EddieB

No takers so far? Ok, the first pair of clues aren't specific in themselves but will help to validate answers obtained from the other pair. The third is quite specific and contains enough information to Google your way to the right answer. Perhaps the final clue is more cryptic, but again it should generate a word which will lead to the identity of the locomotive. At this stage, the only thing I'll add is that the loco was standard gauge. I can add more clues, but don't want to give the game away without at least a serious attempt - and I trust that, once found, the "merits" of the locomotive will provide some interest, perhaps even amusement.

He had no ikea it was dangerous.

Are we talking the same location as the February picture? The one with the Midland style of fencing?

Mike, thanks for that, I wouldn't have found the additional detail. This question concerns a very unusual and indeed unconventional locomotive. 1. It was built in Britain for a British railway company, which became part of a larger company to whose ownership the locomotive passed. 2. It carried a name. 3. The third clue is to the works where it was built. Only four locomotives have been identified as built there, the other three being more conventional - albeit with domeless boilers and haycock fireboxes. There are more familiar works and locomotive factories sharing the same name - but this one wasn't in Maribo, Wilkes-Barre or Szczecin (Stettin) - nor was it the bigger Brittish one that was until a year before the locomotive in question was built named for its founder (you'll also find a word pun there). However the builder is generally referred to by the company name taken from its partners. 4. The final clue is to be found by reference to the Burgess Shale and a patent.incorporated into the locomotive design.

Aside from his three patents on interlocking lever frames in the 1870s, there's nothing in the earlier output of Webb that seems relevant. The differences in the GWR/Tyer no. 9 development were, as I see it, multiple "keys" instead of "tablets" (Tyer patent) or "staffs" (Webb) and more compact size.

Do you mean FW Webb and the LNWR having to pay royalties (£2 a go) to Tyer for infringement of patent?

I just don't get it. The Government spends a fortune on education and still half of the population are below average!

If we're talking tokens (not tablets or staffs) then it was the Great Western Railway, patented by AT Blackall and CM Jacobs and first used on the Marlow branch. Tyer & Co were given licence to manufacture and sell these instruments. Now for the specific reason - hmm. Generally something to do with multiple tokens allowing trains to originate from each end of the section (without needing to return a staff) or for trains to run "out of sequence". Compared to the previous versions, the new machines were more compact and had less moving parts. Well, as Meat Loaf sang "two out of three ain't bad"...

Well I scored 140 on the test and I'm using IE8 and - don't laugh - Vista. Just to rub it in, IE gave a connection failure when replying to the post.

Absolute [self-moderated] eyesore! Who really wants to live or work in such a monstrosity - especially after 9/11? Fire drills, anyone? I really cannot fathom the "wisdom" of those who grant planning permission for such out of place constructions. It totally dominates the London skyline - even before it has been finished. At a time when the commercial property market is struggling to sell space, along comes another ginormous architectural folly. You might get the impression I don't like it.

Scary. Back in Hungary, I think they have a law that you must stop and render assistance where necessary and are liable to prosecution iff you don't. I remember coming across what appeared to be carnage on one of the Hungarian motorways - cars stopped all over the place. There had been an accident (on the opposite carriageway, no less) and so many people had stopped in fear of falling foul of the law, but making the whole scene so much more dangerous.

It's August, when the papers are trying to find stories to fill empty space. What's the story here? Does everyone with a SatNav use it to race against the ETA? Do drivers without SatNavs never exceed speed limits? My first time with a SatNav was in a hire car in Germany - a few minutes' tinkering (so it spoke English) and then, for the fun of it, I let it navigate me "blind". I was pretty impressed. More so the following day (Sunday) when I needed to find a petrol station (stay on the main road or drive around town?). I've since bought one which I use mainly when I'm going somewhere new (I'll check the map first, before leaving), but it's also useful for the re-planning feature if I need to take an alternative route to avoid a jam. Also useful as it gives a more accurate speed reading than the car's speedometer. I wouldn't regard it as a substitute for a good set of maps and a bit of advance planning, but a very useful piece of kit. To those who say they'd never need one, when was the last time you took a wrong turning or had to find somewhere to stop and check the map? Probably still to pay for itself in terms of fuel and time saved, but it isn't far off.

