byron

Just after coarrived shortly afterg the rental car we called in at Vancouver WA station. The West bound Empire Builder arrived not long g after, o my about two hours late. The other day it was about ten hours late so it was doing well today.

 

Near enough for "country working" as we Controllers used to say.

 

Mike

Let the perfect driver be the one to cast the first stone!

Mike

Just been looking up flights to Prague from airports up north as next Easter looks like we have a wedding to attend.on the Saturday.

 

Tried Liverpool to Prague and got a price for £830 taking 18 hours via Dubai and Paris.

 

Think we will give that flight a miss

Go by train and enjoy the journey!

Mike

Afternoon all

 

Sorry Dick has had a nasty piece of news. We hoped last week would put an end to it for a while here, didn't we?

Deb spent her early teen years on Malta and we then had a week there in 1976. She found Strait Street and we had a couple of drinks in a bar - it was persisting down in true Med fashion outside. There was a row of "ladies" sat at the bar, each keeping an eye on the weather ready to await the return of the sun and the punters, no doubt.

 

Much cooler overnight, at last. I had had a late call to join Alison and sons for dinner - she was getting brassed-off with the current volunteer, Cory from Pheonix, AZ and relies on me to make her laugh. Sherry will attest to the fact that I enjoy making women laugh - and that's without even taking my clothes off! Dinner being over we than took the young border-collie-cross bitch for a lengthy walkie, enabling Alison to see what was going on at her lover's farm, and even hear his harridan of a wife leading off at him about something. Earlier in the week that walk would have been hard work - but the temperature was perfect for the 2-3 mile trek.

 

Final sorting out and packing today, as I'm off first thing. As this trip is something of an afterthought - Sherry's good idea, really - I had thought of having a couple of days around London, but the short-term prices for normally-affordable hotels were just silly, so I'm straight to Torquay off the Eurostar tomorrow. And guess what - FGW are apparently on strike from Wednesday for a couple of days, so I'd have struggled to get there at all, as SW Trains would be bums-out-windows to Exeter, and I don't like taking a free seat on such occasions.

 

Hope your week goes well.

Ian, you paid for your seat with blood, sweat and tears. Oh as I understand you have been a Controller, banging your head against a brick wall as well.

Mike

Morning all from Estuary-Land. Thanks Robert for those excellent pics, took me back over 40 years ago when I visited that part of Germany. I stayed with German friends in Oppau, a suburb of Ludwigshafen-am-Rhein. Highlight of my first stay was a trip to Bad Durkheim by the tramway/light railway (interurban?) that connected with the interlinked Mannheim/Ludwigshafen system. At the time it was a fascinating system using articulated (Dewag?) cars, it left Mannheim using the street tracks but as soon as it was in open countryside it became a double track 'main line' where the cars moved at considerable speed. But when the line came to a village it went down to a single track wending its way through the village street(s). As the cars were single ended the terminus at Bad Durkheim was a large loop with various sidings some of which were occupied by wagons loaded with grapes (it is a wine growing region) the wagons appeared to be converted from old tramcars going by the low frames, rather like a bus converted to a lorry, I saw no sign of whatever hauled these wagons alas. It was also possible to travel east to Heidelberg by another connected tram system meaning that it was possible to travel a considerable distance (IIRC 50 to 60 kilometres) from Bad Durkheim to Heidelberg entirely by tram using the rails of only five systems, something I wanted to do but alas was never able too.

Phil, I recall that a couple of 4 wheeler diesel loco's were used for both ballast trains and the odd bit of freight. I have spent an hour or so (a clear choice of helping with the housework or a bit of rail study) hoping to find a bit of information. No luck, sorry.

Mike

Interesting to know how long it took. And is it possible to do the same trip today?

We did break our journey at suitable "watering holes", a case of off one, down a beer, on the next. It was in the late '70s so my recall is not that good. I think the trip should be do-able still.

Mike

Morning all from Estuary-Land. Thanks Robert for those excellent pics, took me back over 40 years ago when I visited that part of Germany. I stayed with German friends in Oppau, a suburb of Ludwigshafen-am-Rhein. Highlight of my first stay was a trip to Bad Durkheim by the tramway/light railway (interurban?) that connected with the interlinked Mannheim/Ludwigshafen system. At the time it was a fascinating system using articulated (Dewag?) cars, it left Mannheim using the street tracks but as soon as it was in open countryside it became a double track 'main line' where the cars moved at considerable speed. But when the line came to a village it went down to a single track wending its way through the village street(s). As the cars were single ended the terminus at Bad Durkheim was a large loop with various sidings some of which were occupied by wagons loaded with grapes (it is a wine growing region) the wagons appeared to be converted from old tramcars going by the low frames, rather like a bus converted to a lorry, I saw no sign of whatever hauled these wagons alas. It was also possible to travel east to Heidelberg by another connected tram system meaning that it was possible to travel a considerable distance (IIRC 50 to 60 kilometres) from Bad Durkheim to Heidelberg entirely by tram using the rails of only five systems, something I wanted to do but alas was never able too.

