It's A Tale Of Two Sides!
Fear not, dear readers, fbb will not be bringing you up-to-date news from the Association Football genre (as above), the two sides are on the carriage shed roof at his Peterville model railway.
The roof was a butchering of five Airfix/Kitmaster platform canopy kits slightly extended in width. But the kits do contain a design fault. You have to install each glazing bar individually ...
... and the notch at each end is very tiny. In fact it can be dissolved away by an over exuberant application of adhesive such that the glazing bar drops out at one or even both ends. You can overcome this with a typical bodge; namely by glueing the bars to the clear plastic gazing sheet. Which can, and in fbb's hand, did make a mess.
So the plan is to replace brittle and mucky glazing and poorly fixed glazing bars; but only on one side of the roof. From normal viewing distance the "other side" is not fully visible. That far side will be "done" as soon as time, money and modelling commitment permit.
But how?
There are plenty of very posh and very expensive windows available ...
... but fbb needed lots and lots. And they didn't need to be posh!
In steps an on-line seller ...
... with a glorious trading name!
His windows were very simple laser cut from card ...
... and, as a bonus, they would fit the existing hole.
fbb's precision guess-o-matic measuring tool worked perfectly.
More as it happens.
Three Bridges ...
... named after bridges over streams that form tributaries to the River Arun, the village grew in importance with the development of a three way railway junction. Lines ran to Brighton (the main line), The Arun Valley (turn right from London) and to East Grinstead (turn left). The route to East Grinstead is now closed.
Maybe a blog will emerge in due course.
Then there are three bridges actoss the Forth of Firth near Edinburgh ...
... all three marvels of modern engineering.
But fbb has just picked up news of the three Pamban bridges.
Pamban? As we all know, this locality is part of an archipelago of islands that lies between India and Sri Lanka.
Probably because of politics and history, there is no bridge all the way across.
News that a new bridge had been opened recently sparked fbb's interest.
The new bridge is replacing the old and they are both rail bridges.
The old bridge has two bascule lifting sections, whereas the new bridge has a span that lifts.
And the third bridge? The very first road crossing opened in 1988.
So there are three bridges to Pamban!
Maybe another blog could emerge?
Ferry Back!Over the many, many years that fbb has kept an eye on public transport matters, the ferry from Knott End to Fleetwood has staggered from closure to re-opening many times.
The ferry connects nicely with the Blackpool Tram terminus ...
... leaving from close by the tram stop.
It crosses the not very attractive estuary, depositing its customers on a long sloping walkway.
At low tide, the boat's crew have to hose down the ramp as it can be coated in very sticky slippy mud!
There are bus connectiobs available at Knott End, and the ferry cuts off a long round trip via Poulton-le-Fylde.
That's the route taken by the replacement bus service.
News breaks that the ferry is back
after a four month absence. That's a long time and a costly time to run a replacement bus!
The problem, as ever, is the money!
Ferry Backers!
An Isle of Wight MP has been reading annual accounts for the two main Isle of Wight ferry companies.
Let's try and understand what he is complaining about. A brand new car ferry might cost £30 million. No company of the size of Red Funnel or Wightlink would ever have a sack of crisp £50 notes big enough to buy one.
So they borrow the money.
Shareholders loan the companies their money because they expect to earn interest on it in the form of dividends.
Both these loan sums appear in business accounts as debt.
If you buy a £300,000 house on a mortgage, you are in debt for that amount of money. When fbb bought his house in the late 1960s he was in debt to the tune of a massive £3.500, three and a half times his annual income. It was a bit scary.
Debt only becomes a problem, therefore, if you cannot afford the interest payments or ever pay it back. In which case the lender will take the property back, i.e. repossess a house or a ferry.
Like a mortgage, it may take decades to pay off the debt of a new ferry.
That is normal business practice.
The Question for the MP should be whether Wightlink and Red Funnel can afford the payments on their debt. If they can, no problem.
It they can't, BIG problem!
More Debt For CitylinkSo the service 900 between Glasgow and Edinburgh is getting a fleet of posh 65 seat coaches.
The cost? A modest ...
Doubtless the accountants at Stagecoach, the company that runs the 900, have done their sums and they are all fit and ready to pay off the debt and its interest charges. It is unlikely that the mighty Stagecoach will go belly up - but it is alwats possible.
See also British Leyland!!
The 900 runs every 15 minutes seven days a week.
.jpg)
========================
The Easter Jigsaw
Nothing!
Of course a Resurrection is impossible. But that's the whole point.
By definition God can do the impossible because that is what "God" means. It is also worth bearing in mind that over the nearly 2000 years since the Sunday of the Empty Tomb, no alternative explanation has been offered which fits the documented information.
The entirely fictional Sherlock Holmes said ...
"When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."
Over the next few days of these blogs we will examine some of the accounts of the Resurrection appearances of Jesus - and our readers are invited to think critically about them, using, for example, their brains.
But all the different accounts agree that every visitor to the tomb were NOT expecting to find it full of nothing; yet that is just what they did find.
You can visit the empty tomb today - it is one of Jerusalem's most popular "attractions". Because of the way the city has been bashed about politically and militarily over the years, no one can be 100% certain - but it does fit the descriptions from the very early first century.
Yet; those who visit, and there are plenty who do, often comment on the overwhelming serenity and sense of "good" that they feel when standing inside.
It is small but
VERY special.
========================
Next New Station blog : Mon 21st April
The station also had a branch line, of sorts, marked as "tramway" on the above map. It was to the stone quarry in Ashey Down, diving under the road that led up the hill as shown on this map.
You would call it a short tunnel ....jpg)
...which led to the quarry. It is now firmly blocked up ...
... but the quarry itself can be accessed from nearby footpaths.
Mr Catford has amende the Ashey station map to show an Ashey Racecourse "station", about which nothing is known and no pictures remain. Did it really exist? One account says that railway carriages were parked in the quarry branch but, again, there are no pictures.
.jpg)
Publicity for the events was readily displayed on the Island and, possibly, further afield ....jfif)
... and the only sensible way to get there was by train!
In 1914 sixpence was a high price to pay for your programme. Train fares from the ferry at Ryde were about one shilling FIRST CLASS.
These vehicles are definitely parked on the up loop at Ashey station and not in the quarry branch.
The line of the quarry branch is still visible today from a passing satellite ....jpg)
... curving away from the station (top centre) and crossing Ashey Road clad in undergrowth - but you would never know unless you knew!.jpg)
Tomorrow, we will look at how the station has changed over the years.
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jfif)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
