SM42

Sorry about that Jim. I thought they would have told you before you got to Wolverhampton. Could have been worse though, It was touch and go whether you went via Soho as well or stayed at Oxley all night. Just a shame I wasn't there to see you pass. Cannock needs waking up a bit and a 56 is just the thing to do it. Andy

Glad you enjoyed the little detour I arranged for you to dodge round the engineers As soon as they said you were on the logs I knew I was in safe territory. I thought you might be getting a little rusty on the Cannock Line and could do with a refresh anyway Andy

Yes this is Cliffe Vale china clay terminal. The final destination for 6M72 and start point of 6V70. Trains I used to see on regular basis on my way to school for 6M72 and later in they evening for 6V70 during the 1980s. Andy

Not sure when Cockshute closed, but when I was a student in Stoke between 1988 and 1991, locos could be found at the north end of the station on the up side. Usually a 56 or a couple of 20s lurked about those areas. Andy

Indeed. I recall seeing a TV program where the flight plan was being tweaked to get the lowest cost combination of fuel use and airspace charges where fuel cost going around a country was less than the airspace charge of going over it. I hadn't until then even considered that the air above us is a valuable source of national income. Of course the airport charges are one of the reasons low cost often leaves you at an airport that has a cheek to call itself after whichever city might be within two hours drive.. Airports further out tend to need the business more and will probably be open to accepting lower charges just to get the routes and cash coming in. This is probably why you can get a Ryanair flight from Bristol, but not Heathrow and of course Stansted is not London despite what it claims and perhaps if you squint at the map a bit. Andy

This makes sense as couple of trips ago to the land of the pole, I was sat next to guy who had booked on Wednesday for the Saturday flight and had paid £8 each. As far as cookies go I'm not sure this works as another recent trip by SM42 ran into website problems that wouldn't complete payment. After several goes over the next couple of hours I gave up. The next day we had an e mail from the airline saying we hadn't finished our booking and when we tried again its was suddenly £10 cheaper on each leg. Andy

The cruise. I like that I once read the a description of the cruise as "hurtling through the stratosphere in an aluminium tube surrounded by 1000s of litres of highly flammable aviation fuel barely protected from blazing furnaces". I was also once told that a firm landing reduces tyre wear as they spin up faster. Whether that is true or not I don't. know. Ryanair certainly hold the record for worst landing ever in my experience ( I really thought they had gone too far and damaged the plane.) In fact there was no spontaneous applause on that occasion it was that bad. Wizz hold my record for most concerning. Should the terminal building at Poznan be off the right wing when the plane touches down? Must have been almost halfway down the runway. I was half prepared for a go around But back to the Ryanair debacle. It is interesting that they are appraently refusing to rebook on alternative carriers but I did hear it said on TV the other day that their own conditions state they will do this. (don't know if this is true. haven't used them for nearly 12 months now) That would be different, using their own T&Cs against them. Andy

Regular flights to Mrs SM42's motherland from Stansted with Ryanair sort of put me off flying in general. I don't mind the flying, its the airports and all the faffing about I hate In those days we didn't have a lot of choice of carrier and now we drive more often than not. 500kgs of luggage capacity, no messing about at the airport, Eurotunnel let you change reservations by paying the difference in fare, straight to the door and overall a much nicer experience where the trip is part of the adventure. Compared to driving to Stansted , the time is about double and the amount we move back an forth we more than save on excess baggage. Wizz have now opened a route from our local airport here to our local airport out there and although not perfect a mucher nicer experience than Ryanair. To me Ryanair seems to have lost its way a bit. I thought they were getting better with the two bag policy, but even that is getting silly now. Add to that the check in at last minute if you want it for free, using your ink and paper (admittedly Wizz have started this now) and I'm sorry but they have lost my business. I'll only use them as a last resort. Andy

Here's one I've dug out of the SM42 archives Soldek, the first sea going ship built in Poland apparently, and resident of the Maritime museum in Gdansk back in 2007 Andy

