Vanders

My usual watering hole was The Shakespeare, a magnificently grotty, traditional pub in Prince St next door to the Arnolfini. The beer there was always very good - well kept by the landlord Phil who, ironically, was himself a teetotaller.

Still there, still fairly grotty, and I can't say the beer is "good" these days!

I was disgusted by the mens toilets in the Old Duke last time I was in there: they'd actually renovated them! It just isn't the same...

Yup, the latest news is that the casting for the single-slip K crossings are finalised and he'll be putting together the single-slip kits soon.

I bet a rake of abandoned chemical tankers, likely without any paperwork to prove what they might have carried, were a complete bundle of laughs to dispose of...

They serve as a corrective to any rose-tinted view of the past; most of them look grubby, drab and cheerless - and crying out to be modelled.

I am seriously tempted by the Lord Nelson! I can see it now; early 60's inner city Bristol, run down traffic on the last years of the Clifton Extension Railway, dirty grimy pubs & 2 up-2 downs scheduled for demolition...

We do move buildings around by rail, although maybe without the steam engines. Ceausescu especially loved to shift buildings around, it seems!

Does anybody have any pictures of the Filton Bank quad-tracking? I'd particularly love to see any pictures of Lawrence Hill if there's been any progress there!

The Class 15 Preservation Society used to be have an excellent blog that was updated weekly with latest progress. Over time it's slowly but surely atrophied, until today where it hasn't seen an update since September. Does anybody know what the current situation is with the group? I appreciate everybody is a volunteer, but blogs like those are invaluable for people like me to track progress (and occasionally donate to appeals!) of projects; it's such a shame to see such a great blog slowly slide away like it has.

As I discovered very recently, pre-1970's wiring in the Netherlands used Red for Neutral and GREEN for the Live! Earth of any description is a luxury. Luckily this is bleedin' obviously not an Earth when it's one of only two wires you discover in the back of a light switch...

seems to be getting increasingly politically correct.  How long until we hear from the horizontally challenged controller?

If the production company is on a mission to appease the PC and social justice warriors, gender diversity will no doubt be figuring too.

A bi-mode train will probably take on a different dimension to what we understand by the concept ...........and goodness knows what sort of coupling arrangements will be "approved of".

Can we not?

Brussels really isn't my favourite place, however I love Antwerp which is a great city.

Brussels is a dump. Ghent & Antwerp are both lovely, though.

Generally, only if you live in a big town or city is Public transport viable.

Even then "viable" can depend a lot on what you're willing to put up with. When I lived in Bristol until recently, I'd have described public transport (buses, and mostly nothing but buses) as "barely functional".

 Both articles make good reading , and by people from the others country ,

but both fail to take into account population size ,

 

 Amsterdam , population of 813,562 in the city limits .

 

  London , 8.63 million, and that is a 2015 figure .

I'm not sure how that applies to the planning (or lack) of the Cycle Superhighways in London. If anything that's an even stronger argument that there should be far more, and far better, cycling infrastructure: if Amsterdam has that infrastructure for only 815,000 people, London should be 10x better!

On the subject of cycling in London, I came across these two blog posts recently. Compare & contrast?

https://robertweetman.wordpress.com/2017/10/12/what-nobody-told-me-1/

https://ssj3gohan.tweakblogs.net/blog/11985/city-cycling-in-london-is-a-joke

Given that the article doesn't say anything about the cause, along with the number of cases mentioned in this thread where the error has been on the signaller's side, isn't it a bit early to come to such a conclusion?

A failure by the signaller would still be a failure to operate the crossing correctly.

Another apparent failure to correctly operate a User Worked Crossing correctly: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-suffolk-41628421

IIRC there never was a third rail, power was supplied through the running rails exactly the same as a model railway DC system. Undoubtedly as they operated at a greater voltage than a model railways 12 volts battery operation is a necessity for health and safety.

There was a 3rd central power rail, with the return via. the running rails. You can see it in the various pictures in http://www.placehacking.co.uk/2011/04/24/security-breach-london-mail-rail/

For obvious reasons it's not a great idea to run a live 3rd rail at ground level were members of the public will be, so they had to remove it and rely on battery power.

Perhaps people are finally coming to their senses and working elsewhere rather than commuting in an out of London by their millions every day?

Many many moons ago there was somewhere a list of car alternatives for spray paint.  Don't have a clue where it would be but if there is an alternative to these troublesome cans surely a list could be useful once more.

 

EDIT

 

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/41328-colour-matches-for-halfords-rattle-cans/&do=findComment&comment=443694

But does anyone know of a suitable Halfords replacement for things like "Track Dirt"?

Quite amazing how many things come over-fused because the manufacturers seem to stick a 13 amp fuse in everything irrespective of its actual load, right down to table lamps!  I had a breaker blow and on carefully hunting through everything was able to isolate the culprit because the fault re-occurred and the plug fuse didn't blow but the breaker did.

It's also amazing how difficult it is to find 7A & 10A fuses anywhere, so of course anything over 5A tends to get a 13A fuse because it's the only one large enough that can be obtained.

Judging by whats being put up to carry the wires and signals there must be a worry that we are going to be experiencing hurricanes of Irma strength ,no wonder the costs are spiralling out of control .

I'm not going to rehash the discussion so I'll suggest you should go back and read the numerous posts in this very thread that answer that observation/complaint.

There are about as many ways to build a baseboard as there are ways to lay out the track on it! Different people will swear by different methods, and different methods are suitable for different uses, sizes & various other constraints. Fashion also dictates to a certain extent; 20 years ago people would still swear to use softwood with Sundeala as a surface, but you're unlikely to find anyone advocating for it these days.

This is one of those topics that seems like it'd be good for one of the magazines to cover; build a baseboard with different method then test & rate the finished item against various criteria? I dunno, it seems like it'd certainly be a good way to fill some pages to me!

The BBC have a short video showing the work going on to install the rigid conductor inside of Chipping Sodbury tunnel.

I recall reading somewhere that the stones at Stonehenge had been interfered with about 60 or so years ago, or am I imagining that?

There have been various "restorations" over the years, including 1954. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonehenge#Archaeological_research_and_restoration

Although if you're worried about that, forget Avebury: that has definitely been interfered with over the years and the present position of the stones is essentially whatever Alexander Keiller felt was correct at the time.

Mind you, if Stonehenge looks a mess because of the closeness of the A303, Avebury, much bigger, might be off putting because of the way a village was plonked in it and a main road goes right through the middle. I'm enjoying your trip immensely, Great pictures, thank you.

I'm more offended by the current food & drink offered by the Red Lion than I ever was by the relatively minor road running through the centre of Avebury 

I have taken American friends to both Stonehenge (too many times: even one of the wonders of the ancient world gets a bit tiresome after your fifth trip...) and Avebury, and they've always been more interested in Avebury!

education, using some suitably graphic images of real-life cases could be an option - but then NR would probably be sued for giving them PTSD

Time to start showing The Finishing Line and the like in schools again? It's even on YouTube so it should be easy enough.