A seasonal treat for steam lovers -

[Moo]

http://br.youtube.com/watch?v=cl4pJwcE7JI

 

[caliwag]

Excellent stuff Moo...last saw that in the late 60s as a support film to Oh what a lovely War or somesuch, when I was "courting" er hmm. Don't recall it going down too well in the cinema...bit too arty for then...mind so was Oh what a lovely war. 8)

 

[middi]

That's a bit of disappointment to say the least.

( I was expecting to see something about " steamy lovers" :wink: )

 

[Aidan]

Strangely, there's a pair of black hands shown shovelling snow and turning the big wrench thing, but the corresponding face isn't shown; how peculiar.

 

[Jon Maine]

Moo, thank you I enjoyed that.

B**locks to Beeching I am still convinced he had shares in road transport companies.

 

[Gareth Hughes]

Moo, thank you I enjoyed that.

B**locks to Beeching I am still convinced he had shares in road transport companies.

The Transport Minister who appointed him did:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Marples

To avoid a conflict of interest Marples undertook to sell his controlling shareholder interest in his road constructiion company as soon as he became Minister of Transport in October 1959, although there was a purchaser's requirement that he buy back the shares after he ceased to hold office, at the price paid, should the purchaser so require.[

And was also a tax fraudster and slum landlord:

In early 1975, Marples suddenly fled to Monaco. Among the journalists who investigated his unexpected flight was Daily Mirror editor Richard Stott:

"In the early 70s ... he tried to fight off a revaluation of his assets which would undoubtedly cost him dear ... So Marples decided he had to go and hatched a plot to remove £2 million from Britain through his Lichenstein company ... there was nothing for it but to cut and run, which Marples did just before the tax year of 1975. He left by the night ferry with his belongings crammed into tea chests, leaving the floors of his home in Belgravia littered with discarded clothes and possessions ... He claimed he had been asked to pay nearly 30 years' overdue tax ... The Treasury froze his assets in Britain for the next ten years. By then most of them were safely in Monaco and Lichtenstein." (Richard Stott, 'Dogs and Lampposts', Metro Publishing, 2002, pages 166 – 171)

In addition to being wanted for tax fraud Marples was also being sued in Britain by tenants of his slum properties and by former employees. He never returned to Britain, and died in 1978 at the age of 70, having spent his final years in his French chateau.

So it had a happy ending (for him)

 

[Jon Maine]

Nice to know a fitting end occurred to such a selfish person, I did not know the history before but had a gut feeling something was awry like that.

We had both the gone wrong and rusty and the slow and dirty in Shepton Mallet before he struck.

It is now much cheaper to drive a car from Shepton to Wells and back 4 to 5 miles each way than catch the bus. The train would have taken all of 4 minutes if the tracks were still there.

 

[Gareth Hughes]

Here is, depending on your point of view, a bizarre exercise in necrophilia and an indictment of the grip the nostalgia industry has which prevents British engineering moving forwards as it has elsewhere...
http://br.youtube.com/watch?v=SIgR6arnPic
...or something intensely beautiful that makes me jealous that there are still plenty of people around who can remember this being normal.
I love the "he's not slowin' up - he's flyin'" comment on the sound for this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xF2Jgg1LpzU&feature=related

 

[Gareth Hughes]

More than that, and veering wildly off-topic, I actually found this report on the affinity between Thomas the Tank Engine, and children with autism:
http://www.nas.org.uk/nas/jsp/polopoly.jsp?d=368&a=2683
very moving indeed.

 

[Flyfisher]

Talking of steam, here's that newly built A1 Pacific class loco just approaching the Welwyn viaduct on it's way to Kings Cross earlier this afternoon:

 

[middi]

I wonder if this resurrected and/or replicated steam train will cary passengers on paying basis?. Apparently it is kitted with mod-cons to satisfy current regulations.

 

[caliwag]

She's a stunner...wonder when the naming ceremony is? That thrash through Durham was awesome...little kids going "whoa..did you see that?", just like the old days...which is the whole point of course.

 

[Penners]

Now, there you go. Back in those days we had proper snow.

None of yer namby-pamby, severe-weather-warning, running-out-of-salt, can't-get-to-the-office, four-wheel-drive, close-the-schools, panic buying, flu injections, health-and-safety, 'roads are bloody lethal, mate', Britain-at-a-standstill, whiteout, hot-soup-in-the-village-hall, hypothermia nonsense.

But do the kids understand?

Don't know they're born...