A few lunatics friends and I spent a very happy day doing just that trip. And could prove that British Railwaymen were just as good at holding our beer as our DB counterparts. Next day in the office our boss asked what had we done over the weekend. On hearing about our jaunt and how long it took, he looked at the DB timetable and spent the next week wondering if he had sad cases working for him.

Germany in those days was a paradise for rail enthusiasts.

Mike

Tch, had a post all written and the desktop crashed.....bloomin Windaz....

 

Nice to see the note from Jock - hope your day wasn't too bad, mate.

 

Manflu still taking a grip, I thought I was getting better but my sinuses are now filled with concrete that seems to have the properties of expanding foam - my head hurts.

 

Simon, hand raking a lawn is a nightmare.  Jayne bought a cheapo QnB type electric scarifier last year which we borrowed, it only went a few feet and it was full, and our lawn looked OK beforehand as we regularly feed and de-moss it! We ended up filling a couple of one tonne builders bags with moss, and it's not a huge lawn! The lawn looked like the Somme afterwards but soon grew back and looked well.  I can't find a recent photo of the lawn, this will have to do....

 

P1180492 (Medium).JPG

 

As for metric and imperial units, I was schooled in imperial, used metric for FE, and came across a log entry at sea of 'added two buckets of oil to No.2 Alternator', next to which the Chief had annotated 'metric or imperial buckets?' !!! 

 

A few years ago we got some paving slabs which where 2'x2'x2", they were mighty heavy being two inches thick.  Jock may care to note this is where project X is to live......

 

edit - They're under that shed in the photo.....the rest are riven stone type, only one inch thick and much lighter - and metric!

I had to look thrice to even notice the lawn! Great railway.

Mike

U ho hum I forsee major problems ahead

It really was easier to get into and out of East Germany than the UK.

Mike

Thanks Ian - sorry to hear about the discomfort. I think I understand the pineapple reference, and I'll spare you an explanation. Though I might tell you about the old man in the hospital with the drill some time.

 

We have wooden shutters, but only on the ground floor, they need painting and they don't fit very well. My neighbour has the rollers but I've not been able to catch him in the last few days. I've only just managed, after 15 years, to persuade Julie that French people close their shutters at night and in bad weather for a reason (!) and we reckon we could keep the house a lot warmer. Rollers mean not going out in the wind and rain (and standing in a flower bed) to close them...

The "rollers - rolladen - I think you mean are pretty much standard in Germany. The parts of France that border on Germany also seem to have them fitted.

Is that a part of the world you can dig about in?

Is this link any help?

http://www.rollladen-growe.de/home

Mike

Flown with Ryanair once!!!

Should that be twice - or was it so bad you walked home?

Mike

'morning

Greetings from a very sunny North York Moors.

Much against my better judgment (out of nosiness) I looked at a few of the posts on the negativity thread. I will not return! This is a far more positive thread.

Happiness means different things to different people, but all I need is to be able to hold and cuddle my wife of 50 years.

Best wishes to all those suffering - I hope things improve. A special thank you to Jock, you are an inspiration.

Mike

Get the  bowel cancer screening test done soonest - that is one of those nasties that kills a lot of men -  my Dad included!   That one really IS a case of better safe than sorry!

Agreed - it is killing me!

Mike

Afternoon all - this is the first chance I have had to catch up today. 

 

I have just been to try to donate blood - I say try because it didnt work out too well!  The 'donor carer' just seemed to have trouble getting the needle into my vein.  As a result, it was considerably more uncomfortable than usual.  Eventually she says that it is OK now, but then comes back five minutes later and says that the blood flow is very slow, so then has a few more efforts to get the needle in correctly - each effort becoming more painful than the last.  Eventually she realises that it is not going to work and has to give up - much to my relief by then!  After well over 30 donations, I have never had this much trouble before.  Hopefully it wont put me off donating again, when the time comes around in 4 months.

 

On the subject of tips, the one in Frizington in West Cumbria not only has very helpful staff, but has the most wonderful view up into Ennerdale!  Almost worth going just for the view.

Could be that your arm is "empty". I can only get blood samples from my left arm - no matter how often the nurses try ( a lot in over 20 years) the right arm yields nowt. My "empty arm" comment lightens the frustration, and a pretty nurse smilingis a sight to behold.

Mike

Richard, I cannot tell how long this law has actually been in effect or whether there may have been different regulations for members of Allied armed forces or other agencies.

 

Basically, the law I'm referring to is commonly interpreted by experts as saying that while just standing by (or even taking sensational snapshots and posting them on Farcebook or forwarding them to certain tabloids – yes, the latter has sadly happened and even been encouraged by these so-called papers) and doing nothing is illegal, you should, when rendering assistance, always be mindful of your capabilities before putting yourself in danger or aggravating the situation of the person in distress. This also includes situations where, for example, a person is molested or attacked by an aggressor, especially if the latter is armed.

 

If in any kind of doubt as to whether you can ably assist a person in distress, you should definitely call the emergency services and tend to any injured persons to the best of your abilities until expert help arrives.

Stopping to assist with an accident was drummed into me during my driving test in Frankfurt (masochist) as far back as 1983!

