jjb1970

The JNR DD54 diesel hydraulic was a dreadful locomotive, a Maybach engine with hydraulic transmission and with NBL-esque quality and reliability. They had a very short life, yet despite that I have a soft spot for them as I like the design and the B-1-B wheel arrangement is interesting. Their calamitous record can't be blamed on Japan not knowing how to manage hydraulics or them being the poor relation in a railway dominated by diesel electric types as Japan built some excellent diesel hydraulic types which had long and successful lives such as the DE10 and DD51 (another two types with interesting wheel arrangements, but much more successful than the DD54). Zoukei Mura made a superb HO - 1/80 model which is still pretty easy to find. Anyway, I stumbled across this nice video on YT:

The only thing I can think of is to move things further from Europe in case EU littoral states decide to take action on the high seas. Strictly speaking ships have to obey the laws of the Flag State and the Coastal/Port State when in their territorial waters, so if tankers are operating in accordance with the laws of the Flag in international waters they're doing nothing wrong (legally, it's a personal judgement call whether people think they're trading unethically). However I'm hearing the phrase 'it's our water' to describe areas beyond the territorial sea in Europe and increasing demands to act as though large areas of international seas are within their sovereign control so maybe operators are pre-empting potential moves against them?

This is a big problem for old coal fired power stations, the cost of restoring the ground can be a nightmare. Decades of accumulated hazardous contamination. I saw reports for some of my former employers sites and they weren't pleasant reading.

A little bit of communication could pour oil on troubled waters. Delays to the model caused by the exceptional circumstances of the last few years were fair enough in my view. SLW are a small company and events derailed companies with much more purchasing power and resource. If SLW are struggling to get orders out because they're a tiny outfit, or because they're going through each model to check quality or for another reason I would cut them slack but it'd probably avoid negative feeling to tell their customers why there is a delay. Delays in delivery from the factory are one thing, delays in fulfilment after arrival at SLW something else as that should be within their control. Personally I wouldn't cancel but I can understand why people are getting a bit annoyed when it wouldn't take that much to provide an update.

On steam, I really don't get that enthusiastic about steam specials so I am not the target market for what it's worth I don't get that enthusiastic about preserved diesel mainline running either). I am happy to see old trains in museums. I was born after the end of mainline steam in Britain but did see mainline steam in China and something which surprised me was how different working steam felt relative to preserved steam. Seeing the big QJ kettles shunting in yards and on goods trains was way more impressive to me than something like FS on a rail tour. The engines weren't mollycoddled or polished but neither were they abandoned to whatever filth might accumulate and were clearly regularly cleaned.

Some of the platform gaps at Berkhampstead are huge, the combination of a curved platform, doors are 2/3 inboard from the vehicle ends and a significant height difference.

If there's one thing I like about China (and there are many) it's the obsession with pork. I remember reading an article by a green NGO person about their plans to stop the Chinese eating pork, to which my reaction was good luck with that.

I have a love/hate relationship with Brussels. There are things I criticize but there are beautiful areas, the food is superb and I find the people friendly. The area around Gare du Midi is best avoided but most cities have their problem areas. That said, I prefer Antwerp, I love Antwerp.

I must admit I am not a fan of the turkey 'bacon' found in some Muslim countries. I find chicken frankfurters OK but efforts to make substitute bacon all seem awful.

Some electric bicycles are closer to being motorbikes than bicycles, food delivery riders here are an absolute menace. Fortunately the electric scooter craze hasn't taken off here in the same way as in Europe and America.

I suspect the manufacturers monitor social media but are selective with engagement for entirely understandable reasons.

On pork it was a regular thing when we were based in Ashdod (Israel) that local contractors, agents etc would ask for bacon butties when coming onboard. Pork is easy to find in Indonesia and Malaysia as it's a staple of the Chinese community in those countries. The Muslim majority either avoids it or indulges themselves (as with the western world and religion many people are nominally Muslim but basically non-observing).

There's a whole hobby of Land Rover Defender enthusiasts in Britain who pimp up their vehicles to be able to compete in the Paris-Dakar Rally or operate with the SAS in Afghanistan so they're properly prepared to make the arduous trip to Tesco or the next Land Rover show.

Lima did an excellent job with their 47. It's basic and quite generic but they nailed the shape and 'look' of the 47. It's still a great starting point for a project to detail and modify and can result in a superb model. And the Hornby releases have an excellent motor bogie which offers smooth and quiet performance. OK it's a motor bogie in an era where body mounted motors which drive to all wheels is normal, but it's a very good motor bogie.

Unfortunately an especially poor image (digital zooming on my phone to get it) but it seems the former MoD RoRo Beachy Head has had a big bit added onto the the back since being sold.

A heavy lift ship.

Wind turbines seem to be a very popular cargo these days.

