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Shades of Major Major Major Major 🤨!

Five cars carrying scrap ties on fire in CPKC train passing through London, Ontario: https://x.com/jmccall54/status/1782261594501554619

Mine were cheaper from the local antique/junk store of fond memory. It was great for those “I’ll only need it for this one job so no way am I buying a new one” tools.

Sorry - I can’t think of any way of doing that. It’s a pity that “rrpicturearchives” doesn’t trace the movement of rolling stock the way it traces locomotives, though I know that would need a massive effort. And how many people would need that ability (present company excepted? 😐).

Despite the fact that the conductor was legally responsible for the correct destination being displayed, it was always our drivers that ‘changed the board’.

I’m inclined to think it’s a “foobie”. Looking on “fallen flags” and “rrpicturearchives” for Union Pacific XM boxcars with numbers round about the number on that model, I can’t see any with door arrangements like the model.

David L. Smith writes a bit about drivers dealing with lubrication while the engine was in motion in “Tales of the Glasgow and South Western Railway”. He says it was common for drivers to leave the cab to oil slidebars as engines were climbing long hills. They could still be out of the cab as the train topped the hill and accelerated down the other side. And drivers would take the syphons out of the oil boxes to avoid wastage if the engine was going to stand for any length of time. One crew were caught out when the Midland brought an express into Carlisle, having made up much of the lateness reported at Hellifield. The fireman had to take the train out of Citadel, in control as far as Kingmoor, because the driver was out on the footplating, putting the syphons back into the oil boxes.

Moose are a real danger on the mountain roads in BC. If you could design an animal to be lethal to occupants of a car, you would come up with something very like a moose. Males can weigh over half a ton, they are supported on four spindly legs, at a height about the same as the hood of a compact car. If hit sideways, the body heads straight for the windshield. If it’s possible to avoid doing so, I won’t drive on mountain roads in the dark. Apparently, rutting males can mistake diesel horns for the call of another male and challenge a locomotive! Definitely a Darwin Award moment for the moose, but half a ton of moose going underneath can cause significant damage to the loco.

Back at the time prices for loco nameplates, smokebox plates etc. were starting to get really silly, I remember a letter in one of the magazines suggesting potential names, with a view to them eventually being available for sale when the engine was being withdrawn. One suggestion was “Royal Foolish Souvenirs”.

My wife and I grew up in the west of Scotland and so were quite used to living with a high annual rainfall. Then we lived for a decade in various places on the east side of England and apparently forgot about what a wet climate could mean. Moving to the Pacific north wet of North America, back to an annual rainfall within a couple of inches of that where we grew up, came as a bit of a shock.

I’ve only got to sort out the pension splitting (ours is going to make much more of a difference than that) and our returns are ready to go.

45519 and 60110 are both supposed to have had their nameplates removed at times by shedmasters who disapproved.

OK, so Terror was responsible (in part) for “the bombs bursting in air”.

Some of which rockets were fired from HMS Terror of Franklin expedition fame: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Terror_(1813) (The bombardment of Fort McHenry took place in the war of 1812, not the war of independence.)

Well, it’s quicker than “You bet your sweet bippy I do!”

This TV commercial has just been screened here. (During broadcast of a hockey game!) https://youtu.be/KnVbUJ7jD1E?si=AtwxKNvZUFDx5ThV

We have a glass pickup once a month. We once put a broken glass vase in the glass bin and had it returned with a note saying whole bottles and jars only - no broken glass. So how do they ‘process’ the items in the glass bin? - tip the bin into the back of a pickup truck, already containing the glass collected from previous houses on the route. Maybe they thought we were trying to take their jobs?

Bachmann’s North American models are not as well-regarded in their target market as their UK ones are in theirs.

One of my grandfathers was a Christian slater. (A foreman one, actually.)

About separation of passing vehicles from cyclists. I worked in Cambridge for some years and a work colleague cycled to work on busy city streets. (Obviously, a common method of commuting in that city.) He had a flag on a springy rod attached horizontally to his bike frame. It was about 18 inches long. However, its ‘effective’ length was greater than that. Motorists gave him a wide berth from fear of getting their nice cars scratched!

That painting is of a North British Railway engine, and I don’t know what tartan that is, or is meant to be. The other illustration I was trying to find, but couldn’t, was of a Great North of Scotland engine. As I remember it, it was used to pull the Royal train from Aberdeen to Ballater and it was painted in Dress Stewart tartan. Yes, Dress Stewart has a generally white background, which is why it was remarkable as a colourscheme for a steam locomotive.

There have been recent changes here in rules for car drivers encountering cyclists on the road: “The changes establish a new minimum distance of one metre that drivers must maintain when passing cyclists and other vulnerable road users. That distance increases to 1.5 metres on highways with a posted speed limit above 50 km/h.” My questions are: - From which point of the cyclist/bicycle combination to which point on the overtaking vehicle are these distances to be calculated? The answer could mean the difference between 1.48 metres and 1.52 metres. - How are these distances to be measured in real time when the overtaking vehicle may legitimately be travelling at 100kph, with a difference in speed between that vehicle and the bicycle of perhaps 80kph? - What’s the point of specifying such precise numbers when there is no reasonable possibility of measuring to the required accuracy?

I was actually looking for a GNoSR engine which I seem to remember had been painted in a tartan to pull the royal train, but didn’t find it. IIRC, it was painted in Dress Stewart 😳!

Not for much longer if they keep doing things like that!