Early Risers.

[Ozexpatriate]

6 minutes ago, chrisf said:

The idea of going by rail to Marrakech won’t go away but realistically it will have to wait until 2022.

Is there a rail ferry across the Med or do you change trains, catching a pedestrian ferry from Spain to Morocco? (I'm guessing somewhere like Algeciras to Tangier.)

[jamie92208]

Good morning to all.  Sunny again here and a day of not doing a lot was decreed last night. However  I will try and get the ironing done early on. After that I need to mark out for the pool base. Not a lot else to report.  

 

I started to read a magazine on line last night. The two US ones that I take have problems with their print dustribution so Kalmbach have distributed them online as a temporary measure using a platform called Zinio.  It took me half an hour to set up my account and download the 3 issues then discovered that I needed to download a special reader programme as well. Total prep time 1 hour. I did manage to read half of an issue of TRAINS but will be happy when the printed version arrives. One thing to rant about. An article about a complicated but interesting bit of railway, with soecially drawn map then the ogoto captions contain references to locations that are not shown on the map. I hate that.

 

Anyway hope you all have a good day.

 

Brian, I hope that the PSA stays under control.

 

Jamie

[AndyID]

13 minutes ago, Ozexpatriate said:

I distinctly remember a diecast, spring-loaded pistol grip on the wire wrap gun.

 

Most likely made by Gardner Denver, now part of Ingersoll Rand. They made manual and compressed air powered wire-wrap tools.

 

 

 

Edited May 28, 2020 by AndyID
correcto

[chrisf]

5 minutes ago, Ozexpatriate said:

Is there a rail ferry across the Med or do you change trains, catching a pedestrian ferry from Spain to Morocco? (I'm guessing somewhere like Algeciras to Tangier.)

 

I know of no train ferry at that end of the Med!  The passenger ferry does indeed run from Algeciras to Tangier.  I've never done a train ferry and it becomes more difficult to do so as governments will insist on building bridges over or tunnels under expanses of water.

 

Chris

[Joseph_Pestell]

30 minutes ago, chrisf said:

 

 

I did a bit of outline planning yesterday for another crazy train trip.  Anything more than daydreaming on paper is futile in present circumstances.  The idea of going by rail to Marrakech won’t go away but realistically it will have to wait until 2022.  The principal tool is the Man in Seat 61 website but I can’t work out how to get from London to Madrid in one day.  Despite what the site says I don’t think it is possible and I don’t think it matters anyway.

 

 

 

Are you looking for daytime travel only with overnights in hotels? I have not checked but I think that you should be able to get to Madrid in well under 24 hours by taking an overnight train.

[polybear]

9 hours ago, Chris116 said:

I am happy to look and then ignore but another member of the family objects so I have to do something to stay on here!

 

I use Firefox as a browser and don't get any ads on RMWeb at all; I'm not a gold member either.

HTH

[polybear]

Excellent news of the day:

Fraggle Rock is coming back

Sh*ttiest news of the day:

It's on something called "Apple TV+".....and you have to pay to watch it

[AndyID]

Quietly: I do (sort of) play the occasional guitar.

 

Might it be possible to form an online ER's Group? The technology could be challenging but it might be quite entertaining if we could actually pull it off.

 

Discuss

[Joseph_Pestell]

8 hours ago, laurenceb said:

I think I about 12 before I mastered shoelaces, In those days you were just thick if you had problems with simple tasks. I sometimes wonder how life would have gone if my autism had been found then

And congratulations to Younger Lurker

I have never been that good with shoelaces and other forms of knot. It was a major disincentive to joining the Scouts.

 

I still can't do a bow tie.

[Barry O]

Ey up!

 

Grey and overcast here.

 

Another day.. another coat of paint!  I just need to find the paint!!

 

Her indoors off the Moreasons for the weekly shop. I will finish my mugatea before getting my painting gear sorted.

 

Have as good a day as you can! Stay safe!  Positive thoughts to all ERs!

 

Baz

[Ozexpatriate]

1 minute ago, Joseph_Pestell said:

I still can't do a bow tie.

I've never had occasion to learn and can't do that either.

