TheSignalEngineer

IIRC Minories on the London and Blackwall only lasted a very few years before becoming a goods depot. My recollection of the Freezer 'Minories' was it was based on the layout at Liverpool Street Metropolitan which had a terminating platform facing west, but treating it as a 3-platform terminus rather than a through station.

Blackadder and Baldrick to sign up as stewards on the Hogwarts Express?

He may have heard the shout of DOOR as well. I've had similar experiences of trains leaving without a door being properly closed. Fortunately on every occasion I was able to give it a quick tug and it clicked shut. I would make a point of seeing the guard before I left the train and telling him that "the train had left --- with a door not properly shut but it's OK now". I did have to take stronger action on other occasions but they aren't related to this thread.

An all too common story at the moment. There are currently two popular old established food shops on our high street up for sale with the owners looking to retire. One is expected to close in March.

Big problem is that most only give 1.2 volts fully charged. Not much use on something which is voltage critical. I found a date on some of the old ones, they were madie in 2009!

The first show I went to was at the Birmingham & Midland Institue when it was still in Paradise Street. I was still at school so no later than 1965. Reverend Awdry was there with his Ffarquhar layout. He would have been early in his early 50s at the time. He started building the first Tidmouth Docks layout when in his late 30s and built the Ffarquhar exhibition layout when he was about 45. My own modelling stalled at 18 when my parents moved house and I was working away a lot. It got restarted again at about 10 years later after marriage, 2 children and buying a house with a garage. Another house move and too much hassle on the big railway caused another gap until I restarted in my early 50s. I've never been a member of a club, partly through choice and partly because other things got in the way but have been attending several shows a year from local clubs with a handful of layouts to a fair number of big ones like Manchester, York and Stafford. The demise of the modeller and railway enthusiast seems to have been predicted or most of my lifetime but it still carries on. Other things I have been involved with seem to go through similar cycles. Sports clubs have plenty of members in times of low cost of living and job security but are one of the first thing people will cut when prices go up and things get tough in the employment scene. I think the hobby will outlive most of us as I keep eeing plenty of new faces showing their efforts on social media.

I've still got about a dozen rechargeables that are now sadly failing to hold much charge. I have no idea how old they are but were bought when my wife was working in Stockport, so at least 10 years ago.

Two of our neighbouring councils have been found at fault and faced with big legal bills following fatal accidents to motor cycle riders who hit potholes. In one case the Leader of the council was on record in the local press saying that it was cheaper to leave the potholes on the road concerned than provide traffic calming measures. He was sadly proved wrong and not only ended up paying the compensation for the accident but also had to pay for about half a mile of resurfacing with chicanes to prevent people racing along the new smooth surface. I got involved in a problem with a sunken and broken drain in a village where I lived about 20 years ago. After several months of cars and lorries bouncing into the hole and not being able to get anything done about it due to all parties buckpassing I phoned the Highways Agency, County and Borough Councils and water company and put the same question to all of them. "You've known about this for ... months. If someone hits the hole and has a fatal accident, who holds the Go To Jail Card?". Three days later the drain had been rebuilt with new ironwork and the road resurfaced around it.

I remember attending one year when it was in February. Very difficult to get off the car park due to mud. Fortunately I had reverse parked with my driving wheels three feet from the tarmac. I went home via Leek and Buxton. Didn't see the road for several miles due to snow and fog. It's a pity the September date clashes with our usual MTB excursion to Yorkshire which by some quirk of my date picking always seems to co-incide with the NYMR Steam Gala 😉.

Some clubs do try to engage with the younger visitors. At least two have tried to recruit my 11 year old grandson after he has demonstrated his skill at operating both shunting and roundy layouts available for public tryouts. At one he was the only person other than the owner who managed to do a 100% perfect sort, all wagons on the right sidings and no derailments, when operating the point levers on a gravity shunting yard. Sadly I never went to Warley at the NEC, partly due to living 100 miles north. Not easy by public transport, and most years the date clashed with either a holiday or a family event. I was all geared up for last year then the trains were on strike, Doh! I went across to Wigan several times, was always a good trip. I'm hoping to make it to Leigh this year, subject to being able to drive there as it takes about 2h 30 to use public transport and it's only about 30 miles away. It would probably be on the Sunday as I usually take my grandson to the little club show at Romiley Methodists on that Saturday. I will visit several shows this year ranging from small club events to Doncaster and possibly York. I have about 16 shortlisted within reasonable travelling range so plenty to go at when I can get a leave pass, must get a few brownie points accumulated. The stair carpet needs cleaning for a start. A bike service and racquet restring should be worth two more trips.

So we've got to kill somebody before we fix a problem? After a BR reorganisation in the 1980s I told my new boss that a system that was proposed for use on a project had flaws which made it unsafe for use and couldn't be fixed before the required in service date. His reply was 'we may have to kill a few before it's right'. I just about managed to stop my assistant from decking him. His father was a guard who had recently had a lucky escape in a derailment caused by a rail flaw. Had it been in the other rail they would have gone 30 feet down an embankment. I told the boss to go outside, think about what he had said and never to say anything like that again in front of my staff.

