Tankerman

Not sure if I've posted this before. In the 1950's one of the older ticket collectors at Truro station had replaced at least one of the BR buttons on his coat with a GWR one. He always referred to the GWR as 'The Company' and considered the standards required by BR to be very much inferior to those of the GWR.

Not so much nowadays, but up to 2017 I travelled from Wokingham to Gatwick and return about eight times a year. Having tried driving via the M3/M25/M23, I decided to use the train. The first time I did it, not knowing the system, I had to change at Redhill with my heavy luggage. Once was enough! After that I always made sure I used the through train, as many other locals who also know about getting the 'wrong train' means having to change at Redhill, make sure they use the through train.

That's interesting I am nine years older than you, at a grammar school from 1957 to 1962, and the span was from 1870, the Franco-Prussian war, to 1939. There was some coverage of the events before 1870 regarding the various states, which under Prussian influence, united to form Germany as a nation.

There was a sign very similar to the second one, it had the additional text "and pin down the wagon brakes", at the top of the incline from Penryn at Four Cross near Penryn. This point was between the two road over bridges on the Truro and Falmouth roads.

There is normally a loud noise and a burst of flame. 🤣

When they were new, or virtually new, one of the Class 123 units appeared on the morning 'workman's' train, not specifically a workman's train, but most of the passengers were from Penryn going to Falmouth Docks, as I was at the time; for two or three mornings over a period of two weeks during the summer/early autumn of 1963.

No they just sit in their nice warm offices waiting for a report that someone has taken offence at what someone else has said, call it a 'hate crime' and make their detection figures look good.

I've just read it and I live near Reading, however I'm on the local Nextdoor group, perhaps that's why I could read it.

Quote "You really do deserve a holiday..!" I can't argue with that.

I had three cars fitted with cruise control before my present one, which doesn't have it. It isn't that much of a problem as most of my mileage is now local journeys, but when driving on motorways or dual carriageways I find that there is a tendency to check my speed at frequently. Incidentally when i bought my first car fitted with it I was warned that cruise control should not be used in wet conditions as the traction control can cause the car to swerve if a tyre loses grip.

I first saw this in the early 1980's on a builders van in Slough, the company was owned by two Sikh brothers.

Have a look at Wayne Kinney's thread on here about his new point kits for 00 and EM. I think they might well be the answer you are looking for.

Given the superb standard of this model and knowing the enormous depth of knowledge on here I'm hoping that someone will know if any AA20 brake vans were allocated to Truro in the 1950's/early 1960's. I can also see a market opportunity for the transfer makers in producing, either as ready purchase or to order, a variety of 'RU' locations for these vans.

Too late for me I did that years ago.

Another example of the gravity shunt was Falmouth station where the arrival platform, which was also used for departures, was much longer than the departure platform. From memory, it was a long time ago now, the departure platform could just about take a pair of B Sets, but I'm not sure. At the back of my mind is the thought that part of the coach nearest Truro would be inaccessible because it was beyond the end of the platform. Again, from fallible memory, the arrival platform could take the through portion of the SO from Paddington which varied between four and six or seven coaches plus a tender loco. The two platform lines and middle siding had no run rounds. The run round loop was situated between the end of the arrival platform and the start of the single line to Truro. There were two methods of working from the arrival platform. If the train was going to depart from the arrival platform the coaches were reversed into the side of the loop closest to the dockyard, the brake van brake applied, the loco uncoupled than ran back into the arrival platform, reversed across the pointwork onto the other side of the loop and the coaches ran by gravity back into the arrival platform. If the train was going to depart from the departure platform the coaches were reversed into the side of the loop nearest the signal box, the loco again ran back into the arrival platform and the coaches ran by gravity back into the departure platform. This was the most common manoeuvre as any parcels or other items in the guards van could then be unloaded close to the station entrance. I hope this has been of interest.

A perfect visual rendition of the bureaucratic mind.

So did my parents, he didn't want the postman, he wanted to destroy the mail.

