Liam

I don’t think you would manage Amazon next day delivery via rail, but as for myself I haven’t got Amazon Prime and just selected ‘standard delivery’, and it so happened to arrive 48 hours after I had placed the order. 

1 hour ago, The Johnster said:

TTBOMK, RM only carry their own traffic on their trains, and as the TOCs no longer accept parcel traffic, your book will have most likely come entirely by road.  The routing may appear illogical, but the distribution networks operate with hubs, so the collection will take the book from it's originating point to a main hub, where it will be sorted and sent to another main hub, then to the local delivery service.  Banbury appears to be your local hub, and is probably closer to MK than the next alternative, or it may be that that particular routing is the fastest at a given time of day, depending on the lorry schedules and the loading/unloading arrangements.  It may be that the trailers are not unloaded but simply attached to different cab units as well.

Possibly, although there are no shortage of warehouses and distribution hubs in the Birmingham/Redditch areas, so I would be surprised if Banbury was declared to be my nearest. As you say it was probably down to which lorry was travelling in roughly my direction during the wee hours and which distribution centre it was travelling to. 
 

Here’s the train I thought my book was put on - as there were almost four hours between it leaving Gourock and the train departing Shieldmuir that would have given it time to skirt around Glasgow on the M8 then be processed at the mail depot.
 

https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/C06021/2021-03-25/detailed

I’ve seen photos of the EMUs which ROG have acquired; let’s hope they bring lots of parcels onto rail traffic and away from roads. 

On Wednesday I ordered a book from Amazon about the Midland & South Western Junction Railway. Early afternoon yesterday I received a notification on the ‘track your order’ page on the Amazon website saying that my package had been despatched from a distribution centre in Gourock. 
 
The next time the tracker was updated was 03:18 this morning when it arrived at a distribution centre in Milton Keynes. I live in Worcestershire so it seemed an odd detour to take, but then it progressed to another centre in Banbury, which it left mid morning. 
 

The fact that the package went via Milton Keynes made me wonder if it hitched a ride on a mail train going south from Shieldmuir Mail Terminal. I checked Realtime Trains and it could have been put on a train to Warrington but there didn’t seem to be any trains going further south that stopped anywhere before Willesden, so would have gone from Warrington to Milton Keynes by road. 
 

Regardless of the journey my own package made, it got me wondering if parcels from Amazon/DPD etc are ever transported by rail? While the only mail trains that exist today belong to Royal Mail, if there weren’t many non-RM parcels that needed taking south and the train was paved to go that way you could easily send them by rail (albeit for only part of the way), reduce the number of lorries needed and cut carbon emissions. 

The other week we had a call on our landline that I suspected to be phishing. The caller said they were doing a survey on what UK residents were thinking about the current situation. I smelled a rat very quickly, as the caller asked me for the month and year of my birthday - I pointed out that few surveys ask you even for the year of your birth, never mind your month too. Hung up not long afterwards. 

3 hours ago, AY Mod said:

 

Love it! That would be some exhibition with 300,34,974,000 layouts! 

Good luck with the project Rob. My favourite East Anglian layout is probably Bawdsey, which appeared in a World of Railways video the other day. You might have to purchase some blood and custard Gresley stock to go with the green diesels though! 

1 hour ago, jcredfer said:

These gave me such a warm smile when I read them, perhaps I may be forgiven for sharing a few.  Some of many from a local communication site...

I’ve just been to Salisbury Cathedral with a friend going for her vaccine. What a wonderful sight - hundreds of elderly, mostly infirm, people heading across the close to the Cathedral for their first vaccine. There was almost a holiday feeling. And the organ was playing. Never seen so many wheelies, walking sticks, wheelchairs all in one place. Well done our local health providers and well done Salisbury Cathedral . I would be lying if I said it didn’t bring a tear to my eye.

That's sound lovely. It's a great setting and a wonderful use of a wonderful place. My neighbour went today and it was great. They even let the dog in!

I had my jab there yesterday (the Pfizer vaccine). It all ran like clockwork. There is ample parking at the Harnham Gate end of the Close, and electric shuttle vehicles to take you down to the Cathedral if you can’t walk that far. The loos in the Cloisters are open. A brilliant job by medical staff and all those volunteers. In the USA, American friends had to stay on the phone for 2.5 hours to book their appointments, so I’m glad to live where I do.

Julian

 

It is indeed, and the same thing is also happening at Lichfield Cathedral. An excellent example of service to the community. 

In our garden we have recently been witnessing a dispute over our nestbox between a pair of blue tits and a pair of great tits. This confrontation has seen two of them engage in aerial combat. Unfortunately there’s very little that we can do, as there is only one nestbox in our garden (which they’re disputing over) but if we were to put another one up then that would lead to further disputes. 

1 hour ago, Phil Bullock said:

Coming along nicely......

