pH

It’s a collection of spotters’ notes from shed visits. Here’s the home page: http://shedbashuk.blogspot.com/ And here’s the information for Perth(South) shed, which was the only Perth shed at the time you’re interested in: http://shedbashuk.blogspot.com/2016/01/perth-south-1938-1967.html

I thought the Royal Highlander was worked by a Crewe North Duchess and crew from Crewe to Perth. It would appear to have been in the 1950s, but looking at the “shed bash” website, it seems only Kingmoor Duchesses were making it regularly to Perth in your timescale.

My son, who is a mining engineer, says he’s ridden on a mine train at 1800 metres below surface in a gold mine in Northern Ontario.

I’m not sure what you mean by “in this condition”, but here’s one in Eastern Scottish colours, but with the full company name, in 1970: http://www.sct61.org.uk/etb963a

I obviously missed that earlier discussion. I’ve done a search and found it now. In this case, I do believe Wikipedia, since I have several of those glass beer containers in the house. And no, I did not vote for the Orange One - as a Canadian, I did not have a vote in the US election.

Perhaps you should eat something as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Growler_(jug)

The railway branches to Ramsey intrigued me - why were they never connected in real life? The rather complicated history of them, described in the Oakwood Press book, explains that. One of my uncles was stationed at RAF Upwood in the 1960s, and stayed on in Ramsey after he left the RAF. I visited a few times. The Holme-Ramsey line was still open when I first went, though I never saw a train moving on it. And I walked some of the route of the Ramsey East branch. I like the models of real Ramsey buildings on the layout.

I hear what you’re saying, but the neighbour and I have talked about it and we’re prepared to lose the hedge completely if it comes to it. It separates our front yards and at the height it is, or even at 10 feet, blocks views for both of us. There used to be a similar hedge on the other side of our front yard, but the neighbour on that side put up a low fence and I took out the hedge before it grew to any height.

Sitting here reading about maintaining hedges, I’m looking at the cypress hedge between our yard and the next door neighbours’. When we bought the house, the hedge was about 4 feet high. Now, despite regular attempts to keep it in check, it’s about 15 feet high. I get the sense that it’s about to ‘bolt’, which would not be a good thing, since there are power and phone wires close to it on both sides. So we’ve agreed with our neighbours that, now the birds have all fledged from the several nests in it, we’ll cut it down to about 4 feet again and try to keep it that way. If that doesn’t work (the bottom of it is a bit bare and would have to fill in, or it wouldn’t look very good), then we’ll take it out completely and replace it.

Never mind a painted backscene, how about a painted 'frontscene'? https://www.railpictures.net/photo/754351/

I wondered about posting this in the 'Worst Looking Locomotive' topic: https://www.railpictures.net/photo/754404/

Most stayed at St Rollox, but not all. Some spent short times (some very short i.e. less than one month) at, variously, Eastfield, Ayr, Stirling and Motherwell before being withdrawn.

I would suggest this book as a good, very general introduction to the railways of BC (as the subtitle says): https://www.amazon.co.uk/Iron-Road-West-Illustrated-Columbias/dp/1550178385 Apart from Amazon, there are several copies on Abebooks available from UK bookshops. It should help to give you pointers to what other publications or sites you might want to look at. The (American) Great Northern Railway had a significant presence in southern BC in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Even after it closed all its lines in the Interior of BC, it kept its access to the Vancouver area into Burlington Northern and now BNSF ownership. I think you may have to decide the area and time you want to model fairly quickly. The choice could overwhelm you if you don’t - narrow gauge or standard gauge, steam/diesel/electric, Shays on the mainline, 4-4-0s on transcontinentals, 2-10-4s piloted on transcontinentals, pusher sets of 4x4400hp diesels, unit trains operating with mid-train and rear-end remote controlled helpers etc. etc. I’ll be interested to watch how you decide to move forward with this.

The high point (literally) of today’s drive:

But the VAR (video assistant referee) is a human bean!

The last interpretation of the offside rule that I knew of said that only parts of the body which could be used to score a goal should be considered when assessing offside - basically any part of the body except arms and hands. Has that changed and, if so, when?

I think this could be modified to be a visiting card for a certain ursine member of ERs:

Not necessarily. After closure of the Port Road, Carlisle-Stranraer traffic went Carlisle-Dumfries-Mauchline-Ayr-Stranraer, all of which is still open. It’s a long way round, though!

About 10 years ago, there was a topic on here about the possible effects of the (then new) Stena terminal at Cairnryan on the railway to Stranraer: https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/17977-stranraer/

Poling pockets were fitted on some second generation diesels into the 1960s. Here’s an example on a GP40, built in 1966: http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/mkt/mkt0177d01.jpg (It’s the circular structure on the back face of the step well.)

Less sweeping than the usual Mike Danneman photo: https://www.railpictures.net/photo/753773/

There’s another ‘fallen flags’ site, fortunately without adverts: http://www.rr-fallenflags.org I’d presume there will be some overlap, but I’m sure there are many pictures unique to each site.

I wondered if that was the tower of Glasgow University: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Glasgow,_University_tower_-_geograph.org.uk_-_1680146.jpg And the hills in the background look similar to those to the west of Glasgow, north of the Clyde. I tried looking along ex-LNER routes in eastern/northeastern Glasgow for possibilities, but without success.

I would agree - definitely not Princes Pier. That line was G&SWR, then LMS, and the first time an NBR N15 would possibly have been seen there would have been in 1948. The GWR wagon in the train would suggest an earlier time, though there might have been a small window for that combination after 1948. I’ve never seen a reference to N15s at Princes Pier, but they did appear on some ex-LMS lines after Nationalisation. Plus, an engine steaming that hard at that point on the gradient down into Princes Pier would be going to have a problem stopping before it ran out of track.

Just watched a blue jay crack open a hazelnut with its beak, which I thought was pretty impressive. And there’s a pilot doing ‘circuits and bumps’ on the airport about 200 feet below where I’m sitting. Each time he goes round, he passes about level with me.