BR60103

Andy: The ~ symbol means AC; the straight lines are DC. General principal is that Amps (current) is measured with the meter in circuit. Volts are measured between two points. You can get the Voltage of the battery by using the two posts. Resistance is also between two points,but try not to do it on a live circuit. I'm not sure have absolutely no idea what difference is if you measure using the AC settings.

Tomorrow starteth Daylight Saving Time. Although it is now 4 hours to go before the 0200 starter's whistle, I have adjusted all the clocks I can find on the main floor. (Except the telephone. I can't find a setting! and I've done it before.) There remain a collection downstairs in the railway and storage rooms. I have just managed to do the phone.

Andy: I recommend a pair of Cataract sunglasses. These go over regular glasses but come around the side and over and under. They keep out most of the light that other glasses let in. We use ours regularly as they fit well over our normal glasses. You might come home with an eyepatch.

A couple of friends are currently on a 5-month round the world cruise. They are supposed to end it going up the Red Sea and Suez canal. They haven't posted anything yet about changes.

On codes using book pages. In Leo Marks's Between Silk and Cyanide he talks about being in one office where the code was based on an edition of Readers's Digest. He mentions that there were several different national editions of each month, and that the local copy was being read in the bathroom. (above from memory; I'll have to look out my copy.)

Outdoors was at room temperature today. TV reported that we were half a degree short of a record (we made 20) while the average is 1. There was snow blowing last week and there will be a drop in temp for the rain later in the week.

On foreign foods: My father went off to WW2 on what had been a British liner. One of the fellows, dad called him a "big Ontario farm boy", had decided that he was not going to be cowed by any food that other nations ate. One day the meal was tripe. Most of the troops took one look and decided to wait for the next meal. This boy took a helping and sat down to eat it. He worked at it for a while and reported "It's no use, guys. The more you chew it, the bigger it gets." Is it true that tripe was the inspiration for bubble wrap?

Something for the dieters: Cathy Classics by Cathy Guisewite for February 28, 2024 - GoComics Cathy Classics by Cathy Guisewite for February 29, 2024 - GoComics Cathy Classics by Cathy Guisewite for March 01, 2024 - GoComics Apology. I thought I was posting links.

I've had problems with point motors in parallel that are different makes or even different eras of the same make. I think one unit may suck all the current from the other ones.

Is RMWeb social media? Then I am on. elsewise ...

VIA Rail in Canada is trying to replace cars built in 1954-55. Need a good government authorization and funding.

I will try to remember someone's distinction between Science Fiction and Fantasy. Science Fiction assumes an extension of our current science with possible future discoveries. Fantasy makes an assumption contradictory to our current beliefs e.g. magic works. The better fantasy follows rules (that they may have made up) like "using mind magic to lift things takes as much effort as lifting them with your arms."

Grizz might find the attached interesting. derailment technical reports srt track Steve Munro is Toronto's top transit fan. Last July one of Toronto's rapid transit lines suffered a notable derailment. This is an orphan line that has passed its best before date and was due to be replaced by the end of last year. It ran on a linear induction motor with the induction part between the rails. Part of the cover rose up and derailed the last car of a train. Steve has been trying to get the reports on maintenance that was (not) done. (2nd link) If anyone gets excited, ask and I'll bore you with political history. Many parts of the Toronto subway now have slow orders because of out-of-spec track.

First year of high school we had two choices: art or music, shop or home ec. (The second was not really a choice). Second year it was one of the four. I think that was because I added Latin to the mix. Third year there was a fifth choice: German, which I took. Fourth year things stayed pretty much the same. Fifth and final year was university qualification prep. This required passing 9 papers. Languages counted as two and one had to be English. There were three maths, 4 sciences, history and geography and some foreign languages. I managed to take an extra, extra-hard math instead of phys ed. (I got 48 on this paper and tied for top in the township) These exams were set province-wide and marked centrally. My math teacher was one marking the Problems paper and he said that he'd recognized mine because of a mistake I'd discussed with him afterwards. Shop class was half a year metal shop and the other half wood shop with drafting. I never did welding because I had two projects that were bashing a bowl out of a sheet of brass.

John was a professional photographer. He took a close-up photo of a friend's locomotive and told him "Every place where you can tell it's a model is a chance to improve your modelling." He also had a wicked sense of humour. He did ads for one of the model companies that included scenes like the lynching of a diesel salesman. And G&D #13 was a dinosaur for switching in the yards.

The Canadian national anthem was written in French and later translated. The Quebecois don't sing it because it's about Canada. The rest of us can't keep up with the changes in the words to match changing social feelings. Of course, I know the original words to the American national anthem but don't dare sing them. To Anacreon in Heav'n, where he sat in full glee...

One of my friends is very into folk music. I lent him my 5-string banjo (that I never learned to play). He said he had the same problem with it as the ukulele: the nearest string is the highest. I think that ukulele tuning matches guitar top 4 - except for the string that's an octave too high. So guitar chord fingering works on it.

For junior school (called "public" school over here*) I was in a small town and we had 90 minutes to go home for lunch. There were no lunch facilities. High school had a cafeteria where it was possible to buy a hot lunch or salad and a few extras. It was not compulsory and most students brought sandwiches from home. The meals were adequate to good, although the English staff tended to cook the vegetables too long in hot water. Most of our teachers were good and reasonable. There was one who was abusive and threw things. I found out from my father that she was known for that even to the high school staff. * public school to distinguish it from the separate (C******c) school.

It can't be better than I think, but I have been told differently.

I just checked my maps and I found Washington about 40 km away. Not on a road I'm likely to use. About 1/3 of the way to London.

I like to mix grey shades on coach roofs. A few decades ago, PollyS made a range of Dungeons and Dragons paint. It was fun to use Gargoyle Grey and Ooze Grey. Some of my first class seats are in Beholder Eyestalk Purple. (PollyS is now defunct)

I fancy that I'm quite musical, but the first year I was taking clarinet when they changed my class after 2 months and the new class was taking strings. Playing a violin terrified 12-year-old me so I switched to art (at which I was next to hopeless). I later found my metier doing folk dancing, but I also picked up a guitar. I've also discovered that the wonderful sounds I hear when I sing are not what everyone else hears.

I put the number on one side of the brake van. The directions give 5 or 6 sample numbers which have an extremely wide range (they all start with 1, though) so I made one up. Some LNER expert will come over and tell me off about it. I was wondering as I worked on it, why don't they print number series as given in random number tables, or maybe the digits from pi. I wonder if we might find suitable numbers in that, rather than the 1234... sequence as printed. If you needed loco 6789, then you'd have to cut them out just as we do for all the other ones.

That is a local reference. The council installed some sort of umbrellas on Sugar Beach and there was some sort of controversy. I've never been there, so I don't have a reference. I'm not sure if it's a metric or imperial unit.

Andy: Thanks for the advice. I managed to find a bottle at the train shop and have now put a couple of the transfers on each side. The next step is the number, each of which will be 6 little bits. The shop didn't even know they had it.