jamie92208

In Yorkshire, the inability to make decent Yorkshires that rise is classed as grounds for divorce. Beth made lovely ones in the UK but struggled with them over here. No 1 son and fiancee made some good ones when they stayed. Eventually the recipe was handed over and included 4 eggs. I will attempt to extract the relevant official secrets. However I dare not use the thumbscrews or rack as she us currently experimenting with a sticky biscuit recipe and it is my terrible task to help dispose of the rejects. Jamie

A charity I was secretary of was criticised by the auditor because no one ever claimed any expenses apart from such things as postage stamps. Jamie

I was once in chargevof making the tea at church for a big funeral tea. My mate and I got a production line goi g with two kettles and two teapots thst held enough for 6 mugs each. One of the 'church ladies' aka an interfering busybody was horrified when she saw me counting out 7 teabags per teapot. She said 'I never use more than 4'. We got a lot if complements on how good the tea was. Jamie

He'll obviously be driving the fireless loco that ran there then. Though of course it was dangerously close to Carlisle State Brewery and we wouldn't want him sampling their products would we. Jamie

Good afternoon from a rather sunny part of the Charente. After the trip to North Wales there was a slight break in proceedings whilst I headed across the pond to do a daft male menopause thing of cycling in the Rockies. As I was heading for quite high altitudes I had a few days footling around between 5000 and 8000 feet before heading for the high passes. By some strange coincidence many of these journeys were near railway lines so just as a teaser here's one at the base of Sherman Hill as the UP main line heads west out of Cheyenne Wyoming. Here a westbound double stack with approx 13,500 hp on the point heads west under the watchful eye of the conductor of an eastbound that has just come over Sherman Hill and was waiting to get into Cheyenne for a crew change. By chance he knew the, now retired, fireman of the Amtrak train that I had ridden over Sherman in 1978. The guy called Maxfield was one of the last surviving Big Boy firemen. Anyway I did get the rest of my ride done and my avatar was taken at the summit of Boreas pass on the ex Denver South Park and Pacific at 11,500'. I did get back safely and on 10th October Keith and I set off around the West Midlands. Here is a 153 at Stourbridge Town before the 139's took over. The next few were taken, I think round about New Year when the 185's were just coming into service so I headed down to a rather snowy Morley Station and saw a 185 coming out of the tunnel. It turned out to be unit 103, complete with the protective bag over the coupler. A the 185 went past a 158 was heading west. Then on 19th January Keith and I had a day in London doing branches in the east but did go to Paddington. More tomorrow I hope. Jamie

The trouble with that is who would act as interpreter when you two started speaking in patois. Jamie

I can agree with that. There was a favourite one in my profession (Policing) TJF and NCC but if I translated it the censors would ban me. Jamie

You should have shouted BINGO. Jamie

All those access platforms look like a crowd of machines waiting to wreak havoc on us humans. Jamie

Health insurance over here is obligatory if you want to be a resident. It's separate from the EH1C scheme and has survived the Brexit withdrawal agreement. In essence the French state reclaims pensioners health care costs from the UK where many of us still pay tax as some of us are classed as Government pensioners. We don't pay the French equivalent of National Insurance, called social charges. Those below state pension age have to pay Social charges for life. The bottom line is that we are fully covered and get excellent care. Almost 100% Of health costs are either paid by the state or come back via the top up insurance. Everyone going to access health care has to produce ID and proof of Insurance or pay up there and then. A GP visit costs €25. However drug prices are very low. Jamie PS, just seen your remark about paying tax in France. We have become French taxpayers and this years demand was zero as my Police pension is taxed in the UK and they give me a credit for that coupled with the lack of social charges we are beter off.

Good moaning from down ere. Miracles do happen sometime. Since we arrived in mid 2018, we have been trying to get French resisence cards known as Cartes de sejour or so etimes Titres de sejour. The dreaded B word putvan end to an orderly process. However earlier this year a government website invited us to apply online. We did but the website then shut down. A new website was announced but got delayed. They have now decided what type of card to issue us Brits. It's in effect a special card only pour les rosbifs. The delayed new website is now due to go live tomorrow but we have been told that our previous application will be forwarded onto the new system automatically. Some hope we thought with government IT. Surprise, Surprise as Cilla would say. On Friday Beth and I plus at least 3 friends, yes we do have some, all received emails summoning us to the Prefecture (County Hall) in La Rochelle, to give our fingerprints with a view to having our cards issued in early November. You could have knocked us down with feathers. We also need to take 3 recent ID photos so this morning we are all heading for the photo booth in Intermarche before heading for the market. Despite Beth and I both having conne tions with Yorkshire, you will be pleased to know that we are not trying to get a group photo to save money. Social distancing means 1 at a time in the booth. Then it will be off to the market for shopping and coffee. This afternoon I may get some shed time. Regards to all. Jamie

There is a site that shows you passenger trains but not freight. The Loire valley, you should see 27xxx's, Sybucs, some 222xx's probably on infr trains. Most of thevpassenger yrains are now TGV's or the new intercity emu's that I can't remember the name of. You'll probably see some 7200's and also EWS 66's Tours is a good place. Have a look at recent pictures on my Moves at Limoges thread. The two bridges that cross the yard give a good view though you need to park up at one end and walk across. At the southern end of the western bridge there are three depots for private locos. The depot is between the bridges on the north side of the line. Have fun. Jamie

Thanks Lez. I've just had 2 hours over in the shed and think that I've created enough space for everything to move. The inner upper slidebars are now only half their normal thickness for the first 10mm and everything on that side of the motion bracket just fits and moves. The clevis's that attach to the die block are now the problem as they are in conflict but I'll probably joggle them and then try and fit everything together. Coffee time now. Jamie

