Gwiwer

Me too!!! Disgusterous objects which the Aussies seem to enjoy. Likewise those ridiculous little yellow squashes that turn up on roasts and at takeaway food stalls. Bland, tasteless (even when buttered / seasoned) and like eating a mouthful of cotton wool in my opinion. But Dr SWMBO, who has grown up eating pumpkins, enjoys them. She misses the Aussie ones; most which are sold here are for decorative use rather than eating. We do occasionally find a farm shop selling edible varieties which are then roasted. Anything left over is souped. She also grew up eating Vegemite for which I have now forgiven her. Largely because she converted to Marmite. Give me a good roast parsnip any day. You can keep your tasteless and hard-to-cut lumpkins.

Daffodils or the other things? 🤣

Daffing nicely here too. Ours are some sort of dwarf variety. We don’t know what’s planted until it grows and shows. First-year garden y’know. In other news the weather has been akin to a zebra crossing; black and white stripes. Fierce downpours followed by bright sunlight. The overnight wind has eased and it’s quite warm for Feb-brewery. Dr SWMBO was dropped in town to attend a talk after lunch. In the 90 minutes wait until she was done I grabbed a Costa coffee (and a cake) then wandered into Mountain Warehouse. Finding they had a half-price sale AND an extra 20% off at the till I came out with several pairs of spare boot and shoe laces, several pairs of calf-high hiking socks and a rather nice green check shirt. All for £24. The ethics or otherwise of having all the major stores out of town and virtually inaccessible by public transport, also of selling cheap clothing made (in this case) in Bangladesh where workers are probably paid very poorly and work in dreadful conditions is not lost on me. But that’s where the world is in 2024. I could go to M&S and maybe buy British there (but probably not) for an extra 16 miles of fuel burned. And they don’t sell real “outdoor gear”. A few of these things are still running. Here seen awaiting departure for Plymouth as more “weather” flung itself down.

What about a replacement interior? The purists will shudder but it’s perfectly possible to paint a red line over one window bay and add “Buffet” and Sc90xx decals to a Bachmann product.

Only about 23 miles or so for me. (Of course it depends on the location of "Washington".) There’s one in West Sussex around 8 miles north of the coast at Sunny Worthing. It used to be on the A24 road thence to London but has been by-passed for many years now. Just one of several. But one of the several which is not so well known.

As ERs will know I suffer from the dreaded gout in my feet at times. Usually the most inconvenient times when I have some sort of requirement to walk on them planned or (until retirement) was required to stand on them for several hours at a time without rest. The bout which struck just before C******s last year hasn't really cleared at all and has become a niggling discomfort most of the time. I suspect it might be developing into a more permanent problem. It does respond to the usual treatments but I can't take Indometacin every day for ever. Apart from anything else (such as build-up in the system leading to reduced effectiveness) it causes me a fuzzy head. I can take cherry juice but that isn't always available. I try to keep 2 litres in stock and re-order as soon as I use one but even the resources of the Amazon cannot always supply. It has to be the tart stuff, not the sugar-syrup "cherry drink".

Sounds like one of Harry Potters wizard spells If only. If only HP and his chums could flick their wands and remove the pain and discomfort. Plantar fasciitis is excruciating. The Dragon-in-Law had surgery which was supposed to correct the problem. It was unsuccessful (and / or bodged) and she has been left with intermittent severe pain. A friend still suffers and takes more than her fair share of days off work.

You know of such things? Shall we ask more questions or not?

