34theletterbetweenB&D

There's a little compendium of helpful techniques in this thread: Ensure wheel face fully supported. Increase chamfer on axle end. Slightly bevel wheel seat opening. Apply a little lubricant. The sum effect of these is ensuring that the axle is offered perpendicular to the wheel, and that there is no swarf arising from the action of the axle entering the wheel seat to disturb the seating in perpendicularity or concentricity. It's entirely as I was shown to do the same process on the 'Stephen Poole' (SP) wheelsets using a Hamblings wheel press. There was one further refinement with these: don't screw in a crankpin until the axle is fitted (the action of screwing in a crankpin with the axle seat unsupported could deform the moulding slightly) and that may apply too. (The SP sets went on true with no trouble handled this way. Sadly, and despite the lovely tyre profile, the aluminium alloy tyres were a pain in the proverbial in operation...)

A few years past it seems I managed to sneak past a 'round figure' age event without getting checked over by the GP. Apparently this is not supposed to happen, but it may have had something to do with not having seen any GP since the last need for travel innoculations. Whatever, now I am in their grasp, what a lotta stuff I have to do. It's all quite pleasant, especially as most of the staff have barely left school, are largely female, and typically easy on the eye: and so scrupulously polite. Today's visit was for the blood test feedback: and why do I have broken nails and bruises on four of my toeses? Probably down to my summer season open sandal wearing habit. That's a bit different in level of attention - I broke my ankle at fourteen, it was put in a cast and I was left to walk home from 'casualty' in February with a foot of snow on the ground - is this the effect of my advancing years, a sprinkling of grey hair appearing etc.? If I ham it up in the 'rapidly ageing stakes' do I get even more sympathy? Anyhoo, so far I am in perfect working order according to the results obtained so far. But I have to watch my weight. At least that's easy enough, wrote it on a post-it, stuck it on the monitor screen frame, job done.

The one T Garret is a loft, The two T Garratt chuffs so soft, But I wil bet a silken lariat There isn't any three T garr(e/a)ttt! (With apologies to Hilaire Belloc.)

The Northam curve was I believe about four and a half chains before the easing in the 1980s. My recollection is that the mk1 based trams that operated London-Soton had the standard Pullman gangway and knuckle couplers adjusted to allow sufficient flexibility. KX station throat had a lot of reputedly five to six chain pointwork leading onto the mainline platforms 8 and 10, over which mk1 and mk2 passenger stock operated in the 1960s. The gruntings and groanings that accompanied the fairly abrupt sideways transitions were impressive.

I have 'the other end' of a version of this event. I was travelling on business regularly KX-Newcastle in the early 1970s, and having boarded at the last minute noticed as we came back into daylight after the KX tunnels that a girl (she turned out to be 10) was looking a mite pale and nervous. Now you don't often see the young alone in first class, so I asked her was there a problem, and the rather choked reply was "No Mummy". So, found the guard, explained and he said "I can do something I have always wanted to do": in short having got the details, lob out a message to station or signal staff at a suitable location. I assume it all went to plan, because the guard subsequently came back to find her at York - her planned destination - and put her in the care of a lady from the station staff. (For once there was quite a good cake to be had to go with the standard excellent cocoa from BR catering of the day, and that in combination with some conversation about her enthusiasm for equines sufficed to keep her cheerful. She'll be in her early fifties by now, probably married with several kids, none of whom have ever been accidentally abandoned. So not Smamfa Cam then...)

Horses for courses. Those who have to make lengthy journeys regularly over the same routes might not mind Adn there's more, as I turn this idea over. With suitable off road parking at home, plugged into mains power and with water and sewage conections, your autonomous campervan with its wet room for sanitary facilities could 'double up' as a spare bedroom. Just think of it: send it out empty to pick up the 'old folks' for christmas (or whatever) family reunion. They arrive in what will be their bedroom for the stay, easing pressure on accomodation in the house. When it all becomes too much you wait until they are asleep, and send them home...

Now would 'egton goosegogs' be yet another euphemism for 'dangleberries', 'the plums' or 'two veg'? Just asking...

Considering its location in a part of England that 'has money', that is a significant loss...