Thanks Phil! Though I think I’ll go for a mineral wagon, either 21T or 24.5T, for my next kit - those straight sides should make construction a bit easier...

Starting to take shape - have been rather busy recently but hopefully I’ll be able to squeeze some time in over the lockdown. 
 

The hopper body isn’t attached to the chassis and was only put on loosely for this photo. I’ve still got the last part to add to the hopper body but gradually the chassis will become more detailed. 
 

Made a start on the 21T hopper last night and almost completed the body. 

The buffer stop is complete. 

This has just arrived from Abbotswood Works - thank you very much Phil! Also in the package was a Toad which will hopefully be used on a future micro layout. I should be starting on the 21T hopper tonight upon completion of the buffer stop. 
 

4 hours ago, Phil Bullock said:

Better get that finished Liam ... postie is on the way with a parcel! 

I’m working at it! But our new layout is still a few years away from its first exhibition, and that’s before you consider the inevitable issues surrounding coronavirus. Nonetheless I’m very grateful for your package which will be the next item to enter the works. 

Made a bit more progress last night. All that’s left to do now is add ballast to the top of the buffer stop and paint the ends of the front red. 

23 minutes ago, Phil Bullock said:

A quick google reveals many different combinations of red and white.... a prototype for everything! A bit of weathering on that will be fine... or alternatively weather it to obliteration! Many were so neglected....

Thanks Phil, I’ll probably paint it with Phoenix Precision sleeper grime first then paint over the end sections with red to try and get the look of the paint peeling away. Hopefully another member with better weathering skills than me can then give it the right treatment! 

1 hour ago, Phil Bullock said:

Thanks for that timely reminder Mr  SM. As a previous perpetrator of said crime it’s not one I shall be repeating.... 

If you do what you did for one of the Hornby Magazine photos then all you need to do is stable the Baby Deltic in the headshunt on the Gloucester side and rev up the engine sounds to distract people’s attention from the incorrect lamp... 

I’d like to ask for some buffer stop advice if I may (appreciate I’m reopening an old thread). I’m building a Peco sleeper built one for my club’s new exhibition layout set in the 1970s. I’ve built this one before for my cakebox entry two years ago, and this is what I finished it as but I get the feeling the buffer beam colours wouldn’t be realistic. Please can someone advise on the appropriate colours? 
 

So last night at the club I made a start on building the sleeper buffer stop. I glued the main parts together but rather frustratingly I hadn’t finished the filing and so it didn’t sit properly, but this was soon addressed. On Thursday I’ll finish the gluing, paint it in sleeper grime and add ballast to the top. 
 

Hi all, thought I’d start a thread where I’ll post my kit builds. With only fairly basic modelling skills I won’t be building any vastly complicated kits but most of what I build will be for club projects. The first two items I shall be working on are a sleeper buffer stop which when finished will look something like this one on my cakebox, and a 21T coal hopper wagon kindly donated to me by @Phil Bullock. Any comments or feedback are most welcome. Cheers, Liam. 

Korev by St Austell Brewery tonight. A very decent lager and probably level with Spitfire Lager. There have been some very good lagers coming out of real ale breweries recently. 

1 hour ago, Pete the Elaner said:

 

Ales often suffer from poor storage but the most suspicious variation was at the Great British Beer Festival a few years ago when Greene King IPA won 2nd best beer in a blind test.

Perhaps it wouldn’t have been awarded 2nd best beer if the judges weren’t wearing blindfolds! 
 

I remember seeing a map of the UK which listed the favourite beers by geographical region and for some unknown reason John Smiths was the favourite for Yorkshire and Humber. I’ve spent a lot of time in Yorkshire over the past few years and I’ve yet to hear anyone from the county say anything positive about John Smiths...

On 22/11/2020 at 20:20, 43110andyb said:

I prefer Timothy Taylor’s of Keighley!  And Yorkshire tea for tea 

I had a bottle of Landlord during the first lockdown and wasn’t so keen I must admit, but more recently I had Boltmaker which is much better in my opinion. 
 

Tonight I’m having Mad Goose by Purity, my favourite brewery. 

I’ve been watching some of it on catch up. Very good as always, however I can’t help but feel that Channel 5 do what they often do in trying to make stuff more dramatic than they really are. For example, during the intro of one episode the voiceover said “a passenger loses his children” but all that happened was that due to an incident on the line his children ended up arriving at Paddington on a different service to the one originally planned, as they needed to change trains at Reading. 

4 hours ago, Phil Bullock said:

 

We are allowed an AL4 Andi - without knitting!

 

What are the chances?

Well if Abbotswood was to suddenly change to the present day era then you could have a class 86 in tow, as although this is five years ago these records show four class 86s stored at Long Marston. 
 

http://www.86259lesross.com/survive.htm