Joseph_Pestell

11 hours ago, kintbury jon said:

I can tell you exactly what it is!  It's an X2400 railcar that  is based at the CFT Vallée du Loir at  Thoré la Rochette.  The number is X2419.  I travelled on it a few years ago.  The train line goes over the TGV Atlantique line and the railcar sits on the bridge whilst a TGV goes underneath.  Here is the website:

 

https://www.ttvl.fr/

 

I imagine it is at Tours in need of some sort of repair.

 

The blue shunter looks like one of the Y6200/6400 series shunters.

Thanks, Jon. An interesting "touristique" that I had not come across before. Stayed at Montoire a couple of times when touring with my parents (over 50 years ago now). 

On 02/10/2021 at 12:43, Joseph_Pestell said:

I don't think that anyone saw that coming! A really left-field choice.

 

Like others, I saw these units almost every day at LB when I was commuting (early 1976) but never managed to travel on one. I think that I would have found it a bit claustrophobic.

A correction needed. Reading further down the thread shows a withdrawal date of 1971. So I must have seen them on journeys from school to home (1970 , Charing Cross - Hayes). 

I still find this a truly odd choice when so many other Southern EMUs are still not covered. 

Did they ever run in service as a single unit?

On 30/03/2023 at 18:26, Jeremy Cumberland said:

Oban had a long-running but rather intermittent summer DMU working from Queen Street, aimed it would seem at day-trippers. A trial in 1958 used Buchanan Street and the Callander line with class 120s. Class 120s were then used in 1960 on "Land Cruises", which included trips to both Oban and Fort William (from Queen Street via Helensburgh and dividing at Crianlarich). In 1962, Oban got a regular summer class 120 working from Queen Street via Helensburgh, which continued each summer until 1970.

 

In 1975, the summer DMU service from Queen Street to Oban was revived with the prototype refurbished class 101, numbers 51451, 59545 and 51518. The service does not appear to have continued in future years.

 

Then in 1985, a connecting service was put on between Oban and Crianlarich to meet with certain West Highland trains, and this was provided using the Mexican Bean class 104, 53434 + 53424. The set used to work to and from Glasgow once a week on the back of a service train. This service was revived in summer 1986 and summer 1987. Eastfield got other 104 sets in the mid-1980s as the 107s were withdrawn, and these worked in and out of Queen Street till 1989. All rather late for this thread, though.

 

All the above information is from the wonderfully informative railcar.co.uk site. However, there are other pictures of DMUs at Oban that I can find no mention of in railcar.co.uk, including this one from September 1973 by Peter James. It's a 3-car class 101, quite possibly 50254+59568+50264 which the same person photographed at Dalmally the same day:

The loco is a class 27, and I recommend looking at this person's other pictures (click on the image to follow the link to Flikr) from the same time as they provide a useful record of train formations, including a 4-wheel Southern U van (CCT in BR parlance), still in (very dirty) green paint on a West Highland service at Rannoch.

 

My father and I did a Freedom of Scotland week in late July 1971. I am fairly sure that we travelled to Oban on a DMU because I recall that we had a good view of the semaphore signals used to warn of rockfalls.

Interesting question.

Could it be an issue of gauge that makes it difficult to find space for outside cylinders? Placing them outside the wheelbase of the loco might make it unstable at speed.

16 hours ago, BoD said:

I know it’s all part of the game now but I hate it when a player is praised for ‘taking one for the team’.  No it’s not, it’s, as you say, deliberately breaking the rules.  In any other sport they call it cheating.

A yellow card in soccer is an ineffective sanction. In rugby, a yellow card sends a player off for ten minutes which does usually affect the final score.

12 hours ago, john new said:

Not a hammers fan specifically but glad they won but watching on BT I thought the reffing tonight was very poor. So many deliberate fouls without yellow cards.

 

 

 

Deliberate (aka "professional") fouls is bad enough. Much worse was all the play acting from Fiorentina players going to ground clutching their faces when TV pictures clearly showed that the WHU players hands, elbows, etc had gone nowhere near their face. VAR should be allowed to bring those incidents to the ref's attention and these divas shown a red card.

3 hours ago, Enterprisingwestern said:

 

If you ever need to drill into blue engineering brick you'll be glad of an SDS drill!

 

Mike.

And into concrete.

A friend was converting a roofspace into a music recording studio. That involved putting about 100 fixings into concrete beams. By the time he called me in, he had drilled about 10 holes and got through several bits in a few hours. With my SDS drill (Wickes), I did all the rest in no time at all with very little effort. The Wickes drill did die some years later after some heavy jobs. Moved on to Ryobi, a brand I now use for all my tools because of their battery range.

I never believed that pro rugby union would work out in England. Or indeed Wales and Scotland. I am amazed that it has survived this long.

Even well-supported clubs in rugby heartlands, e.g. Gloucester, have been money pits.

I don't have an answer but I think it will need a far more radical reform than currently proposed by the RFU.

38 minutes ago, PaulRhB said:

There’s a certain irony that he’s being respectful in his words and claiming it’s abandoned yet he doesn’t want to move tarps because it might cause too much noise! So it can’t be that abandoned if he’s worried a bit of scraping noise?!? 
Sounds more like I’m creeping around someone’s outbuildings trying not to get caught. 

Easy enough to pull off a tarp. Difficult to put it back again on your own.

In the context of this forum, clerestory is a good contender.

24 minutes ago, Dava said:

In the late 80s I traveled most days from Sheffield on a NESW Poole-Newcastle fronted by a class 45. Why Poole, did it connect with a Cherbourg ferry?