A few years ago a colleague of mine was asked, one night, to rescue a cat that had managed to get itself "stuck" by the track. Said cat was located after some searching in thick undergrowth below a road bridge. Despite his best efforts he was unable to persuade the cat to come out from its bramble festooned sanctuary and in desperation tried "Come here you little b++++++" At which point, from the darkness above, a little voice said "His name's Murf Andy

As with all green issues it seems to me that announcements such as these are just an excuse to justify future tax rises or charging regimes on people for going about their everyday business. Come 2040 there will probably be a 60% tax on automotive batteries because of the environmental concerns over production and disposal, In the meantime expect to be hit by road charging everywhere whilst there is no viable alternative (unless you live in London) to avoid it When it comes down to it, paying more because of the pollution you cause doesn't stop pollution. It may reduce it but only if the amounts are eye watering. Since I started driving, traffic levels have ballooned (certainly in the last 10 years) and the price of fuel has gone up by around 200%. So that hasn't put people off to any great extent then . Any individual reduction in use has been surpassed by increased numbers. Perhaps £5 / litre might but there may be civil unrest if that happened. Look what happened when it hit £1 / litre At present there are limits to the practicality of a purely electric vehicle over the conventional petrol and diesel. 8.5 minutes to get you 30 miles or 2-3 minutes to get you 400 miles, not to mention the sheer amount of space you'd need to charge up the average throughput of a petrol station if everyone was there for at least 8-10 minutes but probably longer. The technology is out there but as I understand it is not practical for road use as the batteries are the size of a house. Could this be solved in 22 years? Maybe, if there was some sense of central government support for the R&D (this is after all a significant shift in transport policy) but I don't get the impression that that will be forthcoming and private enterprise and ultimately the consumer will be expected to pick up the bill. Still in the meantime, based on a dodgy piece of statistical jiggery-pokery from 30 year old US research, we can all try and force people to switch to petrol, double CO2 output and kill the whole planet quicker , totally ignoring the particulates, benzene content other nasties from petrol and of course the non combustion sources of road pollution. Once that is done we can use the petrol pollutants argument to add £2 per litre tax on the stuff and sit back and watch the money roll in whilst we force people to go electric and dream up some wheeze to tax that. Oh and bicycles will have a 300% sales tax on them too. Cynical? Me ? Never. Andy

It's 2042 and there you are with 5 miles of range left. Only another 30 to go to get home. I'll just pop in here for a charge. Oh it's full. Never mind someone might finish in 14 hours. I just hope that batteries develop by then. It seems to me that the mobile phone battery in the last 20 years has developed to the stage where it can barely manage to run a phone for a day and of course some do have a nasty habit of bursting into flames whilst being recharged. Personally I favour hydrogen power as the future. Clean and quick to refill. Of course we could start building a network of overhead electrified mesh over all the roads and then we just need a pick up on the back, like the dodgems (driving in Birmingham won't change then!) . better start now as there's a lot of road to cover. Still doesn't solve the problem of particulates from the brakes and tyres or the nitrogen pollution from your central heating or LPG powered vehicle though. Andy

Someone I know of Polish origin regularly flies aback for all her dental work and she reckons it saves her a lot. Granted she does stay with family so does not have to pay for a hotel I don't know if she gets a discount being a Polish national but from the limited experiences I have had, even paying full price is not that expensive. One other thing is that fillings are white, as standard, from what I have heard so no horrible looking amalgam. In fact, in my experience as an English patient, medical care in Poland (and I've had more experience than I would care for, so much so I am now sort of registered with a doctor. Don't ask) has been excellent, although you do have to consider the language issues and choose your supplier carefully. Andy

Chigley is one of the first recorded instances of MGR working. They never ran round. Another regular of my childhood goes to the great TV show in the sky (not on Sky) RIP. Andy

In have just found mention of another local one with no pictures or links (except to state between which stations it was when it opened and closed) and that is Rifle Range Halt, between Kidderminster and Bewdley on what is now the SVR Hard to pin down except is was on the Rifle Range, (An area of Kidderminster retains this name but is no longer a rifle range, although some parts feel like it) but I think it was somewhere just before the SVR trains passes the WM Safari Park coming from the Kidderminster direction, in fact the other side of the tunnel from Foley park Halt mentioned earlier. It closed in 1920. Then of course a bit further along the SVR there is Northwood Halt http://www.svrwiki.com/Northwood_Halt and the new one at the Severn Valley Country Park http://www.svrwiki.com/Country_Park_Halt Andy

That's a bit awkward for the factory fitted rear view mirror. I think you are allowed up to 40mm incursion but not in the bit directly in front of driver, which seems to be a popular place for the sat nav to go.

