wagonman

15 hours ago, Edwardian said:

 

I think for me it's more a concern about rule by the Commissars; having seen how his fan-base behaved within the party, they may as well have been Bolsheviks. And the Magical Thinking was a species of populism.

 

If you're looking for Commissars in the Labour Party you need look no further than Starmer and his Gauleiters Akehurst and Evans et al. They are trying to purge the party of every last trace of socialist thought. The latest victim seems to be Sam Tarry whose crime was to stand on a picket line with RMT members. Given that the Labour Party was founded with the express intention of securing parliamentary representation for the Trade Union movement, and is explicitly a Democrat Socialist organisation – it says so on the membership card – it's the present leadership that are out of step.

There is a lot of loose talk about the Hard Left as if it were a major force instead of merely a handful of sour faced tankies who call themselves TUSC. If you are, like the gutter press, trying to tar Corbyn and his ilk with that brush then you really do need to take a hard look at your preconceptions and prejudices. In reality they are mainstream Democratic Socialists of the kind that have been running most of Scandinavia for decades. But because the Overton Window has been pushed so far to the right they seem like ravening Bolsheviks to the uninformed. Yet many of Labour's policies in the 2017 Manifesto – such as the idea that essential utility services should be in public ownership – were and are popular across much of the political spectrum.

'Reasonable Tories' do still exist though I can't see any in the Parliamentary party since Johnson purged them all. What's left is the lunatic fringe of right wing libertarians and Ultras who seem to want to recreate the glory days of the British Empire c1890 when free-booting capitalists were free to exploit their workers, customers and the environment without let or hindrance. Part of that process is that they 'shrink the state' – but as we are seeing, a shrunken state is a barely functioning state. Everything from the Health Service to the Passport Office, Justice to Culture, is falling apart as a direct consequence of Tory government policy since 2010. There has in that time been a massive transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich. No government, whether of the Left, the Centre or the Right can hope to solve the country's problems without redressing that imbalance for starters.

I've been voting since the '60s, from a time when the (pragmatic, One-Nation, mostly non-corrupt) Tory Party was the Opposition rather than the Enemy it now is. But, come the next election I will be voting LibDem as usual.

4 hours ago, Edwardian said:

In fact, it seemed to cover all her points except the remarkably similar attacks coming to Newsnight from the Corbyn camp. 

 

You're trying to create a false equivalent as the complaints from the Corbyn camp have been demonstrated to be justified. 

2 hours ago, Edwardian said:

 

I notice the Grauniad names the 'agent' - Maitliss did not, though it was clear she was referring to a readily identifiable individual - and neglected to mention that Newsnight had faced the same issues from the other populists of the time, the Corbynistas. 

 

 

As James seems to be skirting around the issue as gingerly as Maitlis did, I will name the 'guilty' party as Robbie Gibb, recently Director of Communications to Theresa May and brother of a Tory MP. I will also challenge him to identify a 'Corbynista' in a similar position of power within the BBC. Hint: there isn't one.

After years of studying CRT (Critical Radio Theory) I can vouch for the linguistic bias inherent in many News broadcasts, but my life is too short to trot out any actual examples here. Just listen carefully...

Another problem with broadcast news is that it still takes its news agenda from the Press most of which long ago abandoned any pretext of objectivity. I'll leave you with Hannen Swaffer's famous dictum  "Freedom of the press in Britain means freedom to print such of the proprietor's prejudices as the advertisers don't object to".

Thanks for the clarification. One example that really was double track – I know because I've travelled on it – was the 'branch' to Colchester Town station. Okay, so not strictly comparable but a useful example of a double track line ending in a single platform!

That much traffic on that short a line would almost certainly have been double track. Ilkeston Town is such a case from memory (not my area).

5 hours ago, Edwardian said:

 

Sadly, one of our PM's many lies and broken promises was his pledge to go and die in a ditch.

 

I'm happy to dig the ditch.

I'm afraid I have forgotten on what condition he would die in a ditch. Anyone care to refresh my ageing memory?

6 hours ago, drmditch said:

 

If you haven't encountered it before, there is a nice (and totally politically incorrect) definition of 'Demah-Kerazi which is a demon inhabiting crowds and assemblies' in a rather entertaining (and totally politically incorrect) short story by R Kipling entitled Little Foxes

There is another word – Kakistocracy – which seems to sum up our most recent governments.

6 hours ago, drmditch said:

 

In relation to Wagonman's post above, in addition to fear and anger, I wonder whether I should now be surveying the countryside for a 'last ditch' in case I am forced into it.

'

Make sure it's a big ditch as you may have company. A lot of it.

