Bon Accord

All because we had a shortage of vessels suitable for NGS; thanks to the grown ups deciding a few years previous that warships fitted with medium/large calibre guns were a thing of the past, plus doing away with said pea shooters would save cash (or so they thought).

Seasonal weather... Alongside in Becancour (Quebec) a few years ago whilst waiting for the natives to appear.

It's something especially prevalent with the LinkedIn generation. Turn up, bring in major changes (which overall often achieve little) making a big noise but invariably alienating half the workforce, then after 2-3 years disappear off to the next managerial post with online profile suitably updated. My employer sees a seemingly never ending conveyor of these superficial individuals, unfortunately those further up the food chain (i.e. those that employ them) are just as bad. Their belief tends to be that if you're still in the same managerial position after say 3 years then you're basically a failure. It's made worse in the forces these days because long term career opportunities are more limited with every spending cut, therefore to ascend further up the greasy pole requires individuals to make an "impression". That and the longstanding practice of a posting lasting only 2 years, i.e. turn up and for the first 6 months be basically useless/a hindrance, after a year or so be progressing but still not really at your peak and then in your final few months finally mature into the position as a solid, reliable and competent individual just in time to be transferred to something complete different. The process then repeats. Both situations totally work against any kind of long term strategic vision and also has the unfortunate side effect of often crushing morale.

Where was my suggestion that any sort of criticism of things North of the border are to be censored? With regard to that which I refer, I doubt you or most others even notice much(any) of such language either because it simply doesn't register at all for what it is or is merely thought of as being "banter". Remember what we used to consider 40 years ago as "banter" but which wouldn't quite be seen that way today? As for Andrew Neil, I can't understand how anyone from these islands could consider himself or Laura Kuenssberg in any way impartial about anything.

Whilst it may go both ways at a personal level, it is only ever totally one sided (i.e. goes Northwards) both on this forum and in the mainstream media in general. Try being a Scot living or working in southern England, what you hear on a daily basis would be grounds for police involvement if Scot/Scottish/Jocks etc were to be transposed for an ethnic slur.

Calmac Ferries Ltd are the operating company and constitute what was the old (pre 2006) Calmac, however they are technically now a subsidiary of David MacBrayne. The latter is the "vehicle" used to bid for and operate the contracts won. As well as the west coast ferry contract they've also operated the Orkney/Shetland ferries, have bid for a Swedish ferry operation and have bid for and indeed now operate Marchwood Military Port in Southampton. The latter operations were pursued as a means to bring in additional revenue streams to the operation. The senior management etc are all common. Calmac have lost no routes per se since 2006, however the Gourock-Dunoon route was tendered separately from the main bundle for political reasons - there is a private competitor on that route and there has been a longstanding row about the bigger state owned company subsidising that route against an unsubsidised private operator. The result was that the Scottish Government of the time (Labour/Lib Dem coalition) decided to tender separately and only specify a passenger service rather than a passenger/vehicle service in order to keep the private operator happy. This tender was won by Argyll Ferries Ltd, which is in fact a wholly owned subsidiary of David MacBrayne. The passenger only specification has caused local uproar as the private operator is far from universally loved and the new tender will have a subsidised passenger service but asks for the operator to provide some form of vehicle ferry service for which there will be no subsidy. Aside from Gourock/Dunoon all the other west coast routes are tendered as one bundle, the reason being that otherwise the profitable/potentially profitable routes would be cherry picked and little if any interest shown in those which are not, thereby leaving the state to fully fund those non profitable routes but without the benefit of being able to utilise the profits from the money making routes to offset the losses. For this reason some applicants during the tender process wanted the routes split, various Scottish Government's have refused this - quite rightly. There were a number of bidders for both tenders, however far be it for me to suggest underhand tactics have been used but the current setup/micro management by Transport Scotland (TS) would leave a totally private operator little room for manoeuvre in the operation of the business. Staff employed with Calmac also enjoy very favourable T&Cs compared to the private sector, therefore as well as massive union/employee opposition to a purely commercial operator the financial responsibilities e.g. pensions etc are a deterrent. As with Scotrail, whoever operates Calmac ferries are contractually obliged to retain the name, brand and liveries as these are all specified by TS. Any new operator would only be permitted to fly an operators flag on the vessel and are heavily restricted as to where they could display their logo. The ships and ports are all owned by a VESCO (their version of a ROSCO) known as Caledonian Maritime Assets Limited, David MacBrayne is not involved. These assets are then leased to the operator (Calmac Ferries Ltd). The David MacBrayne group and CMAL are wholly separate organisations but both are owned by the Scottish Government. The reason all of this came about was that the Labour/Lib Dem coalition of the time instituted the process of tendering/franchising as a result of an alleged EU directive similar to that which "enforced" privatisation of the railways. However dispute has been ongoing for some time as to whether any of this is necessary as being a lifeline service the ferries may well be exempt - there is a precedent, I believe in Germany. In any case a private operator has so far not won either of the tenders so the whole thing is quasi-nationalised anyway. The Calmac contract was re-tendered and won by David MacBrayne again this year with the main competitor being Serco, however there was a strong anti-Serco campaign by the unions which was backed by the native Scottish media. Whether this arrangement continues in the long term is doubtful, as reunifying the company will undoubtedly bring efficiencies, however that would probably bring legal upheaval and cost implications.

