Sunday 23 August 2020

Sunday Variety

Church Link ...
... available (here). Service starts 1030
Today's service has been pre-recorded.
The Minsters are having a break
before "Car Park" services start in September

Bank Holiday Befuddlement A PS
Anxious as always to ensure our blog readers are fully informed, Alan corrects and amplifies what fbb wrote in yesterday's blog. The timetable extract which mentions "public holidays" ...
... is, in fact, a BC version. The current timetable for service 1 is displayed in the frame at Northgate Bus Station. (picture taken at 1100 yesterday).
In case you could not read it, here is an enlargement of everything timetabular on display.
Sunday service? Bank Holiday service? Nah!

But fear not keen Northamptonian bus travellers; services are to be improved from Sunday 30th August (Bank Holiday MONDAY, you may remember is 31st). The details are well hidden on the Stagecoach web site.
And the service which will apply on the SECOND day of the new timetable (Bank Holiday MONDAY, you may remember) ...
... zilch!

IF you know the secret, the SUNDAY service is there but nowhere,
repeat nowhere,
is there any mention of its operation on MONDAY  31st August.
Good, innit!

Thrice Thanks For Three Tanks (1B)
In today's commercial world of toys for elderly and wealthy boys, fbb is encouraged by advertising to buy a resin-moulded fully painted, well detailed water tank from one of the big manufacturers. This from Hornby ...
... would sit on a station platform, but is no longer in production. Hornby's current offering sits on brick towers ...
... but, as fbb found with his Methodist Chapel, messing about with resin buildings is fraught with self-destructive difficulty.

Or there is something grander from Oxford Rail.
In one of those weird happenings in the world of business, the Oxford range of resin buildings has been taken over by Hornby, hence the "pre order" above.

The variety available over the years has been almost as great as the real thing.

But fbb wanted a tower that would sit over the tracks at the entrance to his newly rebuilt carriage shed. A look on-line at pictures of water towers suggested that some of them stood on iron girder framework ...
... so with a bit of re-designing, a tank so supported could sit over the tracks. No doubt structural engineering experts would have a mega-fit at the very real likelihood of such a re-fettled tower collapsing under the weight of water; but this is model railways and different rules of physics apply!

So the answer to fbb's problem could be solved by the good old Airfix kit, dating from 1959, adapted to span the Peterville permanent way.
Even without access to the Peco model shop, about £8 including postage was a bearable budget BUT ...
... even stripping out the bracing ironwork on the broader sides of the model, it would not fit happily across the front of the carriage shed. A more drastic bodge would be needed.

In the meantime, fbb came across a prototype example of refettling a water tower. Toddington Station, on the preserved Gloucestershire and Warwickshire Railway (note clever use of the "preserved" company initials) had one behind the station building.
The contrast is lost in the above old photo, but you can just make out the shape. But this piece of station furniture had long since been cut up for scrap. So the GWR bought a second hand tower from the Cholsey and Wallingford Railway.

Now installed at Toddington it is close enough to the original to be acceptable to all but the most vehement purists.
On-line articles do not say whether the tower is in use or just "cosmetic", but fbb is thus justified in "buying" an Airfix model and adapting it to the Peterville Quarry Railway situation.

More to follow!

Timely Twittering - All You Need To Know
Bob Has A New Livery
He first made an appearance at an East Yorkshire event last year when he was arrayed beautifully in blue. He speaks with a terrifying electronic Dalek voice and was produced, fbb presumes, to "persuade" young children or even East Yorkshire staff to behave themselves!
He is eight feet tall!

But from this season he has re-appeared in the new East Yorkshire livery.
East Yorkshire comes under the ambit of GoAhead North East, so we may assume that boss Martijn Gilbert is either "SUPER excited" or scared witless.

He (the robot) is called B.O.B. but fbb could not discover what the letters really mean. Bogoff Our Buses?

Transdev Takes Off
From Saturday 30th August, Transdev will be running the three routes (previously numbered in the 7xx series) to or via Leeds Bradford Airport.
Re-vinyled buses have been prepared ...
... and there has been significant on-line and social media promotion.
Enthusiasm flows like sweet wine from the Transdev newsletter ...
The Leeds service runs every 20 min, the services from Bradford are each hourly ...
... with the same frequencies on offer seven days a week.
A good time to start a "new" Airport service? Lets hope the Airport is handing over plenty of cash!

An Offer Too Good To Miss Catch?
The Twitter who Tweeted does not say which retail outlet is offering this wonderful loss-leader but as soon as fbb finds out he will be off like a shot to stock up ...
... with Lidl's cheap crisps at a smidgen over 8p a packet.

Everyday Essentials is also a brand used in Iceland - which is a mighty long way to go to save a 1p on a packet of Tortilla Chips. GROAN.

The Joy Of God's Creation
Comment unnecssary.

 More Variety blog : Monday 24th August 

2 comments:

  1. Stagecoach Midlands and East is forming into one operative area soon enough! Then where will the timetables be found? One good guess is to be found in your catchphrase!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Andrew Kleissner23 August 2020 at 13:35

    The "special offer" looks like Aldi to me.

    ReplyDelete