Wheatley

Not sure auto-coaches saved on crew, you still had a driver, fireman and guard in most cases.

Not necessarily just on steep slopes, all the Big 4 companies used push-pull or 'auto-trains', the GWR more than the others I think. Most used coaches fitted with driving cabs, the method of control varied from a complex arrangement of vacuum or air-operated controls and mechanical linkages to something as simple as a vacuum brake handle for the driver and a bell to tell the fireman to go faster or slower. Driver in the cab, fireman on the loco doing all the work. The Beattock branch was latterly worked by a CR 0-4-0T and a bog standard brake third coach, allegedly worked as a push-pull but not fitted as such.

Because "we've always done it like that'. When the Mk1s were designed opens were mainly used for dining (hence the 2+1 seating) and excursions (2+2 because you didn't need quite so much elbow room if you weren't dining). Over the few years they were being constructed tastes and priorities changed for all the reasons listed above.

And no H&S either ! I remember unscrewing a wing mirror from a Datsun Cherry which was standing on top of two other cars with my mate throwing screwdrivers and sockets up to me as required. The only advice we got from the scrappy was "Don't fall off".

Yes. They do a plastic/PTFE wire in tube arrangement, like the Mercontrol system but more robust and (largely) clip together and including cranks.

Yes, they're duty numbers or target/trip numbers. Before 4 charachter headcodes became universal trains were normally known by either a name / nickname, departure time, origin or destination depending on local custom. That doesn't work with trips and shunters, so the duty number was used instead. Local variations are legion - A, B, C etc or 1, 2, 3. If you have a letter and number that may reference a Control office, so in my bit of the world "K57" was a trip working to Kilmarnock Control's instructions, later A57 when the Control office moved to Ayr.

The only way you would get Amazon etc parcels on the Wembly - Sheildmuir service is if Amazon have contracted RM to move them. Some of the courier companies use RM for the 'last mile' delivery (Whistl for example) but I don't believe any of them would use RM for trunking, it just doesn't make sense. The bulk flows in lorries are the efficient bit of their operations, the costly bit is the postie / white van man trudging from house to house.

Like this ? https://www.hattons.co.uk/489558/heljan_5807_po01_class_58_diesel_58004_in_fertis_livery_pre_owned_renumbered_and_repainted_hand/stockdetail.aspx Google - "Fertis".

I keep them whole until required. I have enough bits floating around as it is ! There's a semi long term plan for a 'steam for scrap' convoy using all the DJH chassis I couldn't get to quarter or run straight.

Ditto, great fun. Although my then boss managed to take the edge off it by pointing out that he could always trust us to double check the arrangements because if they're wrong, the pilotman dies first (along with the driver).

Is that still going on ? I remember the tin shed those clowns tried to build when they 'accidentally' knocked down the Victorian pub while they were refurbishing it. I presume they can build there because it's now technically a brownfield site despite being sat on top of a scheduled ancient monument. At least it might discourage the shagging and drug dealing which goes on up there after dark.

The unrefurbished 333s were still top drawer inside, sturdy comfy seats which didn't fall apat and stab you in the leg, and no loose panels flapping about. The several times refurbished 321/322s on the other hand looked like someone had already started scrapping them - bloody awful things inside.

There's one if those near me. Story in the local rag - small pub on the edge of a town, pretty in a Wuthering Heights sort of way, applies for planning permission to convert to a single dwelling as the pub is unviable. The aplication is supported by their test and trace records which show that when they were open last year a whole six locals visited. Letter in the next issue "Is that because the new owner stopped serving food, shut down the darts, dominoes and football teams then barred most if the locals for complaining about it ? And she's monumentally rude to anyone who does go in." One might suspect it was planned.

The wall appears to be double skinned, i.e. a full brick wide judging by the shadow in the 'doorway', and the 2nd and 3rd uprights from the wagon don't appear to go all the way to the top of the wall. My guess therefore is that they are battens fixed to the outside of the wall, not uprights with brick infill.

And meanwhile ASLEF will quietly continue to play both sides off against the middle for as long as there exists an internal labour market which can't easily recruit from other industries, or until someone perfects Google Train. Which is why drivers get paid more than doctors and airline pilots and why they aren't on strike.

Well, if you want to break the power of the unions, now is the time to do it. "If you do this we're on strike". "Fine, off you go..." Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells is zooming in his home office, not complaing that a national strike is disrupting his commute.

I've been with SSE for gas and electric for years, absolutely no problems and, unlike BG, they answer the phone in less than 20 minutes. When they do answer it's a call centre in Glasgow or Cardiff. Then they got taken over by Ovo. Gordon Bennet. At the start of the pandemic they stopped sending meter readers out. Shortly afterwards I got a text to send them my meter readings, which I did. Then I got a phone call from somewhere which was certainly not Glasgow or Cardiff a couple of days later asking for a meter reading, which I gave them (same reading). Seven days and seven phone calls from them later they eventually gave up ringing when I flatly refused to give them any more readings. On every occasion when I asked them to check my account they could see the readings I'd sent ! A fortnight later we got an estimated bill for less than the readings I gave them, at which point I gave up. Now we are getting weekly letters tellling us the meters need changing for a smart meter because they 'might' be inaccurate, a conventional meter is not an option. They can go to h***, I don't trust them to change a lightbulb let alone two meters. A smart meter would be really useful, our leccy meter is in the back corner of a kitchen cupboard which needs everything removed from it to get a reading, but unless they turn up with a warrant or threaten to cut us off they can do one.

Britain, August 2019. National Grid has a wobble caused by two simultaneous faults and some bit of kit not doing as it should do. Privatised but regulated grid shuts off to prevent damage, power switched from adjacent districts, power back on to 95% of affected areas within minutes. Several trainloads of people late home because of a software cock up. Texas, February 2021. Unrdgulated privatised grid shuts down because none if its gas power generation equipment is winterised. No way of switching power from two adjacent nationwide grids because unregulated Texas power generation industry has disconnected from them to avoid federal oversight. Grid stays off for days, 82 people freeze to death or die from carbon monoxide poisoning.

Yes. Two wires, one from each rail connected to the controller.

It's £1500 now. Mrs W says I'm not allowed.

With magazines and books full of BR era photos on sale in every newsagent and bookshop in the land for the past umpteen years, if any of the organisations now responsible for the dispersed remnants of BR's corporate responsibilities had any interest in pursuing this, or any right to do so, they'd have done it by now.

I'm assuming the Pooley vans were in black as they were service vehicles. Red for breakdown vans came in in 1959 when the new 75 ton cranes were delivered in red, there is a colour photo in Peter Tatlow's crane book of two ex-works CR vans at DalryRd about then and they are very red ! I have that article, yes thank you. Very interesting.

A Network Rail mate suggests the front two vehicles went through the buffers and the first one went over the concrete block between the two sets of buffers. Cutting it up on site is apparently an option.

Parkside PA09 for the 10'wb version built unfitted by the LMS and converted to vacuum brakes by BR, or PA16 for the clasp-braked version built with vacuum brakes by the LMS. Glue the solebars directly to the wagon floor, don't use the kit floor.

The very one ! I found my Norris Forrest print (filed exactly where it was supposed to be - can't have looked very well) shortly after a replacement digital copy arrived from Transport Treasury ! That's a superb photo, thank you. My print is b&w, I had assumed it was black fading to grey like the riding van so that's extremely useful.