It was David Bowie who sang "Ground Control To Major Tom" (remember?) but the media and many thousands of ordinary folk have been captivated by the ex Major's fund raising effort for the NHS.
The total raised is staggering and still increasing as Tom Moore tottered up and down his yard to complete his self-set challenge on his 100th birthday.
Now he receives the ultimate accolade; nothing so mundane as another medal. Oh, no, sir!
He has his own Transdev Keighley Bus Company single decker named after him ...
... complete with iconic painting on the back.
Wonderful in so many ways!
Climbing Ever Upwards
From the sublime to the ridiculous! fbb has levelled off the landform on the top of Peterville tunnel which means the steps up from the station yard no longer reach to the top. The plywood will get some brick plating when it is delivered.
So if you have some "O" gauge steps in the bits box (as you do), part of an "O" gauge foorbridge that you never built (as you didn't) ...
... how do you reduce their scale? Answer; matchsticks!
They are almost exactly half the tread size of the too-big original and, with a good soaking of paint, should last a year or so in the wild raging weather of Seaton.
Really? They Went Everywhere!
Nowadays, sleeping car trains run from Euston to Glasgow, Edinburgh, Fort William, Aberdeen and Inverness - although the service is provided by only two trains. Additionally there is a train from Paddington to Penzance.
But look how it was back in the day. (click on the graphic to enlarge it)
The route to Brussels and (just off the map as reproduced) Paris were, of course making use of ferries - this was well before the Channel Tunnel.
But when was it?
The tweeter who posted this did not give a date. 1970s?
Spaghetti Junction?
To create the framework for today's London Underground Northern Line, a short extension was planned from the Euston terminus of the City & South London Railway to connect with the Charing Cross Euston and Hampstead Railway (what a mouthful) south of Camden Town station allowing services to run from both City and West End branches to and from the Hampstead and Highgate branches.
The work required to join the two lines together at Camden Town was one of the most ambitious projects in the history of the Underground, and was undertaken without disrupting any existing services. It added another four tunnels that allows trains to proceed to or from either the Edgware or High Barnet branch on to or off both the City or Charing Cross branch without following conflicting paths. The multiple junction tunnels are effectively located beneath Camden High Street.
The junction has just celebrated its 96th Birthday.
One twitterer wrote, "surely the lines to the West End branch (Charing Cross) and the City branch (Moorgate) are the wrong way round.
Technically they are. The City branch does indeed leave Spaghetti Junction bottom LEFT in the diagram above, but then crosses the West End Branch (on different levels with no junction) at Euston.
Presumably the graphic designers of the poster though they would confuse people utterly and therefore chose to be unltimately accurate rather than intermediately so.
The junctions are SOUTH of the station platforms, which means that travelling to the northern branchesin simple, but choosing which platform your required southbound train will use is less straighforward. It could be either.
Fortunately signs illuminate your path!
Two For The NHS From GoAhead
Here is a train on the Ouse Valley Viaduct (which we all call the Balcombe Viaduct) ...
... and it includes the Southern "NHS" unit, 377111, although you probably cannot tell. It may be going to Brighton where support for the NHS has been shown by the local GoAhead bus company in an unusual way.
The above is a drone's eye view of Lewes Road depot where the staff have done a bit of nifty parking. You have to hope they can get them out again!
Not Sinister But Simister
GoNorthWest has taken on a couple of routes. The 96 runs to Simister ...
... north of Heaton Park and almost overwhelmed by the M60/M66 junction.
The driver of Monday's first arrival there recorded and tweeted the event as he lay over in a jolly little turning circle.
The 96 currently runs Monday to Friday only ...
... but Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) does not know of its existence.
The other is the 415, previously operated by Stagecoach ...
... is also Monday to Friday only.
TfGM thinks that both Stagecoach AND GoNorthWest are running the service, three minutes apart.
The USP of the 415 is its route via Alkrington "Garden Village", near Middleton.
But then it is ALL ON LINE.
Back to 1960 blog : Thursday 23rd April
re the date of the Sleeper map:
ReplyDeleteThe Paris and Brussels routes must be the Night Ferry which ceased in 1980.
Yes; and the Inter-City branding only came in with the West Coast electrification in April 1966. (It lost the hyphen in 1983). I notice that Leeds is shown; I definitely travelled on a night train to Leeds which included a sleeper in the summer of 1974, so that narrows things down a bit. (I was in the seated accommodation, an Mk2 open second, and remember wishing that they had dimmed the lights! Conversely the Glasgow-Euston sleeper a few years later included Mk1 compartment stock and you could sleep pretty well across a set of seats if the train wasn't busy).
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