilJ W]

9 hours ago, AndyID said:

 

You could always use possum

 

7 hours ago, J. S. Bach said:

Eat more possum*!

 

*Actually Opossum.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opossum

Opossum's have no road sense, when I visited the US many moons ago I saw several examples of road kill. I certainly wouldn't want to hit one riding a motorbike, some are about the size of a large dog.

[Dave Hunt]

An uncle of mine was senior mechanical inspector on the Mombasa district of the East African Railways and once showed me a photograph of a locomotive that had been charged head-on by a water buffalo (at least I think it was a water buffalo) which at the last second before impact had leapt up and ended up nutting the smokebox door. It was surprising that the impact had actually damaged the smokebox door to the extent that the locomotive's steaming had been affected. Didn't do a lot of good for the animal, mind.

 

Dave

[Tony_S]

1 hour ago, PhilJ W said:

I certainly wouldn't want to hit one riding a motorbike,

A possum big enough to ride a motorbike would look quite intimidating.

[Tony_S]

1 hour ago, Dave Hunt said:

a water buffalo

MiL was reminiscing on Sunday about their family buffalo. When she was young her family kept a buffalo to provide milk. A man used to collect the buffalo in the morning and walk it to the river. It returned home by itself in the evening. When MiL had been unwell her grandmother had decided that what she needed was milk from a brown cow, so one of those was acquired too. 
Tony

[jamie92208]

Yes animals v cars can be interesting.  We are always careful when the Chasse is out in case a Wild Boar or deer run across the road.  I once saw a Car v cow, both were write offs. In Canada an Engineer showed me where two grain cars had derailed in a swamp and the grain had fermented. and the local bears had got a taste for it.   They then had a habit of disputing their territory with the trains.  Considering the height of the cabs on F units it was quite disconcerting to see the bears paws in front of the windshield. Not very good for the bears though. Here a youngster was crossing the tracks in front of us. It's the black dot scrambling up the bank on the left.

 

Jamie

Edited April 20, 2022 by jamie92208

[AndyID]

8 hours ago, PhilJ W said:

 

Opossum's have no road sense, when I visited the US many moons ago I saw several examples of road kill. I certainly wouldn't want to hit one riding a motorbike, some are about the size of a large dog.

 

There's a Texas Roadhouse restaurant in town but I have a bad habit of calling it Texas Roadkill.

[pH]

On the interstates in Louisiana, it’s hard to distinguish between the dead armadillos and the treads from recapped truck tires that have failed. 
 

In northern BC and Alaska in winter, wildlife walking on the tracks is killed by trains. Since the tracks are plowed, they’re the easiest way for animals to get around in the snow. And the bodies of moose (they are big) killed in this way have sometimes caused derailments.

[Happy Hippo]

Today, my successes have been rather mixed.

 

Having drilled out the disc signal's post to accept the 2mm dia tube for the balance weight spindle and rough cutting the tube to size, I turned my attention to the balance weight arm.

 

I cunningly drilled out the various holes on the arm  whilst it was still attached to the fret as it was much easier to hold that way, and afterward cleaned up the brass prior to removing it in order to tin it prior to soldering.

 

Tinning was fine so I decided to carry out the same operation for the small washers that thicken up the main bearing on the balance weight.

 

This went well, and I even soldered it all together, but then, when clearing the holes with a drill, the bottom washer decided to unsolder itself and disappear.

 

Twice this happened and I'm still looking for the washers!  But they have vanished, so another one will be worked on later this evening.

 

The upside was I found a couple of bits on the floor that I'd dropped yesterday.

 

 

 

 

[Happy Hippo]

14 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

Today, my successes have been rather mixed.

 

Having drilled out the disc signal's post to accept the 2mm dia tube for the balance weight spindle and rough cutting the tube to size, I turned my attention to the balance weight arm.

 

I cunningly drilled out the various holes on the arm  whilst it was still attached to the fret as it was much easier to hold that way, and afterward cleaned up the brass prior to removing it in order to tin it prior to soldering.

 

Tinning was fine so I decided to carry out the same operation for the small washers that thicken up the main bearing on the balance weight.

 

This went well, and I even soldered it all together, but then, when clearing the holes with a drill, the bottom washer decided to unsolder itself and disappear.

 

Twice this happened and I'm still looking for the washers!  But they have vanished, so another one will be worked on later this evening.

 

The upside was I found a couple of bits on the floor that I'd dropped yesterday.

 

 

 

 

Perhaps I should have heeded Brian's advice and opted for C2 Operations!

[simontaylor484]

We once had a truck hit a cow on the A68 it made a hell of a mess despite the damage to the truck it was splattered with cow sh1t. They were Washing it off for hours before any work could be done on it

[br2975]

Unable to avoid the gravitational pull exerted by a certain second hand bookshop in Cardiff's Castle Arcade, I found myself leaving with the three tomes below;

.

(i) "Birmingham's Canals" caught my eye for no reason other than it contains photos of industrial buildings, backdrops and other grot that really floats my ( narrow ) boat.

.

(ii) Colin Chapman's "Vale of Glamorgan Railway" replaces a copy that disappeared many moons past.

.

(iii) "Steam in South Wales" - well, any album of photographs (all colour) by the late Alan Jarvis should be on my shelf; and yet when I was first alerted to this magnificent local work, by one 'Danemouth' of this parish, I cannot explain why I didn't buy it at the time ?  Sadly, I once passed up on an  offer of an introduction to Alan (who lived but ten minutes walk away) , when I worked with his next door neighbour; then, when I realised who her next door neighbour was...... it was all too late.

.

The kettle is boiling, my slippers are on, SWMBO is out - what shall I do next ?

Edited November 23, 2021 by br2975

[AndyID]

16 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

I think that it’s the case that many of the ingredients used in European charcuterie are banned from being fed to humans in the US

 

I thought that was the case but it's not. Organ meat is readily available but it's not prominently displayed and there are on-line butchers that will ship it anywhere in the US. I think the prohibition applies to imports, as I found out when I tried to bring some British bacon into the US. And don't dare try to bring pet food in if it's not in the original container