Reorte

44 minutes ago, GrumpyPenguin said:

The "saving" in running costs of EV's will diminish as time goes on - as the revenue into HMG's coffers reduces due to the takeup of EV's they will then start to add road fund licence (already starting to be charged) & of course electricity will attract "fuel" dury &/or VAT to make up for that loss. You won't get away from it either at home - your so called "smart" meter will grass you up (maybe your car will too) & of course electricity will go up through market forces.

I've never been interested in electric cars because of any savings, just simply because burning the current amount of petrol and diesel doesn't have a long-term future.

No "smart" meter here and no desire to have one (see my post above this one). But electric cars look like being the future, and it's one of the few things about the future I find quite positive. How the tax etc. aspects of them are managed, rather the opposite, but that's not a fundamental feature of the technology, just how we (mis)use it.

10 minutes ago, johnofwessex said:

 

So, if you are involved in an accident then you dont want investigators to be able to find out exactly what happened?

 

Driving is a licenced activity not a right and it carries the potential to cause death or serious injury.  If someone is driving like a we have the right to know so appropriate action can be taken.

If the only way they can find out is to be recording everything myself and everyone else does then no, I wouldn't. I'd prefer to take my chances. And not because I want to drive like a *$@"! either (I don't).

Since the way the world is means that it's impossible for a large proportion of the population not to drive the idea of being recorded doing a basic, ordinary part of every day life is something I'm deeply uncomfortable with. It's not a sign of a healthy, tolerant, respectful society.

17 minutes ago, Wheatley said:

Several of them moaning about not being able to lean out of the doors for photos too.

Glad I travelled on it before that was stopped. It was something I did somewhat nervously though (only when the line was turning on my side so I could see right along the train if there were any obstructions before leaning out, head back in when it moved the other way).

16 minutes ago, Deeps said:

I’m not sure if this is a compliment or condemnation. As far as I know none of my railwayana items have come from Bradford and I know not what the connection is? At the risk of being exposed to another drain on my pension could you explain it please.

The Bradford Exchange - the company that keeps selling the sort of tat mentioned in this thread, rather than Bradford the place.

edit: Well, I say selling. Advertising anyway. Although presumably someone must be buying it if they keep on going. Heaven knows who.

32 minutes ago, GrumpyPenguin said:

By that time EV's will be obsolete themselves as other technology is perfected.

No sign of that happening anywhere I can see. Hydrogen might be applicable in some situations but in general it's hard to not see it as simply adding an extra layer of inefficiency. I'd actually expect hydrogen trains rather than cars, since at least that would save the expense of the installation and maintenance of OHLE, whereas it's hard to see where the saving is for road vehicles.

17 minutes ago, maico said:

 

In the small print it says: 'I understand if I am not completely satisfied I have been had'

 

More like "If I am completely satisfied I have been had"!

I should probably apologise for being in a particularly grumpy mood today.

16 minutes ago, TheQ said:

According from a website I've just checked, all new cars in the UK from 7th July 2022 have to have had a black box fitted. Many cars have had them for some years.

So gradually everyone will have a tell all in the car.

That one had passed me by. Another reason to be extremely depressed about the suspicious, untrusting, disrespectful, intrusive excuse of a world we now live in. God I hate it, it's all so dehumanising. No doubt the usual suspects will turn up shortly to berate me for not finding everything we do being monitored a wonderful prospect.

Hoping that in a few years conversions of ordinary, bog-standard current or slightly older cars (let's say 15-20 years old) to electric will be practical and affordable. Without the past rust problems that should give a platform that should last indefinitely, without all the modern "features" I'd much rather do without.

7 minutes ago, Jeremy Cumberland said:

If a majority of people really wanted level crossing barriers and lights to be removed, I dare say that a government would be pressurised into enacting legislation to that effect. But people don't want this. I am very confident that the vast majority of people support existing safety measures, and I suspect that a majority might be found for increasing them, particularly at foot crossings.

Depends on the foot crossing I suspect. A fairly low speed line, maybe three or four trains per hour, I'd expect most people are happy enough. A four-track, 125 mph line, if there are any foot crossing on those - no thanks, I'd rather a considerable detour to find a bridge. Sounds as appealing as dodging traffic on the motorway.

1 minute ago, Hroth said:

Flying Scotsman is "iconic" because it suits the NRM to be so.

 

It should also be remembered that until the Moneypit fell into their hands, City of Truro was the NRMs candidate for "the first to 100" .  All the official stuff for FS is their spin.