One solution is to prevail upon the waiting staff for a warm soup bowl or similar. If they are not in range or ignoring you, a tactical sweep of the establishment on entry will have informed you of where the crockery is kept. Off you go, capture the suitable flatware undetected, and you are done. Mine this weekend was my own Rhubard and Banana Crumble with custard, single cream and home made vanilla ice cream. (I am that smartarse who on being asked by the young waitress 'What would you like from the dessert menu today? usually replies "All".) It was the Mrs Astwick and Crabtree at the two Hertfordshire schools I attended, if memory serves; and they were likewise gifted. One of the puds was a confection of puffed wheat embedded in a thick chocolate slodge that I have never yet succeeded in replicating in all its glory.

With a cordless drill that is now twenty y.o. I should think and becoming rather short on duration, I asked the same question of two of the keenest DIYers I know just last week with a view to replacing other mains tools as well (such as circular saw, strimmer, power plane). The answers I got as posted above: Were we talking to the same people?

But not actually that good? It has the unique distinction of being the only location I have visited in the UK where a driver performed the following manoeuvre: turned from flanking service road across the pavement to the lights controlled pedestrian crossing, actuated said crossing to halt traffic on the main drag, drove across and parked on the service road the other side. This behaviour had much in common with the customer service attitude ot a business based there, with whom I once had the acute displeasure of attempting to work. The common coupling with 'of Despond' has stuck in my mind as a result. It cannot be an accident that the place name actually means 'foul and miry place' or 'swamp'. And we have John Betjeman's assessment already quoted: he was right about St Pancras, so has some traction in these matters... Perhaps then it should be 'Slough-Slough', a name capable of many pronunciations and interpretations?

What you cannot do by reading is assess how the control interface (handset, console, mobile phone, whatever) really works for you. Try them out before buying. It's a 'horses for courses' thing: Fred likes big and chunky with every doo-dad on the unit, Dave likes compact single handed operation...

It is rare in the UK, and typically small areas within a large urban setting, and then only in the hours of darkness. Worst I have encountered in the UK was Clydebank in the early eighties. Business sites protected by double fences of razor wire to MOD standard, steel shuttering over all building windows, no vehicles left outside overnight. But there are countries where significant 'no go' areas exist, and the local authority writ only runs up to the boundary of what is effectively a ghetto. Privately owned businesses make their own decisions about acceptable risk in these situations. The business I worked for simply purchased cheap vehicles and hired the biggest meanest drivers available locally, and if the vehicles got destroyed, well, that was part of the cost of being in business there. If you are living 'inside' and want to go 'outside', you go over the boundary line somehow. That this is bad enough for the physically able, and serious for those with any disability, is a fact.

I quite forgot an entirely railway story by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, 'Incident at Krechetovka Station'. For those who appear to enjoy dystopian visions, ths is a fictional glimpse into a dystopian reality of not so very long ago. (Railways figure fairly heavily in his non-fiction, especially the 'stolypin car'. Look it up...) Er, magic remember, like what HG was good at?. She just waves her little stick with the incantation 'Comunicus Footplateoikus' and the job is done...

Very unlikely while in service as a WCJS vehicle. As a jointly owned vehicle built specifically for the fish traffic over the owning company's lines, that's would be its sole use (cheesy grin). Once/if it was released from the WCJS stock list, then as usual with the steam railway, practically anything is possible. Was this design retained in fish traffic long term and even right up to withdrawal, (and thus less likely to be in some corner of the GW system) or did examples survive into use derated as general merchandise vans (or something else) having been superseded by later designs of fish traffic vans? The latter would offer the possibility of it going 'anywhere'.

Much fiction writing that could have had something to say about the railway simply ignores it. Just another utility like electricity supply and sewage management that is assumed present but not discussed. I recall a nice reference - probably in 'Cold Comfort Farm' - which illustrates the once common act of going to the station with the passenger(s) to 'see them off' on a railway journey. The Discworld series evolved into broad parables on human behaviour. He probably had a train set in his youth, but I don't see any evidence in 'Raising Steam' that railways were a major interest. Sadly this title came late in the day when the eventually fatal memory deterioration had reduced his ability, and while funny so often lacks the deft light touch that made the best of his output quite hilarious.

