Monday Variety

 A I : Astounding Imagination!

Yet another titillating travesty of a tunnel. This one appears to be dangling from rafts floating on the surface of the ocean. Unbelievably, compilers of such daftness are using expensive so-calles AI software to "imagine" preposterously potty pictures.

But in this case there IS a real tunnel, albeit with artists' impressions as a dubious guide.

We also have what might be a real shot of one of the construction sites.

This is the Fenham Channel fixed link between Denmark and Germany.

Here is a hefty chunk of Denmark with, peeping in bottom left Fenham which is a bit of Germany.

It is the gap north of Fenham that is filled.

The orange line shown the new through route that os created by the tunnel.

Here are rail (BLUE) and Motorway (RED) links which use the tunnel.

Castles in the Air Loft!

A few days back,I we saw Peterville Castle, uprooted from its former site atop the railway tunnel by some curious intergalactic transporter beam. A corrugated card landform was added but then obliterated by yellow card.

The hills are now a lurid green, awaiting a selection of more realistic subdued washes of poster paint. Poster paint would not "take well" on the dark tones of the card, hence the yellow covering.

The top of the hills will be trimmed to a rolling upland shape!

While all this was settling, fbb started on his Metcalfe castle gateway kit.

But fbb would not be the bodging modeller we know and love (?) by just assembling a kit.

It needs adapting and re-purposing to fit the corner site.

So he began with one of the towers.

More to come, obviously, or it would be a very expensive tower!

Talking of Expensive ...

(Click on the image below to enlarge it) The Daily Mail, not renowned as a supporter of Mr Milliband and his chums, has discovered a projection well hidden in a quango report.

We already know that electric buses cost about twice the price if a good old diesel, now vilified as destructive of life, the universe and everything.

We also know that charging infrastructure us equally pricey!

We further know that there are grave doubts about the ability of the National Grid to deliver a big enough dose of the electric.

We ultimately know that it is all hanging together with the huge roll of sticking plaster labelled "Government Grants". What is more galling to those of us who think about it and equally annoying to the Editor of the Mail, is that it is you and me that are footing the bill.

Meet a bus professional.

Bill Cahill  has been around in the bus industry for a while and is now the big cheese at First Bus London.

Bill says that he is committed to net zero, BUT ...

... it is not going to be deliverable.

The whole set of proposals probably needs fewer sound bytes and a good dose of hard nosed and financial common sense.

Will we get it!

What do you think?

12p Worth of Petrol, Please. 

Mrs fbb filled up at Tesco - but was concerned that, after the fill up, the gauge still showed empty? Had she been scammed? Was the pump faulty? Was the gauge faulty? Was Mrs fbb faulty?

Mrs fbb was utterly convinced that the pump had made all the right gurgling and whirring noises commensurate with a standard upfill.

After some thought, fbb decided to return to their corner shop to attempt to fill up again, as fuel was necessary.

A possible second fill up was successful. 

Fortunately a Tesco "lad" was doing whatever Tesco staff do at an unstaffed filling station.

"Did you use your club card?" he helpfully queried, "because my manager can download the transactions so you can see what you were charged for."

He did and the fbbs did!

There is the modest price of a thankfully thankfully full (!).

And here is Mrs fbb's earlier transaction ...

... showing the purchase of a genuinely modest, but useless, 12p worth of go-juice!

How did that happen?

Neither fbb, nor Mrs fbb, nor the lad, nor his manager could explain it.

But isn't  technology wonderful?

 Next Angel Train P.S. blog : Tues 13 Jan 

Sunday Variety

It's All On-Line No 494

Fake Picture. Surely Not?

The above monstrosity is a "headline" picture on a YouTube post about "giant commercial vehicles" As usual, this particular vehicle does not feature in the video - because it does not exist. It could never exist because the funnel needs to be at the front end of the boiler to create the draught in the boiler tubes to draw the heat from the fire to turn water into steam.

Then you would have to wonder how those six giant wheels might respond to the one set at the front which might be steerable. Although, as they would appear to be fixed to the chassis ...

... we have a not steerable, non steamable very unbalanced non vehicle.

Tunnels Under The Sea

Erm, haven't you forgotten the tunnel? 

Or maybe all passengers are equipped with wet suits and SCUBA breathing apparatus for their journey between continents?

There has been a little spate of these items on-line. (Can you have a little spate? Surely a little spate is a dribble?)

This time it is waterproofed cars with their own oxygen supply, needed in large quantities to ensure the engine will run. Or maybe each car has huge batteries reliably insulated for sub-aqua use? Perhaps there will be fast charging stations on the ocean floor, complete with air supply?

One on-line article is almost poetic in its explanation of the possibilities that such a tunnel will offer.

There is even a section of FAQs!

And a key question ...

In yet another version of the article, we do now have a tunnel, set very shallow and lit from outside. But it appears to be suspended from who-knows-what with pieces of string.

So now you know!

If you are planning to drive from the UK to New York, don't hold your breath!

To make it work, according to some illustrations, you would have to hold your breath for a very long time.

