jamie92208

On 23/04/2024 at 06:53, pH said:

Five cars carrying scrap ties on fire in CPKC train passing through London, Ontario:

 

https://x.com/jmccall54/status/1782261594501554619

 

That is amazing.  I presume that they had brought the train to somewhere that thr fire brigade could access it. 

Apart from a lot of black Locos with big furnaces in them that I saw in my youth the nearest I ever got to seeing something like that was seeing a Class 47 heading north from Settle with dragging brakes on the loco. The tyres were glowing red. 

Jamie

1 hour ago, 4630 said:

There's a seven page article about the Transpennine Route Upgrade (TRU) in the May issue of Modern Railways.

 

Much of the content will be familiar to readers of this forum, but the article draws on input from Neil Holm, who is the TRU Managing Director, so IMHO should be the definitive version of the project, in terms of scope, and current and planned progress. 

 

 

 

Not yet Jamie, but I don't believe the instal was planned for during the recent rail line and Bradford Road closure.  It'll be during one of the later closures.

Thanks, I will hopefully receive MR later this week.  Sarah Bell uploaded another progress video and it showed them pumping concrete up to the viaduct on Bradford Road, obviously for footings for the new span. 

Jamie

1 hour ago, pH said:

Five cars carrying scrap ties on fire in CPKC train passing through London, Ontario:

 

https://x.com/jmccall54/status/1782261594501554619

 

That is amazing.  I presume that they had brought the train to somewhere that thr fire brigade could access it. 

Apart from a lot of black Locos with big furnaces in them that I saw in my youth the nearest I ever got to seeing something like that was seeing a Class 47 heading north from Settle with dragging brakes on the loco. The tyres were glowing red. 

Jamie

4 of the 5 TBM;s have phoned home today.

Sushilla on Northolt north has now completed 60% of her dive and is going at over 13m per day.   Caroline is a bit slower and is at 55% on 12m per day.   Emily on Northolt south is now at 205m and is starting to get speed up.   Anne, her partner in crime is at 53m so her tail will still be mainly in the open.  Mary Anne at Bromford seems to be having a go slow at just 4m in the last 15 days and is at 1980.

Jamie

2 hours ago, Dave Hunt said:

I always thought that special relativity was the reason that there are lots of funny people in remote parts of the Ozark mountains and suchlike.

 

Dave

Why just stick to the Ozarks and Brossleyyou can't forget the upper Spen Valley or Acre Road in South Leeds. 

Jamie

Good moaning from  a rather cool Charente where I now have time to upload the last few photos from last Tuesday at Angouleme.   

As the sun dipped Andy remarked that the only class that we hadn't seen was a 186 lo and behold 1186 180 appeared heading south.

Then  22388 headed north with more containers.

one of the few remaining Atlantique sets headed south.  I have head that they are having to be kept in service due to late deliveries of the new TGV M's

Finally as the light was going and it was time for us to head home another 186 non 313 came north.

All in all a very pleasant and productive afternoon.

Jamie

A quick good evening from a house where French has been the main language since yesterday lunchtime as our longest known French friends are staying. We've known them since 1996.  Last night's digestif was the last of the Glengoyne cask strength tonights was a good Glenlivet. 

Jamie

9 hours ago, Barry O said:

Was it from the Karachi ( or K) by any chance?

 

Baz

Not sure but a distinct possibility.  It was green from memory and the Station Sgt objected to it being in the fridge in the office used to store blood samples until the proprietor arrived to identify it.  The silly thing was that the villain had purchased the curry and paid for it before throwing a brick through the window..

Jamie

Sadly Peter I don't have such a picture.   However I can concur with Dave's comments about the apparent silent progress of the Spinner at Rainhill.  Here is the proof.

Jamie

After domestic and garden duties have been completed prior to visitors arriving I've got chance to sit down and upload another episode.

Next up was this with three locos. One live the other two dead in train.  We think this is so that they can act as last mile power at the destination.  27069 followed by 60096 and then 75443.   All three cops for Any and I.

The 75 was followed by some tankers.

American viewers will be familiar with the owner of the tank cars.

This was followed by another 27 with a long string of Millet rail stone hoppers.

Then a lovely beast, one of my favourite diseasals an E4000, 4043,  another line in the book for me.  Took me to 48% of the class.

The 4000 was pulling a long string of container wagons.

It was turning into a really good trip out.   Last few tomorrow.

