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I’m sitting in the customer area of the car dealership. The car is in for a regular service. They’re one technician down today, so it’s going to take longer than it’s meant to. I could go home and come back when the dealership phones to say it’s ready. But that would mean using a bus both ways, plus having at most an hour at home. So it looks like a couple of hours of RMWeb and Angry Birds on the dealership’s wifi.

I’ve never heard of the song before. (I’m somewhat older than the demographic you described in your original post !) I picked a few words together from what you’d remembered which I thought would not be a common combination and did a Google search using them with the added word ‘lyrics’. So I searched for “Secret Service thing, swallow lyrics”. First three hits were videos, none of them of that song. The fourth hit was the lyrics of the song (the link I included in my post). Then searched on YouTube for the video.

The most prominent landscape feature is the railroad embankment. Nice collection of units, as well: https://www.railpictures.net/photo/756271/

A couple of photos from local walks in the last few days:

‘Worlds Apart’ - Sinceros https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=N4R5d_P6GEc Lyrics: https://www.flashlyrics.com/lyrics/the-sinceros/worlds-apart-07 (Edit to add lyrics)

Which is why (I am told by one of them) many old helicopter pilots have back problems.

But that’s only on one side - on the other side, the wings are going slower than the fuselage.

What company did that bus belong to at that time? I saw it and thought “Central SMT”, and I was right. It had originally been an Eastern Scottish bus, but later went to Central. It even still has its Central fleet number in the picture - T276.

Coatdyke? https://youtu.be/gRkIi2_Y4Cc Edit to add link.

Following Jamie’s post above, type “Hurlford 2P” into a Google image search. 3 out of the first 4 results show engines with white ‘embellishments’.

The G&SWR gave up on short distance commuter traffic early on, surrendering that to the tram system around Glasgow. However, the Caledonian persevered and the LMS continued with that policy. So there was short distance commuter service on ex-GSWR lines (and joint lines) after that company itself had gone. As Wheatley says of the 2Ps: As to stations situated close together, while they may not have been ‘every couple of miles’, look at the frequency of stations from St Enoch’s to Elderslie by either the Glasgow and Paisley Joint or the Canal line (and from there over the North Johnstone and onwards to Ayr). Further out of Glasgow, stations were quite frequent on the Ardrossan-Kilmarnock-Darvel service and between Ardrossan and Ayr.

Lugton. It was moved there from Corkerhill shed, along with other withdrawn engines, before going for scrap.

There used to be a model railway shop (now closed) in a town near here that kept a basket of peanuts in the shell on the counter. The local squirrels used to come in the door, stand on the floor at the counter (I never saw one up on the counter) and chatter till someone tossed them a peanut from the basket.

(Staying off -topic) But they were used for exactly that kind of service on the ex-G&SWR lines in Scotland for many years.

Maybe not ‘usually’ ( I don’t know) but certainly did make it to Carlisle: https://rcts.zenfolio.com/steam-br/br/8p-4-6-2-duke-of-gloucester/hA0FAA17F https://www.pressreader.com/uk/steam-railway-uk/20170127/282522953179117 (You will have to click on the picture to see the caption.)

So, in answer to the OP’s question - there was a chance all three classes could have been seen together anywhere on the WCML between Preston (the southern limit on that line of the Clans on the Glasgow to Liverpool/Manchester trains) and Glasgow.

Here’s another picture of 40621 withdrawn at Corkerhill: https://www.railscot.co.uk/img/45/564/ It looks as if the straps, at least, may have been painted white at one time. There would not be a list of engines with white straps or hinges. Those weren’t official embellishments - they were done at the initiative of individual crews or shed staff. As Flubrush says, unofficial decoration wasn’t unknown on engines from Corkerhill and Polmadie sheds working suburban services. The treatment described in this post was a bit extreme: https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/159259-what-fast-engines-would-work-for-a-branch-line/&do=findComment&comment=4169613 but I’ve seen a photo of one Polmadie Standard 4 tank with the central boss on the smokebox door painted white, and another had a pot lid (!) covering that boss. Smokebox number plates could be painted colours other than black (see that link above). I have the plate from a Stanier 5 which was withdrawn from Corkerhill. When I scraped it back to the metal, there were traces of light blue there. However, they were under a couple of coats of black, so I think they dated back to its earlier allocation to Perth. (Edit to add - white straps on the smokebox seem to have been the most common embellishment. I’ve found pictures of them on a 2P other than 40621, a Fairburn tank, a Standard 4 tank and a couple of Stanier 5s, including one on Royal train duty.)

I had forgotten them! I shall try hard to do so again.

Because the brewers have determined the tastes of the local drinkers and produce according to those tastes so that their products will sell and make money. Producing a different, new taste and spending money to convince drinkers to try that new taste is a risky tactic. It happens, in my opinion, everywhere. Versions of US beers produced in Canada are different from the originals - I actually prefer the taste of the US versions in some cases. A Canadian version of Tennants Lager used to be available in a pub near where I worked in Vancouver - it tasted just like a Canadian beer and nothing like the original. This applies to other products too, which can have different ‘local’ flavours. For example Canadian Coca Cola had a different formula from the US version, though I believe they are now more similar than they were.

When they got up and walked away?

The first relaxation of the Scottish drinking laws was allowing pubs to close at 11pm, rather than 10pm, if they served food. There was a pub in Glasgow where, at 9.55pm, a cakestand of sandwiches was put on the bar, and the cover taken off. At 11pm, with the same number of sandwiches still there, the cover was put back on and the cakestand taken off the bar. This was repeated each night. (I presume the sandwiches were eventually replaced.)

Mercifully, no. The withdrawal date shown on the ‘BR Database’ site is 5 days after the excursion. Derby works are supposed to have refused to do the repaint: https://www.sixbellsjunction.co.uk/50s/590803dm.html

Friends of my sons undertook a big renovation of an older house they had bought. Stripping a wall, they found around 10,000 dollars concealed in it. By the designs of the notes, it had been there for quite some time. They reported the find to the police and deposited the money with them, then made efforts to trace previous owners of the house, but without success. After the appropriate time, with no-one having claimed it, the money was returned to them. It paid for a large part of the renovation.

Yesterday I found one of my Flickr pictures on someone else’s SmugMug site. Not only that, he’d put it in two separate albums, increasing exposure. The advice on SmugMug for that situation is to first contact the person who has posted the picture and ask them to take it down. One problem - this person has not entered any contact information. So I contacted SmugMug. They said they would contact the person for me, but asked me to provide them with the message I wanted to send. I’ve done that and await developments. I would have thought that once SmugMug have been provided with proof that they are hosting a item which is breaking copyright, and is available for sale, they would be under some obligation to take it down themselves.

Ian Allan Locoshed Books show it at 70A in May 1961 and November 1961.