Saturday Variety

Preston's Old Tram Bridge - P.S.

It was originally of wooden construction and, upper right, you can glimpse the inclined plane to get the wagons up to the top of East Cliff and on their way to Preston canal basin interchange.

Another shot of the wooden bridge, this time from the Preston side of the river.

Presumably the cabin was some kind of control bos for the inclined plane.

Still in wood it became a pedestrian crossing.

Next we see the bridge as rebuild work nears completion in concrete.

And now it is the decay of this concrete that has necessitated closure and a complete rebuild.

The footpath deck is falling apart ...

... and there is crumble in the piers.

Demolition of the old bridge is impending and work on the new will follow soon after.

Sadly, the new crossing will have lost any visual hints of what the original was like - but such is progress and it's far better PR for the council than having people crash to their death in the icy waters of the Ribble had the concrete given way!

There is a book about the Tramway ...

... maybe worth a buy if you want a more detailed history.

A Nostalgic Irrelevance?

Alan-a- was one of Robin Hood's merry med, often shown merrily strumming his lute. mini harp or acoustic guitar whilst warbling a cheery roundelay.

Then here we have Alan, actor best remembered for his portrayal of Jim Robinson several hundred years ago in "Neighbours".

And we laughed (occasionally!)  at another Jim, "Carry On" stalwart.

And if you are very old you may have listened to this family ...

... with matriarch and diarist, Gwen, often worried about husband Jim!

But can you place this man?

He is T E Lawrence ("of Arabia") and before becoming "arabian" he worked as a Journalist under the pseudonym of Colin.

Finally, this patch of land was once known as Collyn's Dene ...

... named after a not very noble man called Mr Collyn.

More tomorrow.

Able To Make A Gable Stable?

fbb' has converted a Metcalfe station platform hut into part of a retail warehouse building that, in turn, is a means of disguising his model railway control panel. 

But the original kit had two gables, one front and one back.

The rejigged building has THREE gables needing three (not two as supplied) gable roofs. The solution was to use the colour printer to print out two photographs of the one remaining gable roof.

Stick them to a piece of carefully chosen card (Shredded Wheat Bite Size packet) and they look sort of OK ...

... but the colour is too light. So the original photos were darkened ...

... and the gables look better but still not a perfect match. A scribble with a 2H pencil helped.

If In Doubt ...

fbb was worried that the porch construction was very frail and floppy even after it was glued in place.

... Read The Instructions!

You are supposed to make up little packs of card strips around which the doorway can be folded! Seemples.

Bodged but better!

Ridiculous at Ryde

Bonkers at Brading

Silly at Sundown

Stupid at Shanklin

So much was promised ...

... for the trains and the infrastructure ...

... and more.

... and so little delivered!

It has been a shambles with the service struggling to maintain even an hourly service at times. fbb will not list the failures in detail, not all of which can be laid at Island Line management. Vivarail, the train-build company went bust which leaves a huge problem with spares and maintenance.

But the managers ought to have been able to work out that a half hourly service was unworkable; the timings being too tight! Or the trains being too slow! And the wheelsets wearing out because of the design of the new and expensive track should have been predictable by a skilled engineer.

The latest ploy, to give "connection" facilities with an hourly ferry, is simply farcical.

Daft!

Good value, eh? For at least £26 million. 

Cheap as chips - NOT.

Maybe South Western Railway should hand the whole lot over to the Island Steam Railway - they couldn't do a worse job!

 Next Variety blog : Sunday 26th May