Sheffield

It seems one major problem in the future will be the lack of old photographs. Talk to older people about some local event and they may bring out some old photo album which shows some detail not previously noticed. Now that photographs are mostly stored on some sort of electronic device, when that dies the pictures disappear. In the future there will be a considerable lack of detail about early 21st century life.

I would agree the loco is British built by Hunslet. or possibly Hudswell Clark. But I would also suggest it has been fitted with a replacement boiler, and one available has been made to fit, The smokebox fit looks rather amateurish, The man in the cab is sitting on something, making him seem smaller he really was. i do not have to hand a Hunslet list, but Hudswells sent the following 0-6-0ST s to Russia it seems. 421 of 10 May 1894 to St Petersburg 15inch cylinders 488 31 March 1898 to St Petersburg "Novorossisk" is mentioned Both 15 inch outside cylinders 592 31 July 1901 to Heirs of Paul Demidoff 16 inch outside cylinders. All sent via S G Martin (agents) They all seem a bit young to need a new boiler by 1902, but the general look of the loco is not of a much older one.

Short term contracts based on price, with senior executives receiving huge bonuses judged by short term results. It was always going to end in tears. it started fifty years ago, with tendered maintenance contracts and my only surprise is that it has taken so long.

There seems to be many variations, and much confusion about what is and should happen. Is that because DaFT is involved?

While I agree there are many facets to this sorry story, over recent years we have seen a number of major business failures and issues, including the banks. They all have two things in common. 1 Many "ordinary" people suffer greatly as a consequence. 2 The Senior Management and Directors suffer very little. They go from very rich to just a bit less very rich. If these situations are to be avoided those in charge have to suffer personally, in a significant way. If there is already provision in the law than it should be enforced. If not changed. Other wise they will continue to happen. But too many people make a lot of money from money, so I doubt if there will be any significant change. Banking rules are already being relaxed, allowing it all to start again. At least Maxwell did the decent thing.

Although we lament the closure of the Woodhead route, and many people complain of that closure because it was a "modern electrified railway", I have long thought the fact that it was modernised was, eventually, the kiss of death. It was electified on a system that was quickly outdated, and it became an outmoded oddity. Had modernisation come a few years later when 25KV was the choice we may still be able to ride through Woodhead.

Although we can not, and should not, go back to the days before limited liability, it does seem to me to be time some change was made to company law to make senior managers and directors more personally responsible for the company they manage and direct. In all these major company failures the executives responsible seem to be able to walk away with their pots of gold, leaving others to suffer the losses. Example Towers and his chums at BL, and more recently Greedy Green at BHS. It does seem to be time that if a company such as Carillions goes down, those at the top who ran it go down with it. I am sure there would be much less risk taking and poor management as a consequence. However I can not see MPs welcoming such a change, for obvious reasons.

There is a precedent for bailing out failing companies. The politicians were quick to bail out the banks when they were failing, but not, it seems, non-banking companies.

They have already stopped payments to their pension fund, and, as mentioned, have been in trouble for some time. There was talk of a company from China buying them to gain access to markets in Europe, but it may be just talk.

In th longer term we may come to think China has done us a favour, by forcing us away from the throw away mind set that has developed over the last sixty years or so.

I would think this would be a good idea. Central is a little nearer to town than Lea Road, and much near Marshall's Yard. There was a suggestion when Marshall's Yard first opened that trains should run to Central to serve it, but presumably no body was prepared to fund it. Also it would be easier to reverse a train at Central than Retford, without blocking the line for other trains.

There is currently on Television an advertisment, by Barclays Bank I believe, warning about fraudulent websites that take money with no intention of supplying that goods. Given the length of time this has been going on I agree with Turk Burners view, and find it disturbing that Officialdom can not apparently stop Coopercraft or their web site.

Bearing in mind how much time and money has been spent just talking about restoring the sensible East-West route restoration between Oxford and Cambridge, and how far that has got as a result I do not see this Woodhead idea going very far. In fact I don't think there will be any significant rail route restorations in England. The ones that have been achieved, such as Worksop-Nottingham for example, have had considerable local authority support, and these bodies don't have any money these days. The recent words from Government are just "sounds good" not real intent.