Absolutely. Just as the current vogue for asking us all to "Wait until the train has come to a complete stop" is utterly ridiculous. It is either stopped or it is not; there is no such thing as a partial or complete stop. Good morning all. A brighter day has arrived at the Distant (Signal) West after a torrential amount of rain last night. Driving over to collect Dr. SWMBO was to say the least interesting; driving back she commented that "those are very big rain lumps - they're too big for drops". It also transpires that her train was the last to get through the south Dartmoor section before the line was yet again closed due to torrents washing over the track. I wonder what is wrong there. It hasn't been a known problem until recently but Brent has flooded every time rain has fallen in recent months. It's not the first time Dartmoor has had heavy and sustained rainfall either. The line currently remains closed. Today's festival of frustration has included the computer very firmly saying "No" for over an hour when started up; it took a lengthy clean and several re-boots before it would do anything useful. Allegorically Apple is rumoured to have the ability to slow down Macs by some means - possibly by the filling of memory space with junk when the system updates itself. This has never been proven but many Mac users know that no matter what they do the computer slows down over time and suddenly comes to a stop. A complete stop. We suspect it is Apple cunningly trying to get us to buy the latest models through slowing or stopping the functionality of older ones. Does anyone remember de-fragging a PC? Does one still need to do that? I haven't ever used a PC at home.

I see no reference yet to the FB-type "flat brakes" which LT used for some years. IIRC these were 4-wheelers with a small guard's compartment and a small open area for the carriage of tools , coal or anything else. FB578/579 were built in 1936 and weighed 18 tons

34 at the time this livery was used meant Victoria - Brighton semi-fast via Redhill. 66 was Victoria - East Grinstead 3514 would have been used on both so either headcode is perfectly good. As would be many others.

Most that were built were TSOs not SOs. This was an old LNER designation (previously TTO of course - Tourist Third open) when more seats were put into "tourist" stock than crack express rakes. 2+2 seating has perpetuated this designation with TTO / TSO being found among Bulleid and other earlier designs before the BR Mk1 appeared. 2+1 SO seating was at one stage reserved for boat trains at least on the SR, and for some other workings where a bit more space was felt to be desirable. I found an SO on the West Highland Line once along with a BSOT - Brake Second (at the time) Open Trolley - with the tea-trolley parked in a bay from which the seats had been removed for that purpose. Unless you are accurately representing a specific train then you can always get away with TSOs in model form even if you renumber them into the SO series. No-one can see inside to count the seats at an exhibition after all.

I am watching the progress of 1C92 tonight. Normally it would be 1C90 an hour earlier but Dr. SWMBO was obliged to travel later tonight. The progress is depressingly familiar. Steadily losing time. This is a 9-car set which I am told is moderately loaded. Dr. SWMBO would have no idea whether any engines were out.

I won't say it's filthy outside but we have a yellow warning for heavy rain. There is no chance of anyone seeing the rain for the fog though e can hear it falling. Yuk. I'm hoping some of it lifts by half past 22 tonight when I have to collect Dr. SWMBO off the train. If the fog's down in town it is always twice as thick over the moors.

Hitachi seems to have found a way to address capacity issues. Tonight’s 17.03 Paddington - Penzance is booked for 802102+802013. 14 carriages 😮 Clearly that won’t happen but the thought occurred to me that someone somewhere has been following this topic.

GWR is the carrier responsible for how many passengers are aboard their trains whether correctly formed or not and for preventing a dangerous overload by limiting that access. If they in turn were to take action against Hitachi for failure to provide the trains per contract and either of those then sued the DaFT on what ever grounds they could find those would be, to my mind, different matters.

