RANGERS

It is possibly being offered for sale, though it’s not mentioned on the initial list of vehicles which Stagecoach are to dispose of from their heritage fleet in the coming months. Details of those for sale are here - https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/heritage-fleets-should-bus-companies-keep-them-going.239334/ but I’m told that this is likely to be the first of several sales as the cost of maintaining the fleet is no longer justifiable.

I just can't believe that anyone in their right mind would attempt an economy trial in a 3.3 litre Vauxhall! A college pal of mine had one, his dad worked for a fuel distributor and he got 10 gallons a week for free, half of which went to his son, which is probably the only way he was ever going to keep that car on the road. Even so, the way he drove it that was never going to get far, I seem to remember his best was about 15mpg but on a "fun" day it was about half that.

I visited with my IT expert son just before Covid hit and despite spending the entire day there, we barely scratched the surface of the place and had intended to make use of the 12 month ticket, which events prevented us from doing. We’re due to make a return visit next month and I’d say to anyone who has an interest in technology of any flavour, go and see the place, it has an atmosphere like no other museum I’ve ever been to and my son remarked that you could still sense the pressures that were on those who worked there in WW2.

Not sure that this counts as a “barn find”, more of a “showroom find” - https://www.silverstoneauctions.com/sa076-lot-16778-2002-volkswagen-golf-gti-25th-anniversary

I wouldn’t mind a wager that it’ll be another 15 years, probably more, before the whole trunk EMR network is wired. That would put the new units on a similar footing to the current fleet in terms of replacement age. As it is, the full plans/ timescales for reaching Sheffield are still to be declared (reaching Sheffield is still only an “ambition”) and depending on whats to come in the Budget/ Fiscal Statement/ whatever else it might be called, it may not happen before the replacements for the new fleet are life expired!

Their supplies didn’t come from the Acle Marshes coalfield! It had to come from pits somewhere and as the GWR had their fare share of them, these could have been just as likely seen on their metals as anywhere else.

You could be describing just about any of the club or commercial shows anywhere in the country there!

Is this the first stage of deflecting the criticism when the announcement is made that the East Mids leg of HS2 isn't going to happen?

As is the Superb, both use the Volkswagen MQB platform.

Our economics teacher had a Dyane, L reg from memory, in a pale grey colour. He'd bought it new and still had it when I bumped into him in a pub in the early 1990s, he clearly practised economy as well as teaching it. Not sure what the heating system was like on them, but I'd hazard a guess that it wasn't very good, he used to come in on icy mornings with more layers than even our woodwork teacher, who rode nearly 40 miles in on a Honda CB400/4. It had a black grille cover like the one in this pic has (an essential part of the heating system I'd suggest) but he'd neatly picked out the badge and the horizontal bars in the same grey as the car, looked very smart. I don't think the chrome embellishments this one has were standard, from memory they were just a moulded on the grille.

Yet another Mickey Mouse event hits the NEC....

It looks very pretty and whilst there seems to be a view that the price is high, against current product prices, it doesn't seem out of order but I do wonder if there's enough of a market out there? Its in the same boat as the Met' electrics in my book, an attractive prototype but a prototype that had a very restricted operating area and will only have wider appeal as a "showcase" model. I'll wish Heljan every success with this one, but its not top of my shopping list I'm afraid.

Him referring to them as "the yellow trousered fire folk" in one of his books still makes me smile!

Assuming its the same person and not a scam impersonating her, she's Oxford Die-Cast's MD, daughter of founder Lyndon Davies and who's now CEO of Hornby

There’s a sound argument for exemption based on precedent elsewhere, the counter however is that the heritage vehicles aren’t used to provide essential transport, or for services that couldn’t be provided by modern vehicles. In other words, there’s no actual need for them to be there so why should they be exempt?

This completely omits the time taken to repair/ replace the things you spend 25% of the time breaking, which takes about twice as long as the time to break them, so you actually spend 125% of the time not doing the job that needs doing, meaning you could save yourself all that time by not starting it in the first place but still ending up with the same result 🤔

Was sat at the traffic lights this morning when a very tidy Y Plate 4.0 Range Rover Mk2 pulled alongside (always had a soft spot for them), my Skoda has stop-start so with the window down slightly, all I could hear was the burbling Rover V8, which for a brief moment made my car sound very exciting!

Its said the mayor has ambitions to recreate this kind of scene....only with fewer buses.

Somebody clearly agrees with the thoughts on this thread about Routemasters in London, this new service popped up on Twitter last night. https://www.ianvisits.co.uk/articles/vintage-routemaster-bus-to-return-to-regular-service-in-london-58028/ Whilst there is a fair amount of tourist traffic in London in the pre-Christmas period, it’s nothing like the summer volumes so it seems an odd time to be launching it.

Not sure when it ended but Northfleet had two MGR trains a day from Welbeck Colliery, southbound they worked via Manton and the northbound empties generally worked via Market Harborough.

The estate looks like a Hillman Hunter.

You may choose to say to think that that's the case, I couldn't possibly comment.....

There’s nothing to prevent anyone making an application for a London Service Permit to run a tourist or heritage service, it’s not that TfL don’t necessarily want it, they just don’t want (or can’t afford) to run it. They may place restrictions on the times, route and use of certain stops, but with bus services in central London in decline, now would be a good time to do it as capacity will be opened up as services are reduced. The 15 ran on a special Authorisation from DfT but there’s also an allowable exemption in PSVAR 2000 which allows a specific vehicle to be used on a specified number of days each year (20 from memory) without having to comply. The exemption is vehicle specific and age related, so Multiple vehicles can be used providing each is used on no more than the number of days allowable under the exemption.

Lovely kits these, when you’ve 5mins to spare, can we have some GE 50’ corridor stock please?

Visited with a slightly less than fully mobile friend on Saturday and whilst disabled parking was available and well located, the lack of a working lift gave him real difficulty getting up four flights of stairs to the galleries, and coming down again was even worse! Asking one of the staff if there was another lift available (there wasn’t) she told us it had been out of order for a while and frequently broke down anyway. That coupled with the lack of much seating made it a challenging day for him and not one he’s likely to repeat. Overall his experience soured what was otherwise a very good show, encouraging to see the crowds back in numbers and noting the comments about overcrowding, we were there as the morning arrivals would have been departing so whilst it was busy, it wasn’t uncomfortably so.