runs as required

In our day (late 60s & 70s) the "Wa Benzi" were any well to do folk who rode around in black 220s or 300s - and a 'been to' would have bought it s/h in Europe. In Tanzania they risked having stones chucked at them because they must have come by them corruptly, in Nigeria every street pedlar believed he would drive one some day. dhig

And is the proper short name for a Stuttgart car a Benz or a Merc ? There's an African tribe called the Wa Benzi; the little Wa Benzi ditty my kids used to sing at school in Ghana was 'been to, car full, frig full'. And an undertaker in Lewisham used to advertize 'Benz black coffins'. dhig

You've finally made modelling those platform canopy stanchions complete with their their fiddly blue bands look effortless. dhig .

An old hippy, I've always loved camper vans (mine have all been VWs: T2 to T5 inclusive) Here's a tiny Bedford Rascal still looking loved and good for its age in 'Narch' - it must be like sleeping in N gauge. (For bus enthusiasts thats the old Eastern Counties HQ in the background - neo Georgian rather than Art Deco) dhig

Forgive me if I may have taken this post too literally - but (after reflecting a bit about it) are you inferring that this atmopspheric railway pump used to also be wind powered? Brilliant concept if true - Air in and air out. On a windy day on the south Devon coast who needed a coal fired boiler? dhig

No! No, come back! A very valid point. So are you arguing that the GWR invented branding? Bai Jove! I think you're right - so yet another 'first' for Isambard. ...compared to those illiterate Geordie oicks. dhig

Fire at Fiumicino airport Rome/flight cancellations/diversions/long arguments with intense former postgrad students that were supposedly holiday...er...do you want more? dhig PS anyways - are those back of platform files the right ones? Had to retrieve off a separate storage hard disk

Very impressed by all this etch building. I'd always fantasised about the romance of those night ferry vehicles ...until.... we came back from our honeymoon via Dunkerque in one and I had not a wink of sleep. I can still recall the reverberations through my head via my pillow of the chains clanking on the deck of the steel train ferry as they restrained each vehicle. But it felt good next morning asking for more toast as we slid across Sarf London to Victoria (on our BR free passes) along tracks I'd slummed it along for years in 4 SUBs. The Night Ferry was a trip I'd only choose once. The Hook Continental (pre-war LNER Coronation coaches) out of L'pool St to Parkeston Quay connecting with the Rheingoldt at the Hook usually delivered an much calmer night. dhig

Smee again... I just remembered how my kids when we camped in Italy for years in our VW vans from the mid seventies into the 1980s, used to to love spotting "Italian Ape" men. The version they looked out for was a Vespa 3 wheel truck, maybe with a Caccia's gun dumped across the back load carrier, driven very slowly in the middle of the road by a very fat man in a flat cap who'd stop and talk to everyone he met - making quite certain no-one could overtake. We lads were all disappointed when we eventually learnt that Ape meant Bee in Italian. Swot wife said "you ignoramuses should have done Latin" dhig

Sack those incompetent Geordies dossing in that white Transit down by the Network Rail prefab during the week. I suggest this jumpy out corner really needs a different approach - because it doesn't work and jars on the north and east views through/across the platforms. I agree about remaking the back of the Art Deco station master's house - but I'd mask the jumpy out with some more of your really good 'shallow' trees. The castle and the Folkestone road bit looks good but I recommend a bit of Freeb's fencing along the back of the platform (I'm on commission ) before the distant view of the castle. dhig

About driving styles: Dr Farina I always remember was the first driver I ever saw leaning back, arms fully outstretched. He was the first F1(I believe) World Champion in 1950. The car he was driving? An Alfa Romeo 159 Alfetta . At school we always thought a racing driver ought to be like Argentinian Froilan Gonzales the 'Raging Bull', wrestling with the wheel, fighting the car every inch of the way. But the calm lean back lot: Fangio, Moss etc. were always faster. dhig .

The Western is the first GBL I've pondered over (in Fenwicks Newcastle this afternoon). The reason? Plain nostalgia, we all went over to Paddington one lunchtime from Kings Cross CCE's Dept in 1961 to eye one up, compared to our own (truly) awesome Deltics. It still strikes me as too obviously 'designer styled' which of course it was (by Misha Black ), though it is so evocative of those COID years - and their Kite Marks on everything from knives and forks through purple plastic Ecko portable radios to Morris 1100s. So I may get the Western and paint it Desert Sand like the one we 'inspected'. dhig

So isn't Chipping Norton in the Cotswolds? oops...mebbe a bit Politikle... dhig

Now this nicely links to my and several other posts above The baby in the carry cot in my above post from the earliest had inherited 'mad car collector' disease - perhaps via the gases given off by the plastic rear seat upholstery of those 1960s/70s cars. My son (now 50) has an framed picture of himself at about 6 months 'driving' our DS and now owns a very elegant dark green DS. But via a French contact we have, he was contacted by a Normandy car dealer who requested him to buy a good MG C and take it on the ferry to St Malo, meet for lunch and return back the next night with a gold SM in exhange (ferry tickets and dinner both ways on the ferry thrown in). He drove the SM up to us via the M6 and over Hartside and arrived very exhilarated by it - both on the motorway and throwing it around the hairpins on Blind Jack of Knaresborough's C18 engineered turnpike up from Melmerby over to Alston. After a car tyre kicking inspection, we were all duly impressed, Beautiful Car! On the way back, true to form, the Citroen leaked out all its hydraulics just past Tebay. But unlike father's experiences, son had sold it on for a profit by the time it arrived in London on a trailer. Apparently all that was needed was a one way hydraulics valve replacing. dhig edit of typos