I had a good session in the shed on Thursday evening. I managed to assemble all the valve gear components. The resultant dummy block looked like this. There isn't much room between the slide bars and as you can see the nearest rocker arm won't go into place. This photo shows it a little better. The problem is the narrowness between the inner slidebars which shows in this picture from the underside I need to fit the two rocker arms and the two push rods into that narrow space and at the moment there isn't enough room. I'm back off to the shed shortly to do battle. A file on the heads of the brass pins will get me some room and also I can take at least 0/5 mm off eacj of the inner slide bars. Once more into the breach dear friends ere will fill the wall with English dead. Jamie

Nearly a month since the last pictures but Andy and I had another afternoon/evening out to Poitiers earlier this week. It is definitely autumnal and the multi story car park was a little chilly. We started off as usual at St Saviol and were rewarded by an infrastructure train heading north behind 22212 and 67409. I needed 22212 which upset Andy as he thinks I've seen far too many of them. Next up was the regular LPG and steel train which had 3 locos. 27007 on the point, then a 60XXX and a Sybic behind. Later on a TGV headed into the freight sidings in fron of us. No 847. We think this is a brand new one on test after assembly into a train at Aytre just south of La Rochelle where the coaches are built. It later headed back north. We can only surmise that they were testing it on the 1500vDC classic line. Two suppositories were in the sidings and then 75326 headed north with a stone train. This is possibly from the quarry branch north of Niort. Finally to Z73XX's headed in from the north before going to stable. All in all a good afternoon out and the world was put to rights for a short time. Jamie

Good afternoon, time for a few more pictures before going to do battle with a 4F valve gear. First of all, thanks to @Roman for the info about Birkenhead and the RFA, that dates the slide to 3rd March when we did a trip to Chester, Wrexham, Bidston and then Hooton and Ellesmere port to cross off pages, 57, 58 and 59 of Bakers Railway Atlas 10th edition. That dates the Royal train pictures to sometime in March/April 2005. Here we are still at Westgate with a Cross Country Voyager heading towards Leeds as the Royal working gets ready to head south ECS. It is seen leaving here. .Then April and Llandudno Where 153303 is ready to take us up the valley towards Blaneau. Where we arrived with a Fairlie waiting on the narrow gauge platforms. Then on to Holyhead. My main memory of the trip is the very good Guard who coped with lots of schoolkids from Bangor, many of whom tried, without success to avoid paying for their trip home. After Conway we complemented him on his efforts. All in all a very good day out. Jamie

You can put me down for Caldew North as I spent some coniderable time there in my pram while my father noted down train numbers. As an 8 month old I heard a lot of Duchesses. Something must have stuck. Jamie

Useful stuff is earwax if you want to find a dead whale's age. Apparently it has layers of a different colour for each summer and winter, like tree rings so they just count the layers. Jamie

It was certainly well used in Yorkshire when I was working. I do like it as a word. Jamie

Built at the request of the landowner to pacify him IIRC. I believe that several other structures were built for similarcreasons such as the fovered way on the Matlock to Buxton route near, I think, Hadden Hall. Though in thevlatter case the current owners are being just as obstroculous in relation to reopening plans. Jamie

Good moaning from a cool Charente. Much discussion of trolleybuses. Bradford certainly had automatic point changers on the overhead. They were activated by taki g or not taking power some 50 yards ahead of the point. Perhaps an early form of frog juicer. The only pull points were in the depot and in the city centre where buses could swap routes. There were enough auto changers so that the through routes didn't need to change any points manually as they crossed the city centre. There were of course manual points to access the few stretches of non revenud overhead that were used to get buses from and to depots. Anyway yesterday went well, the tax office was sorted for our friend then an excellent lunch and natter with model railway friends. Nurse Dominique has just been to give us our flue jabs and take a blood sample from Beth. We are shortly due to have our weekly xhat with Rachel, Laura and Emily so life is as good as it gets. Regards to all. Jamie

Can soneone please tell me what all these acronyms mean please. BTS, BTC, etc. Jamie

Leeds Trams finished in November 1959. As Baz says a lotbof thecrail is still buried in the roads. Superyram would have been built but the then chancellor gave thevpotbof cash to Edinburgh wnich just happenned to be his constituency. So Merseyside, Leeds and IIRC Portsmouth lostvout despite having done a lot of preparatory work including utility diversion which is almost the most expensive part. The bendy byses had to go for various reasons. One wasxthat they overfilled the depots. Another was the time taken do change a wheel as such things were hidden by shrouding. Jamie

No joy on the other thread I'm afraid. Jamie

When we did our trolleybus tour we were told that the most critical spares atecBradford were motor casings. We also got to play with a bamboo pole when we had to overtakecq service bus at Allerton terminus, which must have been by then thevhighest trolleybus line in the UK. Mike mentions somevof the reasons for the demise of trolleybuses. My late architect friend told me that a major problem in the 60's was that the cladding on new buildings would not take the strain of a rose fitting for span wires. Snap, J've received an ordervof TJENA's today. Yes thevline from Castleford closed IIRC in 1926. My mother used to ride the tram to school from Cas. She got frightened by the men with black faces, miners coming off shift. Also she saw boys who had had their tonsils out as day cases going home looking rather sorry for themselves. The system was run by the same company that ran the Wakefield network but the connecting link through Normanton was never built. There was a bad fire at the Castleford depot one night so they transferred 6 trams from Wakefield to help. They ran them to the end of the track at Agbrigg then towed them them on the road over Heath Common on their own wheels by teams of horses and back onto the rails at IIRC the Hark to Bounty. Jamie