stewartingram

During the big freeze of 1963, I walked to school past the Eastern Counties bus garage in Hills Road Cambridge. Inside were many buses, (few went out that morning). They all had naked flame fires under the fuel tanks in an attempt to defrost them. At the same time one of my (later) mates dad started work with BR in the diesel depot. He told me about refuelling a shunter, presumably with gloved hands, scooping jelly-like diesel into the tank.

To say the 1960s covers 8 years, but to say the period of lower top headlamp is a lot less than that?2 years maybe? I actually meant Royal Train steam hauled. HMQ cut down on personal trains quite a lot, preferring to travel on normal trains, or add a coach to them. I suspect that 1967 shot might be an 'add-on'? Maybe not, I really don't know. I know diesels became much more prominent.

Nobody has yet commented on that pic with the Royal headcode - with the top lamp on the bracket lowered to the mid rh side of the smokebox door. A position brought about in the last part of steam days, to move it away from the proximity of the 25kv ohl. This is a period when there was NO haulage of Royal trains.....

With frosty windscreens, I always give an extra 10mins to clean ALL windows before moving off. Actually I don't usually bother with the rear window as I have a super efficient heater on it, and I'm used to driving small vans with no window!. I use a scraper bought from Tesco years ago. I also clean door mirrors (though they are heated and quick to clear), ALL lights (how many bother?) are also done. When in the car, I start the engine (waste of fuel and not good for the engine to leave it idling). Now, heater. Most cars used to have (I'm not up to speed with modern cars though) no hot water to the heater matrix until the thermostat opened, so a total waste of time to turn the heater/demister (fan) on until then. Actually, it makes it slower to warm up too! However, my heater is in a different part of the water circuit, and the matrix is always fed, even in the closed position of the thermostat, so warms up much quicker. And, if the 'climate control' (fancy words for heater control) is set to auto, it directs air to the most appropriate places in the car. I can override it though with demist if I want. So even before I move the car off the drive, without waiting, the screen inside is clearing. The car? a 20 year old Rover 75, built as cars should be. I've never driven a car with such efficient demisting, and I've had 75s since 2007.

The sayings 'six foot' and 'ten foot' are just that - a nominal figurative description for that part of the infrastructure for identity purposes. Think of the 'four foot' - actually 4'8-1/2". I was always taught to think that the 6' or 10' only identified where I was, and could be narrower - and I've seen that on a few occasions.

Your choice I know (& respect) but I don't like dipping them in custard!

In the centre of Cambridge there was a Woollies and an M&S store, with a large frontage, Opposite side of the road was the main set of bus stops going north. Southbound buses entered from a one-way street from the west to pass the stores, swinging round the corner to do so. Everyone parked there bikes on the kerb outside the stores. There was one driver who had a reputation....especially if a northbound bus was at its stop. ....He used to clip every bike in the row as he swung round the corner.....

Though I admit to having far too many "diecast" road vehicles (why do we call them that when many are plastic mouldings) to consider repainting all of them, I find that they seem to be "dipped" rather than painted. My core collection that I bother to paint, have been stripped, revealing finer detail. Then a quick Halfords sprsy primer before a repaint. Much better finish.

Airfix figures?

Model Rail has a close up pic of the roof in the new issue.

Can I just add, for locking screw threads, nothing more difficult than varnish is adequate. When I started my apprenticeship (1964), we were doing just that, applyng varnish to screw threads to lock them. When Loctite (thread lock, not superglue) became available later, we did eventually switch to using that.

Conington Tip. I've heard it referred to as Cambridgeshire's only coal mine. The story goes that ash etc was dumped there from the locosheds at Peterborough, and in the later years there was coal being picked for the tip and used! Also the tender presently behind the GNR Single No.1 was 'discovered' there after many years of use as sludge carrier.

We had trackers fitted to our works vans, and we had some rather 'awkward' line managers who kept accessing the tracking software for their own ends to see what the drivers were doing. There were some quite heated discussions where the unions got involved. The line managers were disciplined, & a restriction was put on access to the software. Permission had to be then given by much higher management if tracking was needed, as it was apparently an invasion of privacy (or similar) backed by the law.

You've hit the right spot for me withe 109, I mentioned earlier that I'm progressing quite well with my 3D print version. I'm doing it in fits and srarts, but getting there - it too does have problems! Perhaps between the 2 of us, we have brought forward the announcement of a RTR model.... And now the 306. Absolutely no use to me for the layout as it is an ohl unit,l - but I've got a kit(?) too, on the roundtuit pile. Kit? well it is a cardbroard print, from StreetLevel (CDC?). Only ever heard of it once, when I bought it from their stand at an exhibition somewhere; never seen it since or on their website. I contacted them about copyright problems with what I was planning and they said no problems. My plan is to scan it, and print on to A4 size sticky labels. The sides etc would then be cut out, & doors for instance on a separate layer, with the labels stuck to plasticard, which will then be stuck together much like a plastic kit. I've used the method with other downloaded kits for buildings, instead of using cardboard, it seems to work well. When this will happen I don't know, but the aim is there! Good luck with yours, I shall follow with interest.

