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pH

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Everything posted by pH

  1. I presume that’s Oxenhope and Grassington. There are a lot more, for example: - Richmond - Masham - Pateley Bridge - Hornsea - Withernsea - Cawood - Middleton-in-Teesdale ( the station was in North Yorkshire) and that’s before you get into southern Yorkshire, with the network of lines from Leeds and Bradford south to Sheffield and Doncaster which contains quite a few branches. I think you could split “branch line terminus” into “rural branch line terminus” and “urban branch line terminus” to give the OP even more choice.
  2. The title of the topic is "Abandoned rails in the road.....(or elsewhere...)", so here are some abandoned rails "elsewhere". They're disappearing into Renfrewshire moors - actually, since the photos were taken over a decade ago, they may have completely disappeared by now. First, the Duchal Moor narrow gauge railway above Kilmacolm, built in the 1920s to transport grouse-shooting parties out onto the moor. The "engine shed", where the petrol-engined trolleys were kept: The lines leading away from there onto the moor: There are some triangular junctions to branches: This is the most substantial bridge on the line. Most others are just pipes over very small streams: As I said, the pictures were taken in 2009. This shows a stretch of straight track - the darker green lines show where the rails are, under the turf. You probably would not be able to see even that now: Then there are traces of a manually-powered narrow gauge line built (presumably) for the maintenance of one of the dams at Loch Thom, the source of Greenock's drinking water. When I first knew of it in the 1960s, it ran along the top of the dam in this picture. There was a wagon turntable at the far end of the dam, and a couple of wagons lying in the grass at the foot of the dam to the left: That has all gone, but if you look closely, and squint a little, you can imagine a couple of impressions in the grass, running towards, and slightly to the right of the camera from the higher part of the wall in the foreground. And indeed, there was still a short section of rail there:
  3. Looking for something else, I came across this amongst my photographs: I can say it was taken in Charleston, South Carolina in November 2011, but I don't know what make/model it is. However, I'm sure someone else does.
  4. A few pictures from yesterday's walk in the local woods. The year's first trillium: A skunk cabbage: They do smell like a skunk - which means, if you smell that smell, you have three possible sources around here - a skunk, skunk cabbage, or 'skunk'. And a prolific and nicely-coloured fungus: .
  5. i.e. 'Books by the Yard'.
  6. I think you answered your own question!
  7. No. The only engines to carry red were some Duchesses and Princesses.
  8. I think there’s just punctuation missing, and it should read “ I always felt Jubilees looked similar apart from their colour, which would have been red - or green in BR days.”
  9. Fairhaven, Washington state: https://goo.gl/maps/reKcxzrySNh8aVo28 This was the track of the Bellingham and Skagit Interurban Railway - https://www.historylink.org/File/10904 - part of an an interurban which was intended to connect Bellingham with Seattle. The north end was built from Bellingham through Fairhaven to Mount Vernon, and the south end from Seattle to Everett. However, they were built late in the interurban era and were never joined, connection between them being made by bus.
  10. Knowing Cobs in Canada , but not that it was originally from Australia, we were surprised when we first found a Baker’s Delight in Brisbane. (Apparently that particular shop is now closed.)
  11. We get ours from this chain: https://www.cobsbread.com/about/ who have baking facilities at the back of every store, so you know they’re fresh. (You may also recognize their parent Australian company!)
  12. Here, that would be described as a ‘tandem garage’.
  13. Restarting an old topic, but I’ve never seen this combination before: https://davidheyscollection-static.myshopblocks.com/images/cm/4d59169b3cab274cb7471c0524ab3afb.jpg
  14. I would suggest getting a ‘general’ type of book to act as a sort of index to types of engines. That’s the way I started many (many) years ago. My first book of that kind was “Locomotives of British Railways” by Casserley and Asher - the 1961 (reprinted 1963) version by Spring Books which covers all steam engines inherited in 1948, plus the BR Standards. There is a very short description of each class, plus at least one illustration. There are also reprints of Ian Allan ‘Combined’ volumes for some years. Since you’ve specified dates of 50s/60s, I would suggest the reprint of the 1955 volume. There are copies of both of these available on Abebooks and Biblio for prices that shouldn’t take too much away from the actual modelling funds. I would suggest using the web (Wikipedia even!) as a secondary source, if/when you want more information on a particular class than is given in the ‘index’ type books above.
