wagonman

4 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

Given a coat of Halfords red primer, it's spot-the-difference:

 

 

An end view gives the game away:

 

 

... since I didn't bother to fill the hole for the wire representing the sheet support, as the plan is to put a sheet on this wagon.

 

 

Another giveaway is the missing bolts on the top edges of the corner plates – but as you say, it's going to be sheeted, so it doesn't matter!

1 hour ago, Regularity said:

About 54,000 in 1901, and about 51,000 in 1911.

That averages out at about 6 people per customer unit. I presume the GWR produced their own gas, etc, for the works.

Yes, the GWR had its own gas works which also supplied the GWR 'village'. Don't forget that Swindon was still using gas for much of its street lighting – the original reason for building gas works as domestic consumers came later. The switch from lighting to cooking/heating came later still.

How many customers were private and how many commercial is difficult to quantify at this remove. Not entirely convinced of the usefulness either.

20 minutes ago, Regularity said:

How does that break down? How many households? How many business customers? What size of household, etc?

The Gas Co didn't keep those sort of records. 1 Consumer = 1 Bill payer.

Here is a bit of number-crunching I did for the Swindon United Gas Co:

"A few statistics may be of interest: in 1908 the Swindon United Gas Co carbonised 10,286 tons of coal, and used 165,000 gallons of oil and 1,300 tons of coke. From that they produced 126,447,000 cu.ft. of coal gas and 50,962,000 cu.ft. of water gas. Their 8,718 consumers used 140,630,500 cu.ft of gas and the 741 public lamps 905,500 cu.ft. There were some fifty miles of gas main. On average a ton of coal would produce about 10,000 cu.ft of coal gas. Water gas was produced by passing steam over very hot coal or coke and was a way of boosting the hydrogen content of ‘town’ gas. It was also used in the commercial production of ammonia. Swindon United added up to 28% water gas to their supply."

The Mendip limestone was particularly hard and non-friable – hence its popularity for roadstone and railway ballast uses. "Granite", however, it was not, though Wainwright's quarry at Moons Hill works a basaltic intrusion, the Andesite produced being very hard.

Richard 

Yesterday it reached 37° here on the north Norfolk coast – it got progressively hotter as you moved west as a colleague with an appointment in King's Lynn found out. I've experienced higher temperatures but only inside a sauna.

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

 

 

He also has similar data for 1894-5 from Cranleigh, pop. c. 2,000, which received 160 wagon loads of coal in PO wagons over four months compared to Sheffield Park's 45. Here there was a local coal merchant whose eight wagons account for 64 loads, mostly from Linby Colliery, Notts. (An average turn-around time for each wagon of about two weeks.) Turner gives a list of the coal merchant and colliery wagons received; in addition to the local merchant's wagons, 46 are given. Assuming that each of these wagons appeared once only, and taken together with the local merchant's 64 consignments, we're left with 50 wagon loads unaccounted for. I'm going to have to ask...

I'm not sure we can assume the non-local-merchant's wagons only made a single appearance. If there was a local user with a regular order from a particular source it is possible for the same wagon to have made multiple trips, particularly if it was operated by one of the smaller factors. This probably doesn't account for all of your missing 50, but it starts to nibble around the edges.

22 hours ago, Regularity said:

But, if people would rather have bread and circuses than think for themselves and their enlightened long-term self-interest, then we’ll, we get tend to get that.

Bread and circuses – or more accurately Empire, Royalty, the Flag, and hatred of foreigners – has been the Tory ploy to keep the proles on-side since at least the time of the 3rd Reform Act. Alas, it seems it still works, though now it's Brexit, 'illegal' migrants, and 'benefit scroungers'.

22 hours ago, Regularity said:

 

I tend to be rather dismissive about “economics”, joking that “micro/behavioural” economics is basic psychology (I tried reading “Freakonomics”. I am not a violent person, but I wanted to commit murder - nothing in there which isn’t covered by the first term of a psychology undergraduate degree, and then we move to acknowledge that things are more complicated than that) and “macro economics” is untestable, so not a science and not even a theory, just some people observing changes in societies and trying to work out what went on, but there is more to it than that.

 

Someone once observed that if a thousand economists were laid end to end, they wouldn't reach ... a conclusion.

12 minutes ago, Regularity said:

But what’s the answer? Momentum? I don’t think so, and I don’t think the electorate does, either. No one wants their levelling-down (except for them) agenda.

