Prototype for everything corner.

[Michael Hodgson]

14 minutes ago, Ian Morgan said:

 

Seagulls don't have spots ...

 

No.  What they have is the sh*ts.

[rodent279]

8 hours ago, JZ said:

When you see it.

Could it be deliberately set like that to prevent lose ballast getting stuck between switch blade & rail?

[hmrspaul]

as Eastwestdivide said, not set up yet. Obviously very newly laid. And yes we are talking about the switch blades. 

Or only to be run through onto the line the photographer is standing on - we don't know what was behind that person. 

 

Paul

 

[The Lurker]

21 hours ago, KeithMacdonald said:

 

Glad to say, we still have plenty of them in this part of Wiltshire. It's always a delight to hear them.

We even have a few in Bexley - Upper Collage Farm was an old gravel extraction site that had returned to agricultural set aside type land use and has had skylarks for a few years.

[The Johnster]

As any twitcher will tell you, at length, there's no such thing as seagulls.  They are gulls, and some of them, such as the Greater Black Backed, are pure seabirds that never come in land and would scorn raiding bins or rubbish tips.  Gulls have evolved to nest on cliffs and rocky ledges, so tall buildings look like good nesting sites to them, and many have moved inland, and have never even seen the sea except in the very far distance.  Human towns and cities offer nesting sites and plentiful food even for those that maintain their seaside heritage; the island of Flat Holm in the Bristol Channel is carpeted with chicken bones they've brought back for the chicks, originating from the fast food outlets of Glamorgan, Gwent, Avon, and Somerset.  The warden's egglayer chooks are understandably nervous...

 

Back in '05, I spent a weekend on the island in May, breeding season.  On landing, the staff handed us each an umbrella 'for the gulls, you'll need to fend off attacks and shelter from bombing runs'.  No way was I going to attack an innocent gull only trying to protect her chicks, not me, brother, yeah, right...  The farmhouse is about 200yards from the landing stage and before we were half way there I was beating the 'stards off with the best of them; they seemed unharmed by the game.  Overlooking all this with an air of justified superiority on a rock outcrop were a breeding pair of Greater Black Backed, a gentlemanly breed above any of that sort of shennanigans!

 

Gulls apart, Flat Holm is brilliant, go if you ever get a chance!  I've 'done' all of the Bristol Channel islands that are above the spring tide level, except Denny, and all are wonderful, completely individual and different from each other in every possible way except geology.  You need several days for Lundy.

[Chris M]

15 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

As any twitcher will tell you, at length, there's no such thing as seagulls.  They are gulls, and some of them, such as the Greater Black Backed, are pure seabirds that never come in land and would scorn raiding bins or rubbish tips.  Gulls have evolved to nest on cliffs and rocky ledges, so tall buildings look like good nesting sites to them, and many have moved inland, and have never even seen the sea except in the very far distance.  Human towns and cities offer nesting sites and plentiful food even for those that maintain their seaside heritage; the island of Flat Holm in the Bristol Channel is carpeted with chicken bones they've brought back for the chicks, originating from the fast food outlets of Glamorgan, Gwent, Avon, and Somerset.  The warden's egglayer chooks are understandably nervous...

 

Back in '05, I spent a weekend on the island in May, breeding season.  On landing, the staff handed us each an umbrella 'for the gulls, you'll need to fend off attacks and shelter from bombing runs'.  No way was I going to attack an innocent gull only trying to protect her chicks, not me, brother, yeah, right...  The farmhouse is about 200yards from the landing stage and before we were half way there I was beating the 'stards off with the best of them; they seemed unharmed by the game.  Overlooking all this with an air of justified superiority on a rock outcrop were a breeding pair of Greater Black Backed, a gentlemanly breed above any of that sort of shennanigans!

 

Gulls apart, Flat Holm is brilliant, go if you ever get a chance!  I've 'done' all of the Bristol Channel islands that are above the spring tide level, except Denny, and all are wonderful, completely individual and different from each other in every possible way except geology.  You need several days for Lundy.

Yes, my brother explained all this to me. Despite that, if a bird steals a burger/chips/sausage roll or whatever then it is still a seagull wot did it. Likewise it was a seagull that scored a direct hit on me last year while I relaxing on the beach.  I think the actual species was the f****in seagull.

[KeithMacdonald]

19 hours ago, The Johnster said:

As any twitcher will tell you, at length, there's no such thing as seagulls. 

 

19 hours ago, Chris M said:

Despite that, if a bird steals a burger/chips/sausage roll or whatever then it is still a seagull wot did it.

 

Gowing up in Dawlish, we were well used to the signs outside the beach cafe that said (quite clearly) : DO NOT FEED THE SEAGULLS

And then we would watch the Grockels feeding them bread and chips, while the birds screamed and circled overhead like some feathered Stukas about to start a bombing run. We knew what their bomb load was - we didn't call them seagulls, we called them Shyt Hawks.

