62613

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

 

No, I think if you look into it, you will see that that just wouldn't do: overcrowding and inadequate facilities. The point is that in the short term, we got what we needed at a price we were prepared to pay. The problem is that now, we are not prepared to pay - just look at the basic rate of income tax now compared to 45 years ago.

The tax take now is higher than at any time since 1947. When income tax was at 30% plus, VAT was at 8% - ish, and NI was about 10%. Neither were duties on alcohol, motor fuel and tobacco so high.

21 minutes ago, Mark Saunders said:

 

Remember when William Woolard presented Top Gear a TV program about cars rather than an entertainment program with cars! Standards are slipping.

Wasn't it Cliff Michelmore or someone like that originally, or am I thinking of another programme?

17 hours ago, andyman7 said:

It may want to but overall Government spending has gone relentlessly upwards in the past few decades. The popular notion of 'cuts' belies the facts. We are all living longer, health technology gets progressively dearer as innovations create treatment possibilities that previously didn't exist, wages have risen in real terms, expectations have risen. And of course the elephant in the room is the pandemic, everyone demanded that all activity must cease and swathes of people were paid to stay at home. This is not the place to debate that but the bill has come due and it is absolutely crippling. 'But the pandemic wasn't my fault, why should I have to pay' - except who else will? It blew a £4bn a year hole in railway finances and the chickens are coming home to roost. 

Since 2007, wages have barely kept up with costs

On 16/08/2023 at 21:46, 62613 said:

managed a closer look at the knitting while in Stalybridge tip this lunchtime. The colour is of course due to the material (copper?) not being weathered yet. The wires from the Guide Bridge direction are not fully complete. From the Stalybridge direction they appear to run to just short of the site of the old Ashton Park Parade station. What's happening after that, I don't know; it's a while since I've been to ASDA!

After a look on Monday afternoon, while cycling under the Cavendish St. bridge in Ashton (next to ASDA), definitely no wires of any sort from just west of Whitelands Road bridge to at least the Stalybridge end of Guide Bridge yard. 

14 hours ago, 33C said:

....and no trains if the OHL was off....

...no OHL at Cark

24 minutes ago, peanuts said:

We were the famous "wheres yer hat trick Alan Young" 1-0 win big jim steele got the winner remember Carl Valentine & Vic Hallom walking through on way homec

That's the one! Rodger Palmer's first game

On 27/08/2023 at 14:55, nigb55009 said:

Fulham FC used regular train services, albeit First Class. They`re probably some of the only people who can afford it. When I saw them they

weregetting off a Virgin service from London Euston at Wigan NW.It was friday afternoon, a local coach company were waiting to take the

team to a hotel. Fulham were playing Bolton Wanderers the following day.

I can remember being in a normal Pendolino service going to Manchester sometime in the early noughties. A complete football team boarded the train at Milton Keynes and travelled all the way to Manchester (IIRC). I hadn't the nerve to ask who they were. It was a weekday late afternoon.

On 27/08/2023 at 07:51, peanuts said:

There is a photo in the book Oldhams railways of a class 40 hauled footex running through Oldham mumps rake of mk1s and a pullman coach for the Brighton players and staff would of been running to Werneth .will try to find the book and see if i can copy 

Do you recall a "Latics Liner" to Leicester from Mumps, in about February 1980; the team travelled with the supporters? I'm sure we were both on it!

On 30/06/2023 at 18:11, Northmoor said:

I do - after Clapham, Bellgrove and Purley happened within six months of each other.  The public view, repeated loudly in the press, was that our railways were dangerous.  Remember the Kings Cross fire was less than two years earlier as well.

Or the press was trying to form "Public Opinion" about the railways. They have a habit of doing that, in many fields. For the sake of clarity, I haven't read a newspaper for about 30 years 

On 21/08/2023 at 13:55, DaveF said:

Trains at Nottingham Midland taken 1968 - 70.

 

 

Nottingham  Class 45 D63 l e Dec 68 J1505

 

 

Nottingham Class 25 D7576 down  Jan 69 J1539

 

 

Nottingham Class 20s D8147 down mineral and Class 20 shunting from London Road bridge Jan 69 J1546

 

 

Nottingham Class 20 D8147 down crossing Nottingham canal Jan 69 J1547

 

 

Nottingham Class 45 72 Nottingham to Mancester Piccadilly Oct 70 J2434

 

David

Did the GC have to pay the Midland for running their bridge so close to their Nottingham station?

