Weekend Variety (2)

 A Can In A Van?

Peak Ales Brewery

Peak Ales Brewery produces traditional real ales in the stunning landscape of the Peak District in the Derbyshire Dales. It is run by Robert and Debra Evans and a team whose combined knowledge and experience in producing Real Ale Craft Beers has kept the business running since 2005.

Born out of love and the challenges of setting up their own micro-brewery, Robert and Debra's ales have won numerous National Awards in both cask and bottle for their beer range.

As well as selling to hotels, pubs and retail outlets around the Peak District, Peak Ales is open to the public, with a shop onsite at the brewery at Ashford in the Water. 

With a seating area outside, enjoy a beer or order online from home with beer delivery in the UK.

Sadly, the vision of a quaint village brewery, old school, evaporates when you see that they are based on a refurbished farm barn industrial "unit"! But that is progress.

Anyway the point of this diversion is to introduce yet another fake railway prvate owner van.

It comes, not with a minuscule bottle of beer but a Peak Ales beer mat with a Rails Advert on the reverse, surely a tegestologist collector's rarity for the future.

Rails' Ad also includes a shot of a couple of the vans posed against the former Midland Main Lane Monsale Dale viaduct - now a footpath.

If you want a consumable freebee, then try Rails Seabrooks Crisps van which comes with - well guess!

It's a rather expensive way to get a very small bag of crisps, especially as you have to add in P & P at nearly a fiver!

RATP World-Wide

A look at the RATP web site reveals a plethora of operations all over the place ...

...which includes EIGHT little icons of varied transport modes and services.

fbb has no idea what MOD is. The variety and extent is VAST, even vaster than vast, so here a just a few of the main localities.

We begin with bus:-

Then tram:-

Then metro.

But for fbb, the most intriguing was Cable Car.

This is located near Geneva ...

... and has a weird terminal building but offers gorgeous view over the city and lake.

At this time of year it only operates three days a week but the web site (Telpherique Du Saleve) will furnish helpful details.

In many cases RATP operates "in partnership" with local authorities and other commercial operations.

Puzzle Picture

fbb was idly reading the January edition of Railway Modeller when he spotted this ...

... in one of the articles describing a superb model railway. The models, as usual,  made fbb despair at his ham-fisted efforts by comparison. Here IT is in close up!

It is a real full sized one that appears in the puzzle picture.

Fortunately, and thanks to a perspicacious brain (i.e. a good guess!), fbb did work out what it was. But he had not met such a device before.

Here is a clue.

It's a bit complicated but in essence it was a way of making sure that only one train was using a single line section at one time. It involved the driver carrying a token which was released from a machine electrically by the signaman. Once relased, no other tokens could be release for that line until the first one was put back in its slot.

Mr Whitaker of the Somerset and Dorset Railway Company, whose lines had many single track sections, invented a device to mechanise the handing out and catching of the token. The Puzzle picture shows a device known as the "falling man" (because that's what it looked like!).

The loco was fitted with a catcher.

Records do not show how many times the machine failed and the signalman or driver had to scuttle down the track after the train the "missed" and jammed on the brakes.

fbb guesses "frequently"!

More Variety will appear later in the week.

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"NOT the Advent Calendar", but ...

     The      

  CHRIST -mas 

  Criss-muss  

   Confusion  

 Critique  15 

Troublesome Trinitarian Teaching ...

Matthew's Gospel records the baptism of Jesus by John when weird things happened.

Did the people hear the voice of God literally - or did they "experience" the voice within them? Either way we are given the baffling phrase "Son of God!

The Prophet Isaiah preached that the future salvation of the world would be in the hands of someone called Immanuel which means "God with us".

Now John, the Gospel writer, adds to the understanding (?) by referring to "The Word" and "The Light"

The Word was the source of life, and this life brought light to people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has never put it out.

For John, this idea was much more the core of CHRISTmas than simply the birth of a baby in unfortunate circumstances at Bethlehem. For John. the Nativity was fact, but the significance was far greater than the simple story.

To confuse things, modern thinking has made even the simple historic fact into a misrepresented over-prettified mess.

And what coded "Word" does John want us to understand?

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 Next First London blog : Min 16th December