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For those who live locally, Old Warden airfield now has an online arrivals board! https://oldwardenaerodrome.co.uk/arrivals-board The arrival slots are for half an hour, so the aircraft can turn up in that period. Quite handy if I've got a day off, I can have a quick look in the morning to see if anything unusual is due in. A couple of weeks ago a pair of Bücker Jungmanns were due, and the wife just so happened to want a lift to the beauty salon nearby. I had a couple of hours wandering round and saw this pair come in to land.

Seen on Facebook the other day...

The heating comes directly from the engine. Cold weather - engine doesn't get particularly warm, so saloon doesn't get warm. Warm weather - engine gets nice and toasty so has to dump its excess heat into the already hot saloon! I really do not understand why Jeremy Hosking has spent any money on these, other than for nostalgic purposes of seeing them in old liveries. His tours are all marketed as being about quality and you high end, and priced accordingly, so having these heaps as feeder services isn't really an option. Railtours in their own right? Ok, I remain to be convinced.

Online, Facebook is probably the best source, but there's so many groups that it's difficult to keep track. Flickr is another place in to look. http://www.photorail.it/forum/index.php?action=gallery http://www.stagniweb.it/ https://www.ilportaledeitreni.it/ Three more good links. For printed media, you can't go wrong with Duegi Editrice. https://www.duegieditricestore.it/44-libri-ferroviari/

It's not really to do with the dangers, it's to do with the fact they got inspected a few weeks ago and ORR brought up a list of improvements that were required. WCRC said they would comply. A month later, another inspection, improvements not complied with. Their other railtours aren't affected, either ones run by themselves or by third parties (Railway Touring Company). They have sufficient stewards to operate the door locks. The Jacobite runs with minimal on board staff - guard, a few catering crew, and that's about it. Certainly not enough to lock and unlock the doors at every station. I feel sympathy for the passengers and the traders in Fort William and Mallaig - the latter will be dead without 600 people turning up every day. But absolute none for WCRC. They've once again brought this on themselves by blatant disregard of the rules. They've had years to for CDL to the stock and haven't. It's not like they couldn't afford it, they've scrapped a lot of locos and stock in the last few months, plus bought most of Riviera's Mk1s. It's just sheer bloody-mindedness.

Gifted by the Standard 4 Group (along with 80136) to the NYMR. The boiler is currently being overhauled in Manchester.

Never had that problem with the ones that were properly maintained at Hornsey, must've been a Brighton issue ;-) Do you know what type were fitted? Hornsey changed all theirs out to fully sealed, maintenance-free batteries many years ago, very similar to car batteries. The original ones used to give no end of problems and you'd be checking the water levels on every other exam.

Four (58012, 58016, 58023 and 58048), and two (16 and 23) are nominally runners except for apparently having knackered wheel bearings that require very expensive replacement. It seems there was a plan for some of the French bogies to be imported, but the message didn't get through to the scrappy.

http://www.cs.rhrp.org.uk/se/CarriageInfo.asp?Ref=906

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/305017850460?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=OZ0ZbshrSem&sssrc=4429486&ssuid=dltlllrnrym&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

Replica Rocket at Shildon is operational too. I think that's it though, other than 60103. 30120, 850 and 30925 are all stored pending overhaul. Currently under overhaul, in addition to 30777 and 70013 are 63601 (GCR), Taff Vale no. 28 (Gwili), 44027 (Vale of Berkeley), and Hunslet 3183 (Flour Mill). Progress on the latter three appears to glacial.

Bristol Beaufighter at Duxford yesterday, in a rather empty hangar with the doors open so a different view to usual. Still awaiting the right type of engines before it flies, otherwise it's basically complete.

"I've got a great Leslie Nielsen pun" "Really, what is it?" "It's a type of joke based on word play. But that's not important right now"

It was only the wheels themselves that were used under the telescope. Even the axles were disposed of I believe. There's a photo here showing what the "bogies" looked like - definitely not Castle ones! Showing

Doors operate on 110V so can be run off the batteries, assuming you've got enough air to operate them. Good way of killing the batteries though!

Whoops! Oh, and someone caught it on video too. https://maltadaily.mt/watch-england-teams-plane-takes-wrong-turn-gets-towed-upon-arrival-in-malta/

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/385682565761?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=jeQBcQ2xTAG&sssrc=2047675&ssuid=EeEmQiaLTBq&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

Until Covid hit, when I used to leave work at 6am after nights you'd see anything up to about 8 or 9 747s passing overhead in the space of a few minutes, all heading towards Heathrow. Nowadays it's a lot quieter, and they all look the same!

I know the feeling - five UIC-X coaches in FS grey are heading my way at the moment...!

A couple from just north of Bassingbourn Barracks this afternoon. I knew they were passing over Cambridge after Cranwell, but no idea of routing. Luckily someone posted the NOTAM on Fighter Control forum and it said they'd be passing Wimpole at 14.56. I made it just in time!

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holden's_Lightning_flight https://youtu.be/_Q-5ASHzFsI

Not the best shot in the world (the rest are on the camera) but six Merlins taxying up and down the runway at East Kirkby on Monday was rather pleasant! Shame they weren't out on the runway a bit later for the BBMF display with the Lancaster, a Spitfire and a Hurricane.

Yes, looking at Flickr WZ507 was up yesterday.