21 minutes ago, Hroth said:

 

But what if you want to check out earlier?  🤪

Just a thought. Was that the Motel California?

 

I thought you could never leave, though.

On 17/08/2023 at 14:06, 2E Sub Shed said:

Branch to Shipston-on-Stour  

 

Wikipedia entry

Thank you

4 hours ago, 2251 said:

How about Moreton-in-Marsh:

 

Not being particularly familiar with Moreton, what was the line leaving the photo centre - left?

On 08/08/2023 at 09:21, 62613 said:

Why is the knitting the colour it is; a sort of rusty brown? What material are they using?

I suppose once everything is tested, all services will be electric as far as Stalybridge

managed a closer look at the knitting while in Stalybridge tip this lunchtime. The colour is of course due to the material (copper?) not being weathered yet. The wires from the Guide Bridge direction are not fully complete. From the Stalybridge direction they appear to run to just short of the site of the old Ashton Park Parade station. What's happening after that, I don't know; it's a while since I've been to ASDA!

9 hours ago, Darryl Tooley said:

On 2nd September 1948 J15 No 65448, then acting as Chelmsford yard pilot, was substituted for a failed engine on the 'East Anglian', which it then worked to Liverpool Street, complete with headboard.

 

Source: RCTS 'Locomotives of the LNER' part 5 (and elsewhere - it's an oft-mentioned incident).

 

D 

I've seen a photo of that train at Colchester in one of the East Anglian Steam books. Can't remember which one!

I was always told that ships carry boats

1 hour ago, phil-b259 said:

Rust is not something seen on OLE (unless we are talking decades old supporting structures.

The contact wires are copper (which oxidise and goes green)

 

Insulating bits are made from glass, ceramics or carbon fibre (which can get dirt deposited in it and go brown)

 

The supporting structures tend to be galvanised steel (which does not rust)

 

IIRC the stuff they are using is basically the same as was employed on the GWML, the MML between Bedford and Kettering, Liverpool - Manchester via Warrington, Preston - Manchester via Bolton so there are lots of photos out there to see what it looks like.

 

Living in Tameside, I can see what it looks like; I'm not saying it is rust, just the colour of it. There are three bridges that I use quite regularly when travelling on the road, where it's possible to see what's happening. SHMD, is it an illusion from viewing from below?

Why is the knitting the colour it is; a sort of rusty brown? What material are they using?

I suppose once everything is tested, all services will be electric as far as Stalybridge

On 01/08/2023 at 14:09, PhilJ W said:

They could if they had specially adapted petrol engines. 

They'd be diesels, and it's dead easy!

23 hours ago, F-UnitMad said:

It's the England Rugby Union Team preparing how they're going to face down the Haka the next time they play the All Blacks...

 

Would scare me, for sure....

The guys in the tatter jackets are the local side, I think; Forest of Dean MM. I know the one second from the right. The one with the hat, white shirt and red cummerbund, I'll bet is one of Southport Swords. Who the others are, I don't know!

3 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

 

He therefore has my unquestioning, undiminished. and absolute respect!

 

The world is sometimes a small place, and it is, remotely, possible that it was your relation who had a brother in the USAAF who, on hearing that he'd been on Pedestal, got dad drunk in a bar in Alexandria some time later.  At some time around this and for a reason I cannot ascertain, he was given a lift from Alex to Gibraltar aboard a USAF Liberator, on a positioning move rather than a mission, and was able to correct an error by the American pilot who was off course a bit and had mistaken the profile of one of the Costa Del Sol headlands for Gibraltar, which he had never seen, and having spotted a runway was coming in for a landing; they'd have all been interred!  Even my limited joyride excursions in my mate's microlight have shown me that it is not difficult to mistake landmarks from the air, especially in sun glare; we were making a final approach to a farmer's field with a vaguely runway-crop mark near Port Eynon on one occasion when I mentioned that Swansea Airport was behind us to the left a bit, and there were no Mumbles at Port Eynon Point.  I like to think dad's ghost smiled a bit at that; he was parsimonious in praise and generous in criticism, certainly wouldn't have approved of gadding about in flying deckchairs (seriously, this thing has canvas seats), but come on!!!

