Arthur

I took this sometime in early 1970 on the former Manchester Collieries system radiating out from Walkden yard. The loco was heading south, just about to enter the site of the then still standing but closed Moseley Common colliery. We were surprised to see it, the system was otherwise entirely steam worked. The system was in it's last days and I made a note on the print that the loco normally worked at Ashton's Field, at the north end of the system. I don't now recall if that was true, nor do I recall seeing it there. In fact, this was the only time I ever saw it and seem now to have a vague recollection of it being on a running in turn from Walkden Central Workshops. Walkden maintained locos from all over the north west at the time. I've never seen another reference, nor photo, of a Janus working on the ex Manchester Collieries system. It's presence remains, to me at least, a bit of a mystery. It was in a plain, slightly washed out, apple green livery. .

Thanks Andy, appropriate votes now cast!

Or just a 'no choice/opt out' button. Edit; Basically I'm voting for what I would definitely buy. .

I think I may have misunderstood the amended voting options Dave. I thought by multiple choice you could pick more than one per category. I was going to add the fireless to my original Manning Wardle choice, keeping my i/c choice as it was. Deleted my original vote then found that it wouldn't accept two in the same category. That's fine, but the poll then seems to want me to vote in the 7mm category too before I can submit it. I'm reluctant to do that as I wouldn't be a buyer and would not want to skew the results. So at the moment, my votes have dropped out. .

On another modern technology theme, local news has just reported that a school in Stroud has banned 'fitbit' watches during school hours. These things monitor your levels of activity/exercise. Apparently some kids were skipping lunch because their watches had 'told' them they had not exercised enough. These are girls of 11-14. Blimey, I use my watch to tell me that it's time to eat. If it's 1, nothing is gonna keep me from lunch. .

I joined an internet forum Luddite group. We gave up all modern nastiness including use of web forums. For some reason the group immediately folded. Bizarre. .

Personally I'd go for one of these; Nasmyth Wilson 0-8-0T, Emanuel Clegg. Quite happy to photoshop it heading the Pines Express over the SDJR and simmering at some GWR branch terminus. It'd then sell in shed loads...... .

Brilliant, thanks for that. Pretty sure that the guitarist is Steve Wilson. As he plays with quite a few line-ups I'm not sure quite which band it is. .

The Admiralty held a strong influence on UK steelmaking practice between around 1880 and 1960. They specified steel produced by the open hearth process believing it, with some justification, superior to that produced by the Bessemer process. This belief persuaded many other users to follow suit, if it's good enough for the Admiraty.... As a consequence, despite it's more widespread use on the continent, the Bessemer process all but died out in this country, having a minor resurrection post 1935. In truth, Bessemer steel was eminently suitable for a great many applications, and more cheaply, if not for those demanding the tightest specifications. .

This is probably not dissimilar to the unwillingness of manufacturers to supply bespoke items on defence contracts that will amount to tens of units rather than hundreds, just not worth the investment. From the article it would seem that the issue is the supply of 'thin' plate rolled to certain sizes (width is generally the limiting factor) and flatness to specification and tolerance. So, seemingly not a problem with making the steel to the required specification, but in rolling it. If this is a plate specification not generally required commercially then it should come as no surprise that we don't have a mill capable of rolling it. As this contract looks like it's calling for around 2600 tons of non UK sourced steel per ship, that's 7800 tons in total. Even if all of that was steel to this specification it's not a lot if it requires the investment in a new rolling mill or significant modifications to an existing mill. You would expect a large mill, like a plate mill, to roll hundreds of thousands of tons over it's lifetime to be viable. Investing in a new mill to roll just a few thousand tons is going to make it very expensive steel. Clearly, these musings are based on the limited amount of information in the article. Whether the original specification could reasonably have been framed to encompass UK steel rolling capacity is another question. In a similar vein I recall at the time the works at Redcar was facing closure calls were made to ensure that the research vessel (RRS Sir David Attenborough) then being planned should be made purely of British steel to give the works a lifeline. The ship will weigh 15000 tons, even if all steel, that would have kept the Redcar blast furnace busy for 36 hours. These are tiny volumes in bulk steel making. .

And served with a sense of elan and savoir faire you don't get in Greggs. .

Some observations on the Mitsumi motors in the first post in this topic and a video of one running in post 5. http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/123482-brush-200hp-de-the-other-one/ I'll post a video of the completed loco running in a day or so. .

Oh yeah, including this third axle Highwayman. Real dinosaurs of the road.

