Sunday Variety

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PENTECOST SUNDAY SERVICE STARTS AT 1030

Today's service is live and ON-LINE
back in the Church.

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which will take you to the YouTube page.

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-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o 

Selecting A Suitable Signal Box (1)

fbb remarked yesterday that the shop at Peco (in Beer, just along the road from fbb mansions) had re-opened, so the old bloke was able to purchase the company's latest catalogue. A better word might be "the group" as Peco has absorbed ranges from Ratio, Wills and Parkside in recent years leading to a catalogue of 212 pages.

Peco entered the market in 1946 with self-assembly OO gauge trackwork, followed soon by a range of "Wonderful Wagon" kits.

But to illustrate how this once-tiny specialist company has developed, fbb has chosen to focus on the decision outlined in the headline above. Supposing the old man wanted to buy a signal box for his model railway, what might today's Peco have to offer?

Back in the days of his youth fbb could choose between a Triang model ...

... made of plastic and unrealistically coloured but in a traditional style; or a Hornby Dublo model in cast metal ...

... which would have been too expensive for the lad's limited financial resources. Then along came Airfix!

For a very modest two shillings, and the joy of assembling it and painting it yourself, you were the proud possessor of a model for a real actual building, namely the signal box at Oakham.

Also appearing at about the same time was Potters Bar box ...

... which had the big advantage of being manufactured in different coloured plastic thus obviating the need for painting. It was a fair reproduction of the real building but with slightly less "base" than reality.

It was part of a Great Northern line modernisation from c.1955 and fbb did not buy it for two reasons. It was too big and modern for fbb's little branch line layout, but most significantly cost a lot more than the Airfix kit! (The figure of 5/11 pops unreliably into the aged brain.)

Dorset Developments

fbb mentioned in passing a much improved open top X54 from Weymouth eastbound in a recent blog, but that was only part of the story.

The X53 along the Jurassic Coast originally ran from Exeter to Bournemouth, a ride which fbb once enjoyed all the way with only a PNB at the "facilities" at Weymouth. In the years since your author has lived at Seaton, this service has been cut back, re-organised and pruned leaving the bare minimum of the original concept.

By 2020 only the basic service between Axminster and Weymouth was left.

But for 2021, and in an outburst of routes aiming at the tourist market, things have taken a turn for the better.

The hourly pattern from Axminster is much the same as previously with an X51 continuing from Bridport via Dorchester and an X53 via the pretty way (West Bay, Abbotsbury etc.). But at Bridport they are joined by an X52 ...

... which connects with the X51 and gives an hourly service along the coast to Weymouth.

But, says First bus in Chris Tarrant mode, "we don't want to give you that ..."

... as the X53 connects with a new X54 at Weymouth giving an hourly service to Lulworth Cove with the X52 continuing to Monkey World and the X54 trundling on to Poole.

And there's more! The X52 (Bridport to Monkey World) is open top!

Wowsers.

fbb inadvertently threw his bus pass away with a rubbish clear-out at the start of 2020 Lockdown 1, but a replacement is on its way and Monkey World beckons!!!!

Brighter Bolder Buses for First ... BUT ...

According to a twitterer we are about to see the end of a Stagecoach Stunner.

The Coastliner 700, linking Portsmouth with Brighton (but now, sadly, split into bits) has recently been equipped with bright attractive buses with stunning back ends. A motorist behind that sort of thing will surely take notice; or behind this:-

But said twitterer reveals that all this is to be swept away and replaced by ...

... this!

What is the opposite of "Creating Desire"?

Lizard Livery Update

We have already met the original closed-top Lizard bus from First Kernow. Now on display and nearly ready is the open top version ...

... with yet another splendid back end.

The bus originally belonged to First London ...

... the passed to Tower Transit when First sold up. It was later open-topped and found its way to a Bristol tour company.

Corby's Purple Passage

The new timetable for East Midland Railway started earlier thus month including the somewhat controversial half hourly service of London cast-offs under the electric string to Corby.

Whilst the improvement in frequency at Corby, Kettering, Wellingborough and Bedfoird is stunning, the former inter city services have been removed, giving slower running times and the need to change trains at Kettering to and from Market Harborough, Leicester and points north.

The above extract shows the pattern. 

There are:-

two trains an hour from Sheffield which now run non stop from Leicester to St Pancras.

two trains an hour from Nottingham which run non-stop from Kettering to St Pancras. These trains give a 13 minute connection at Kettering which means journeys between, say, Wellingborough and Leicester are clock face half hourly but notably slower than before.

two trains an hour from Corby

There is much purple poster publicity at Corby ...

... but when Alan visited, not a solitary sniff of anything in print.

Alan writes:-

Although former rail franchise holder Stagecoach’s Corby outstation is  next door  to the railway station and the current franchise holder is Dutch owned,  bus/rail  co-ordination at Coby does not exist.   

An undated poster at the station lists Centrebus as the operator of service 8  to Kettering via Brigstock and 18 to Raunds. Centrebus withdrew from these routes in September 2019.

For connections to Brigstock, (for  walk to  National Trust Lyveden New Bield) ) Geddington,  (original Eleanor Cross) Oakham, and Uppingham the National Rail website recommends that you find your way to the town centre by some unspecified mode.

For crows it is ¾ mile, for humans a bit further, a 22 minutes walk according to Traveline.

What does Traveline show for buses between railway station  and town centre tomorrow, Wednesday 19th May?   

Departures at -

0609 (2A)

0655 (2B)

0711 (X4)

0829,(X4)

1323 (2A)

1626 (2A)

1658 (2A)

1729 (2A)

1811 (2A) 

1850 (2A)

2014 (X4) 

2102 (X4)

Warning – Traveline’s times for Stagecoach’s service 2A are markedly different from the timetable on the Stagecoach website ...

... so most of these 2A journeys may be currently imaginary.

All other suggestions involve walking part or all of the way.

Trains now arrive from London approximately on the hour and half hour and return about ten minutes later.

At Monday lunchtime apart from a lone security man and visiting train crew the station was unstaffed. The silence was broken by a continuous stream of broadcast safety announcements to an empty platform. It was more like Adlestrop (poem by E Thomas) than a town with a population of over 50,000.

Alan may have forgotten that Edward Thomas wrote a similar, but unpublished and futuristic poem which fbb has obtained from the vaults of  Corby Library.

Yes. I remember Corby town

The name, because one breeze-less day

Of heat, the electric train drew up there

Unwontedly. It was mid May.

The brakes hissed. Someone cleared his throat.

No one left and no one came

On the bare platform. What I saw

Was just Corby - only the name

Announcements, disembodied, endless

Continued loudly by and by,

The place was still; and lonely there

Deserted as high clouds in the sky.

And at that minute a Stagecoach bus

Passed far distant and mistier,

Farther away and of no use to any

Integration in Northamptonshire

Just A Thought

Today is Pentecost Sunday when something really weird happened.

When the day of Pentecost came, all the believers were gathered together in one place. Suddenly there was a noise from the sky which sounded like a strong wind blowing, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. Then they saw what looked like tongues of fire which spread out and touched each person there.

They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to talk in other languages, as the Spirit enabled them to speak.

When the crowds outside heard this multi-lingual oddness, they were baffled.

"All of us hear them speaking in our own languages about the great things that God has done!” Amazed and confused, they kept asking each other, “What does this mean?”

But others made fun of the believers, saying, “These people are drunk!”

Weird, yes! Far-fetched or miracle? Real or fake? Drunk?

More tomorrow.

 Next Williams Report blog : Monday 24th May