This comes under the Construction and use regulations 1986 as below .—(1) No person shall drive, or cause or permit to be driven, a motor vehicle on a road, if the driver is in such a position as to be able to see, whether directly or by reflection, a television receiving apparatus or other cinematographic apparatus used to display anything other than information— (a) about the state of the vehicle or its equipment; (b) about the location of the vehicle and the road on which it is located; © to assist the driver to see the road adjacent to the vehicle; or (d) to assist the driver to reach his destination. (2) In this regulation “television receiving apparatus” means any cathode ray tube carried on a vehicle and on which there can be displayed an image derived from a television broadcast, a recording or a camera or computer Part a covers it, although I think the reference to Cathode ray tube is a bit out of date. But I agree very distracting, especially when some cars have such a screen and some information is on the screen and some directly related info is on the dash next to the speedo, Andy

Not a diversion of a train per se, but a rather an unusual diversion of passengers via a rather circuitous route: Sometime in then late 90s I arrived back at New St in glorious, if rather humid, weather on Maundy Thursday to hear it being announced that passengers for London Euston should change at Bristol Temple Meads. I did actually stop and wonder if I had heard that right, but yes it was then repeated. Apparently due to widespread flooding, it was the only way to get from Brum to London. It snowed the following day! Andy

Here are my nominations from around these parts Foley Park Halt on the SVR between Kidderminster and Bewdley. If I've done this right here is a link to a picture: http://www.rcts.org.uk/cache/photographs/mystery/Y-73-33.780.jpg and also nearby Burlish Halt between Hartlebury and Stourport: http://www.rcts.org.uk/cache/photographs/mystery/Y-90-18A.780.jpg. Andy

Thought it might have been your back end sticking out at Marylebone the other night! Andy

In terms of bus stops within zig zags, certain vehicles are exempt and that includes public service vehicles. How a bus is more see through than a car though I'm not sure. At a funeral some time ago, I was talking to the undertaker and the issue of slow progress came up. One of their clients had requested (obviously in advance) that they shouldn't hang about and at least 50mph where they could should be a minimum so as not to hold people up as he had found it so annoying being stuck behind a funeral. Aparently the following mourners were well spread out across the 6 mile trip to the crematoreum Andy

It's the references to the legislation underneath that are key. Certainly parking on the wrong side of a two way road between during darkness is an offence under the Construction and Use regulations 1986. I'm pretty sure it was an offence in daylight too at one point. Yes, none adherence to the Highway Code can be used as evidence of driving which falls below the standard of a competent driver (i.e careless) . As for enforcement, I can't see it happening much as there are less humans and more machines doing the enforcing. Unless of course the local council wish to make some cash. In most areas, I think, parking on pedestrian crossing zig zags and school markings are the only places where parking is a criminal matter now Andy

Definitely Poland and a nice, rather too close up of an EN57. Of course it is perfectly possible that this may have been a manually operated crossing as opposed to automatic. In my limited experience, (i.e observation of one specific incident,) the signals are not always locked with the barriers. Which is quite alarming really. Andy

I thought parkiing on the wrong side of the road is an offence under the Construction and Use regulations, but of course that may have been changed since I last read it. Reversing into a space makes more sense than reversing out. it's easier for a start andl when you arrive to reverse in, you have seen and assessed the prevailing conditions with traffic and pedestrians through the windscreen and when you leave you are looking out of the front of the car, not trying to see round 10 - 15ft of steel, plastic and upholstery. After all the manufacturers go to the trouble to make it easier to see out of the front as that is the way a car tends to travel the most and the way the driver is supposed to be facing (unless you are Captain Scarlet) . Andy

Full House yesterday Red light camera, all three lanes at once. Wow! Never seen that before. Andy