Mike

Afternoon all,

Good to see that you arrived back safely Trev, though no doubt you have very mixed feelings considering what you've left behind!

Pete(trisonic), hope your daughter enjoyed the experience. I visited the Met on my last visit to New York but sadly, although I've been to that most vibrant of cities often, I've never managed to fit in a performance. Great pity as I've been to opera in many of the world's greatest venues! I do however comfort myself with lots of Sky Arts screenings of performances from the Met - Joanna moans about the amount of Sky+ memory that I've taken up. The productions are all so professional and the personnel who interview the stars in the intervals are always very informative. I just wish I had more time to watch them and if I copy many more, I'm going to have to work out the least expensive way to re-record them to DVD. Don't know if any ERs have achieved this and if so, is it possible without going out to buy an expensive DVD recorder? It would be great if you could simply plug something in to the box and transfer into my big computer where I could then edit but I don't know of any such device!

Mike, sounds like you had a lovely evening and I hope some gifts were forthcoming to help you mark the achievement! Enjoy the show today - one of my aims, if I get well enough, is to visit one of the better ones - it would be lovely to meet some of the RMweb friends in the flesh. Our grandson number three was twenty today, yet another of the constant reminders of just how old we are getting!

Hope for a trouble free weekend for you all,

Kind regards,

Jock.

Hi Jock

Sorry I am a bit late with this (old age!).

Try Tevion Home DVD Creator (Some available on Ebay).

or

Pinnacle Dazzle (http://www.pinnaclesys.com/PublicSite/uk/products/dazzle/dvd-recorder-hd/?gclid=CLSPgNDs_MICFWXHtAodwlYA1g).

Hope this helps.

Mike

Morning all,

 

 

 

Have a good day one & all

(and I think it best not to talk about the war lest we finish up arguing about it but in some respects what happened to Dresden in a single night, terrible though it was, was not as locally devastating as 5 Group's attack on Darmstadt in late 1944; it is alas all too easy to remember the headlines and forget the bylines when talking about past wars.)

I always wonder why in Darmstadt the huge Merk chemical factory was missed, in Frankfurt (Main) the IG Farben chemical complex managed only one bomb, and the Ford factory in Koeln was also spared - despite making tank engines.

My German friends were not slow to point these things out. Wonder what was "missed" near Dresden.

Mike

"Control, I want to report multiple UFOs. Over."

 

In my Control days we would demand a reporting number!

mfg

Mike

If in your opinion the WCML electrification  was spherically upward what about the ECML cut price electrification scheme and the recent appalingly installed Liverpool - Manchester electrification?

 

XF

Thankfully I was not invoved - once was enough.

Mike

Shades of the 60s again then......

 

(In that the original WCML scheme was paired back by said Treasury leaving mechanical signal boxes along the Trent Valley and onwards to Manchester / Liverpool plus the removal of Kidsgrove - Crewe from the scheme).

At the time, the WCML scheme was the biggest balls up since Uncle Eli's funeral. I can still remember the utter chaos of trying to run a railway through the (please choose your own phrase - mine would get me a ban from the forum).

I am still taking the pills!

Mike

Now that is unusual! Granted, it was unusual to see a Stanier pacific double heading anyway, but when it happened there were three basic rules:

 

The assisting engine had to lead

The assisting engine had to be a 4-4-0, 4-6-0 or 2-6-4T

Two (Stanier?) pacifics could not be run together.

 

Whether or not this last prohibition included other classes of pacifics or if here the rule was being broken, I cannot say.

May well have been a failed Duchess. It did happen.

Mike

I was Assistant Power Controller at Stoke during the last years of steam (my "boss" had the diesels - I had the fun steam). The remaining Britts at Crewe when not called upon to replace failed diesels north from Crewe were diagrammed on parcels and fitted freight.

Mike

Karma's a b1tch!

 

I got a Yodel driver suspended last year when the silly c*ckotter blocked the private access to our alleyway. He was abusive and threatening so I simply snapped a couple of pictures of the van, his middle finger, and the road sign. These were tweeted to Yodel and 'yplac'. 20 minutes later I was asked to file a formal complaint and did so. There are all sorts of site out there now like you park like a c**t, shame a driver, etc. Most delivery firms keep their eyes on the postings to watch for any bad publicity from their driver's actions.

 

Morning all from the sunny tropical paradise of DA16. aka the boring borough. Got up at stupid o clock on Saturday morning to make our way to the Tower of London before the masses descended upon it. Got there at 07:15 and it was already very busy. A few pics follow. The rest are on my photobucket @ http://s434.photobucket.com/user/andrewcocker/library/Poppies?sort=3&page=1

 

 

 

 

 

You must be very proud of yourself to have got that Yodel driver suspended - for what? - a minute or two parked where he shouldn't. Your attitude may have made him react the way he did.

And you have the nerve then to report about your visit to see the London poppies in the same post.

How easily wars can start.

Mike - not often ashamed of my fellow man.

Special offer in my nearest tesco today double pack (350 Grams each)of cathedral cheddar £6.50,

 individual 350Grams Cathedral Cheddar £2.00

No woder Aldi & Lidl are so succesful!

Mike