And segueing neatly from the steelworks mentioned above here we have some classic eight wheelers belonging to the fleet of said works. In the livery of the Lancashire Steel Manufacturing Company, four Foden S21s, the 'Mickey Mouse' cab, line up just inside the works main gate sometime around 1960, a few years before my time there. and a side view of two of them. These were large wagons back then but the cabs are tiny and low mounted by today's standards. There were also some S21 four wheelers in the fleet. This was the Irlam works of the Lancashire Steel Corporation situated on the A57 a few miles west of Manchester. We lived right by the A57, a couple of miles back towards Manchester, and these wagons were a very common sight grinding their way eastwards laden with coils of steel rod and steel wire. .

Taylor's fleet always looked very smart and professional, sad that they could no longer continue. In the 70's we used to hand start large a diesel compressor at the steelworks where I worked. A big old lump mounted on a four wheeled trailer. That did have a decompression lever and once you had the knack it wasn't too bad. One swinging the handle, the other dropping the compression lever at the right time. The main thing to remember was to keep your thumbs out of the way because if it kicked back, broken thumbs were the likely result. The old timers used to hand crank lorries by swinging the starting handle on a bit of rope. You could get two men on the rope and you were not in direct contact with the handle. It was basically a case of repeatedly swinging the handle just through the bottom third of its revolution and eventually it would kick over. Fortunately for me, such delights had disappeared when I took my HGV in 1980.... .....in one of these, not a classic, just a workaday wagon of the 70s, a Dodge 500. Cummins Chrysler V6 with a 5 or 6 speed box and two speed rear axle. The biggest fleet user was the Post Office. I note that the one in the photo has Perkins engine badge which surprises me. I had thought that the Perkins engine had only been used in some rigid models not in the tractor units. I did my course with the Road Transport Industry Training Board, RTITB, for those who remember it, at their Little Hulton site just outside Manchester, doing my test from the Heywood testing centre. The RTITB was one of a number of bodies set up under a govt. initiative to provide training in industries which had large numbers of small operators who were too small to provide training themselves. The construction industry was another. Companies paid a levy and members had a discount for employees taking the courses. .

A friend of ours went to Krakow for some dental work. It was quite extensive involving crowns and realigning teeth and it took three or four visits, all planned up front. She made two or three day trips out of her visits and was very pleased with the finished work at considerably less cost than here in Blighty. Krakow is a lovely place to visit with plenty to do and see in and around it. The salt mines just outside the city are well worth a visit. .

Mention 'nuclear' and people's irrational rate of risk (and fear) goes through the roof. The word was dropped from 'Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Imaging' scanner' (NMRI) so that they are now just referred to as 'Magnetic Resonance Imaging' scanners (MRI). Same machine, same technology, just lost that scary word. .

True, and it is encouraged by the modern trend for 24 hour and rolling news coverage. When, following a major incident, damn near the entire TV output for 48 hours following is devoted to it, it certainly gives a very skewed view of events and risks. .

Following 9/11 many Americans took to the road as an alternative to the shorter internal flights. In the twelve months after the attack there was a noticeable increase in road accident deaths. A number of studies have looked at this and, though all caution that making a definitive causal link is impossible, estimates vary that there were between 1500 and 2500 extra deaths probably as a result of behaviours changing post the attack on the twin towers. Flying is, of course, much safer than driving but individuals risk assessments ignored this simple fact and went with gut feeling. .

Is it partly as a result of the 'sound bite' generation? No time, attention span nor interest in a more nuanced discussion, just label your opponents with a snappy, pejorative term and demonise them. e.g. Brexiteer=Little Englander. .

He might have been better reading the encyclopaedia first, he might have learned something. .

You can die in a Darwin Award attempt yet still not quite succeed. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-40438207 So, in order to get 5mins of YouTube fame I'll protect myself with a book whilst you shoot me with a modest, 50 cal. handgun. Yep, that's gonna go well. Effectively removing himself from the gene pool it's still a fail as his girlfriend carries his child.... .

One advantage of the shank arrangement, be it twin shanks or a single figure 8, is that the buffer head cannot rotate thus keeping the head in correct alignment to prevent buffer locking. .

More curious than the width of the head is the 'twin' shank each buffer is equipped with. It's difficult to be certain whether there are two separate shanks behind each head or whether there is a single '8' section shank. Either way, I've never seen the like before. .

Not quite but the spare cylinders from my Barclay will be used on a scratchbuilt chassis under an ARC resin body for a large RSH 0-6-0T. The resin body is nicely done but compromised in length to fit an RTR chassis so the overall result will not be a scale model but should, hopefully, capture the essence. .