Saturday Variety

A collection of items from various sources.

Hounsfield Road Sheffield

Not a long road, but once a busy one that took trams from Glossop Road up to Western Bank and to either Crooskes or Walkley. It also took fbb to the Uniuversity!

Note the tram tracks, the Scala Cinema and a Walkley tram in Winter Street. The same view is very different today.

All buildings in the shot are bits of a much expanded University and there is no way out onto Western Bank; the buses go a different way.

But under the road ...

... and under several layers of tarmac, the tram tracks are still there some sixty years after the last clanging beauties climbed the hill. Generally, in Sheffield, the rails were not "recycled", just left in place to increase cost and frustration for the hole-digging brigade.

Pigs Might Fly Department

The former daily newspaper reports a little-known facet of Government policy:-

John Hayes, a transport minister, said in a speech that the Government would be the “vanguard of a renaissance” in architecture by rebuilding a Doric arch that stood outside London’s Euston station before it was demolished in 1962.

The minister cited Boris Johnson’s New Routemaster as a triumph in design for others to follow, as well as the redeveloped St Pancras, Blackfriars, and King’s Cross stations.

Campaigners have long pushed for the Doric arch outside Euston to be rebuilt. The station is set to be redeveloped as part of the HS2 railway project.

Mr Hayes said he had seen the arch's stones pulled from the river Lea and that plans for rebuilding the arch would be developed "in the coming weeks".

Don't hold your breath! And the Borismaster design is SO good that London Mayor Mt Kahn ...

... has announced that no more will be ordered. All over the Metropolis, bus company chief engineers are drowning their sorrows at the sad demise of this "triumph in design".

Good Moaning Monsieur Jowett

Officer Crabtree thought he could speak French in "Allo, Allo".

Northampton correspondent Alan has a similar delusion as he pens a PS to fbb's recent blogs about the Isle of Wight Bus Museum and its Parisian exhibit.

Que’st que ce’st?

Ce’st l’autobus de M. Jowett.

Mon Dieu, ce’st ne pas L’Arc de Triomphe ou  Gard du Nord.

(awful pun warning)

Oui, ce’st magnifique but ce’st ne pas le gare.

Ce’st le Guildhall de Winchester, jour courant des amis du roi Alfred en 2015.

Utilizez ils le Setright dans cette autobus?

Non, ce ne’st pas authentique et ces gens dans la voiture  ne sont pas Parisien.

And, in case Alan's historical pun passes you by, It was Colonel Pierre François Joseph Bosquet ...

... who commented on the Charge of the Light Brigade thus:-

Oui, ce’st magnifique but ce’st ne pas le guerre, c'est de la folie.

Models and Memories at Thormcombe

Sir William Arthur Stanier, FRS (27 May 1876 to 27 September 1965) was Chief Mechanical Engineer of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway. His most famous design was for the streamlined "Coronation" class 4-6-2.

Even after losing the streamlining, they were still magnificent locomotives.

Standing on Bletchley Station watching one of these thunder through was a magnificent and terrifying experience.

Today is Thormcombe Rail Activities Club model railway exhibition which will be formally opened by Michael Stanier, Sir William's grandson. fbb will be there as well; so a double treat for fans! Or maybe not?

Tomorrow's blog will, amongst other things, include a report on the Exhibition.

 Next models etc. blog : Sunday 6th November