We had a detailed discussion on 30 July 2023. See page 9 above. The WHR timetable is such that whilst it could possibly be juggled a bit, a delay to the North Blyth Alcan has implications right across to the ECML and the last Up Scotrail train connects with the Highland Sleeper, delaying which can mess up pathing of the morning peak trains at Euston. Some services are also tied in with combining with Oban line trains at Crianlarich and they have to fit between other services between Dumbarton and Glasgow.

I think we had a discussion about WHR timetabling up the thread or maybe on another one. The pathing of the Jacobite depends on running above 25mph as otherwise the Scotrail timetable doesn't work.

Budget modelling is ongoing here today. A while ago I picked a good condition China made Fowler 2-6-4T for a low price. A set of Mike Edge's etches, some transfers plus sundries and paint will give me a Limo Cab version for about £60.

The NYMR has an exemption running for running to Whitby on Network Rail, but it is limited to 25mph.

LMS stock for the Wirral lines electrification in 1938 (19 x 3 car sets) and the new Southport sets (152 vehicles) built 1939 were the only ones with sliding doors. BR added 24 sets to replace the old Mersey Railway sets in 1956-7. LNER Tyneside Stock had manually operated sliding doors. I don't kmow if they had any interlocking system. The LNER ordered about 100 sets with sliding doors for the Great Eastern Suburban lines and Manchester - Hadfield but they weren't introduced until BR days. They became classes 306 and 506. I think the only BR designed sliding door stock prior to the PEP prototype were the 303/311 sets for Glasgow in the 1960s

Where's the @!%**£ button when you need it?

Moving on to passenger fatalities, studying the 10 year moving average of the rate per billion passenger kilometers throws up a couple of interesting shifts. The first downward trend shows up in the late 1980s. The move to sliding door fixed window EMU stock started c1976, followed by the 2nd generation DMUs in 1984. The trend accelerated as more old slam door stock was withdrawn. It stuttered around the early days of Railtrack due to infrastructure incidents like Hatfield and Potters Bar but then resumed it's downward trend as remaining slam door stock was fitted with CDL or scrapped and TPWS was overlaid at selected points in the signalling system. By 2008 the rate had dropped to about 25% of the rate in the 1970s.

I have personally known several people killed on the railway due to old working methods not matching the current environment of faster, quieter trains. A close friend lost a leg when hit by a train when someone else didn't apply the rules. I also had a railway enthusiast school friend who was found dead on a train due to a head injury. His blood was found on a signal box corner post so it was assumed he had been window hanging. At 18 years old I was present during the rescue and recovery efforts at a serious crash where nine died due to someone ignoring the rules. I still get dreams where all I can see as the underside of a carriage even though it was well over 50 years ago. I was a believer in the common sense of individuals but that soon evaporated as my working life progressed. In the late 1980s and 1990s I was involved in trying to improve worker safety and system safety. I trialled new on-track working methods such as fenced protection zones when staff were needed to work next the open lines, control of working hours and changes to signalling design and testing methods and record keeping. It was a pain at first but you got a bit of a boost when you first managed a month without a lost time accident on your projects.

BR started using central locking for the simple reason that people were falling out of trains, The 'Tamworth Triangle' incidents 1990-91 Two people had fallen out of train doors in Tamworth and died in 1990. Another person fell out near to Tamworth, and was badly injured but later made a full recovery. There were also a few cases of people finding doors had come open but no one was injured or had fallen out of the moving train. In Summer 1991 three teenagers and 2 adults fell out of doors on express trains and later died from their injuries. The first two deaths occurred near Tamworth, Staffordshire, the third near Nuneaton, Warwickshire a few days later. The last 2 occurred near Lichfield, in Staffordshire. There were also several accidental door opening incidents in which no one actually fell out of the train reported in the area at the time. The local coroner stated that the UK's total of mysterious deaths by falling from trains since BR was founded had reached 325. That worked out at about one every 7 weeks.

They wouldn't have a problem if they complied with the rules. They have been given plenty of time to comply but think that rules are for others, not for them. The regulations clearly state that any exemption can by revoked without notice if the company don't carry out work on CDL in accordance with an agreed programme and don't apply the agreed interim measures. WCR were found to be lacking on all counts on more than one occasion so I can have no sympathy with the management. It's tough on the staff and punters but not so tough as having to recover the remains of a casualty.

I remeber them well, especially after the move to Hobs Moat. Another I used to visit was Wyatt & Tizard at 222 Warwick Road in Greet. A regular call when I had to visit Tyseley S&T Depot about half a mile away. They were great for all sorts of bits and pieces and made some of their own rolling stock kits as well.

We're very much in the same boat unless you need a takeaway, charity shop or Turkish Barber. A greengrocery which started in a neighbouring town when Norman Hatton was still in the army is closing shortly. They have been trying to get someone to take the business on for 18 months but haven't had a viable offer and it's the same with one of our two butchers who wants to retire. The other butcher has closed one branch and his abbatoir as it was no longer viable to run it on a small scale. Co-op, Iceland and Halfords all gone and our last shoe shop which had been there for about 50 years recently closed. The local market place has just about died but the Council won't admit it. We've lost Barclays, Natwest, HSBC and the two building societies leaving just Lloyds for over the counter banking.

I just wait until I get wind of an impending delivery of cycling gear then slip in a model railway order. Works every time.