  15. Something about that, Brian. As I think has been discussed here before, your UK pension is indexed, with regular annual increments. A short distance north of you, our UK government pensions are frozen at the rates they were when we first started to receive them several years ago. It’s not a great inconvenience to us, with several other pensions coming in. However, there are people who retired from the UK to Canada to be with family here who are receiving only the UK pension, and at a rate which hasn’t changed in some cases for decades. That means that they have to get additional support through Canadian government programs. Without getting too political, it is expected that this will be raised in any UK-Canada talks on a more permanent post-Brexit trade agreement. I know that isn’t to do with taxes, but I think it shows that some research before moving could be useful. And I say that as someone who made a mistake involving taxes on a pension despite, I thought, having researched it thoroughly.
  16. A friend of ours was an elementary school teacher. As part of the school’s earthquake preparedness, large plastic totes were filled with various non-perishable supplies, including water in plastic bottles. The children were also encouraged to each place a small toy in the totes - the idea was for them to have something familiar and comforting in the event of an emergency. At one annual inspection, it was found that several of the water bottles had degraded in the dark (surprising, since materials more often degrade in sunlight), burst and soaked everything in the totes, including the toys.
  17. I think you should check that. Tax matters between any two countries are particular to those two countries, but that is not what happens with my UK pensions - one government and one occupational. Neither are taxed in the UK. I declare both as income in Canada, and they are included in my taxable income for Canadian Revenue Agency purposes. We have our UK pensions deposited directly into Canadian accounts. Some UK expat pensioners have their pensions deposited into UK accounts, and move money to Canada themselves as required. However, apart from the risk of the conversion rate fluctuating over time, at any one time the UK government can apparently get a better conversion rate than an individual can, so we’re happy with direct deposit in Canada.
  18. If it’s the lower hemisphere, be aware of the ‘freezing’ of UK government pensions!
  19. Steam street running with a police escort: https://www.railpictures.net/photo/261370/
  20. We had a windstorm go through on Sunday. A walk on the woods behind the house this afternoon saw a lot of downed branches, some of which I was able to drag off paths. However, the bigger ones and a few complete trees were beyond me. The trails are not officially maintained - I presume there would be liability issues if the municipality started doing that - but there are obviously individuals who try to keep some sort of order. I expect to see some maintenance work being done gradually over the next few weeks.
  21. Well, that was an interesting hour or so! My wife was down at the washing machines and called up for me to come and see something. The tumble drier is connected to a vent in the outside wall by a flexible metal-covered hose. This hose will normally vibrate slightly when the drier is running, but was now jumping quite violently, and randomly. The vent outside is only about a foot off the ground, one of the slats that close the vent is missing, and several years ago we had a rat come in through it while the hose was disconnected. So - immediate thought - another rodent. However, with the drier switched off, there was no movement in the hose, and no sounds of tiny feet scrabbling inside. Second thought - there is a fairly solid obstruction in the hose which is randomly blocking the hose, then freeing it, or the fan in the drier is sticking. So off with the back of the drier, clean out the path of the air out of the drier and through the hose - some dirt and fluff, but nothing major. The fan was spinning freely, too. Put the back of the drier on again. Hmmm - this may be going to take some time, so I’ll empty the drier and hang up what’s in it. All that’s there is a single bedsheet, so hang that over the backs of a couple of chairs. Back to the drier and turn it on - it runs fine, with the hose vibrating slightly, as usual. My theory is that the bedsheet, with nothing else to weigh it down, was randomly blocking the grille inside the drum, cutting off the airflow out through the hose, then falling off and restoring the flow. Memo to self - if anything like this happens again, the first thing to do is to try running the drier empty! This afternoon’s task - finish shoring up the house. (Nowhere near as bad as it sounds. I’m just being over-cautious. It has stood as it is for 45 years.)
  22. Things are getting bad when the most noticeable sign of the passing of the days is realizing it’s time to wash your basketful of dirty socks again!
  23. ... and I have never eaten tripe since that day!
  24. Interesting. I'd just done a quick check of the two photos I have of the back end of Standard 4 tanks, and it wasn't on either of them. They're not in your list, so that explains it. Does that modification show faith in the integrity of the water tanks? A leak onto a battery would not be good news and, while I can't remember seeing a tank leak on a Standard 4 tank, I've seen a few leaks on Fairburns.
  25. I thought the correct term was ‘fusion’ ?
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