Saturday Variety

Trams For Bournemouth Or Swindon?

After all, they've gottem in Nottem-ham, so why not?

Just opened is a brand new tram running in the Belgian municipality of Liege.

The population of Liege is about 189,000; in the same broad category as all these UK locations.

fbb is not sure what "Kingswood and Fishponds" is doing on the map, but the others would offer similar candidature to Liege. fbb hopes to look in more detail at the new Belgian tram, but for the time being here is the first early morning trip on the day that the system opened.

The key question, as ever, is to ask why this is not happening in the UK. Are our politicians really admitting that good old Blighty has a weaker economy that Belgium?

And if Leige can afford it, why not Boutnemouth ot Swindon?

Maybe VLR is the answer?

Covetry Taking Us For A Ride?

Much has been writtn about this particular version of tram technology.

The idea is that you have a lightweight battery driven tram running on lightweight track that can be plonked on any road surface without extensive and expensive engineering. 

Seemples.

Maybe journalistic incomprehension tells us that "the track will hold 60 people". Does "the track" mean that bigger trams will be used. And if so, what happened to the idea of Very Light Rail.

This picture shows the simple track under construction.

Apparently it took Colas Rail only eight weeks (!) to lay a whole 220 metres of track.  Hardly slick, hardly quick.

Very Light Rail; Very Cheap Tram; Hmmmm?

The tram takes 16 people seated whilst a bus takes about 60. So to replace a 15 minute frequency bus route of thirty minutes in length, FOUR buses for the round trip will need to be replaced by SIXTEEN VLR trams. 

Very Light Rail; Very Cheap Tram; Hmmmm?

The only way that might work financially is if the VLR vehicles were driverless.

Very Light Rail; Very Cheap Driverless Tram; Hmmmm?

Nippers Nobbled?

fbb was uncertain whether any "big" buses were running in 1989 to Wybourn or Manor.  The M26 and M27 Nippers to Manor, following much of the traditional route of previous years, had replaced the original. 

But for Wybourn, there was competition for the N10 and N11 Nippers in the form of Sheaf Line.

Route 424 ran from Totley in the south west through the city centre to Wybourn every 20 minutes.

Jet 747 : Jet 787 : Bafflement!

A few blogs back, fbb picked up some very confused reporting on a new bus service from St Andrews to Edinburgh Airport. In the news item it was called route 747 (which is an existing and unchanged service) and only briefly and coincidentally was the correct route number 787 mentioned.

So here is a publicity picture of the Stagecoach 787 at the Airport. Note the 787 blind display.

And here is a similar coach at the Old Course Hotel in St Andrews.

Ot course, it shows 747!

Maybe Stagecoach didn't know their own route number?

Maybe the driver didn't know the route number?

Or maybe the picture was generated by AI, so bound to be wrong!

Baked Snake!

Outage Outrage!

It seems that there might have been too much demand for electric power so it literally blew he fuses!

Be Afraid, Very Afraid!

Of course it could happen here. Most technical experts are agreed that our National Grid is inadequate for the demands of "net zero" and, so far, nobody wants to spend the money to upgrade it. And even if the mon3y were found down the back of a huge government sofa,  the same environmentalists who crave "green" will not be so keen for green when it means huge pylons snaking across their green and pleasant land.

The Answer to Cyber Attacks

As Marks and Spencer, The Co-op and even the sainted Harrods respond (somewhat belatedly) to the baddies intercepting their internetting, fbb has a suggestion for hack-free technology.

Completely impervious to internet hackers!

Times Have Changed

We are all familiar with the bog-standard British Railways diesel shunter.

They are nicknamed "Gronks", but no one seems to know why. When fbb was starting his modelling in the 1960s, Triang produced a "Gronk" - sort of.

It was a poor model eschewing the prototype's "outside frames" where wheels were inside and coupling rods outside; it used the same 0-6-0 chassis as their steam tank loco.

You could also get one of these ...

... which was the power bogie from a "Transcontinental" diesel ...

... with a generic industrial shunter body added.

Nowadays, manufacturers are pumping out industrial diesel types like they were going out of fashion. 

Newly announced is a Hunslet 0-6-0 DH.

If, like fbb, you are not entirely up to date in yout knowledge of industrial diesels, maybe a little revision could help?

The revolution trains model will be ridiculously accurate and, for fbb, ridiculously expensive.

But modellers do like small industrial railway layouts where nothing much but a bit of shunting happens. But the modelling can be superb.

Yet another article from British Railway Modelling magazine which provokes fbb to a deep depression as he contemplates his Bill Bodge and Fred Fudge inspired efforts in comparison with the above.

More tomorrow including a bus service development for Seaton - shock horror!

 Next Variety blog : Sunday 4th May