Andy Kirkham

Is that the one in Great Western Branch Line Album captioned "A 72XX 2-8-2T trundles south from Abercwmboi towards Mountain Ash on September 23, 1964"? That caption is wrong because Mountain Ash is North of Abercwmboi. I think I always presumed that train was actually on the Vale of Neath line. It's by Ben Ashworth.

I wonder if this is actually classical - Menelaus being a character in the Illiad - or named after William Menelaus the works manager at Dowlais https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Menelaus .

The same thing happened in WW1 to Captain Howey, creator of the Romney, Hythe & Dymchurch railway. His pilot was killed and he had to climb forward from the observer's seat and manged to crash land the plane. Unfortunately it was behind enemy lines and he was taken prisoner.

Fasolt and Fafner Cain and Abel

J.D.Brittan, Pork butchers, in Wade Street, Bristol. Closed in September 2017 and the building torn down. It's just a parking lot now. An example of that once ubiqitous but now fast disappearing letter form "Stymie Bold Italic"

I stand corrected, but in Bristol where I live I'm unaware of any cheap fares on GWR or Cross Country.

I've never had a problem with multiple fares; and nobody seems bothered about opaque and complex pricing of hotels and airlines.

Tony Miles was interviewed about rail price rises on You and Yours today https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001gx5v 35' 50". He made a good point about how the current funding arrangements provide no incentives for the TOCs to offer bargain tickets to fill empty seats. The Government currently is fascinated and fixated on income rather than getting bums on seats as it were, so it now collects all the revenue from all the tickets sales and it pays the companies fixed fees for running the trains. They have no incentive to sell extra tickets because they get no more out of it. All the money goes straight to the government and it's locked into this Get As Much Money As You Can thing, so whilst it could have been worse .... but the incentive to get out there and travel is not there at the moment. I fondly remember the early days of privatisation when GNER was offering fares that allowed amazingly cheap days out from Glasgow to York or Durham, and I could get a ticket on Virgin down to the Wigan show for some nearly negligable sum. Happy days!

The only green hydrogen is that produced by electrolysis; it will always be cheaper to use the electricity directly.

Yes I think I've seen pre-production artist's impressions of AC locomotives showing a headcode in the middle window

Ventnor Glasgow Queen Street Nottingham Victoria

The scherzo of Bruckner's 7th Symphony. Sehr Schnell - I love Bruckner's tempo markings.. I hesitate to says it's my very favourite but it has great personal meaning to me. At the age of about 15 I was idly tuning into Radio 3 when I encountered this piece. Maybe I neglected to hear it through to the end, but I failed to discover what the piece was called. Nevertheless it stuck in my mind, a relentless earworm, (and relentless is an apt description for that ostinato - which brings to my mind the image of a troop a cavalry (or perhaps demons) galoping through the forest and emerging to fall upon the foe. It stuck in my mind unidentified for about about seven years. Then while idly tuning into Radio 3 once more I chanced upon a sound that seemed familiar "can it possibly be,", I asked myself "they're going to play that tune?" And they were!" Don't quit when it starts going slow; it soon gets fast again. I could pick other Bruckner movement till the cows come home but for contrast here's an exquisite piece by the Venezuelan Reynaldo Hahn: Now for something thoroughly haunting. Arvo Pärt's setting of the Burns song My Heart's in the Highlands. Finally I can't resist a bit more Bruckner, which the YouTube poster has described as one of the best symphonic endings ever. It certainly knocked by socks off. The really good bit begins at 1:46 Bruckners 4th was the subject of a Radio 3 broadcast in the early 1980s. David Elliott, son of British Transport Commission chairman Sir John Elliott, presented a piece in which he asserted that Bruckner was a great railway enthusiast and friend of Karl Gölsdorf, and that the horn parts were inpired by the sound of of Gölsdorf's loco's signalling to each other as they ascended the Semmering. He was also said to be an admirer of Brunel and made a special broad gauge excursion from Paddington while in London for an Albert Hall organ recital (Bruckner's music is nothing if not Broad Gauge). It all seemed to be so right and I deperately wanted it to be true. But not a word of it was. I don't think the BBC ever officially admitted the hoax, but I happend upon a note in the SLS Journal, in which a contributor recounted how he had smelled a rat and enquired of the BBC, who then came clean (but only privately) A few years later I attended a performance of Bruckner's 4th by the Scottish National Orchestra in Glasgow, and the programme notes repeated the tall tale as gospel truth.

I never know whether John Ahern's surname is pronouced "AY - hurn" or "uh-HURN" (or some other fashion)

And the other interesting thing is that such a raid would nowadays be contrary to the Geneva Conventions

The most interesting thing I learned from this was that the Germans recovered one of the bouncing bombs intact and went some way to building their own version.

But surely it's possible to objectively examine the effectiveness of the raid, while still honouring the skill and bravery of the crews.

There was a cartoon character in The Topper named King Gussie, presumably an allusion to the place, which was relatively local to D C Thomson's HQ in Dundee.

I'm intrigued by the idea of an Upsetting Machine

Accordin to Wikipedia, Christopher Trace "gained the job as presenter because he bonded with producer John Hunter Blair over their shared love of model railways." I certainly remember him building a model railway on the programme.

I think this is quite famous

There was an opencast coal terminal named Ravenstruther near Carstairs. I understand it's pronounced Renstrie.

I like the contrast between the state-of-the-art Churchward 4-6-0 and the archaic looking six-wheelers behind it - something you probably wouldn't often see in a model, I feel.

I've just read the article. It has a nice list binmenist memories: Who remembers a dripping sandwich? Who remembers rag and bone men? One pound notes. Drinking water from a hose. Choppers. The saying “act your age, not your shoe size”. Queueing to use a phone box. Playing in the street and yelling “car!”. French cricket. Jam sandwiches. Scabby knees. Skipping. Routemasters. Salt and vinegar Chipsticks. Hot chocolate from the vending machine after swimming lessons. Coal fires. The slipper. The cane. The ruler. Getting a thick ear. Concentrated orange juice. Cumbersome lawnmowers. Traditional drapers. Stand pumps. Ink wells. Duffle coats. Tin baths. Marbles. Jack Charlton. Stevie Nicks. Forgetting your PE kit. Bus conductors. Bob-a-job week. Wooden ice-cream spoons. Snakes and Ladders. Ponchos. I think it's perfect;y possible to remember this sort of thing with a certain poignancy without necessarily supposing things were objectively better then, although It could be that they remind you of your childhood when you were shielded from most of the anxieties of the adult world.

Things that have definitely got worse; 1. I was chatting last week with a recently retired postman who recalled that he had been able to buy a house on a postman's wage. Fat chance of that nowadays, I imagine. 2. There used to be final salary pensions (although i guess these were only affordable because most people only survived a few years past retirement) 3. Disappearance of "Merrymaker"-style BR excursions that offered a Sunday trip to somewhere 200 miles aways for a bit more than a quid. I particularly miss being able to vist the Talyllyn or Vale of Rheidol in a day trip from Bristol This may be subjective but there are some things that used to seem so cheap that you could indulge in them with hardly a thought, which now occasion a sharp intake of breath: bus fares, cinema tickets, a pint of beer in a pub, fish & chips.

The Good Ship Lifestyle - Chumbawamba in their pomp