Another Christmas Book (Preparation)

A Gift From Mrs fbb

Wonder how Mrs fbb knew that her hubby would delight in this volume? Maybe a few veiled hints were dropped by the obese one?

Before reviewing the book in detail, fbb will set a little quiz. Can our reader identify these bus stations? fbb will offer a clue or two as appropriate.

Number 1

Art Deco in the home of Rolls Royce

Number 2

A wide boggy bus station east along the A52 from the previous location.

Number 3

The same bus station, some years later - with services to Long Clawson and Aberystywyth from Stand 10!

Number 4

Dorset rope making town. The above is called its "coach station".

Number 5

In pre-marital guise, Mrs fbb caught he bus home to Bearsden from here.

Number 6

There were no buses in John Bunyan's day.

Number 7

In the first full day of their honeymoon in the Old Course Hotel at St Andrews, fbb took his new wife on a trip to this beauty spot. A fine start to a married life.

Number 8

A "Green" County Town names a bus station in a University County Town.

Number 9

Northampton correspondent Alan attended Library School here, in a town that has made lots of big Brushes.

Number 10

Near this bus station you will win a "Victory" over a "Warrior". Listen to the famous chimes!

Number 11

fbb and Mrs in pre-nuptial partnership rode a Dial-a-Bus to a Garden Village from here

Number 12

In his youth, fbb caught his 402 or 404 bus home from here.

Number 13

And Mr Bingley were both bowler hatted bankers in this location with two rail termini.

Number 14

A cliff lift leads to this Island beach.

Number 15

A famous TV personality and steeplejack was based here. He dug a coal mine in his back garden.

Answers and book review tomorrow.

Meanwhile Back in Reality ...

London Terminus CLOSED?

London's Victoria Station is, and always has been, two separate stations. On the left were the platforms of the London Brighton and South Coast Railway and on the opposite side of the station you will find tracks of the South Eastern and Chatham Railway.

The modern station retains this split. Looking south, here are the Southern platforms ...

Try to ignore the "retail shopping opportunities", there are trains there! The South Eastern platforms are alongside.

So until January 10th, the Southern Railway part is, effectively closed.

Now there is a bit of a question. How does the management of Southern KNOW that its staff will be fully recovered by 10th Jan? Or is there another reason for the closure that the company is hiding?

More on bus stations tomorrow.

 Next book review blog : Tuesday 4th January 

Sunday Variety

Talking Of Ticket Machines?

Autoslot was a machine produced by Bell Punch. It too a small selection of coins, often of one denomination only and was reportedly slow and unreliable! But correspondent Peter has a claim to fame. He has the largest collection of Autoslot machines in the Sunderland area.

Namely 3!

The large label on the centre machine located its use as in Manchester.

This one only accepted the "tanner|" (old sixpence) used in multiple for higher fares. It was a complex bit of kit and issued the usual Bell Punch Ultimate style of ticket.

But heartfelt congrats to Peter for one of the strangest hobbies recorded in this blog.

It is almost as weird as maintaining a collection of OO gauge tank wagons!

Parlous Poster Positioning In ...

Barrow in Furness! Maybe the header lettering ...

... is ready for adding the word "Great"!!

Even better is one of the timetable displays that shows an actual timetable.

Just look at the date ...

Yet another example of Building Back Better.

Caterpillar Crisis Creates Consternation

Or is it one of these?

Nope -it's a cake, innit?

But not just any cake - an M & S cake.

The above one reduced!

The shape of the cake, if not the name, has been copied by everyone who makes cakes - such that one Twitterer suggested a different caterpillar every month. The display has been "repurposed" to fit the size and shape of the blog.

The craze and the trade battles have led to more twittering as here ...

... and a cartoon from Matt.

But, as always (well nearly always!) there is a public transport link, albeit tenuous. The lads at Powells of Rotherham have posted a picture of a couple of their buses.

Presumably it is a photoshop type job. If not, the Vehicle Inspectorate AND the Police might have a thing or two to say about visibility!

fbb does wonder how many young children are traumatised by the caterpillar cake face! It scares fbb a bit. And look at Creepy Colin in the monthly schedule above.

The best comment on-line was ...

"Horrors! Colin has been liquidated!"

Snippet 1

Two Ways Of Looking At It

Snippet 2

We Love Cyclists Says Walthamstow

Snippet 3

A Post Christmas Treat?

At over £55 (including postage) ...

... OR standard Monopoly at £20?

Or make your own by sticking bus garage labels over Vine Street etc?

 Next book review blog : Monday 3rd January 

Saturday Variety

Bellgraphic Versus Gibson

This, readers may remember from yesterday, is the inside of a Bellgpaphic ticket machine. On the right passenger tickets plus carbon copy paper; and on the left the copies retained in the machine after the tickets have been issued. The main mechanism is a lever and ratchet which moves the tickets on one by one as they are issued.

Here is Mr Gibson's machine. To help readers with legibility, fbb has split the phot into two.

The dial that selects the correct fare is the black wheel on the left, enlarged in the box, bottom left. Continuing to the right (with overlap) ...

... where the wheels to set stage and ticket type are located. There were approximately 650 parts in a Gibson ticket machine and its daddy and creator made the first oner all by himself out of brass. The assemble machine, a;so in two parts are from a different angle to confuse us all ia below. The left hand (from the conductors point of view) has the fare change wheel ...

... and the other end the two most regularly used settings.

The date and route wheels were set by the "back office" before the machine in its box was issued at the start of each shift.

All this is covered in Andrew Cross' excellent and strongly recommended book ...

... indeed it was Mr Cross' father who drew the "exploded" diagram of the Gibson Machine, a true "tour de force"!

In fascinating detail, the book covers th development of the system. Attempts were made to reduce costs, for example.

The wheels that printed the fare on the ticket roll were cast metal (above right), and thus expensive to make, and expensive to replace when the inevitable fare increases rolled along at regular intervals. So they tried stamping out the values on thinner metal - easier to do and cheaper too. But tje numbers wore out too quickly and any cost advantages of production were soon lost in the additional cost of replacements.

It was rapid inflation that led to another cunning plan. Tickets machines were equipped, not with ticket-price numbers, but with letters.

When fares were increased, it was only necessary to change the values for each letter with a notice on the buses and a change of calculation in the back office. Clever, eh?

But the age of mechanical calculation was to be usurped by electronics and the book explains the process of converting to the well-remembered Wayfarer system, both for on-bus one man operation and round the necks of the conductor.

And, of course, we have moved on further to the popular and complex Ticketer.

Feed in a ball of wool, they say, and it will knit you a nice woolly scarf!

Caterpillar Cake Crisis

Where might a Caterpillar infect a bus company? Answer tomorrow.

Change of Blind

It seem highly UNlikely that it will be a happy new year for the bus industry and, it seems, an even unhappier one for the railways.

But ever optimistically, fbb wishes all his readers the compliments of the season.

The old man has the monthly Christian meetings tomorrow and Monday in the fbb home, and the theme is CHRISTmas. Remember that the Chirch Fathers of old organised the ecclesiastical calendar so that the Preparation for Christmas took place during Advent (December). Christmas started at Midnight on 24th December and finished on Twelfth Night, 6th January,

Far more satisfactory than the modern extended Spend-mas a k a Kriss-mus!

So here is the theme of the meetings - click to enlarge!

 Next Variety blog : Sunday 2nd January