I thought City of Truro was probably the first to exceed it, but that was based on stopwatch timings of the mileposts from someone on board, rather than accurately calibrated measuring equipment installed specifically for that purpose, making it fair to say that City of Truro was probably (to quite a high degree of probably) the first, but Flying Scotsman the first to beyond any reasonable doubt.

6 minutes ago, ruggedpeak said:

It is self evident who the troll is.

Some apologies required from me then, coming shortly after one of my posts I thought you were accusing me of that.

12 minutes ago, Chris M said:

I have just read an article in the June 1960 edition of Trains Illustrated titled "the Gresley class A3 Pacifics". Flying Scotsmen was so unimportant in those days that it does not get any mention at all in the article. It was just another ordinary member of a class of useful but average express locos. It only became iconic when Mr Pegler hyped it up to an importance it never had in actual service. The Flying Scotsman express train was iconic but the Flying Scotsman loco appears to have been rather mundane and was certainly no flagship once the A4s had appeared. The first conversion from A1 to A3 happened in 1928 but the Flying Scotsman loco didn't get upgraded from A1 to A3 until 1947. I think this just shows how iconic this loco really was when it was part of the LNER fleet.

 

It seems the general public will happily lap up any old tales they are told, and part with good money for tat.

It has some significance due to being the first loco to be officially confirmed to have passed 100 mph but I've never understood the current level of obsession with it. When it comes to LNER locomotives I'm personally more interested in seeing the sole surviving definitely mundane J21 working again some day.

7 minutes ago, ruggedpeak said:

Feeding the troll won't change anything. They have no demonstrable understanding of the most basic elements of safety (as you have highlighted re: the critically important element of "Human factors") nor have bothered to actually read the thread, the comprehensive JR judgement or other relevant docs.

Just who is the troll with no basic understanding? Assuming bad faith and ignorance with people you disagree with is simply being rude.

18 minutes ago, 30801 said:

 

SMBO's middle-aged lady friend said the start was good, but then it became 'cartoonish'

I suppose I was expecting it to be, since there's quite an element of that in the games but I can see how it might jar if you're not expecting it.

9 minutes ago, Chris116 said:

I have travelled widely on other preserved lines and witnessed the same behaviour at most of them. The public do not understand Mk 1 doors and unless the staff watch them carefully they can cause a dangerous situation at any time on a journey.

Lack of understanding because people are simply unused to them is one of the more persuasive arguments for me.

9 hours ago, The Fatadder said:

I’ve yet to play fallout (I think the upgraded fallout 4 is due on Gamepass next week, so will be trying it soon).  But I’ve enjoyed the series so far, which is a first for a game inspired tv show 

Interesting, I've been wondering what people who hadn't played the games would make of it.

9 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

The only problem with 'society as a whole' is that almost invariably society as a whole is not sufficiently informed about all the relevant facts and how they inter-relate to be able to reach a properly informed and reasoned decision.  Such decisions often just go with either gut reaction or some variant of pre-formed prejudice with only a small part of the whole actually bothering to look into the facts and the various conflicting points.

That's true for specific issues but the general level of acceptable risk vs responsibility should absolutely reflect society's overall attitude towards it. It's then up to the experts in the relevant areas to set the rules broadly in line with that for their fields.

Being uninformed means it's far more likely that someone will misjudge the level of risk (and it could be judging it higher or lower than it really is), but that's not the same issue as deciding at what point do we find living with it preferable to the mitigation, and as I mentioned earlier we've all got a point where we do. And you can't say anyone's point is objectively right or wrong. That's why the only reasonable approach is to aim for the majority's, leaving it to the experts to work out how to apply that to their area. Otherwise you've gone down the path of telling people what they should think and feel.

Not sure if this is really for the game thread but there's an obvious link - anyone else watched the Fallout TV show? Without giving anything away I think they did an absolutely cracking job of it. I've seen some of the criticism and whilst I don't think some of it's entirely invalid personally it didn't really get in the way for me, and overall it deserves the very good reception it seems to have got.

1 hour ago, Daddyman said:

Considering this is coming from the nutjob side of the debate, it's actually quite rational. However, I don't think the motivation for any of this is contempt. Rather, it's organisations and public bodies trying to protect themselves from a lawsuit culture that grew up in (?) the late 1980s. And in my experience it's almost always the ones who complain most about health and safety law and other regulations that are the ones most ready to invoke that same law in fantasy lawsuits (the "I can sue you for that!" sorts).  

 

At the end of the day, what do the anti-H&S "brigade" (and, come to think of it, the anti-climate-action and the anti-woke "brigades") think they achieve? Is moral indolence really worth all the effort? 