 

A half-Windsor was sufficient for neck ties. (They don't really make ties long enough for me for a full-Windsor - even the "long" size ties.) There are very few occasions where they are now required - mostly funerals and interviews, or more rarely weddings.

[Ozexpatriate]

22 minutes ago, chrisf said:

... governments will insist on building bridges over or tunnels under expanses of water

Unless I'm mistaken, not over or under the Med though?

[pH]

43 minutes ago, Ozexpatriate said:

Anyone remember the book "The Soul of a New Machine"  about the Data General 32 bit "Eagle"? If I'm not mistaken the "Eagle" was a wire wrap implementation, though I may be mistaking it with the 16 bit "Nova" and "Eclipse" machines.

 

I don't know what happened to my paper tape correction tool. (A tool and die set, connected with a metal chain, to correct bad bits, or "dimpled chads" on a paper tape used to control machinery.) It's not in my collection of ancient electronic bits and bobs. This was not a tool I had to use professionally, but more of a "found" item.

 

 

I remember "The Soul of a New Machine", though I couldn't have recalled it without your prompting.

 

That sounds a pretty complicated tool. There was a much simpler way of correcting certain errors in punched cards. Punched out one extra row, and don't want to repunch the whole card on a hand punch? Get a spare chad, lick generously, apply to extra punched hole. Good for one trip through the card reader.

[jamie92208]

43 minutes ago, chrisf said:

 

I know of no train ferry at that end of the Med!  The passenger ferry does indeed run from Algeciras to Tangier.  I've never done a train ferry and it becomes more difficult to do so as governments will insist on building bridges over or tunnels under expanses of water.

 

Chris

As far as I know, the last train ferries in the Med are across the Straits of Messina. You can still get a sleeper train across to Sicily.  I've got sone photos somewhere that I took of the operation.

 

Jamie

Edited May 28, 2020 by jamie92208

[jamie92208]

21 minutes ago, Joseph_Pestell said:

I have never been that good with shoelaces and other forms of knot. It was a major disincentive to joining the Scouts.

 

I still can't do a bow tie.

I can only do a bow tie if I have a Youtube video on screen in front of me. As we won't be going on any cruises for a while and we no longer get invited to Masonic dinners by my outlaws I don't think I'll need to practice again soon.

 

Jamie

[roundhouse]

1 hour ago, jamie92208 said:

 

 

I started to read a magazine on line last night. The two US ones that I take have problems with their print dustribution so Kalmbach have distributed them online as a temporary measure using a platform called Zinio.  It took me half an hour to set up my account and download the 3 issues then discovered that I needed to download a special reader programme as well. Total prep time 1 hour. I did manage to read half of an issue of TRAINS but will be happy when the printed version arrives. One thing to rant about. An article about a complicated but interesting bit of railway, with soecially drawn map then the ogoto captions contain references to locations that are not shown on the map. I hate that.

 

I have started to move away from Zinio as the only two magazine that I now subscribe to are often weeks late appearing on Zinio but appear very quickly on Pocketmaps. I also find Zinio quite sluggish compared to what it used to be. I have stopped getting Trains as I found that I was just skimming over it rather than reading it.

 

I see that Easyjet is the latest big business to slash its workforce by losing a third of it. Still waiting to find out if my brother has finally been able to book flights for his two kids to return to HK.

[TheQ]

I was taught with a wire wrap gun and a manual T handled thing which was like a nut driver to go over the spike,  and a tiny hole in its Rim for the wire. Out in the real world we only had the manual T handled things in the tool cupboards as we were only doing repairs.

 

As for paper tape repairs.  We only had a manual pieces of equipment, 

You put the repair tape in across the unit,, placed the broken tape in from each side, locating on the the alignment teeth, pulled the lever down to join the two.  It wrapped and compressed the repair tape, round the paper tape and trimmed off the excess. 

 The holes were re-punched through the repaired tape under the patches in the paper tape "printer", where you could copy paper tapes.. And if you were really bored spend hours flipping switches to write a new programme,  before printing it out. 

