Judge Dread

The group I am a member of acquired a layout based on the Holcombe Brook branch. We restored it but when in came to the third rail and the fact that the prototype of this had a wooden cover with a narrow slot in it, we decide to use a square section wood with a pencil mark to represent the slot. We worked on the "three foot" rule. To directly answer your question, because the pick up shoe only ran against the top, side section of the conductor rail, that would must likely be standard bull head rail but if it is encased................

For the record, my late mother's name was Margaret but she was always known as Peggy.

When I first started at the then Hull Corporation Telephone Dept in 1981. (the only other organisation after B.T.) there was a certain Sammy Briggs. Many years later at his funeral, his widow told every one his name was actually Peter. When he had been called up for National Service into the army, the corporal taking name details etc and been told his name was Peter retorted, "You are the fourth person with that name and therefore you are from now on called, Sam"

Where's Ian I hear you ask. In days gone by when I had to "work" for a living, there was at the next workstation, four individuals called Dave, Dave, Dave and "not Dave".

On the subject of driving with no lights on or at best "side" lights in bad visibility conditions , does no one look in their mirrors these days and think to themselves " I can barely see this vehicle coming up behind me because it has no lights on. I have no lights on and so does it follow the vehicle in front of me will not be able to see me?"

You could go a little more daring and try this. This one of the bridge towers where the coast railway crosses the canal in Ostend in Belgium.

"Daft I call it!"

It got me too far north. I like monkeys and would never hang one of them!

I suppose I should tell you how to escape in situations such as above. The trick is "get in close, under the overhang, they cannot see you". I will admit that you can take damage doing this but................

As "the lad" ,when I started on the S & T dept way back in 1959, my duties were Chief Cook and bottle-washer. Also I was expected to chop fire wood to light the three internal fires in the mess van and one external, quick boil one. If there was a surplus of fire wood, a complete telegraph pole, I was expected to reduce it to small enough sticks to be transported home. I was shown (shewn) how to twist up a length of copper earth wire into a circle and place into it enough sticks to hold everything together. The test was, to lift the item to waist height and drop it. If it stayed together, it was safe to go. If not, start again!

I cannot help you with the 30's but according to my Ian Allan 1948-50 spotters book the following G5's were allocated to Botanic Gardens shed, Hull, 53B. 67254/6/80/2, 67301/11/21/40. I hope this helps.

Regarding "shown and shewn", I seem to remember seeing a photo of Waterloo station taken during the early1900's, during the rebuilding for extra platforms, and there was a large sign to be seen above the barriers to the effect, all tickets had to be shewn.

On a video I have, on snow clearing over the Donner pass in the USA, the procedure for clearing such ice hanging from a tunnel roof as in your photo, is a shotgun. However, ice between the running rails in tunnels, is cleared with a chain saw and cord TNT. "Fire in the hold!"

Snow should only be seen on Christmas cards. Bah Humbug! By the way, it's snowing in Hull as I type this. Double Bah Humbug!!

During the short time I worked for the North Eastern Gas Board, as it was then in the 60's, I was sent to the mortal remains of Dairycoates West signal box. The pile of bricks had been reported as smelling strongly of gas. We found after, digging down, a still installed meter, that the demolition crew had evidently missed.

The L Class locos were built in three phases, first by a Manchester firm, second by Berlin and because Borsig were no longer available, the third contract went back to Manchester. With the advent of the Southern Railway in 1923, questions were asked as to why the German locos were better than the British ones and the answer was because the Germans fitted their own model superheaters. When it decided to copy those locos,with the Smitt super-heater, it was pointed out that royalties would have to be paid and the comment was allegedly made, "No we won't,who won the bl**dy war"?

As a Southern person you must know about the S.E. & C.R's Class L's built by Borsigs of Berlin in 1914. As a result of "other events" that year they were not paid for until the 20's but in true "business" rules, the interest was also paid.

Stu, your handiwork looks good to me, although, if I may suggest, the pantograph contact area could do with a clean. Regards, John

I cannot think where you got the idea all layouts must by square or rectangular but trust me that is not the case. My first photo is of an EM layout built by the 4mm section of the Hull MRS club. It was end to end, starting as a rectangular fiddle yard and then turning to become J shaped. My own layout which I have just sold after five years going out to such places as Germany (twice) and France and 24 exhibitions from Perth in Scotland down to Folkestone in Kent.

Lets go back to the "Good old days" when a lot of dual carriage central islands had tram lines running down them.

My Kamikaze driver made a similar muttering to the affect she didn't like changing down from 5th, frighten in case she found 2nd gear or even worse, reverse! I advised her to pull the gear lever back and then release pressure on it so as it would go to neutral by the pull of the spring. Then it would be third forwards and fourth backwards. So far so good but she must apply more pressure on the clutch pedal when trying to find reverse prior to backing into the garage. Speaking of garages, this one now has two L.E.D's, one green and the other a flashing red to tell me if the garage door is actually open (or shut) said item being an electric powered one with a remote control.

Before this bragging about distances travelled gets out of hand, I can report the shortest distance travelled to a show was 4.5 miles! That would be to Blankenberge in Belgium. Three miles were travelling from home here in Hull to the P & O ferry in King George dock which is a considerably shorter distance than to the Hull M.R.S exhibition. The other 1.5 miles was from Zeebrugge to the casino in Blankenberge and would you believe it, our second team got lost. I'll never tell anyone who it was, your secret is safe with me Mally!

I must agree here, the one aspect that made me not like what I saw was the number of vehicles and motorcycles with flat tyres. I don't think management realises many of them have tyres which are long out of production and will be very expensive to replace. "A stitch in time saves nine" etc etc.

Has anything been updated on the z21 system ? Thanks.

I had a Pulsar digital watch in the early 70's which would display the time if I pressed the button on the side for a few seconds. No problem under "normal" circumstances but if I was riding my bicycle, I found the only safe way of pressing said button without taking both hands off the handlebars, was to use my nose! It brought me strange looks.