A further attractive thought regarding autonomous vehicles: the 'campervan' option. A suitably equipped vehicle would allow the occupants to make longer journeys at nght while they sleep. There's a lot of good in this: economical of users time, it uses the roads at their quietest, and the vehicle can probably go slower, (good for economy in energy consumption) in a country the size of the UK, unless attempting Cornwall to Sutherland in one overnight journey. You will simply disembark at a safe distance from the recognised trouble spot, exactly as taxis operate in this situation. "Not going any further than this."

Natural suggestions would be whether the GERS have later than GER drawings, and if there is a suitable drawing available in the Isinglass series.

In conversation some years ago I was told that Peco were the rail suppliers to SMP and C&L, so had a share in the revenue and a clear sight of the volume... (Peco were the only UK concern with sufficient volume to get a sensible price from the specialist wire drawing business: our model 'rail' being technically wire. Sounded highly plausible. Any industry insider able to confirm or deny?)

Ownership may reside with Bunnings,but the first rebranding from Homebase to Bunnings opened six months ago, with three more locations to follow announced. Not the 'walk in and rapidly achieve UK domination' that was predicted, and on which I poured scorn in wheeltappers... http://www.diyweek.net/bunnings-reveals-locations-of-the-three-further-uk-pilot-stores

After the second such incident the system will automatically refuse to ever route vehicles there. Problem solved. This level of data acquisition and management is already occurring, and will only increase. (Taxis, delivery services,already have such 'no go' zoning for example.)

Good job, got it to work as the designer probably intended but didn't quite achieve! I was interested in this aspect of the model, as an insight to what might be coming when Oxford venture an LNER group tender loco. (In the same vein, if anyone cares to describe how the Dapol OO A4 loco and tender are coupled I would be interested.) (Mention of Hornby. After many years of the most manky device imaginable, their Triang-Hornby era origin 'loose and floppy with maximum risk of shorting and visually intrusive appearance' connector; Hornby went directly to a classy job, as good as any ever seen in OO RTR, on the Britannia. An elegant drawbar mounted in the dragboxes, with options of a train set curves position, and a dead scale position. Looks right, functions beautifully. PERFECT. Now the fly in the ointment. Since that 2006 introduction, nothing of this quality has been seen on their subsequent designs! What they now offer is a lot better than the old Triang-Hornby connector, but falls significantly short of what was demonstrated on the Brit. I find myself fiddling around with every one of their tender loco releases that suit my interest to improve matters. On several of their locos it has been possible to transfer the drawbar into the neatly modelled dragbox openings for the desired improvement in appearance. It could be done by the product designer...)

Worse than that. We are the bOOrg. Resistance is fOOtile. Prepare to be OOssimilated...

Arguable it is. The last poll data I saw indicated rough parity between the big 4. Alternative samplings, exhibitions and the correspondence on this and other online sites. It all says to me that now there is a more even spread of RTR available giving more parityin coverage of all the groups, that one time dominant popularity is long over. As for commerce, there wouldn't be the explosion in non-GWR product choice if customers were not buying. What we purchase - the wallet vote as I think of it - is the most honest vote we cast. I propose that a comparison of the newly tooled product introductions for each of the big 4 over the last twenty years will probably be a fair measure of the relative interest. I haven't totted up that proposed metric, but my gut tells me something other than GWR leads.

I feel you have lived to see the beginning of the Edwardian/Victorian upturn! Since Hornby ventured the M7 we are now well past a dozen loco models out or announced that fit the description even if not supplied tricked out in their earliest liveries, and there's the beginnings of rolling stock now. Even the Dry Side has a couple, and the GN Single and GE tram to come. However, there is a problem for the Western I think. Churchward and his successors destroyed or rebuilt almost all the interesting old stuff, so no one living has seen it as originally constructed, and little could be preserved. (On which point CoT was not preserved by the GWR!) Not much survived on the GWR to the post war period meeting both the criteria: contemporary with the likes of the BWT, Adams Radial, B4, C, E4, H, M7, MR 1F, Lanky or coal tanks, Johnson 1P or 3F, C1, J15, J70, J72 or Stirling single; and, little changed in externals - other than livery! - from original construction to final withdrawal. No one is going to spring for Brunel's broadest blunder either, so I suspect there won't be much GWR from the Victorian period on that account also.