Sunday Variety

Please note:- Easter is, quite rightly, a special time for the Christian community - by far a more important festival than Christmas. The fbb's will be at a Palm Sunday service today, a Prayer Meeting tomorrow, a Good Friday service, amazingly, on Friday, helping at a Church children's event in Saturday and back in Church for a glorious Easter Sunday celebration.

Any shortfall in blog quantity, quality and general presentation may well be explained by the additional activity elsewhere!!!

Trams In Kent - Not Really

Announces in late 2022 and originally due to start in November 2023, the arrival of these natty little motors for London Buses route 358 is now scheduled for "June 2024" - possibly. Route 358 runs from Orpington to Crystal Palace.

(click on map for an enlargement) These are diddy ie Trams; and other sizes are available!

fbb is not sure whether peak time passengers will be overjoyed with the small seating capacity and ...

... the large standing capacity!

GoAhead have also just won the contract for operating the Fastrack routes in Kent. Currently there are two services, A and B. "A" wiggles via lots of new stuff from Dartford to Bluewater ...

... whilst "B" runs more direct, then on to Gravesend.

A new route C is planned, conventionally between Dartford and Ebbsfleet and then via new stuff at Northfleet; also terminating at Gravesend.

GoAhead will be using a fleet of new ie Trams!

Let's hope GoAhead don't have the delays that have plagued their introduction on the 358.

The important people sound very pleased.

And there is more optimistic aspiration!

GoAhead PR gurus have confirmed that their "Trams" will have wheels!

Maybe someone should tell GoAhead that ALL trams have wheels!!!

And Talking if EVs

fbb continues his mumblings about "Saving the Planet" with this piece of not unexpected news.

Now there'd a big surprise. So, we haven't got enough string to deliver the electric we need to "save the planet"!!

And another question. How much pollution, greenhouse gases, damage to wild life etc will be caused by the manufacture of pylons and cables and the installation thereof. It will surely be multiple lots.

And, as we saw in an earlier blog, we need lots of polluting power plants as well.

Sheffield's First Electrics

Sheffield City Council has announced that it will be using electric buses on its Sheffield Connect city centre route, It is a rather poor relation of the hugely successful City Clipper which died a slowish death after deregulation.

But it went from 2p fare to free and from ordinary single decks to artics.

Publicity for the new "improved" service is sparse but enthusiastic from the City Council. As yet we have no revised route and no timetable. We do know, however, that it will be completely FREE unlike the present service ...

... where "ordinary" passengers have to pay. So far Sheffield Connect has failed to capture the public's imagination and enthusiasm like the original and best City Clipper..

Sheffield's First Mini/Midi Bus?

Bought by the Transport Department to fulfill a contract from King Edwards Grammar School, this vehicle was available for public service;  with a conductor of course.

Ir was known affectionately (?) as the Cabbage Wagon and saw service on the Tuesday and Saturday service 117 to Load Brook ...

... with a view above towards the terminus. The service was never very well loaded!

Another Bridge Strike!

fbb has occasionally reported on the ubiquitousness of the former Airfix footbridge dating from 1958 but still available from Dapol today and still oft used on many, many layouts.

Note the OUCH price above for an original Airfix model although today's Dapol price is around £9. (Three shillings in 1958). Although the ironwork is very much over scale, the whole effect of an assembled kit is very acceptable to "the average modeller". Yes, fbb has one, despite being a below average modeller.

He spotted this treatment of at least two models "kit-bashed" into something a little different.

Whist modellers are, of course, free to follow their layout design whims, fbb finds this footbridge, like so many others of the same ilk, too tall for platform installation. Ideally one layer should be removed, unless, of course, the modeller is planning 25Kv electrification catenary.

The commissioning inspector would not be keen on that run of steps without a landing.

But the painting is intricate and beautiful - far better than fbb could manage.

Power Problem P S.

fbb did think his controller had come to the end of its days. But was there another explanation? To help spot and subsequently locate any faulty feed to the track, fbb had been using two single car diesel units coupled together.

Could it be that over-working one of these motor bogies as it toiled to get the other "dead" bogie over the faulty spot might have overheated the gubbins? 

When fbb had a play yesterday morning with one powered loco, there were no controller failures.

Remembering that erratic and unpredictable failures can be very erratic and mind-blowingly unpredictable, fbb will refrain from buying a new  controller just yet.

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Today is PALM SUNDAY

The blind man was, of course, a BEGGAR.

Jesus did not heal every sick person in Galilee and Jerusalem. This can infuriate modern cynics who ask, "Why doesn't God do something about cancer, world poverty, Mr Putin, Covid etc etc."

In the Bible, at least, Jesus' miracles were all part of his teaching, part of his message about faith and salvation. Jesus was not a Holy Land health delivery slot machine.

The message is simple, if unpalatable. We live in a broken world and Easter was offered as a way of mending things. But there had to be a death to pay the price of sin and a human response of repentance and commitment before a better hope was available.

Palm Sunday was a visual parable; Jesus was coming to bring Peace to his people and was welcomed as the Messiah. He might have been bringing Peace but to claim he was God's Son was blasphemy to the Jewish Authorities.

They sought to kill him.

It was as if Jesus came to Jerusalem specifically to provoke the opposition and thus give up his life!

There is no real link with a wild west cattle farm.

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 Next Derbyshire blog : Monday 25th March