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This site: http://shedbashuk.blogspot.com/2014/03/haymarket-edinburgh-1960-1963.html shows 62003 from Heaton at Haymarket on 13 November 1949. A bit before your timescale, but ...

I can assure you, I paid nothing close to that! Also, there’s one on Abebooks at the moment, from a UK seller, for 24GBP. And a couple more on UK eBay for 20GBP or less.

I have a secondhand book which came from the library of a US seminary. It also was never issued. Its title is “The Dalmellington Iron Company - Its Engines and Men” by David L. Smith!

When I did this, the broom I used was made for the job - it wasn’t a regular broom modified. The head was L-shaped, and it was set up for a right-handed person, with the bristles on the downward-pointing part of the head pointing to the left to reach the face of the coping stones. With the ‘L’ of the head being of wood, by pressing it firmly left against the platform edge, you could get a pretty straight edge on the white stripe. How wide was it? The width of the white stripe plus maybe 4 inches for the downward pointing part.

There’s a annual competition to determine which municipality has the best drinking water. https://berkeleyspringswatertasting.com/ I don’t know what criteria are used in deciding ‘best’.

Yes, but KCS got running rights to Beaumont in 1997 which, although it wasn’t immediately on implementation of NAFTA, wasn’t too long afterwards. And they now have their own line Victoria-Rosenberg, which cuts down their dependence on those running rights. I wonder if there’s been some cooperation/proving of concept going on in advance of this announcement. I’ve seen three KCS ‘Belles’ here on the western end of the CP mainline in the last couple of years. UP engines aren’t unknown, but CP and UP operate power pools in some areas, so that’s not too unexpected. But, as the merger announcement makes clear, the only points of contact between CP and KCS are in the Kansas City area, and that’s a long way away.

Our bottle/can deposit rates, which had been in effect for decades, changed recently. Instead of different rates for different sizes/materials, it’s now ‘one price for all’ - some rates went up, some down. It makes calculation much easier if returning a mixed collection. (The big bottle return depots still record the types of containers, presumably the stats are useful.) Container deposits are a great idea. It is very seldom you see a returnable container discarded (or, at least, discarded for long).

Couldn't compete?

- NAFTA went into effect on January 1, 1994. - In 1995, KCS bought a 49% share of the Texas-Mexican Railroad, which gave them access to the connection to Mexican railways at Laredo. - At the end of 1996 KCS, in association with a Mexican company, won the right to operate part of the privatised National de Mexico, which connected with the Tex-Mex at Laredo, beating out Union Pacific amongst others. - In 1997, the Surface Transportation Board granted trackage rights to the Tex-Mex to connect to the KCS at Beaumont, Texas as part of the UP-SP merger conditions. - KCS sold their Tex-Mex shares in 2002, but again purchased a controlling interest in Tex-Mex, effective January 2005. - In 2005, KCS bought out their Mexican partner in the privatised NdeM. - Since then, KCS have relaid an old SP route to give them a more direct route, under their own control, from the Mexican border to Houston, on the way to Beaumont. So KCS had access to Mexico the year after NAFTA went into effect, and KCS now has a subsidiary in Mexico, which no other US Class 1 railroad has. (If you're being really pedantic - and don't take this too seriously - the current KCS was actually the first US railroad to reach Mexico. The Texas-Mexican railroad, now part of KCS, made the first connection of a US railroad with a Mexican railroad at Laredo in 1883.)

According to this: http://www.trainweb.org/milwaukee/article.html Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) staff actually recommended the Milwaukee/CNW merger be allowed. However, since the financials had changed since the original proposal had been put together, the ICC wanted the merger terms revised. The CNW wouldn’t agree to the changes, so the merger was off. The whole story of the Milwaukee demise and bankruptcy is amazing.

It’s got its own topic on here: https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/61244-ailsa-craig-tramway/

I’ve seen the aurora a few times. The first time was on a road trip through BC and Alberta with two of my sons when they were 10 and 8. We were sleeping in a minivan, myself and one son on the floor, the other son on a bench seat. As we settled down to sleep one night, the son on the bench asked “Why are those clouds moving so fast?”. So we got up and watched for an hour or so. We’ve also seen them here at home a few times, just north of the 49th. My sister has seen - and heard - a spectacular display of Northern Lights while working in Labrador.

Highland Railway/LMS Yankee Tanks on a NBR/LNER branch line? NBR 4-4-0Ts such as the D51s (LNER classification) were used on the Lauder Light.

Let’s not get too carried away yet. Remember the CN-BNSF merger! https://www.stb.gov/Decisions/readingroom.nsf/WEBUNID/9E0BA130B4D48DB1852568B0005B5AE4?OpenDocument The US does not like foreign control of US companies.

But is that Sluff-it, or Slow (rhyming with ‘how’)-it, or Slew-it?

There is a topic here about light railways in Scotland, including the proposed lines on Skye, which gives references to books and other sources of information: https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/100647-light-railways-in-scotland/

And 60019 is Stirling southbound (same engine, even!): https://www.railscot.co.uk/img/35/692/

61008 is definitely at Carstairs northbound: https://images.app.goo.gl/C5o1rNUbEaouwLXy5

Night-time operating session on a garden railway: https://www.railpictures.net/photo/766500/

If by ‘these engines’ you mean 60519 and 60522, as pictured in Mad McCann’s post, there are photos of both of them at Hawick.

Arthur’s Pass at the eastern end of the Otira Tunnel?

I’m glad I’m not the only one!

You had a desk? We would have loved a desk! We had to cope in the same way as Younger Lurker - pack everything we needed for the day from home. The standard schoolbag was a wartime gas mask bag. There was quite a bit of room in it, so it was sometimes possible to pack everything you were going to need for the week into it on a Monday morning, though that could lead to a lopsided walk. The only time I remember the showers in the changing rooms being used was if someone had gone down heavily on the crushed ash football pitch. They would be given a bar of carbolic soap and a scrubbing brush and pointed at the cold water showers. I still have small bits of the pitch in my left knee. We did have a cloakroom, though.

I did it the other way round. At six and a half, I moved from a school where we were still printing to a school where cursive writing was already in use. My handwriting never caught up. Having to take handwritten lecture notes at university just finished it off. Before covid arrived, I played soccer with a group of guys originally from all five continents (seven if you count South America and Oceania as distinct continents). The common language is English, dialect profanity.

No comment! https://www.railpictures.net/photo/766389/