Devon Belle A1SLT/ UKRT 2nd April

And can we have a button for 1,000000 likes for that suggestion please...

 

This is my footage of yesterday's run. The shots were taken from Grateley, Crewkerne and Stoke Canon. Hope you enjoy.

 

I've not watched that series of films Robin, but I understand the key one used is a Snowy Owl. On the UK Schedule 1 list of Birds, (ie special protection), but not resident in the UK. They do visit very occasionally, and did breed a few times a numbers of years back. So if they are providing postal services they certainly need some magic to get deliveries into the UK inside a year or two!

The ones I study are rather nomadic: Short-eared Owls. They too would need the Ministry of Magic to get deliveries right as they could arrive here from France/Spain etc for the breeding season, or could equally head for Scandinavia: regardless of the address on what they are delivering. As would those resident here all year round who just "Head North" around this time of the year top breed.

Bryan

Oops, just read the latest posts and am upsetting the rivet counters again. Sorry guys. I'll open yet another apology thread on NGC. Or just bu...er off and leave you all here playing with trains. Banter, humour, mention of women etc is verboten on Nat Pres. But appalling aggression, cyber bullying, personal attacks etc are all permitted.

 

Spoke to the venerable Gareth Jones, Traction Inspector at Salisbury on the outward leg about the coal. They thought they had a good ides - 'grading' the coal in the tender at the start of the day. Thing is Welsh Steam Opencast coal is by nature soft and 'crumbly' so there is always more dust than with hard coal. Every time you move it with shovels or even by hand, every impact with other coal, tender side etc. breaks it up into smaller lumps and creates more dust than you started with. By Salisbury on the outward they were shovelling more dust than lump coal but at least the 'dust' still burns as fiercely, though can get sucked off the fire when the engine is worked hard on the banks.

 

I was. Started railway career at Taunton station in 1963 (telegraph boy on platform - telegrams from Paddington had to differentiate between steam diesel so that the 1230 Paddington, for example, was hauled by Desloc 1000 and not County of Middlesex. When it was 4089, it was time to get excited. Ha ha). 1965 up to West Station signal box as a booking lad = magical summer saturdays (probably the business signal box in the west), 1967 my first and last job as a signalman at Stonehouse Bristol Road on the Bristol to Birmingham mainline, where mysteriously, the signals went up for clear instead of down. Never did like upper quadrants!! Back to 1963 at Taunton, steam and diesel the order of the day with Warships and Hymeks dominating most passenger duties but always plenty of steam to satisfy the likes of me.

Yes, if you weren't around the railways of the 60's, you don't know what you missed

Smug Nick

 

deleted

 

And I trust the @34098 has been following the discussion, to illustrate that controversial views can be put forward politely and persuasively.

Not, of course, that was my reason for doing so. No guile amongst we barristers......

Robin

 

Ah the memories........................measles, mumps, chickenpox, german measles, strep throat and flu!

 

Very sad news about Ray Towell. A great man of Steam who always seemed to have a smile on his face. I rather liked the headboards yesterday. 60163 looked like she was on a Railtour in the 1960's.
Here is the video of Ray on 60800 when she went to the West Country as you mentioned above:

 

I think Threelinkdave was referring to the commonly used 'mind altering substances' readily available in the 60's, also his name suggests he may have been a 'swinger'... Interesting post never the less.

 

Not to mention Diphtheria and Ricketts

 

Why? His interjections have been more interesting than some of the rubbish posted in this thread.

 

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Apologies for you to have got involved with my Owls and my humour and banter. It's how I like to communicate with people!

But all that don't like my approach now have the chance of getting rid of me. This has been building up for some time, especially on NGC. So it's now time for me to act.

https://www.national-preservation.c...is-humour-and-banter-etc.683745/#post-1448465

 

Interesting 'then and now' comparison

 

Tornado is run by DBC who wont ask for anything the locomotives and their crews can't achieve. It should be horses for courses. Clan Line could do the same. It was a good climb of Honiton after the earlier steaming problems. 31 mph minimum at MP 152.5 rising slightly to 31.7 at the tunnel mouth.

 

Wonderful dash down through what's left of the woods at Broad Clyst spoilt somewhat by a couple of new 50 mph steam restrictions and the 75 limit of course. Tornado could easily have got to 90, but didn't of course. Wayne is much too sensible

 

The only negative on the day, if there was one, was the dawdle round the suburbs for a couple of hours at the end of superb day out, just to achieve the dive under at Reading...

 

Yes a good day. I thought train Control could have got us out of Theale in front of the Late running up Plymouth HST rather than let us sit there until our path but overall everybody contributed to a splendid day. Now all we need is for UKR/DBC/NR and SWT to come up with something really special for July 2017. xx 55 path from Waterloo and an 80 minute path to Salisbury is quite possible with a few service train tweaks. Plus a rerun of 2012 up from Soton. An xx55 path ex Waterloo is still possible even from P19 and don't anybody say it isn't. It has been done in the past.