Yet again, one of the benefits of the interwebnet, namely to inform and educate,

More Tunnels

It's not entirely clear who might want to drive from the UK to Iceland, a distance of 2,760 miles taking an estimated 90 hours ...

... OR who would pay to build it!

This picture is, indeed, of a roundabout in a tunnel ...

... but it is on the Faroe Islands, NOT Iceland. These remote Islands are part of Denmark, as yet not sought by a certain American leader!

But there is a YouTube video or "the only roundabout in a tunnel".

Yep, it's in Norway - which isn't Iceland OR The Faroes OR Denmark.

So it isn't unique.

More success for on-line learning!

And A Train Tunnel in London

In a Trump-like move, Mr Khan is always ready to annex new territory. This time he is after the Northern City Line, running  (historically) between Finsbury Park and Moorgate.

It once looked like this ...

... then looked like this!

The line was taken over by British Rail and looked like this ...

... and was later more fully incorporated into the national rail network. It now looks like this.

Currently, the core service is every 30 minutes on each of two routes ...

... to Stevenage via Hatfield and via Hertford.

Apparently Mr Khan will take over the existing trains and give the line a new name and a new colour. He also wants to run trains every 20 minutes on each leg but, on the line via Hatfield, they won't quite fit with the other services, so there frequency will be uneven.

On Line Sales Pitch?

Back To Sanity : Possibly? (1)

Readers may recall that Oliver Bulleid (of the pre-nationalisation Southern Railway) built two four car sets of "double deck" trains.

They were not a success.

K R Models has created an OO version of the set ...

 ... also available in blue as were the prototypes in their declining years.

Now, in a rush for crackpot unrealism, the company has announced a 4DD set in ...

... Network SouthEast colours - which, of course, they never wore! Sadly (even ludicrously) the blue does not match the lower lower deck window height so the whole thing is not only inaccurate but just looks wrong.

How about a set in Great British Railways livery?

No, that would be silly!

And A Peterville Puzzle

What might the above be? Here it is folded ready for adhesive.

More tomorrow.

And this?

Now what could you possibly do with a 4 x 2 Lego brick?

Seems sort of "basic" to fbb.

Again, more tomorrow.

 Next Variety Blog : Mon 12th Jan 

Overground Subway Depot : A P.S.

From This ...

... To This ...

... So How?

The Glasgow and Paisley Joint Railway ran, surprisingly, between Glasgow and Paisley. It was "joint" because it brought together lines between Glasgow and Ayr "joint" with services between Glasgow and Greenock. A branch was opened from Ibrox (originally called Bellahouston) to Govan. 

From a passenger point of view the branch was not a success as these dates show.

You would guess that such a short journey was quicker by tram or Glasgow Underground, despite efforts to drum up passengers with reduced fares.

On this 1922 map, the passenger station is correctly shown as closed!

The unlabelled map from Rail Scot shows that a number of goods links were also part of the line, but the map does not reveal when goods services were withdrawn. (It was in 1960)

Confusingly it shows branches in green and in a lighter green trams running east to west (ish) via Govan (above, top) and ditto along the Paisley Road (above, bottom). 

The link with the main Paisley line is via a   triangular junction.

Note a mid green line curving off to the right on the map above. 

This ran to  the Princes Dock complex ...

... which was the site of the Glasgow Garden Festival of 1988.

The junction is, perhaps, shown more clearly below.

Ibrox station was at the eastern apex of the triangle and is pictured here ...

... and again near the end of its life when DMUs called. It closed for normal service in 1967

Footy fans will know that Ibrox is the home to a well known Glasgow footy team and the Subway (Underground) station bears that name.

It has changed a bit!

It used to be called Copland Road and was much grander than the average Subway station.

The picture belowmshows a football crowd at the "main line" Ibrox station.

It is parked on one of the triangle's curved junction lines, So fbb guesses that it is an excursion bringing "away" passengers to enjoy the footy tussle.

A modern map still shows the shape of those Ibrox station curves.

But it also shows buildings on a track at the southernmost point of the Subway depot. Yes, the depot and a test track were constructed on the solum of the former Glasgow and Paisley Joint Railway branch to Govan.

The above ground Underground d3pots are located roughly on the site of the Govan passenger station, closed in 1921. Here is a Google Earth shot showing the former branch in its entirety ...

... again with the various curves still apparent.

fbb could find no pictures on-line of the original Govan station but a couple of rail tours are pictured at a rather spartan single platform. This is one such.

Herewith the fully detailed Carto plan of depot and its tail.

Apart from the Subway "tail" there is little left of these lines in 2026. 

This line of trees is the western curve of the triangle ...

The site of Ibrox station is just over this bridge parapet ...

... and next right is the western curve of the triangle, not accessible to Streetview.

The curve of a bit of industrial access road, near Ibrox Stadium, is where the siding to Princes dock curved away from the triangle ...

... not much to show for many, many years of Glasgow's transport history!

But at least the Govan branch has happily espoused its on-going role in serving the much loved "Subway".

 Next Variety blog |: Sunday 11th Jan