Weird Rail Bus Types
fbb suspects that both of the above were more about staff transport than public passenger use. If they were real trains, the income would not be viable, surely?
But is the Parry People Mover a Rail Bus?
This and its twin trundle happily up and down the short branch from Stourbridge Junction to Stourbridge Town. They are powered by energy stored in a huge flywheel below the floor. Although Mr Parry worked tirelessly to promote his environmentally friendly "invention", nobody wanted to buy and he company went bust when the piggy bank was finally found to be empty.
At about the same time as the BR Railbus project was beginning to fail, the Stadler Pacerail appeared.It seemed a good idea at the time and was proposed for the Ryde Newport Cowes line on the Isle of Wight.
It failed, sadly
But the Pacer part of its name was to re-appear!
So What Is A Rail Car?
Difficult to say.? The description is usually reserved foe one car bogie passenger trains, usually diesel. The Great Westen Railway was an enthusiastic operator of various types on quieter branch lines.
They were strong enough to haul an extra carriage!
Like rail buses, rail cars were common throughout the rail networks of the world.
In GB one-car diesels were developed as part of the modernisation plan to get rid of steam. For mysterious reasons they are nicknamed "bubble" cars.
Later, BT split two car "Sprinter" units apart, added a second cab and, tada, thus appeared TWO class 123s.
Take a Leyland National bus and plonk it on a four wheel chassis plus engine. It gained an odd non-bus bulge early on ...
... and the prototype later begat the two-car Pacer.
These were, originally, just what it said on the tin - a bus on rail wheels.
Only fbb liked them, apparently! But the all round visibility was superb and spoiled when they were upgraded with high backed seats. The ride was similar to a boat on fairly rough seas - which added to the fun!
The Hornby OO gauge Pacer ...
... enters the tale of the Park Royal Rail Bus advertised by Hattons on their second hand lists; a tale which fbb will complete as part of tomorrow's posting.
More Railbus stuff tomorrow.
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Halloween; Happy ...
... Or Horrible?
In European Christian culture, November 1st (or the nearest Sunday) is celebrated at "All Saints Day", a title which can be confusing even for some believers. A better title is "All Hallows Day" whee "hallows" is a way of expressing "Holy People".
The holy people are those from the congregation or from history who have had their wrongs forgiven vis the shed blood of Christ and now inhabit the joys of eternity, sometimes called Heaven.
The Church Fathers who defined the "festival" encouraged participants to use various techniques to scare away the forces on evil on the previous evening (All Hallows Even); to leave the day purified of evil and fit for the solemnly of the remembrance. Hence versions of scary pumpkins.
So by embracing the symbols of witchcraft and evil "for fun" we have reversed the whole idea of All Hallows Eve completely. Instead of warding off the forces of evil we now treat them as some kind of joke.
There is so much evil and nastiness in our sadly broken world that it seems so very unwise to treat the nasties as a subject for light heartedness.
From very early in the Biblical narrative we read of the dangers of dabbling with the diabolical. Here, as the Israelites were being prepared for the transition from a nomadic life to a settled existence we read wise words from Bible book of Deuteronomy.
When you come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you, don't follow the disgusting practices of the nations that are there. Don't sacrifice your children in the fires on your altars; and don't let your people practise divination or look for omens or use spells or charms, and don't let them consult the spirits of the dead. The Lord your God hates people who do these disgusting things. [Deuteronomy Chapter 19 verse 10 to 12]
Many churches will be holding a "LIGHT" party tonight for their young people and friends.
Now that IS better.
Jesus spoke again. “I am the light of the world,” he said. “Whoever follows me will have the light of life and will never walk in darkness.” [John Chapter 8 verse 12]
Whatever our beliefs, surely it is better to walk in the light rather than to "have a good time" dabbling with the forces of darkness.
The commercialism of Halloween gets very pathetic!
Next Rail Bus blog : Wednesday 1st November
Your second picture down is surely a "Galloping Goose" although I don't know the type. Several versions of these, rather larger, with a passenger "cab" at the front and a boxcar section at the rear, were quite widely used on the 3-foot gauge lines of Colorado and, lie the Country Donegal railcars, probably kept the service going rather longer that it might otherwise done. I suspect that the ride was abominable, though!
ReplyDeleteThe BR DMU's split in two became Class 153, not 123. I remember boarding one at Norwich (for Cromer) and heard the staff calling it (probably with tongue in cheek) "the pride of the line". Some of them were, somewhat bizarrely in my view, named. We still have some around in South Wales, especially on the Coryton branch and the Cardiff Bay shuttle.
Andrew - the 153 single unit railcars are also still used on the Central Wales line. I noticed them in Shrewsbury a couple of weeks ago.
DeleteRC 169
Why did God allow all this evil and darkness to exist in the first place?
ReplyDelete