Sorry not to have come back on this earlier, but family health issues interrupted my time wast keeping a look out for interesting posts.... Ah it’s a sad story --- the Ro 80 (cream with a Derbyshire RB number I seem to remember) dated from around 69/70 - not a reliability success in my stable any more than my DS 19 (ex Friedland door chimes boss) and Mk 1 88” Land Rover were. I'd persuaded wife to sell her perfectly servicable Mini, then later her 1100 so I could start 'collecting' my 'dream' cars But around Buxton in winter (up near Doveholes) such exotics don't fare very well. A vehicle that forever tantalised me and I really coveted was a very down at heel Figoni and Fallaschi Delahaye coupe - also in (hand painted) cream - reputedly owned by the Kenwood food mixer family, parked alongside a garage on the East Lancs Road near St Helens. I was also negotiating to add a Tatra rear engined V8 to my exotica but our troubles with the vehicles I had already (particularly the DS and its hydraulics leaks) forced wife to declare ENOUGH! I think I got about £200 for both the NSU and the DS from a farmer near Tidser. Instead step father-in-law, a Peak Forest signalman, started SWMBO into 'reliable' old bangers such as Zodiacs and Crestas (for about £50 a throw) for transporting our baby in his carry cot. The 1973 oil crisis occurred about this time that led to me losing my job in Tanzania - which had funded such foolishness. Instead I was lucky to become an academic and ever since have never dared to invest in more than a Mondeo during its last few years before scrapping. dhig

I've found this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hWZ40120BQ animated radial, but how do they get an adequate bearing area at the big end? dhig

Thats interesting: no sightings in Teignmouth. They must have overflown; I blame their Tom Tom satnav programming. They've been up here (near Tynemouth) for about a couple of weeks! A news item on swifts I read today (based on a Beijing research project trapping and chipping them) reveals they stay airborne for an average of three years, eat, drink, sleep and mate on the wing and only land to rear chicks. In its lifetime a Beijing swift will fly nearly 174,000 miles - halfway to the moon. dhig

OK.. I had a rotary NSU once for a short time ... ..and I understand its all to do with the seal on a rotary... So? How does a radial work then? dhig

I've never understood how a rotary air cooled aero engine works. How can all the piston crank big ends possibly connect to the propellor shaft? Is there a completely different mechanism? dhig ed: Sorry this is so that I'm adding "in a rotary aero engined carl"

In over 40 years of living in the NE and being obliged to travel to London and overseas - using the train to Kings Cross always proved more convenient than flying (even though I live 20 mins from both Ncle airport and Central station). Its the journeys overseas - changing at one of the London airports where air scores - and even then, I'd say we Geordies mostly prefer Amsterdam (or these days Dubai) as a hub. dhig

I worked with a technician/cartographer some years ago who designed maps for things like museums, stately homes and gardens open to the public. She explained to me that since the privatisation of the Ordnance Survey there are now all sorts of little 'mistakes' put into OS material to protect their copyright (though since OS data was amassed over the decades with 'Hard Working' taxpayers' money, this to me seems downright theft).. Instead she used out of copyright old OS mapsas a base and 'mapped' in her necessary updates. dhig

How'z aboot via the Leeds Northern alignment to Northallerton? dhig

That looks a really difficult task to tackle: 'then and now' superimposed on the same graphic. It is easy if you are able to click between layers, otherwise on a static image you have to decide on a superimposed 'ghost' image of either today's dual carriageways etc. or of the former steel works and its infrastucture. For legibility with printed media, I prefer to opt for 'then and now' images side by side . I wish you luck on a great project. I've lived in former NW Durham since just before the 1974 boundary changes. Always the highlight of showing a bunch of new Newcastle university students around the NE was to return back to Newcastle through Consett at dusk! dhig

Here we go again - looking at Britain from the wrong end of the map as usual. The ECML trains from/and back to Newcastle always seem really full whenever I travel. Are a lot of 'customers' obliged to stand on the Pendolinos out of Euston to Brum and the north west? dh ed: typo

Thank you for that interesting suggestion. I'd already Googled 'reddish birds' (images) and had clicked this http://www.educationquizzes.com/specialist/nature/british-birds---thrushes/ which looks very like our sighting - in their quiz it turned out to be a redwing. But as you point out it seems too late for one to be around at this time - although we are currently experiencing some very cold weather with icy showers, caused by the strong jetstream down from the Arctic. Looking at the array of screen images I didn't spot a finch that registered with us . hmmmm dhig