 

Syfret's mention may have been influental in his getting a 2/O post on a tanker running aviation spirit out of Valetta in '43, evil cargo but the only ship he slept in pyjamas on during the war, no point in being prepared to abandon, it would have gone up like a dog.  Woof.  This got him posted off Melbourne Star, later lost to a U-boat in the Carribean, resulting in one of those lifeboat dramas.  Captain MacFarlane, who dad had immense respect for, was lost with her.  When the convoy scattered on that terrible morning, and Ledbury was rounding them up, her captain signalled Melbourne Star with 'where are you going?', and MacFarlane responded 'I'm going to Malta, would you like to join me?'.  Pure Nelson, outnavied the navy!

The relation was from Dundee. I only met him once, when we were on holiday in the Lake District; he was piloting at Barrow by then

46 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

 Melbourne Star had Sulzer engines, and dad, not by any means any sort of engineer, was very complimentary about the speed with which they responded.  He was involved in a semi-famous incident during Pedestal; when Wainamara  was dive-bombed and exploded only a few hundred yards ahead of him, he was the officer on the bridge that ordered full ahead and steered directly through the burning sea by the shortest route.  This was 'mentioned in Admiral's notes', the marine equivalent of being mentioned in dispatches, Admiral Syfret stating that 'Third Officer Richards showed extreme presence of mind by ordering full ahead, probably saving his vessel'.  The RN gun crew on the poop who jumped for it when they saw what was coming might have had a different view, and Third Officer Richards thirty years later denied any presence of mind and cited survival instinct and blind terror as the reasons for his actions  Melbourne Star was scorched but undamaged, as were all the ships that dad served aboard during the war, at least while he was aboard them; he was lucky!  When they entered Grand Harbour 24 hours later, he was on duty on the bridge again, and asked what who the band was playing for, never thinking it might be for him...  All Pedestal's ships were greeted in this way, but of course the biggest fuss was, rightly, reserved for Ohio and the destroyers lashed to her.

Another, unlooked - for, advantage of diesels over turbines. My second trip as an Engineer Cadet was aboard a steam - turbine tanker. I did my bridge time when she was going into Kwinana (near Fremantle, W.A). We were just about in the right place on the berth, and the pilot ordered a full astern. After nothing had happened for about half a minute (we were still slowly inching forward), he ordered a double full astern.

Later in the smoke room, the 2/E asked what was going on, and I had to admit it was me operating the telegraph.

With a diesel of course, the pilot could have ordered a full astern, and ten seconds later, a stop, and that would have been it.

A distant relation was 3/O aboard Ohio. I only ever sailed with one Sulzer; it ran like a sewing machine!

On 05/08/2023 at 04:58, The Johnster said:

 

Quite possibly, but they were selected because they could maintain the required speed for Pedestal (my dad was 3/O on Melbourne Star), rather than for the type of engines.  There were no Allied tankers that could maintain the speed, hence the chartering of Ohio; America was still maintaining a pretence of being neutral at the time.

What I was hinting at was that diesel engines are more economical for the same power output; doubtless steam turbines could have produced the the same power, but with a much higher fuel consumption, and given the services they were on (Blue Star, Port Line, and Shaw Savill to Australia and NZ, and Blue Funnel to India and H.K.), it made sense to reduce fuel costs and the space required to store it.

On 02/08/2023 at 16:07, JeremyC said:

Somewhere I read a paper (I think it was someone's PhD thesis) on why British Shipowners stayed with coal fired steam longer and were slow to adopt diesel power compared to Continental owners. As well as the reasons mentioned above another major reason suggested was that many shipowners also had large financial interests in the coal industry.

It was a paper for the IMarE. I think it may well be on this thread somewhere; I can remember downloading it. It was British - specific, describing such engines as the Still 🤮 and the Fullagar, and another where the pistons were stationary, and the liner moved🫣. Some of the reasons for the slow adopption of the large - bore slow - speed diesel were as you mentioned, vested interested in coal production (particularly in the North - East of England), and the innate conservatism of British shipowners. Yet; all 10 British merchants in the Pedestal convoy were motorships; I wonder whether that was something to do with the trades they were involved with, i.e. long passages to India and the Far East?

On 02/08/2023 at 16:32, The Johnster said:

When will we get to the dogs, that's what I want to know...

 

What are occasional tables the rest of the time, and what is the urgency that requires one to tear along the dotted line?  Why does it say 'Road Works' when it clearly doesn't, which is why they're digging it up, and what are part time traffic signals when they're not working, occasional tables perhaps?.

 

Ah, here's nurse with the nice pills and restraints for me..

If you take a ride on the DLR from Bank, you should be O.K.