On odd looking trains, the Swiss practice which I find strange looking is adding an extra 2 or 3 coaches including a driving vehicle onto fixed formation push pull sets to add more capacity. So there'll be a driving coach then a few more coaches with another driving coach. Sometimes using single deck coaches to strengthen double deck sets.

Belgium has one of the best railway systems I've used. The trains aren't particularly special and tend to be quite basic and they don't major on high speed exotica, but they have an extremely well developed service pattern which allows you to get anywhere on the network easily with logical and easy to understand operating patterns, fares and cheap, it seems reliable and it all 'just works'. From a user perspective its better than other European railways which garner more attention because of their flag ship high speed lines and scenic vistas but which in some cases aren't particularly great when you try and use them to get from A to B. On stations, Belgian people I met were horrified when I said I wanted to go to the station for a bit to take a few snaps and watch trains and advised against it. Gare du Midi/Zuid has always been problematic, being in a bad area and with a lot of petty crime but things seem to have deteriorated and it looked like there was a more generalized problem with homelessness, begging and petty crime around stations which was much worse than when I was a regular visitor before the pandemic. Which isn't an SNCB issue, that's a societal problem but unfortunately (as with other things) the railway gets lumbered with a very visible manifestation of a deeper problem. That said, Antwerp has possibly the most impressive station in the world. Not just the famous old station building (the cathedral of rail travel) but the modern multi-level station is stunning. I must admit that even though I think standard locomotive platforms like Vectron and Traxx have made European railways a bit boring compared to when each railway had its own distinct locomotive designs I do like the Belgian class 18. It's interesting too that Belgium still seems to see value in high visibility yellow ends.

An example of blindness to tragedy elsewhere is the Herald of Free Enterprise and Dona Paz tragedies. The Herald of Free Enterprise is rightly remembered in Britain as a great tragedy, and it was a key part of work which would lead to strengthened ferry safety regulations and the ISM Code. At around the same time as that tragedy the Filipino ferry Dona Paz hit a tanker and as a result over 4000 people died. Despite being massively worse in terms of loss of life almost nobody outside the Philippines has heard of the incident.

He was correct. Well, I don't know about the figure of a loss every six weeks but bulk carriers were the problem child of the fleet with an awful casualty rate and virtually nobody outside the industry in the developed world was aware of it precisely because the crews lost were overwhelmingly from countries most would struggle to find on a map (not that I want to sound cynical). Part of it is cargo related, liquefaction is a serious issue and even though there are requirements to mitigate the risk some cargo owners ignore them and some shipowners play fast and loose. P&I Clubs put a lot of emphasis on checking cargo reports and hatch cover seals etc but losses from liquefaction still happen. Part of it is structural, an issue which did penetrate the general media (briefly) was use of high tensile steels to reduce plate thickness and hull stresses can be very high when loading which can lead to cracking and catastrophic failure. And some bulk carriers end up at the bottom of the food chain, old ships owned by companies who really couldn't care less about safety serving a market looking for minimum cost transport with few questions. There's a section of the industry which uses port state control as an alternative to technical management. Ships operate until detained, they do enough to get them released and run to the next detention. OK they get black listed from some countries but they still have enough of a market to operate at a profit. Another part of it may be complacency or a focus on more happening thing stuff. A bulk carrier is a big steel box with an engine at the back. That's glib and obviously a gross simplification but bulk carriers are simple ships and dashing young naval architects and marine engineers are desperately trying to make their mark in the industry by designing a slightly more efficient handymax bulk carrier. When I worked at LR all of their rules development, research and product development work was for alternative fuels, cruise ships, gas carriers, dynamic positioning and other higher value and more complex ships despite the fact everyone knew the problem was bulk carriers.

As well as working on cruise ships there is a huge market for domestic maids in Asia which relies on young ladies from countries like the Philippines, Indonesia and Myanmar. Some of them look like they should still be at school, others are a bit older and have children at home. Some are treated extremely well and looked after, but there is an underside of abusive and cruel behaviour in some households which is shameful.

There used to be a similar thing in Britain, some tax advantage for pick ups which led to a booming market for crew cab types with four doors. Manufacturers developed luxury ranges which were given all the same toys and fancy wheels as high end luxury cars. However I think they changed the legal bit that made them attractive and the market seemed to evaporate (though you still see quite a few). The other booming market for a while was pick ups with expensive expedition upgrades and performance packs, like the Isuzu D-Max Arctic. Utterly pointless in a country like Britain, but so is a Ferrari or Lamborghini and even hot hatches are pretty pointless on public roads so it's probably a bit unfair to criticise fancy pick ups.

E-commerce in Japan is strange. Many shops won't sell to foreign countries but those that do tend to offer stellar service.

Ronnie Barker was one of the great comedy actors, he was great. I loved 'Open All Hours', I'm old enough to remember stores like Arkwright's as I was growing up in Carlisle, small shops ran by old men in brown coats which were open early to late and which seemed to sell everything.