Sunday Variety

Journalism Strives For The Worst

Deutsche Bahn ICE trains from Glasgow Central to East Kilbride would certainly be something to savour.

fbb cannot quite identify where this European rolling stock will be operating, but presumably it will be somewhere in th UK!

Open Access To Be Closed?

The delighful Heidi, this week's Minister of Transport, has announced that she will be tightening the regulations for any new Open Access train operator.

In the true spirit of on-line journalism as and per the exemplars above, fbb can publish the latest picture of Minister Heidi.

She was a bit younger when the above snap was taken!

Happy Christmas - Go By Train

fbb is reminded of a song, sung with gusto by a passenger, Miss Marie Lloyd.

Oh! Mister Railtrack, what shall I do?

I want to go to Liverpool

But the railway is blocked at Crewe.

Get me back to London as quickly as you can,

Oh! Mister Railtrack, a frustrated girl I am.

It would be fair to say that the last verse was somewhat risque and thus quite unsuitable for an fbb serious blog!

One of the big Christmas engineering jobs was at Crewe, which involved cancellng through trains from London to Liverpool on some of the blockage days!

What was going on?

Basically the passenger routes through the station itself were unaffected but certain junctions, north and south of the platorms were being up-fettled in a big way.

A map may help.

Approaching from the south you will spot the Basford Hall freight yard on your left.

It is the junctions and lines to this yard that have been "done".

Basford Hall Junction signal box is at the south of the complex freight lines.

Crewe Sorting Sidings North box is, guess where, at the north.

Both are now closed. They are linked by the "Crewe Avoiding Lines" which keep freight trains away from the busy station.

You can see the freight tracks immediately to the right of the label "Football Stadium".  It was these avoiding lines and their junctions that have been completely resignalled, then commissioned in the Christmas blockade.

The third closed signal box ...

... named for "Salop Goods", is somewhere in between.

Indeed it was in the footy stadium car park where replacement buses were parked and managed.

Big job, but big disruption!

Remember Lee Marvin?

He sang his gruff, low pitched ditty in the film "Paint Your Wagon".

This has absolutely nothing to do with public transport - the "wagon" was privately owned. 

But fbb was reminded of the song with the news that yet more Dapol Goods Vans have appeared in fake private owner livery. ("have appeared" is not right; they are available to pre order). They are branded for an example of the current crop of trendy "artisan" beers, with silly names.

Brew Dog IPA

Wingman

Elvis Juice

fbb is told by his Alcoholic Beverage Advisory Team that giving a beer a slightly zany name makes it more popular with the youff!

The old man has tried a can of "Brew Dog" and it is a very pleasant hoppy drink with subtle but recognisable lemony hints. The hops are, as is easily gleaned from the taste, grown on the east facing slopes of the Kentish Weald.

Similarly labelled wagons are available in N gauge ...

... and "O" gauge.

More interestingly, there is a large collection of Dapol's other painted wagons to seek out and collect.

Even better, with Rails' discounted prices, you can buy these for about £10 each which makes them by far the cheapest box wagons on the market; so cheap that you could rub off the fake brands and have a very economical train of unbranded and thus more realistic stock.

Or you could pay a lot more ...

... but you would get a "specialist" model of higher quality and detail.

Faeroes Frequent Feasts

With each "country" bus timetable ...

... comes a list of those days each year when a non-standard service is operated.

The above is for our previously featured service 300. Other routes are similar.

Tomorrow we visit Woburn Sands.

  Next Weird Service blog : Monday 13 Jan