The Enderby branch ended in what was in effect a loop. The MR/LMS/BR loco pushed the empty wagons up from Narborough into one side, where it left them. The loco then collected the loaded wagons from the other side of the loop and hauled them back down the hill to the mainline at Narborough. The quarry loco would collect the empty wagons from the other end of the loop, taking them into the works to be loaded. After it would leave them in the "loaded wagon" side for collection by the next days BR trip. When I first knew the branch there was often a brake van at the leading end of the train which complicated matters a little, but later the van was generally left off.

A form of bull head rail chaired track is common in France. I can envisage the new track being popular there.

I have learnt to take these "announcements" with a pince of salt. They sound good, but often seem to be either announcements of somethimg that has already been announced, or just something that gets subsequently lost and forgotten. It seems to me to be more a case of politicans wanting to sound good than anything actually worth while. Electrification Paddington to Swansea, the Midland Mainline, and across the Pennines east to west. Yes right.

The only way this proposal makes any sense is if we consider it to be the thin end of a wedge. Larger longer driverless lorries is what they are after. The road haulage industry has been pushing for bigger lorries ever since the last size increase was allowed. Unfortunately the only fully renewable resource the plant has in great abundance is human labour, which if left unused causes trouble and expense. Anything that removes the need for human labour is selfish and shortsighted. Just like big business and politicans.

A little while ago efforts were made to allow articulated lorries to tow a trailer. but it was refused as it was thought the resultant vehicle would be too long for the UK's roads.. So how can what will be in effect a single vehicle as long as 3 articulated lorroes be acceptable? They will have to remain close togther, but what if in an emergancy a small car tries to push in between them, perhaps not realising that they can not separate to let the car in? The idea that there would be less congestion is just nonsence, and the reduction in fuel comsumption would be quite small. However doing away with two drivers is the main advantage, and the reason why the road transport industry is pushing the idea. But what happens when the convoy reaches the end of the motorway? Where will it go to wait while two more drivers take over the two rear lorries? Hard shoulder? But they are doing away with them, to get bigger motorways on the cheap. It will not be long before the industry pushes to be allowed to run them on ordinary roads; "just to the nearest depot" they will claim. All this, together with the cutting back of electrification does seem to indicate that the present government is less in favour of the railways, and is going back to prefering the roads. Three of four lorries running as one unit is not far short of a train, in economic terms. .

Unlike previous changes in technologies I suggest this is the first major change where change is being forced on users. When the motor car appeared, there was no pressure on those who used horses to change. Almost all did so because of the advantages of the new technology, but any who wished could have continued to use a horse, for example. However many cities are planning to ban, or have already banned, older diesels, and will in future ban all ic vehicles and these bans will spread out of the cities. In not many years one will not be allowed to continue with the older technology.. It may improve the air quality in the cities, but will do little for overall pollution. And if pollution is such a problem when will the world leaders stop fighting their various wars? they must cause a good deal of global warming.

It was some surprise to me that so much notice has been taken of this announcement. Does this government really think what they say will be taken into account by a government in place in twenty years time? The last government told us that in future the law would require that there would be five years between general elections. Look how long that idea lasted. The next lot just ignored it..

I took to using 31.5 because of the excellent track gauges Debs used to make available, and I have not regreted it at all.

I am not sure about the lack of interest in industrial locos. I am interested certainly, and build my owm. But I do not want any of the ones in the poll, so did not see a reason to vote.

I have used some French blackening solution I purchased at great cost from a French gun shop. It produced an excellent finish as regards appearance, but it an insulating finish. Not much use for driving wheels, and I am having to carefully remove it from the working surfaces. Might be worth a trial run with your choosen product.

Clearly BR did not directly take back copper fireboxes from scrapped locos, but there may well have been an agreement with the copper processors under which the scrap yards sent an agreed weight of scrap copper from fireboxes for processing into wire for BR. Indeed BR may have retained ownership of the copper throuhout the process. BR's electification demands for wire could have increased the cost of copper wire, and BR may have wanted to try to reduce this increase by making use of the copper thay already owned. This would also explain why BR would want an extra payment for any locos sold on and not scrapped, as they would have lost the value of the copper involved.

Interesting. The Discovery I have been using for the last six years was built for the Greater Manchestet police apparently.