The contract created when a ticket is held (whether purchased by the user, by a third party, issued free of charge or by other means) requires the operator to convey the passenger between the stated points by the most expedient means. No guarantee is offered that a seat will be available (even if reserved / allocated) nor that the journey will even be made by train. The reservation system always blocks out a small number of seats for use by Duty Pass holders. These cannot be reserved. If the train is full and standing pass-holders should allow fare-paying customers to be seated. Standing has long been the unenviable lot of the commuter as demand exceeds capacity. Usually at peak times and closer to major cities. It remains the target that no person shall be obliged to stand fir more than 20 minutes; when this target is breached the train is carrying “passengers in excess of capacity”, PIXC in jargon and sometimes alliterated to “pixies”. As train speeds increased and journey times shortened - notably when the HST sets arrived - so long-distance commuting became an option. The early morning trains from Leeds to Kings Cross were full and standing all the way. Often with construction workers. Just prior to Covid the railways were carrying the largest number of passengers ever recorded in peace-time. That was unsustainable. Too many trains were too crowded for too long. The bubble was leaking before Covid burst it overnight - passenger numbers into London Waterloo had already peaked around 2018. It is uncomfortable to have to stand. It can mean everyone on the train is uncomfortable. Intrusion by others into what space you have is unavoidable. Access to the toilets can be difficult. Dr SWMBO (who must be seated for medical reasons) once found herself unable to reach the cubicle in good time and when she did she found it was occupied by four passengers with nowhere else to stand. I managed to photograph the overcrowded conditions (which persisted from London to Exeter) and sent the images to GWR. Their response was that so long as one could board the train it was “not overcrowded”. I estimated that in our coach alone there were at least 70 people standing, crouched under or on tables or otherwise unable to take a seat. That is almost double the seated capacity of the carriage. At what point does it become dangerous?

Because at the time Ongar was the farthest point on the network from the centre. That section of line closed leaving Epping as the terminus but Chesham as the most distant. To have remeasured the entire London Underground network and re-post every plate (LU distance plates are fixed at 200m intervals) would have been wasteful so the zero-point at Ongar was retained. The railway to Ongar is now in the hands of a private heritage operator who has been required to retain the zero post. It is still there at Ongar station but not at the end of the line. It was installed some 10m from the stop-block and there it remains meaning in theory all LU distances are “out” by around 10m. Another curiosity of this arises where lines meet. Not necessarily at physical junctions; distances are also “transferred” at interchange stations. The Central and District Lines stop either side of an island platform at Mile End for example. Distance from Ongar increases westbound and that is “transferred” to the westbound District Line where they meet. Distance therefore continues to increase on both lines as they take their differing routes through town. They meet again at Ealing Broadway where there is a “change of distance” (the District being a little longer than the Central” just as occurs on the “big railway”. What of the eastbound District Line? As posted distance increases west from Mile End so it decreases eastbound. Until the end of that line near Cranham in the vast Upminster depot sidings. But it doesn’t reach zero. So the “origin” of the District Line is at something like 10kms not 0kms. The distance has “reduced towards Ongar” The same is true for all other LU lines.

You do know that if you go to bed earlier you have to wake later to make up for it.

Radio Luxembourg was famed for its fade-out. Caused by atmospheric conditions which interrupted the Medium-Wave band and particularly the lower end of it as evening passed into night. Luxembourg broadcast on 208mMW. Caroline also faded and often wasn't available at all but that was as much to do with the sea conditions and the lower power of their transmitters. After pirate radio became unlawful the power was turned down a bit more to evade detection. Caroline used several different wavelengths over the years but iirc it was 219mMW for much of its time. I did my best to listen to both on the tiny and equally low-powered battery transistor radio which I could hide under the pillow and play quietly whilst crawled down under the blankets. The frustrating thing was that if only you could hear it the music got better as the signal got worse. Emperor Rosco (Mike Pasternak) and David "Kid" Jensen were on the late night shifts until closedown of the UK service at 3am but you seldom heard anything worthwhile after around 1am because of the fade. There was also a certain Jimmy Savile on Luxembourg who knew his audience and named his show the "Under the Bedclothes Club". History has determined that there could have been a most unfortunate double meaning to that.

I agree. South from Edinburgh (and indeed for the sole trips they make to Stirling and Glasgow) this is an all-electric railway. These trains are designed to be straight electrics. They work well and run well under such circumstances. The small number of trips to Aberdeen and the sole Inverness duty, all of which were under threat at one time because no change of power was envisaged meaning the electric "Azumas" would not have been able to offer through services, cope with conditions although I am told that the Inverness run can find it more of a challenge than the HST did. Direct Aberdeen / Inverness - London trains were effectively bailed out by the Holyrood Parliament who pressed for direct services and were rightly advised that "some" of the new trains would have "last mile" diesel power packs to enable off-juice operation. The "last-mile" concept was for self-rescue and slow-speed diversions when required but they have been uprated, as I understand it, to "full spec" bi-modes. The open-access operations, free to specify their own fit-out, have more comfortable and arguably more popular trains within the same style of body shell. I wonder why.