Do you actually know what Momentum's agenda is? The 2017 Manifesto seemed pretty popular.

12 minutes ago, Regularity said:

 

Where is the moderate voice saying, progressive income tax is fair, that you only get the social services you pay for, and that one single loophole-exploiting billionaire costs this country more than all of the “benefit scroungers” put together? Where is the political will to take on explaining this?

The position now is such that anyone daring to say anything as self-evidently sensible as "progressive income tax is fair, that you only get the social services you pay for, and that one single loophole-exploiting billionaire costs this country more than all of the 'benefit scroungers' put together?"  is likely to be dismissed as a rabid Leftie. I very much doubt you will hear anything like that from the Labour Party; Greens, perhaps. See below on Overton Window...

12 minutes ago, Regularity said:

There is a gaping void in the the Labour Party. But enough about Sir Kier Starmer…

:-)

12 minutes ago, Regularity said:

What’s an “Overton Window”?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window

10 hours ago, Annie said:

The '70s need to be buried and bricked over so nobody can ever find them again.

Apart from the music... The upside of the '70s was the relative lack of inequality; towards the end of the decade the Gini coefficient for the UK reached its lowest value ever – and has been rising steadily ever since. Now we live in what is touted as the 5th richest country, though it's probably more like 7th by now thanks to Brexit, yet we have 14.5 million (22%) officially classed as in poverty (source: JRF). This is not an accident.

On 16/07/2022 at 11:03, Regularity said:

 

I am not sure if Tom Tugendhat as Tory leader would work: too many tribal factions on the right of his party that would hold him, and the country, ransom as they did John Major. Also wonder if a more centrist PM would drag Labour into the centre, or push them to the extremes.

What I would prefer, personally speaking, is for the right-wing of the left, and the left-wing of the right, to combine and create a new party more interested in striking a balance between economic growth, social care and cohesion, and environmental stability. The rump of the right could rebrand as the British Union of Fascists, and “Momentum” as the British Communist Party. Such would also require a quantity of honesty sadly lacking in today’s politicians, but again demonstrated by TT with his simple, “No,” to the question “Is Boris Johnson honest?”

In case you hadn't noticed, Labour is already a party of the Centre Right having ruthlessly stamped on any remaining hint of democratic Socialism. Effectively, it is the left wing of the Tory Party. If you want evidence, the recent order to abstain in the vote on feeding hungry children, and the announcement that he will do nothing to remove the private sector from the NHS should give you a clue. And that's just the last few days. Every time Rachel Reeves opens her mouth you can hear Thatcher applauding from her grave. This country is crying out for meaningful change but Starmer & Co won't give it to them.

Please adjust your Overton Window...

41 minutes ago, monkeysarefun said:

 

Feeling a bit guilty  saying that I remember the '70's as being golden years..

Main rose-tinted pre-teen  memories are that everyone drove a V8 , no one wore a shirt unless you worked in an office, you could  peel the skin of your shoulders off in sheets after a day at the beach, cricketers had unfeasible moustaches and Abigail from No, 96 was everywhere.

That's one bit of the '70s I managed to miss!

2 hours ago, uax6 said:

Watching the clip of my elected representative (not by me I add!) getting lost in a small room, really brightened up my night shift last night. I especially loved the lady and gent near the door, that were openly p*ssing themselves as the camera panned round as she was guided past them.

The sad thing is, that having actually met her, she comes across as a bright cookie (maybe as much as 40 Watts), but one that really does need her hand holding in the most simple situations. If Boris had a true successor it would have to be her, so the question has to be, what market is she offering to the rest of the party?

 

Andy G

I too have met La Truss. Vapid is the word that springs most readily to mind.

2 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

I can't be bothered to post those curtains again but that apart, which decade would you rather be back living in, the 70s or the 50s? 

 

 

 

Having lived through both, I'd much rather be back in the '70s than the '50s.

8 minutes ago, Regularity said:

I see the previously unheard of Suella  Braverman has been knocked out, which does at least mean that in future, we will have heard of her, even if only as “optimistic failed leadership candidate, Suella Braverman”.

Surely you've heard of her before – if only as the worst, most supine Attorney General in history.

Apropos nothing very much – progress perhaps – while researching Devon coal merchants I came across a local press report into a meeting of the Primrose League shortly after the start of Lord Salisbury's government in 1895 where the delegates were rejoicing to think there would be no more time wasted on debating the abolition of the House of Lords.