I'm sure I've seen these winow frames available from a "small supplied", etched I believe. Anyone else recall this?

I'm only quoting what I first read on a news outlet on the internet some while ago. After this, but not related to it, I tried to take an offer of a price reduction from BT (but which I had misread) This was basically a transfer to fibre with no landline phone, which I then rejected. There was no inclusion of a landline or backup in the offer so I rejected it - a long story. Not long after, and unrelated to my possible change, we were contacted by email from BT - a general 'press release' that we all seemed to get locally - saying we were due to go all fibre sometime early next year. They explained there would be no copper lines (redundant), so we would be offered the mobiles (free as I read it) as emergency backup, as they had received many queries about this so far. I believe they also mentioned something about what they would do if their was no mobile coverage, but can't remember the details. As I used to work in comms I seemed quite happy with all this. Don't forget the tie up with Orange into the present merger to become EE, which subsequently has become part of BT, so they do have a comprehensive mobile network of their own to support this now. And (I must admit I overlooked this bit) the fact that emergency calls will work through any operator as well. The point we were all worried about, it seems, was that a severe power outage would cause total loss of comms (ie 999s), and the backup mobiles are there as the replacement for that, they are NOT a full normal mobile service, being automatically switched in a power outage affecting fibre. Forgot to add, as a diabetic Grumpy Old Git, I guess I am registered as vulnerable, but this doesn't seem to be reflected in what they have said.

Someone has to say it. An improvement on DCC sound.

It isn't just that the railways have changed since steam (and even that didn't change overnight to what it is now). Life changed rapidly as well. Rapid car ownership expanded, bringing with it infrastructure, from full blown motorways to simpler things like yellow line restrictions and pedestrianisation of streets. Standardisation of many things across the UK from roadsigns to shops in the high street. The disappearance of local bus operators, new liveries on them, the old ways just fell out of favour. Just look at the inside of Beamish and a modern town (yes Beamish is set back in the '20s but rapid change didn't happen for another 50 years). Modelling the era transition era takes us back to a more comfortable zone perhaps?.

BT have stated that anyone going on to VOIP due to their upgrades will be provided with a mobile phone as backup, and their system will automatically swop over to mobile usage if there is a failure.

I live in the area - though south of March (at Chatteris); been her all my life and I'm in the March/Wisbech area 3 times a week at least. With the recent retraction of bus services by Stagecoach, we are just about cut off in all directions. We now have a single decker runs either 1 or 2 hourly to Ely (not sure which). This used to be an hourly service right through to March, & onward to Tesco on the other side. The new operator could not continue the March section due to a lack of drivers. There is now a 2 hourly service from St.Ives on a different route to previously which is longer, which fills in the March portion, but only to the town centre. Now in my case, I normally drive, but have on a number of occasions (previously) used the bus to get to Tesco for prescriptions. I could catch a bus around 9:30 to March Tesco, and even get the prescription (including waiting for it to be dispensed), & get the same bus back as it layed over for 20 minutes. With the new service which is 2 hourly, I have to walk from the town to Tesco,and back, thus missing the next service back. Effectively it becomes an all day trip. I can drive there in 20 mins. So the whole trip could be done in 1 hour. We had previously a couple of other reasonable services as well which have been withdrawn. So it is fair to say that we are now basically almost isolated from public transport - and we are in one of the better served Fen areas. In our catchment area, I can think of a number of bus tations that are now practically deserted. March used to have (many years ago) the centre of the High St as a bus station in what amounted to a full length central reservation. Ely had a full street with bus stops on the whole length. Wisbech was redeveloped with a new bus station a number of years ago, now practically unused. As was St.Ives, Huntingdon, etc. And now the rub. Without being provocative, there are areas which if not deprived, are at at the lower end of the payscale. Residents regularly turn to taxis to get to or from Tesco. That is NOT a cheap way of travel. They have to do it, so there must be a pent up demand for transport - but infrequent services like we have will not suffice.

When the new combined control room for the Fire Service opened (there used to be 2, north & south), they did indeed have problems identifying which Conington it was (happily sorted rapidly).

Thanks for that. As you suspect though, I gave in and bought the spare part kit, expensive for what it was but it did the job.

Ely had one - though it was actually a short loop - immediately north of the now-closed LC. Used for changing engines and adding locos when trains split.

I remember the late Cyril Gotobed of Cambridge giving us a talk at the Cambridge Railway Circle, and mentioning experiences he had at that same crossing when he worked there.

I've decided not to park in multi-storey car parks any more. Round our way they are extensions to open air parks so I'll stick with them....