Sunday Variety

 Off To College Part 1

But what is a college? Historically the word simply means a group of individuals with a common purpose as in The College of Cardinals that elects a Pope! In the UK a College is typically part of one of the age-old traditional universities. 

The word comes from the same root as "colleague" but came to mean an institution funded by an endowment - which is the idea of the original University colleges. Many were created from a large financial donation and some took the name of the donor.

Maybe historically that is why Eton is known as a College?

fbb remembers that his first headmaster, who sent his sons to Trent Collage (a "lesser" private school), used to get very stroppy if anyone called it a "school" - which is what it was. But then so is Eton!

Next the name began to be used for for any post 18 educational institute and then moved down to any post 16 place of learning. So we have "further education college", "technical college" and "sixth form college".

Callywith College, in Bodmin, Cornwall, is a post 16 establishment offering a range of "A" level courses, "vocational" courses plus a further collection of post 16 "opportunities". It opened in 2017.

The bonus of a college in Bodmin is that young people from far and wide (like far out in the rural areas) can gain the benefit of a post 16 education - which is a good thing.

What is less of a good thing is that the youth has to travel from far and wide to get to the college.

Students (pedantically "collegians") travel from north at Bude, from east at Okehampton, Tavistock and Plymouth ...

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... and somewhat closer from the south and west. All this needs buses!

GoAhead has held the contract since inception, but all will change in September.

Stagecoach moves in!

So, in tomorrow'as blog, fbb will begin by looking at the GoAhead offering aiming to contrast and compare with the keen newcomer.

GoAhead's blue branded buses will be replaced by Stagecoach's blue branded buses.

Will anyone notice the difference?

Demountabilty Demonstrated Part 1

Back in the day, ALL tank wagons were demountable. The oil company (for example) would own the can and pay the railway company to strap it onto one of their chassis. 

Likewise the "container revolution" created the idea of a tank that could be lifted off the wagon ...

... and loaded onto a lorry.

Clark Railworks demountable tank wagon is just the same but smaller.

fbb has previously published a BR poster advertising the service ...

... which looks like it comes from the early days of the first nationalisation of the UK's railways.  

But fbb's model is a very faithful copy of the original.

There will be time for a delighted drool over the detail in tomorrow's blog.

Filers Failure

The company operated a number of posh coaches and, at various times, a mixed collection of single deck buses on stage carriage services.

In its competitive days, operating out of Barnstaple, there were some very odd looking double decks as well.

Most famous was the purchase of the unique Iveco double decker, seen here on trial in Oxford ...

... and below in a poor quality picture of its days in North Devon.

This one is of somewhat better quality ...

... and in yet another livery!

In simple terms Filers has recently closed down after years and years of a mixture of success and failure.

Goodbye good North Devon friend!

You Thought Tank Wagons Were Daft?

This collection is bigger than fbb's!

And this one is enormous!

fbb is not sure if Mrs fbb would countenance a take over of another spare bedroom; and neither he nor she would have the money to accumulate such a display! 

It is a lot more than tank wagons!

But the couple above appear blissfully happy!

 Next Variety blog : Monday 8th Sept