16 hours ago, Metropolitan H said:

Are you absolutely sure that a Right Wing majority couldn't pass legislation allowing them to dispense with General Elections - and at the same time start eliminating the opposition and trade unions.

 

Theoretically there is absolutely nothing to stop them – indeed that is pretty much what they are already doing, or at least saying they will do. Most of the checks and balances supposed to constrain such behaviour have been neutralised, or were never more than theoretical constructs – for instance the Monarch could refuse to sign such legislation but in reality never would. So, be afraid, be very afraid. Or better still be very angry.

Richard 

14 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

 

It was a fair go, but, unfortunately, the Real Thing is almost beyond parody ....

 

 

Ye Gods, and little fishes. We are truly done for!

Ah, the joys of the English language where every word has several meanings – and every meaning has several words!

Trump: King of Pimps. 

11 hours ago, Edwardian said:

 

Ah, but memory is tricky, as I have often found. That's the Terrassenwagen, or terrace wagon, which can be best understood as a garden terrace with gazebo or summer house on wheels, hence the garden furniture.

 

 

 

Next to it is the previously pictured Salonwagen

 

 

This may be best understood as a baroque palace on wheels, and has an interior to match ...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What is it about royalty and their insatiable lust for utterly tasteless bling. That lot would make even a  pimp blush.

9 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

   We will soon be banned from making mockery of rainy England, I can see that is on the cards.

That would be sad! #InTheWet

Down here in the right hand sticky out bit it's sunny, a pleasant 21°, with an on-shore breeze. And dry. Did I say it was dry? Parched.

12 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

That seems a most unlikely traffic for a PO wagon. I think I'm circling back to the description in the photo: coal; but for some local reason a lower-sided wagon was preferred.

The Winford Iron Ore & Redding Co Ltd had something like 70 wagons at its peak in the late C19. There was also a rather obscure outfit called the Somerset Hematite Co which operated wagons in the late 1870s. I can see no reason to believe the half dozen Easter Iron Mines wagons were intended for anything other than carrying iron ore in some state or other. Otherwise why would they be marked "Empty to Milkwall S&W"?

Or consult someone who has a copy of the book... The last blast furnace in the Forest (at Cinderford) closed down in 1894 so these wagons, built in 1911, would not have carried pig iron. The relevant spin off was the mining of iron oxides (ochre and red) for use in the paint and dye industries – the same trade was pursued in Somerset by eg The Winford Red Co, so these wagons would probably have carried calcined ore (in bags) to the Midlands – at least until the company went bust in 1924. The South Wales Iron Masters are also known to have imported ores from the Forest, though probably not after the turn of the century.

That said, the Westbury Iron Co did operate wagons that were specifically for carrying pig iron. Unfortunately I don't have the dimensions – I would assume low sided though later 7 plank wagons were officially described as 'coal and pig iron'.

Richard

Arguably the GWR had more docks than most other companies so plenty of scope for wagons to enjoy life after withdrawal.

53 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Any fictional light railway, and a good many non-fictional ones, can easily justify a good handful of second-hand D299s after c. 1910.

 

There were definitely some D299s on the WC&PR – probably used for loco coal as there was very little merchandise traffic. Col Stephens operated a few small ships up to c1930 so the coal could have come by sea to the jetty at Wick St Lawrence. Coal for the Clevedon Gas works came by rail via the connection at Clevedon. No D299s involved in that traffic!

That is a noticeable difference! I assume we're talking roughly the same same train weight so is it the effect of superheating? Or were the B4s also superheated at that time.

Confused of Cley

1 hour ago, kitpw said:

"More than 120 archive photographs from what was Britain’s oldest shipping company [Stephenson Clarke] have been saved from ending up in a skip."  Headline in Newcastle Chronicle,  June 2015. Doesn't sound encouraging does it?

Where's the 'heartbroken' emoji when you need it. That is the sort of thing that happens all too frequently where family, or even business, records are concerned. Maybe there could be a law about offering such things to a local archive before they are chucked – would probably have to wade through a lot of rubbish to save the good stuff though.

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

Anyone up for writing a full history of Stephenson Clarke & Co.?

Not sure why I used the 'funny' symbol. 'Scared stiff' might be more appropriate. A comprehensive history of Stephenson Clarke and Associated Companies would be a major undertaking, assuming the company/family archives were accessible.

They're (there's several) mostly 1890s to WW1 period. I'll try to find/scan a few if anyone is interested.

For what it's worth, the M&SWJR loco coal was supplied by J&W Stone of Blaina, Mon, in their own wagons. This is from photographic evidence – I don't have any documentary proof.

Richard