Sorry, by all means disagree but if you can't do it civilly then don't say anything at all. "The nutjob side of the debate" isn't really acceptable, and I don't think the "brigades" and "moral idolence" talk is either. We've all got our lines, beyond which we'll start finding things absurd. They're just in different places. For example, people have died from simply tripping over their shoelaces. Alternatives are available, so why not ban shoelaces? Yet I suspect most people would say that that's absurd, and that arguing against such a ban is not the sign of a nutjob. Is there a fundamental difference between that though and anything else that's been discussed on this thread? The point is that we all have a line somewhere, and when yours is crossed there will still be people who haven't reached it - should they, at that point, accuse you of being on the nutjob side?

It all smacks of "the way I want the world to be is the only correct one, thus I can sneer at anyone who thinks differently," and that's never got us anywhere. I hope I've not sneered at anyone I've argued against in this thread (although I confess I sometimes let irritation get the better of me - I apologise if I've done that to anyone, and it's a personal flaw I need to work harder on). The better approach is to go with where society overall decides to draw the line (see earlier post I made about the fact this is a democratic country), live with where that line is, and have polite discussion with those who disagree with it - and that can be either because they think it's gone too far or not far enough. Oh, and ignore the real extremists, whether they seem at first to somewhat agree with you or not.

26 minutes ago, rodent279 said:

And whose common sense are we talking about? The general public? Are they supposed to understand about line speeds and traffic density, and behave accordingly? 

Common sense is such a vague, undefinable quantity that it cannot be used to govern rules about safety critical situations. You only have to spend 5 min behind the wheel of a car or on a bike to see that most people don't use their "common sense". They just do whatever requires the least thought and the least effort.

If the alternative is treating everyone with contempt, assuming they're unable to do anything for themselves, well, I'd prefer to take my chance by assuming most are sensible and having the risk from those that aren't.

5 minutes ago, kevinlms said:

How did people survive without remotes? This is why at larger shopping centres, I park in roughly the same area, so I can find my car.

Well that's probably 80s at the latest, so the unique pattern of rust patches most likely.

1 hour ago, nightstar.train said:

 

One of the "mistakes" that WCRC made nearly caused the worst rail accident in recent years. It was sheer good luck that their charter train didn't plow into an HST. They have very poor form when it comes to safety standards.

Repeating myself, but that's why I'm not supporting them here. If they had a spotless record for operating safely I'd be rather more sympathetic, but that was bad by the standards of any time, and their reluctance to toe the line (whatever I think of the line) rather suggests that they simply don't have the right attitude. If I was in their position and really wanted to show that I'd fixed the very serious issues I'd be bending backwards to comply, even if muttering under my breath about what I'm complying with in some cases.

1 hour ago, BoD said:

That is fair enough if it were only you involved and happy to take the risk.  Others (the majority?) might prefer to have mitigations put in place to reduce that risk. I know you were speaking in more general terms, but  I wouldn’t like to be the one hit by a moving open door because someone else found fitting CDL ‘obnoxious’.

That's why we live in a democracy. Without going in to too many details (otherwise it could descend in to politics rapidly) in a democracy the law hopefully reflects the majority opinion on such matters, and so I accept that that's what it is even when I disagree, and it's why I might grumble about it but wouldn't do more than that (well obviously I'm not in any position to do anything other than grumble or agree here, but I hope you get the point). That, in part, explains my not standing with WCRC on this matter even though you might expect me to.

edit: removed erroneous confusing extra "not" at the end

7 minutes ago, ruggedpeak said:

👍

 

Even fatal injuries often don't get reported in the media. I spent many years dealing with fatal and serious injury RTC's in London and often they would not even rate a mention in the local paper unless there was something 'extra' to make it noteworthy, something I found rather sad. Just because people don't hear about it doesn't mean it didn't happen.

That's because they are alas a fact of life. With so many people around even pretty low chance events happen to someone on a fairly regular basis, which is why they won't often be reported (although usually they do seem to crop up in local papers and their online equivalents).

We might bemoan that being a fact of life, and of course it's not at all good, but I fear a world where we've done a lot more to prevent these what are actually very low risks far more than I fear the risk. You can, of course, find exceptions. Usual disclaimer that in the more thread-specific situation I'm not supporting WCRC or agreeing with their approach.

On 20/04/2024 at 20:33, 30851 said:

Seems they are testing a new interface design on a "small" number of users - https://www.wfla.com/news/national/youtube-is-testing-a-new-layout-the-internet-hates-it/

 

The URL of the above link says what most people who got it think of it.

Cue the usual defence of "people don't like change" (in which case don't change anything without a very good reason!) Things like this are why people don't like change.