 

[The Johnster]

My dad called them that as well, but he was a Cardiff pilot, and also reckoned they were the souls of dead pilots, following ships in and out of port.  Lesser Black Backed and Herring gulls are the main anti-social miscreants, but an occasional Glaucous is led astray sometimes as well.  Greater Black Backed are about twice the size, a properly impressive and graceful bird, and are a pure seabird, feeding only at sea or within the littoral, and only coming ashore to breed.  Jonathan Livingstone Seagull was one of these.

 

Dad's wartime experiences on convoys led to his hatred of gulls, as survivors picked up from lifeboats after some time adrift told him that gulls would peck the eyes of those in the boats, sometimes not waiting for them to die first.  They are hard to love when you know that!

 

 

[Matt37268]

On 30/09/2023 at 17:46, KeithMacdonald said:

 

 Yes we have seagulls in Wiltshire.

What do Saltley sign for in Wiltshire? 

[KeithMacdonald]

1 hour ago, The Johnster said:

My dad called them that as well, but he was a Cardiff pilot, and also reckoned they were the souls of dead pilots, following ships in and out of port. 

 

Your Dad might have known my late Father-in-Law, who had been a Harbour Master at various places around Britain, and ended-up in Cardiff. As a Harbour Master he'd had to officiate at a few legitimately-sanctioned burials at sea, and one (in Troon) that went spectacular wrong. Not a suitable prototype for modelling (in any gauge).

 

1 hour ago, The Johnster said:

Dad's wartime experiences on convoys led to his hatred of gulls,

 

Entirely understandable! I'm not sure what my Uncle Fred's opinion was, he was on Arctic Convoys. He was one of the lucky ones that never went over the side. At the time, as a Merchant Seaman, his main preoccupation was how much Russian vodka he could get back into the UK without attracting the perfidious attention of HM Customs & Excise. He'd dutifully worn the same "Life Preserver" night and day for three years. Come Armistice Day, 1945, amid the celebrations, he threw his "Life Preserver" over the side; it sunk like a stone.

 

P.S. I'm getting concerned about how many things we have in common.

[F-UnitMad]

52 minutes ago, KeithMacdonald said:

as a Merchant Seaman, ......

He'd dutifully worn the same "Life Preserver" night and day for three years. Come Armistice Day, 1945, amid the celebrations, he threw his "Life Preserver" over the side; it sunk like a stone

I've read & heard that story before, from several sources. 

[pH]

Initial testing of the mechanism:

 

https://www.railscot.co.uk/img/83/454/

[Rich_F]

 

RailAdventure substituting for Cross Country? No a stock move 😁

[Steven B]

S Curves are completely un-prototypical and should be avoided at all costs....

(Bob Avery on Flickr)

 

SB.

[Jeremy Cumberland]

Oh, but look at the superelevation!

[keefer]

6 hours ago, Jeremy Cumberland said:

Oh, but look at the superelevation!

 

When your 'mainline' is canted so much but insist on having another line feed in from the 'wrong' side

XC HST arriving at Carstairs from the Edinburgh line.

(screengrab from YouTube thumbnail by RWH Trains - YouTube link but doesn't feature the HST!)

 

The HST has come from Edinburgh and is moving (wrong-line) onto the Up WCML, which is heavily canted to suit high-speed through services (Southbound).

 

[melmerby]

1 hour ago, keefer said:

 

When your 'mainline' is canted so much but insist on having another line feed in from the 'wrong' side

XC HST arriving at Carstairs from the Edinburgh line.

(screengrab from YouTube thumbnail by RWH Trains - YouTube link but doesn't feature the HST!)

 

The HST has come from Edinburgh and is moving (wrong-line) onto the Up WCML, which is heavily canted to suit high-speed through services (Southbound).

 

I assume all gone now with the Carstairs improvements?

Edited October 19, 2023 by melmerby

[keefer]

I know there was work going on but haven't looked yet to see what was actually done.

[luckymucklebackit]

Pretty much gone now, what was the up main onto which the HST is joining is now the up platform line with much lower speed (reduced from 90mph to 40mph) so much less can't required.

 

Jim

[melmerby]

1 hour ago, luckymucklebackit said:

Pretty much gone now, what was the up main onto which the HST is joining is now the up platform line with much lower speed (reduced from 90mph to 40mph) so much less can't required.

 

Jim

The mains are also now clear of the platforms with long goods loops each side.

[keefer]

From TRAKSY:

Previous layout:

 

New layout:

 

Edited October 20, 2023 by keefer

[montyburns56]

Does a train consisting of a single BCK really need a Buffet car?

 

Georgemas Junction 179 by David Flett

 

 

[Kylestrome]

4 hours ago, montyburns56 said:

Does a train consisting of a single BCK really need a Buffet car?

 

I think a cup of tea and a slice of fruitcake*, or even a soggy sandwich, would have been most welcome on a journey that long.

 

David

 

*Oh, happy days! 😁

 

Edited October 21, 2023 by Kylestrome

[keefer]

It's the Wick portion of an Inverness-bound train, so once it has joined the Thurso portion, it has a long journey ahead for which buffet provision was probably very welcome.

[brushman47544]

Since the Thurso portion was invariably longer and usually carried more passengers, I often wondered why the buffet went to Wick. Perhaps to give the attendant a better/longer break?

Edited October 21, 2023 by brushman47544