The photo and mention of the British Hero brought back a memory from my days as an electrical apprentice at Silley Cox's dockyard in Falmouth. We saw a large number of BP tankers, the general rule was that at any one time 50% of the ships in the yard were BP owned or long term chartered and they had their own stores building for major spares items. In 1964 or '65 she came into the docks for a major refit which included conversion to Indian crew, which required the conversion of the crew cabins from single berth to twin berth. As she had been carrying 'clean' cargos such as petrol, she was gas free on arrival so went straight into No.4 drydock which was close to the workshops. For various reasons, which I won't go into, but included the fact that the Chief Cook had managed to wreck the galley and the beer had run out, the voyage back from the Persian Gulf had been a bad one. The British crew were, to put it mildly, not very happy. They handled the ropes to secure her to the bollards of the dry dock and then decided that enough was enough. They came off the ship with their baggage, which they put on the dockside, and headed for the pub just outside the dock gate. Having more than made up for the lost drinking time they returned to the dockyard to sign off and collect their bags. Seeing the state they were in the ship's agent and the Captain decided to get them signed off immediately and order taxis to take them directly to Truro station. When the first few taxis turned up they stopped outside the electricians workshop, just around the corner from the drydock and shouted to one of the electricians who was stand outside the door "Where's the British Hero?" This was answered by her crew almost in unison, who were waiting at the head of the dock, by "We're all f**king British heroes!"

That figure could be right as South Shields, and the Tyne in general, had a large number of seamen at the time. I have seen a figure for the total number of merchant seamen engaged during WWII as being in the region of 330,000 and the losses being approximately 34,000 dead or missing.

Now almost completely forgotten by this country, without the sacrifice of the men of the Merchant Navy in WWII, Britain would have been defeated by either the end of 1940 or the middle of 1941 at the latest. Much is made of the loss of pilots/crews of Fighter Command in 1940 and Bomber Command later in the war, however the crews of the Merchant Navy suffered losses of around 50% in both 1940 and 1941 and it wasn't until June 1943 that losses dropped much below 25%. That's not all that's been forgotten. There was no phoney war for the Merchant Navy, the first merchant ship was sunk on the 3rd September 1939 and the last one on the 9th May 1945. All of those crews, officers and men were volunteers, none of them were ever conscripted. Around 45% of the crews, not officers, were what were known then as Lascars from the Indian sub continent, Arabs from such places as Aden and Hong Kong Chinese. They also sailed knowing the odds against them and died along with the others. That the ratio of number engaged to the number of deaths was higher than that for the Army, Navy or Air Force. Apologies if this reads as a bit of a rant, but I spent six years in a dockyard working alongside some of the men who had spent the war at sea and nine years in the Merchant Navy as an Electrical Officer. The seamen were Pakistani, the cooks and stewards were Goanese and the fitters/pumpmen Hong Kong Chinese. I thank God that it wasn't in wartime, but if it had been I would have happily sailed with them as a crew.

It was worse for the first trippers (first ship as crew) when they didn't take the same advice regarding their stomach's likely reaction to the first rough weather the ship encountered.

When all this 'hold a meeting' idea became popular in the early 1990's our regional manager at the time showed his opinion of the idea by having a poster printed and hung it on his office wall. It read "There is now an alternative to working, it's called holding a meeting."

The same type of thing has happened twice locally, at the same level crossing, within the last few years. On both occasions due to the drivers apparently not being able to recognise the fact that a railway track has a somewhat different appearance from a roadway. The right turn road junction is roughly 50 metres after the level crossing, the crossing is slightly higher than level of the road and has full gates in addition to the usual warning signs and lights. The first incident involved the driver turning on to the track in daylight in good weather, the second did have a couple of reasons why the mistake was made; firstly it was about 6am in twilight and secondly when the police attended the driver was breathalysed and found to be over twice the drink drive limit.

Quote "As an aside Living in West Cornwall It always seems odd to me that Bristol is considered 'West County' when it is (by road) almost 200 miles North East of me!" I thought the same having been born in Cornwall and living there until I was in my early thirties. On moving to Maidenhead I realised that those who lived in the South East had a different viewpoint, in that they considered the West Country to start somewhere not too far west of Swindon and the Midlands to start somewhere not too far north of Watford.

And if the Civil Service was organising it there would be a shortage of one of the essential ingredients.