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Pragmatic Pre-Grouping - Mikkel's Workbench


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52 minutes ago, Simond said:

(the “bear” refers to a classic psychology experiment in which the vast majority of the audience of a very dramatic scene entirely failed to notice a completely incongruous actor-dressed-as-a-bear in the background.  I’ll try to find a reference.  I think he may have been juggling)

Always been a (person in a) gorilla (suit) when I have seen it.

When my daughter was pre-school, we showed it to her: she was supposed to count the number of passes of a basketball, but being of tender years burst out laughing at the appropriate juncture.

 

The experiment is about selective attention, and demonstrates the dangers of too tight a focus on the task in hand, sometimes called “tunnel vision”. (Psychology was my degree, way back when... In an interesting side variant of this, my passing lecturers took no notice of the idiot in a gorilla suit, until I took the head off and they recognised me!)

 

Cross-posted: thanks for the video!

 

Now, the bear is in the cupboard. Everyone knows about the elephant in the room (an “unspoken known”, if you like), but it’s the bear in the cupboard (hidden by someone trying to hide it) that’s going to do the real (corporate) damage.

Edited by Regularity
Cross-post.
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That's actually very clever. I've been stuck in front of a fair number of such check your powers of observation films, but that's not one I was aware of. I started automatically looking for other changes, spotted the girl leaving the stage but totally missed the curtains trick!

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On 08/12/2020 at 22:08, Mikkel said:

LMS (and MR?) modellers, note this livery/numbering detail from the photo of the overturned cart above:

 

Udklip.JPG.fbdfd658a630bbe3285775555828d47f.JPG

 

 

I'm fairly sure that's an ex-LNWR cart - compare the perilous fish empties that we've looked at before.

Edited by Compound2632
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1 hour ago, Simond said:

A picture is, as they say...

 

image.jpg.da21568b54730c8b0a769f4b6e0b97c5.jpg

 

:)
 

(your picture came from elsewhere as the lamp isn’t visible in the ABT version, but it’s plate 4 on page 8 in this esteemed volume)

 

Ah, and there I was checking if the there was an ABT Shop at Swindon! 

 

The larger photo is in Russel's 1981 "Freight wagons and loads in service on the Great Western Railway and British Rail, Western Region" (snazzy title).  An early secondh-hand christmas present for myself :). The book is not what I would call a must-have, but there are some nice full page wagon portraits. And lots of timber loads. 

 

 

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21 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Those timber trucks are on a rather tight bend!

 

Yes, it's one of two demonstration shots comparing how timber moves on 4-wheel Mites vs bogie MACAWs.

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I think Fruit C is a bit late? The photo is 1911. But same sort of thing no doubt. I am thinking S6 (S6 here) or V2/V3 Mink B, maybe. There's a batch of S6 in the list for 1912. 

 

1 hour ago, Dave John said:

It is an interesting pic. 

Just wondering if the X in the middle is a temporary construction support which gets removed once the van is planked ? 

 

That's another possibility, but the X - and the vertical bar through it - does match the vans above. I thought there were Vs at the side at first, but they are just single diagonals.

 

Edited by Mikkel
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4 hours ago, Mikkel said:

Nope, the bracing doesn't match. Mink Bs maybe, with that X in the middle?

 

The X in the middle has a vertical upright there too. I suspect it is just bracing to hold the door frame square until the planking is fitted and the whole structure made rigid.

Edited by 57xx
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1 hour ago, Mikkel said:

I think Fruit C is a bit late? The photo is 1911. But same sort of thing no doubt. I am thinking S6 (S6 here) or V2/V3 Mink B, maybe. There's a batch of S6 in the list for 1912. 

 

 

That's another possibility, but the X - and the vertical bar through it - does match the vans above. I thought there were Vs at the side at first, but they are just single diagonals.

 

 

I should have refreshed the page from when I had it open earlier before my previous reply lol.

 

You are right, they are only single diagonals, I though they were Vs too at first. The S6 does look like a very good candidate with the centre bracing matching.

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29 minutes ago, Mikkel said:

Yes, I think that might be it. As a further bit of GWR miscellany, it transpires that Swindon Works had a secret Shop for the construction of UFOs :rolleyes:

 

gettyimages-3351295-2048x2048.jpg.15c0838eac3a6b560076c7321722602b.jpg

Source: Getty Images, embedding permitted. 

 

Now, would they have been china or Bakelite?  I have not seen white Bakelite.

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14 minutes ago, ChrisN said:

 

Now, would they have been china or Bakelite?  I have not seen white Bakelite.

They look to me like spun metal, enamelled.

 

Bakerlite is a resin, so probably clear or milky coloured in its natural state. The black colour in bakelite 'phones and such would be a dye. 

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Joking aside, they are of course the regulators to go with roof ventilators. One can see the operating handles for the hit-and-miss slides, to limit the flow of air. These things were the subject of a patent at one point (Laycock's?) and it would be of passing interest to know if the GWR are manufacturing under license, or if they're evading the patent, or if had lapsed at the time of this photo. I would guess that the photo was taken because the regulators were a new design.

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2 hours ago, ChrisN said:

 

Now, would they have been china or Bakelite?  I have not seen white Bakelite.

 

34 minutes ago, Simond said:

I’d bet a pound to a penny that they’re enamelled steel.

 

wiki article on Bakelite is informative. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bakelite
 

atb

Simon

That was my thought.

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5 hours ago, Guy Rixon said:

They look to me like spun metal, enamelled.

 

Bakerlite is a resin, so probably clear or milky coloured in its natural state. The black colour in bakelite 'phones and such would be a dye. 

Probably not clear (as in water white) or milky, but rather yellow through to brown - although unfilled bakelite was transparent when produced under optimum conditions.

 

The material was filled with colours and fillers which gave the traditional range of colours.  White was not among them - hence my assertion that it was not white. milky or water white in its virgin state.

 

  

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Yellow can appear as brilliant white with some film emulsions so they could be yellow. I recall that when they made the early 60's hospital soap 'Emergency ward 10' the 'white' coats were in fact a deep yellow and that if they were white would show as a dirty grey.

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