A franchisee yes, but not "full fat" integration or nationalisation. That legislation is also only 8 months old. For example the current incarnation of Caledonian MacBrayne is an example (which pre-dates the 2016 act) of a public sector franchisee, however in their case that company had the benefit of an existing and longstanding management structure and organisation which did pre-exist the franchise process. That is something which any potential public-sector (ScotRail) TOC lacks.

You may not be aware but the Scottish Government does not have the power to renationalise the railways North of the border, that is a matter reserved for Westminster. What they do have the power to do is appoint a TOC, nothing more. Therefore whilst their long term political aspiration has been public ownership - something which concurs with public opinion - they have not and indeed do not have the power to make that happen. Such powers were mentioned post referendum and indeed moves were made to have that power devolved ASAP in view of the upcoming tender, but like so many promises made at that time by Westminster it hasn't been kept and London wants to keep control.

Not forgetting the (seemingly) permanently ignored Scottish Region...

It'll be interesting to witness the logistical solution to all of this whilst the trunk is repaired. The old USSCo linkspan still exists in Lyttelton but hasn't been used for the best part of 40 years and will no doubt be unsuitable for modern traffic. The quick solution is to re-establish the old "Steamer Express" service between Lyttelton and Wellington as run by the MAORI/HINEMOA/RANGATIRA and not forgetting the ill fated WAHINE. No native ships or men to do it these days alas.

Crew change I should think, with the two firemen drawing coal forward and the drivers stood on the platform/next to the water filler. The fourth photograph looks like Arbroath to me, with the CR tank being of the 439 variety rather than an 0-6-0T.

Very nice. Did you use the Bachmann D11 as a base model?

Presumably in case someone falls into a puddle?

You are very well off, compared to the youngsters starting out today who will (if they're lucky) be retiring in their 70s with a pension which will hopefully - if all goes well - keep them just above the poverty line. Contrary to popular belief, none of our pension pots actually exist beyond the balance sheet - our contributions are/were being used to pay for those that went before and the younger people will then pay for our own, yet they will see nothing like the same benefits. Final salary pensions with large employer contributions are a thing of the past nearly everywhere and those that remain will not last a decade. If you wish to understand the future pensions reality for those in their teens or twenties now, then google "Peoples Pension" to look at the new UK standard and then compare with your own. When I do the figures and compare it to my own current employer pension, it would take 4 years of Peoples Pension contributions to match 1 year of my current final salary scheme. That equates to some very stark differences in numbers when you consider them over a working life of decades. "Your suppositions suggest that children down mines would be ok or maybe we should all live in back to backs with a two holer down the yard." Care to explain that one, because it baffles me. As for your comment about working hard, would you care to explain how someone who will spend their life on a zero hours contract (with no pensions provision) which demands employer exclusivity even when they're not required at work (i.e. no wages), whilst trying to balance a crippling two generational mortgage (if they can get one) plus a rising cost of living can work hard enough to accumulate a pension pot - on their own - and still retire in their 50s?

Those of a certain age - with all the benefits that has brought - most certainly do. For the young people out there the future is grim.

Quite. At the moment the intention is that the QE class will float around with only a single T45 for company with an RFA oiler/stores ship somewhere in the vicinity. Of course the carrier itself will only be carrying perhaps 12 fixed wing aircraft. I'm not sure as to whether we expect any enemy to actually consciously take heed of the "power" on display, or whether we expect them to be incapacitated because they'll be too busy crippled laughing at it's impotence.