Not surprisingly, there was a  master paper tape for generating in use paper tape  copies,  and a master master paper tape locked in a secure cupboard,  wow betide you if you had to ask for that.. 

[roundhouse]

49 minutes ago, jamie92208 said:

As far as I know, the last train ferries in the Med are across the Straits of Messina. You can still get a sleeper train across to Sicily.  I've got sone ogotos somewhere that I took of the operation.

 

Jamie

The Rodby to Puttgarden ferry in 2008 that has now ceased. The Rodby terminal was a shadow of itself even in 2008.

 

 

The Messina train ferry the same summer trip

 

 

 

 

Edited May 28, 2020 by roundhouse

[eldavo]

2 hours ago, Ozexpatriate said:

I'm trying to remember where I encountered a wire wrap gun. It might have been university, though there were a number of odd tools that I had in my possession in my first job. I distinctly remember a diecast, spring-loaded pistol grip on the wire wrap gun. I have to admit the memory is a bit foggy. Anyone remember the book "The Soul of a New Machine"  about the Data General 32 bit "Eagle"? If I'm not mistaken the "Eagle" was a wire wrap implementation, though I may be mistaking it with the 16 bit "Nova" and "Eclipse" machines.

 

I don't know what happened to my paper tape correction tool. (A tool and die set, connected with a metal chain, to correct bad bits, or "dimpled chads" on a paper tape used to control machinery.) It's not in my collection of ancient electronic bits and bobs. This was not a tool I had to use professionally, but more of a "found" item.

 

 

 

There may have been a bit of wire wrap on the backplane of the DG Nova but not a lot as it was quite a small machine. Certainly the one I worked on was anyway. It used large square circuitboards that seemed to need reseating regularly. Only had paper tape on the machine I worked on, no disc and no tape storage. In fact it had no operating system as that was what I was writing! Lots of inputting small programs via toggle switches to get the thing started.

 

Have a good one all.

 

Cheers

Dave

 

[Happy Hippo]

2 hours ago, Ozexpatriate said:

Is there a rail ferry across the Med or do you change trains, catching a pedestrian ferry from Spain to Morocco? (I'm guessing somewhere like Algeciras to Tangier.)

There is a tunnel.

 

It was built by the same people who built the tunnel connecting Cuba to Florida.

[Happy Hippo]

3 hours ago, chrisf said:

The principal tool is the Man in Seat 61

I know what you mean, he usually tries to sit next to me on the bus and  then annoy with his buzzing earbuds.

[Happy Hippo]

1 hour ago, roundhouse said:

I see that Easyjet is the latest big business to slash its workforce by losing a third of it. Still waiting to find out if my brother has finally been able to book flights for his two kids to return to HK.

If they are flying back by EJ.  I think they have to get a connecting bus from Athens

[BSW01]

Good morning everyone 

 

Yet another sunny start to the day, up a little later than planned so once breakfast is finished, I’ll make a start on top coating the front door frame. Hopefully this will be done well before dinner and the door will then stay ajar until early evening before it is shut properly. After that I will find a few tasks to do in the cellar or garden whilst waiting for the paint to dry. 

 

Stay safe, stay sane, enjoy whatever you have planned for the day, back later 

[Tony_S]

Morning all.

It is sunny here though the breeze is keeping it cooler than yesterday. Most of the rubbish has been collected, just the garden bin still to be emptied. I didn’t hear the earlier collections even though the windows are open. I may have been asleep.

Tony

[chrisf]

3 hours ago, Joseph_Pestell said:

 

Are you looking for daytime travel only with overnights in hotels? I have not checked but I think that you should be able to get to Madrid in well under 24 hours by taking an overnight train.

 

As far as I can tell the Paris - Madrid sleeper was taken off at the end of 2013.  There is apparently a couchette train which goes via the Pyrenees. 

 

I am far from averse to sleeper trains.  When Bill and I went to Prague in September and I discovered a sleeper from Zurich to Prague, that was it - we built the trip round it.  Having started doodling this jaunt only yesterday, I'm sure that I have more research to do and it wil not happen till 2022 because I have some unfinished business called Dublin in 2021! 

 

Chris