Sunday 12 July 2020

Weekend Variety (Sunday)

Church Link
(here) at approx 1015
LIVE on Sunday morning
thereafter "streamed"

Control Tower
So why take an excellent Airfix kit, now out of production, and bodge it into a building behind a badly broken carriage shed? Surely a waste of a sixty year old model, and one which is becoming harder and harder to obtain?

The answer is windows, and fbb does not refer to Mr Gates' diominant computer technology.

It is a mark of a truly skilled modeller if he/she can make and fit his own windows to a model. It is a mark of a fudge and bodge modeller like fbb that he can't! You can buy windows, laser cut or moulded in plastic, from specialist manufacturers ...
... but they tend to be a bit pricey. And you still have to make accurate holes for them to sit in, and probably add cills and lintels, all of which could so easily turn a model into a disaster - have done for the old codger.

So when fbb wanted to add a workshop cum store cum offices (in low relief) to the rear of his carriage shed he could find nothing "off the peg". So the practical solution was to re-imagine a kit (the control tower) and plonk it in place. A small footbridge links one of the upper floors to the pumping station - or will do when it is finished.

So there you have it - a butchered control tower ...
... becomes a Victorian industrial building ...
... with an embryo link across the chasm to the pumping station.

Obedient Parent, Obedient Children
fbb just presents two screen shots from a tweeted video. Mum and her two kiddies are waiting patiently. but for what?
For the light to turn green, of course ...
... then they can proceed.

Taking The job Seriously
A Reading Buses driver working on the purple route 17 ...
... comes complete with purple hair, purple mask and, so the twitterer insists, purple fingernails. Perhaps a full purple face-paint would have been frowned upon by management?

Trusted Time in Taipei
Correspondent James has passed on a picture he received from a chum in China.
The destinations alternate in English and Mandarin, but both James and fbb likes the more homely take on "due" or "expected".
How about a replacement for "delayed" with "hang in a sec, he's stuck in traffic!"

fbb also notes that all the routes using this particular stop are shown on the fixed part of the display ...
... so you at least know you are at the right stand without waiting for all 11 routes to scroll through.

Dashed clever, these Chinese! Or is that comment racist and offensive to persons of oriental ethnic origin?

MEGA BLUDNER : Taipei is the capital of Taiwan!

Hulleys New Decker
Seen here at Clay Cross bus station ...
... one of the delights of the modern omnibological world.
The vehicle was originally state owned, by the Dutch state ...
... and was then part of a large batch sold on to The Peoples Bus of Liverpool.
Painted in the new company's smart livery ...
... it was, presumably, used on schools work which, before the dreaded, marked the bulk of the company's work. They do, however, have one "normal" bus service to Dingle ...
... which readers may remember was the underground terminus of the Liverpool Overhead Railway.
The 4 and 4A stop right outside Rambos Car Showroom ...
... which stands roughly on the site of the station building.
Here is the bus, awaiting its Derbyshore future, and a repaint, in Hulley's yard.

Unlockdown Snippets
First Bus now carries 33 on its double deckers ...
... and all the restrictions, men with customer bashers ...
... and the frustrating system whereby you had to "go round again" ...
... if you forgot the marmite are all gone from the fbb's corner shop at Seaton.
But the fbbs still had to sit in a plastic cage at the re-instated Saturday morning coffee "event". Five of the usual gang of 7 turned up and were the only customers; "protected" by a series of unstable screens spaced well apart so the virus could, were it to be present, easily float around and infect others.

We Never Knew That!
And if you doubted "Diamond Geezer" (how could you!) here it is on the map.
The B100 runs in its tunnel under/through the Barbican Centre and meets the (red) A1 at the T junction.

fbb must be able to make use of that stunning fact somehow but here is a Google Earth aerial view ...
... pointing in the same direction as the geezer's picture; with the A1 running left to right.

And The Best News
Toby and Thomas, accompanied by their respective ladies, were busy at the Peterville Quarry Railway yesterday, testing all the pointwork now that the Peco-repaired three-way point had been re-installed. All ran very smoothly.

And Those Departure Lists ...
... can get very complicated.
... and need quite a lot of thought.


 Next Technology blog : Monday 13th July 

2 comments:

  1. Windows.
    Not wishing to be critical, but I would suggest that the local authority's Building Control department may place a prohibition notice on windows being located so close to a neighbouring sloping roof and gutter.

    Wait for a knock on the door !

    ReplyDelete
  2. When it was built (in Victorian times) building regs were much less stringent! I think the building would fall down anyway with the haphazard arrangement of windows and window pillars.
    Thankfully modelling does not HAVE to be too accurate.

    ReplyDelete