Like the running total of ships often bandied about, it will not be a realistic total and will be suitable massaged/truth stretched to include all manner non combatant types so as to make the figures look better than they really are.

They have to rely on the equally ancient Sea Skua launched from a helicopter. However it's only a relatively short range weapon which means the helicopter has to get reasonably close to the intended target, a target that will of course be doing it's damnedest to shoot said helicopter down. Oh, and the helo can only carry two at a time.

The documentary was "Kb Country" and together with "The Ride of Ww480" is firm favourite of mine, two of the best railway documentaries (for general consumption) I've ever seen. See here:

That was conventional thinking pre Falklands, hence some Leanders and Type 22s being missile only. However, that conflict showed up the inherent weakness in relying on missiles which do of course require all manner of electronic wizardry to make them work, the vulnerability of which will always be their crippling weakness, particularly at short range/against "difficult" targets/amongst challenging terrain. The beauty of a gun is that despite all the modern electrical bits - and the current 4/5" is a very clever piece of kit - at the basic level it's still very simple point and shoot technology which works. When first delivered the type 45s had no anti-ship offensive capability except for the helicopter and gun. The premature decommissioning of the T22 batch 3 released 4 sets of Harpoon anti-ship missile systems to go into the general pool (which is shared between T23 and T45) which allowed some of the T45s to be so fitted, but still not all are. At long last the RN is moving towards commonality with many other nations in selecting the 5" gun for the new type 26 (if it ever appears), although until recently a lot of work went into trying to adapt the 155mm (6.1 inch) gun used by the Army on their AS90 SPG for use on the type 45s, although it was binned on cost grounds.

There's only going to be seven Astute class, even then there will maybe only be 3 or 4 available at any one time due to extended readiness/refit/working up. That's also presuming you can find enough men to crew them - a big issue at the moment. As good as the Astute might be, like the T45s (which have a multitude of their own problems) they can't be in two places at once. Latterly the Harriers were of course in a combined force with the RN, a timeshare agreement if you like. When the news went out that cuts were required, the RAF didn't make too much noise about the combined Harrier force (and thus the Ark) being ditched because it meant their Tornado fleet was protected and gave them a useful bargaining chip in ensuring continued Typhoon and latterly F35 orders. Plus importantly it got one over on the FAA, whose mere existence they loathe. To put that in some kind of context, the money saved in removing ARK ROYAL and her Harriers from service early (£105 million - that's from Hansard) didn't even pay for a single Typhoon with the spares package (£126 million).

The RN ceased being a true blue water fleet some years ago. The workhorses of the fleet are the destroyers and frigates, for which neither cash nor manpower is available. Yet the politicos will gleefully write blank cheques for the vanity project that is Trident replacement and the white elephants that will be the carriers, however they won't actually spend the cash on buying appropriate quantities of aircraft for the latter and those aircraft that will arrive will have to be shared with the RAF. If you want to join the Carrier club you need the battlegroup and support ships that go with them - neither colour of government have taken any notice of that requirement. The result being that we have an unbalanced fleet that in the coming years will become even more unbalanced and which will be incapable of doing very much for very long. Manpower wise lets not forget that only a few years ago they were still making people redundant. I had a Signaller on my ship who was given a redundancy date 12 days short of qualifying for his half pension. He asked for an extension as otherwise he faced losing out on a lot of money, it was refused of course. I think he went on the sick in the end in an attempt to make up the days. His situation was far from unique and the choice of dates were of course no accident. At the time of the redundancies the Navy was already short of men and of course still is, yet under instructions from the Treasury thousands were shown the door for ridiculous (very) short term savings. Morale in the service has been in freefall for some time and it is unlikely to get any better. We will never return to having a large, multi capability navy. Britain needs to realise that we are not the power we once were and we never will be again, only once that hefty dose of reality is acknowledged by those in charge (never going to happen) can we have a sensible long term RN strategy which will reflect the requirements of our commitments and responsibilities. At the moment the RN achieves neither of these things because it is desperately underfunded and under resourced with billions of much needed funds being diverted to projects which serve no practical purpose.

Checking the time with a wristwatch whilst wearing a double Albert? Presumably the latter must be for decoration.