Yes, the company itself being R. B. Longridge & Co. The two replica locos are 2-2-2 DE AREND (Long 119/1839, built Zwolle 1938) and BAYARD (Long 120/1839, built FS Firenze 1939) which are to be found at the railway meums in Utrecht and Napoli respectively. The final locomotives were destined for the isolated Holyhead Breakwater Railway, originally broad gauge (seven foot), but later converted to standard and associated with the BR class 01 shunters in its last days.

No, Gordon Brown has used them all up.

Happy days! The Monza circuit is worth visiting when there's nothing racing - there's an FS class 835 0-6-0T plinthed there (never leaves the top step of its podium?)!

The answer to this question is a British locomotive builder. A family business dating back to the previous century, one of the family members became closely involved with a much bigger and well-known locomotive builder, before splitting off to build locomotives through the family firm. Although no complete works list survives, it is thought that just over 200 locomotives were built in a span of around sixteen years. The last batch of locomotives were of broad gauge and went to a railway in the UK whose enduring fame and tradition of operating unique locomotives finished in the 1970s. Sadly none of the locomotives built by this business have survived. However two* European countries saw fit to build replicas of locomotives built by this firm. Some sources even give the original locomotives as being numbered consecutively (although the list given in Lowe disagrees). *There are suggestions that a third replica locomotive, in a different country to the other two, is another copy of a locomotive constructed by the same firm, but on balance it appears that the original was from a differnt builder.

Assuming that we're talking steam, I'd suggest J38 class nos 65901 and 65929, withdrawn in April 1967.

I think you're mixing up the EM1 (class 76, Bo-Bo) with EM2 (class 77, Co-Co), the former outlasting the latter on British Railways (the EM2s being sold to the Dutch State Railways). But seeing as the Em1`s were withdrawn en bloc, I don't think this is what the qustionner is after!

Yep, probably too easy given my attraction to things Great Eastern. Loco number 527, delivered in 1879, was the first British 2-6-0 and was named "Mogul" -as it appears was a loco built for the Central Railroad of New Jersey in 1866 which gave its name to the type. Over to you, O measurer of acidity and alkalinity.

Sorry for the delay, just back and little time to prepare, so here's one from "stock". This locomotive, the leader of a batch of fifteen, was the first of its wheel arrangement into service with one of the "main" companies. It carried a name by which this wheel arrangement was widely known, the wheel arrangement itself being widely used in Britain subsequently. (Oddly enough, it seems that the locomotive did not confer its name on the wheel arrangement - that honour befall a similarly named locomotive in the USA some years earlier.) What was the running number carried by the locomotive in question?

No, I was quite happy to walk away from the three-position signals having gone as far as I could. Great Western, you say? Probably explains why I couldn't get there. Anyway, PLA = Passengers' (Unaccompanied) Luggage in Advance DL = Delivered luggage CL = Collected luggage

Is there a coicidence that BBC relinquishes part of its F1 coverage in the same year it will be giving us wall to wall Olympics? I love my sport, but I don't want to subscribe to Sky. It's not just the subscription costs - I am opposed to the way that Sky and the Murdochs have been handed our national sporting treasures, that they've been able to buy out of the tax concessions awarded by successive Governments for their endorsements in their grubby little "news"papers. As Sky buys more top sporting events, then it channels its extra money to buy out the rest. Still there's always tennis, snooker, horse racing and the "Alan Weekes" sports (minority sports barely more interesting that tiddly-winks - you know, the ones that no one wanted to buy Olympic tickets for).- the BBC will be working overtime to make them interesting.

Who was that Greek fellow who tried to slay the many heads of the Hydra? Jumping in with both feet, without any checking, if you've laid a clue in response to my suggestion of working on the Great Northern main line, could it be Kings Cross, on the Widened Lines with the lead piping Metropolitan Railway?

Or, continuing the theme of permissive working , could it be Victoria* and the South East and Chatham reginalling of 1920 using supplementary discs (the Southern Railway re-signalling with three position semaphores of the LBSCR pattern in 1924)? *Starting to sound like a game of Cluedo, when all but the suspect is known!

Seeing as I posess none of the canonical works on British railway signalling, I'm guessing (most likely incorrectly) that it could be something to do with signalling to allow "permissive block" working on the Great Northern main line.