whart57

The Sea (La mer) - Charles Trenet (It's used at the end of Mr Bean's Holiday, where Mr Bean walks from the Palais de Festivals down to the beach)

The Long and the Short and the Tall --- George Formby

According to my book on the W&L both engines received their modifications at Swindon although normal heavy overhauls were done at Oswestry

The obvious "what if" is if the government nationalised the railways in 1923, or at least created a single company rather than four competing ones.

Whiter Shade of Pale ---- Procol Harum

An ideological opposition to nationalisation helped too

Gates of Eden -- Bob Dylan

Like Bill Shankly taking his wife to watch Liverpool Reserves as an Anniversary treat

Except that Maunsell was SECR and not LSWR

This leads to another thought. What if in 1923 the Grouping was done differently, done more along the lines of later BR and franchise dividings up of the network. If, say, the government created a London and Home Counties Railway out of the SECR, LBSCR, GER, Metropolitan and the suburban lines of the LSWR and the lines going north. And then the rest of the LSWR was grouped with the Great Western. Then we could imagine all those Drummonds and Uries getting Swindonised. OK, I've triggered a fatwa now ...........

Both W&L locomotives were given the Swindon treatment Before: After: Lovely engines, I'd love to see someone like Rapido do a On16.5 version of them

Do you hear the people sing? -- Boublil and Schonberg, Les Miserables

You're my world. - Cilla Black

Not sure if this topic is still live, but I have a question on M&GN liveries. What is the best way of painting the loco yellow. From the pics it looks as if there are multiple shades. (The reason I ask is I have dug out an unfinished DJH kit of a Netherlands Central Railway 4-4-0T not unlike the M&GNR ones and I would like to finish it in the NCS yellow livery)

A few cars c1970 still required a double declutch to change from 2nd gear down to first, which, given you'd only ever want to do that going up a steep hill, could be a bit hairy. The drive up from St Margaret's Bay in Kent was where I made a hash of that. OK, you can stop and start again, but I'd stalled the engine and on the car in question the fuel pump wasn't strong enough to lift fuel from the tank when you were on a 1 in 6. My other double declutch adventures were when driving tractors with a trailer stacked with straw on the back. Those 1970s tractors didn't have synchromesh gear boxes, and nor did they have good brakes. There was a steep hill leading down to the crossroads where we had to turn right to get to the farm yard. You had to go down in low gear but that meant stopping at the top to change down. Do that though and you were going at 4 mph down the not so steep bits as well. If you felt confident though you could double declutch into a lower gear when you got to the top of the 1 in 10. If you made a hash of it though you were off down the hill out of control and hoping there was nothing at the cross roads stopping you going straight on onto a level bit where your brakes might work. You didn't want to take the corner because you'd tip your load into the ditch and worst case - the boss did it - turn the tractor over.

Lonesome Whistle -- Hank Williams

A Salty Dog. - Procol Harum

Make way for the dogsbody (Largo Al Factotum). - Rossini

Name of the Game --- ABBA

Flash -- Queen

Hit the road, Jack --- Ray Charles

The Eton Boating Song --- Generations of future Prime Ministers

Cromwell's back ...... This is my song for the asking --- Paul Simon

Girls on Film -- Duran Duran

Descendants of the old haystack designs I presume, or Belpaires on steroids