Not at all! I remain very firmly in my sixties and shall be fomr some years to come. And yes I started "spotting" in the 1960s; noting names and numbers of those lovely diesel-hydraulics arriving at Penzance. Which somehow reminds me ..... when do we get another class 42, Mr. Bachmann? The 43s a few years back were lovely but the last 42 was when, exactly?

The topic began with the mass grounding arising from fractures being found in critical parts of the suspension and elsewhere. In the natural course of events we have moved on and so has the IET fleet. Eastleigh (I believe) and others are churning out "rectified" sets as fast as they can and it has become apparent that the violent lurching and bumping once common when these things were new has almost vanished. Some of those lurches were quite alarming; a loud thud as you were thrown sideways at around 123mph* caused more than one passenger to activate the alarm bringing the train to an abrupt halt. And of course causing delays to all others behind it. The majority of IET cars are 26 metres long; some of the most recent are / will be shorter. That excess length, greater than anything we have had before, causes issues on curves and at platforms as the kinematic window (envelope in some literature) has had to be adjusted to accept such long vehicles. Another "thing" is that despite a general post-Covid recovery it has become apparent that the WoE trains (at least) and (I believe) the Bristol service is haemmoraging passengers. Trains which were once always filled and with standees now offer empty seats. Dr. SWMBO is a regular user of the 17.03 Paddington - Penzance which at one time could have been relied upon to be full at least to Exeter and well-loaded to Plymouth. She tells me that she is now often one of just a few in her carriage all the way down. Long-term industrial action has had its impact on loadings as has repeated service interruptions due to bad weather. Covid affected the railways as we all know but in some areas recovery - especially for leisure travel - has bounced back to 100% of previous patronage and is widely at 80%. Seating quality, service reliability (persistent lateness and, especially on Up runs, terminating short of destination at Reading) and to an extent the absence of meaningful catering will all also have made dents in customer confidence. Even I now drive in preference to taking the train when the need arises to be at the other end of the line. Because I cannot sit comfortably on one of those things for 5 - 6 hours and I cannot rely on them getting me where I need to be "on time" (not even "within ten minutes of advertised time" which somehow counts as "on time") and because in the car I can stop at any suitable point for rest and refreshment rather than hoping a trolley comes through at some point offering the barest minimum of cold drinks and crisps / chocolates. There is seldom anything more even when the advertised trolley does appear. Which has been on fewer than half of all trains used across the past year. * Not 125mph because the cruise control on these sets seems to be set slightly below the maximum permitted speed. Another reason why they lose a time. None ever seems to cruise at 125mph as the HSTs usually did.

Afternoon all. Busy busy today therefore the weekly MRC visit was, to use railway parlance, caped. I have been attempting to extract superannuation funds from Aussie sources who are most reluctant to deal in anything other than Aussie Dollars and who stubbornly refuse to pay into anything other than a "fair dinkum" Aussie bank account. Surely they must have other members who retire "overseas" and no longer have any financial connection with the Land Downunder? I am also now engaged in learning the ropes - somewhat literally - for the NCI Coastwatch role having been accepted as a Trainee Watchkeeper. It has not gone unnoticed that "Cornish spelling" has crept into the website area detailing Cape Cornwall's kit and kaboodle. Yup. Maybe not easy words for everyone to spell but there are ways to check if you really wanted to. In truth spelling is not the prime function of watch-keepers; get the basics right and we'll come to the other stuff dreckly! One week out from the proof-reading deadline on the book too so I have a lot to do in a fairly short space of time. Did anyone say retirement was going to be a quiet life with my feet up? Hey - I might even get to the pub sometime soon!!!

A closure by stealth then. No formal proposal has ever been published for several miles of track which has had an advertised passenger service over it. Anyone out there want to take a "no win no fee" case?