Jamie

8 hours ago, SM42 said:

AUUI  great pains ate taken in The Netherlands to keep water levels down, but also keep them up. 

 

Letting the land dry out too much will allow the wooden piles that many buildings are constructed upon to rot. 

 

When we stayed near Sneek, there was a very  nice little house for sale near the farm we stayed at. 

 

Unfortunately the underpinning piles had got too dry and it had a distinct gradient from the middle down to each end

 

Andy

In 1916 the Southern Pacific built a wooden trestle right across the Great Salt Lake.  This was eventually replaced by an embankment with a couple of bridges in it.  The trestle had to be dismantled and the wood was in excellent condition and IIRC the demolition company made a lot of money selling the wood. 

Jamie

44 minutes ago, woodenhead said:

Most companies are fully aware of the dangers of AI LLM using personal or sensitive data for training the models so take steps to obtain locked copies of the LLM that sit within firewalls so the main source LLM cannot train of it.  Companies who want to consume AI products want to be sure their data is safe and those selling reputable AI products who know that security of data is paramount and have to invest in locked LLM models that will not be training other LLMs using someone else's data.

 

In terms of redundancy, the scary bit is that most CEO and senior people think they can dispose of developers as the LLM will be able to do that job instead and make no bones about it, which is great for me listening to senior leaders in my company talking about this in front of me.  The talk is all about enriching everyone else's work experience not redundancy, but really it comes down to doing more with less people, they just don't talk about 'automation' in the same language anymore but it's still the same.

 

Microsoft is now promoting a product that will actually replace the developer, manna from heaven for any CEO, but the question then comes what happens when the LLM/AI develops it's own language to do stuff because it's more efficient and the few developers left cannot fathom how it does stuff - i.e. who fixes it when it breaks.

 

There are some good uses for LLM/AI, not going to deny it, but to make out it is going to do everything and our lives are going to be so enriched is typical bluster.  The one thing I learnt recently and this is from an LLM/AI guru - don't trust the output, you need to check everything, and how do you do that, you have to check that it's references are real because LLM/AI make things up to justify their findings - really it makes stuff up.  We are doomed!!!

What pray is LLM

Confused of Saleignes. 

Jamie

8 minutes ago, Ohmisterporter said:

We were on holiday in Tenerife when a company rep said how she disliked men referring to their spouse as "the wife". So I said I would never dream of calling our lass "the wife". I kept a straight face.

 

You may have to be northern to understand this.

That's a personal hate of the boss that I dare not use. 

Jamie

Good moaning from a distinctly cool but dry Charente.  Some more photos from Tuesdays expedition to Angouleme.  A s mentioned, once the works train had headed off back to Ruffec things started happening.  After the freight this light engine appeared on the regular infra working.

An 81xxx had come in from the Saintes direction and was waiting to head back there on our platform line.

Meanwhile the tamper was having some attention after being parked up for the night.

I suspect that it's a specialised switch and crossing tamper.1

Then one of the few remaining Atlantique sets appeared on a working to Paris. About 20 minites late.

Then an 51xxx came in on the northbound working to Chatellarault via Poitiers.  These straight electrics are usually working around Bordeaux and don't head up our way very often.

Then another came south.

Plenty of activity after the very quiet start to the visit.

More tomorrow.

Jamie

An interesting video from HS2 about the crossing of the A43 near Brackley. 

Jamie

Good evening from a sunny Charente.   Andy and I have had a couple of afternoons out since my last post.

on 10th April I headed for Juille on my own and Andy joined me later.  There still wasn't a lot of traffic but a couple of freight arrived after 4.30pm.   The main ne of interest was this.

27008 on a solid train of Ambrogio wagons.   Possibly diverted from the normal route via Modane.

Then on Tuesday afternoon and Evening we were both allowed to play out and headed down to Angouleme after lunch hoping to see the cement train.   On arrival this olf friend was playing near the pointwork at the north of the station.

There was a tamper visible as well and they are obviously installing new pointwork by the signal box there.

We went onto the station and it was deserted with only a few units coming in from the south from  La Rochelle and Royan.

Then the orange army headed off and this appeared from the north, creeping over the newly ballasted points.

We were sitting well up Platform 2 on one of the glass waiting shelters which kept the rather cool breeze off us.  

We were able to see signals in both directions and the first freight f the afternoon appeared.

Heading north with a rake of steel wagons.

More tomorrow.

Jamie