 

Dava

Lots of XC trains terminated at Poole. Originally, they would have terminated at Bournemouth West but had to be moved when BW closed. Terminating at Central would have messed up the Waterloo - Weymouth service too much.

One of my many "might-have-been"  layout plans is a reduced Bournemouth West in the early 1970s.

On 01/05/2023 at 09:41, SM42 said:

With TV aerials, they should all generally point the same way, or in some cases two directions. 

 

Round hetecwe have a choice of the localish transmitter or Sutton Coldfield. 

 

Therefore aerials point one of two directions. 

 

They should not be all over the place as is sometimes seen where someone has bothered to go ghat far with thd detail 

 

Andy

As with all rules, there are exceptions.  Shaftesbury , a very hilly town, has aerials in at least three directions. It is also on the boundary of three different ITV regions0.

I have been intending to start a thread about this.

As a Gold Member, I have not had a problem accessing RMWeb. But can someone explain to me how to get rid of these Adblocker b*stards? I suspect that their ads which come up with every keystroke got installed remotely when I changed to Windows 11.

It's really quite common to see errors in the trackplans shown in the magazines. A recent report on Pete Waterman's Leamington was particularly poor in this regard.

The plan for this version of Camden was not the clearest and the fiddleyard an unusual design which does limit the operating potential.

As Flying Pig notes, many trains to and from Euston can not simply be turned end to end. There was a lot of remarshalling - either at the sidings on Camden Bank or further out at Willesden Stonebridge Park.

I think that Kilsby may be one of the WCML locations that had separate intermediate block boxes on Fast and Slow lines. I will check on SRS.

14 hours ago, Tony_S said:

 My neighbour told me his Lamborghini is really just an Audi.

I know somebody with a Bentley like that.

23 hours ago, skipepsi said:

Nurses have to pay for their training and as I understand it provide free labour during training.  It is not set up as an apprentice scheme.

Doctors as I understand it also pay for their education and training.  The politics behind this I will leave well alone..

One of the nurses treating me was on an apprenticeship scheme. Seemed like a much better deal even if it takes a bit longer.

3 hours ago, grandadbob said:

There was an item on the news last night about the number of nurses being recruited to work in this country (and others) from the Philippines which is causing a shortage over there.  I believe they are able to leave after 2 years working there and the language requirements for working here have now been made easier.

 

Just found this:   https://www.itv.com/news/2023-04-13/the-philippines-brain-drain-as-nurses-flock-to-the-nhs

 

Easier for whom? When  was in A&E at Salisbury a couple of years back, there was a nurse that I could not understand at all.

A friend has passed on to me details of an auction at Mitchell's of Cockermouth on 13 April: a large collection of 00 as well as some lots of books, etc.

I have only taken a quick look at the online catalogue but looks interesting. Don't like the 25% buyers' premium though.

On 26/03/2023 at 16:12, Joseph_Pestell said:

I am considering a trip using one of these €49 passes. It's been many years now since I was last in Germany. Details have now been made available. Only real "snag" seems to be that they run in calendar months, so you have to watch that you do not run over into a second month.

April is going to be too soon so I will probably try for May or June. I probably won't do the whole month but at that price one can afford to "waste" some of the days.

As part of the initial research for the above projected trip, I have been onto the bahn.de website. Is it me or is there no facility to consult timetables there? All I can see is a form to put in the time that one wants to travel and lets the computer work out the options. That's not really my preferred method for this sort of trip.

Given current health considerations, I should probably not stay in too many places but favour several nights at each location with day trips out from each. Cover less mileage that way but this is not going to be the sort of marathon effort that my 1975 Interrail trip was (14,300 mls) in 30 days.

Worth noting that the €49 includes local metros, trams, buses, etc.

On 03/01/2023 at 21:39, jonhall said:

In terms of tickets in Germany, you could consider a single country Interail pass - You can use almost all trains including IC/ICE/Eurocity trains flexibly, and don't need a reservation (but you might want reservations, which you can make separately). There is a promise of a 49euro fare for all Germany, but that will be local trains (RB or RE) NOT the high speed expresses, and details aren't yet available.

 

Jon

 

 

I am considering a trip using one of these €49 passes. It's been many years now since I was last in Germany. Details have now been made available. Only real "snag" seems to be that they run in calendar months, so you have to watch that you do not run over into a second month.

April is going to be too soon so I will probably try for May or June. I probably won't do the whole month but at that price one can afford to "waste" some of the days.

There has to be a red so trains can not pass unless the route is set.

Could be 2 aspect or 3 aspect depending on the supposed track layout ahead (including anything off-scene and not modelled). 

The restaurant car has hinged folding doors whereas the others have sliding doors.

I think I am right in saying that only the sliding door cars should really be referred to as "Eurofima".

On 19/12/2022 at 16:43, Pacific231G said:

I

I think the catch with "boucles" (Fr. term for roundy -rounds) is that, because you can just run trains round and round, that's often what ends up happening when  a point fails or they're an operator down, and unless a strict operating sequence is followed, shunting and actual train operations simply go by the wayside.

Not to mention the couple of hours when all the operators have gone for dejeuner.

1 hour ago, sjp23480 said:

I agree.   Isn't it time for legislation to compel house builders to include solar systems in all new builds, even better if they can orient each property to ensure maximum yields from the installations?

 

 

 

Such legislation was proposed c.2010. All new housing from 2016 onwards was to achieve BREEAM level 6. Seems to have disappeared without trace.

I looked at this a few years ago as a possible project in N. Should make an ideal club/exhibition project.

One word of caution. The OS maps are very inaccurate  with regard to railway infrastructure - even more than usual. Trust only photographic evidence or railway drawings.