What goes around...

2 hours ago, Andy Hayter said:

I will take a punt and suggest that the things the leavers did find positive are the antitheses of the questioned area - mono-culturalism, minimal immigration, a woman's place is.... etc..  A sort of 1950s word that in reality never existed then either. 

As one who had the misfortune to live through the 1950s (which lasted until the mid-60s) I can assure you it was every bit as dismal, nasty as you would expect. So nasty that no one in their right mind would want to return.

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Indeed. The Leave vote, it seems to me, was very largely a protest vote against how the world had changed since they were young. it wasn't really a vote on the substantive issue, because that was never properly debated. To my mind, there was never really an electoral mandate for leaving the EU, but there was a mandate for anyone wanting to model the 1950s.

I agree – the Leave vote was in essence a mandate to leave the 21st Century. The campaign played shamelessly to the nostalgia and racism of the uneducated, elderly white working class which duly delivered the result the vulture capitalists wanted.

As Andy said, if you invert the categories in the poll so that Multiculturalism becomes racism (or some slightly more acceptable euphemism), feminism becomes misogyny, and so on you would find a very different result. Basically these are not very nice people!

It's hard to escape the feeling that any Johnson replacement (a D1ldo in other words) will be just as nasty and incompetent, but lack the 'charm' and the skill at dressing up.

7 hours ago, Regularity said:

 

2017. Despite having a clear mandate in terms of a majority in the House, Theresa May decided to call a general election to get popular endorsement of her Brexit plan. This back fired massively, in terms or party politics, but maybe the answer here was to form a coalition of the moderates from each party, which is probably more than 500 MPs, to create a more workable deal? But no, let’s pander to the extreme wing of the blues, and make people realise that I am a control freak that can’t make decisions, and get deselected. Does anyone remember what the Yellows stood for at this time? A lack of votes for other parties means Labour thinks it was within shouting distance of winning under a leader who was nominated as a token gesture to the very left wing of his own party and only won because the moderate candidates spent too much time bickering with each other, and then Len McCluskey put his union behind JC as (in his mind, I think) a win-win choice. If Labour won, they got their man. If they didn’t, then a few more years of turmoil in the country would lead to a communist revolution which would see him influencing power if not in power. The red equivalent of swivel-eyed loons is again on the ascendant.

 

The thing about Corbyn was that he reached out to voters – the educated young in particular – who are turned off by the 'politics as usual' crowd. It was they who propelled him to the best result Labour had had in the 21st century. Of course the Establishment and its hangers-on, which includes much of the PLP, like to rewrite history so Corbyn has to be denigrated as a no-hoper, a crank etc. 

If at the next election Labour manage to defeat the Tories – and it is by no means certain they will – it'll be because more Tory voters stayed at home in despair than Labour ones. "Vote for Us, we're slightly less crap than the other lot" is not going to stir the passions of voters, young or old.

5 hours ago, Dunsignalling said:

No politician has ever managed to dissuade me from the view that the state education system will only be properly structured, managed, and resourced when the those responsible for doing so know that their present or future offspring will pass through it. 

 

John

I think that is self-evidently true – and the same can be said for the health system where our rulers are usually able to opt out and are therefore happy to see the public provision wither on the vine. Universality of provision is an important principle if we are to maintain decent public services.

Alas neither of our main parties seem in the least bit interested in principles...

On 07/07/2022 at 20:39, Lacathedrale said:

Second O5 is done sans some post-weathering touch-ups and powders:

 

 

While doing this, I understood the first O5 (the pre-built one) had had some pinpoint bearings fitted. Thankfully, the S4 society bearings are drop-ins for the axle-boxes. It also had etched hooks fitted, those in the kit being rather weak. No problem to fit these, but I'm running out of links!

You need to remove the redundant V hanger from this side. The brake shaft inner support was a single 'post' just inboard of the brakes. Sorry, terrible description – look for a photo!

This should be available by the middle of the month so start saving your pennies...

On 25/06/2022 at 20:29, Nick Holliday said:

Lightmoor Press are due to publish another book on PO wagons covering the remainder of the south East in the area covered by the LBSCR, by Simon Turner, which should flush out some useful examples. I have a record of Edward King of Worthing, and a note regarding the Worthing and West Worthing Co-Op. Don’t forget that Worthing would have been served by wagons from larger agencies from Brighton and London, as well as directly from collieries or via their factors.

It's at the printers apparently...