Sunday Variety

It was the gondola on the Runcorn transporter bridge! Here it is gondoling!

Both the above and below show people in top hats and no vehicles …

… so probably the opening or an inspection by the great and good.

The toad bridge that replaced it is shown under construction below looking south.

And a view looking north with the arch nearing completion.

A modern picture, floodlit.

A third bridge has opened, called the Mersey Gateway bridge …

… with a brief video.

The fbb’s Fellowship Meetingd for February are this afternoon and tomorrow afternoon. The theme id “The Kingdom of God” – quite an intriguing and challenging subject. Putting together some of Jesus’ utterances we can say that, Biblically speaking, the Kingdom of God is here AND The Kingdom of God is still to come.

So a quiz about Kings

Well, it makes a change from public transport.

fbb couldn’t ask about the very best earthly King …

… a truly marvellous machine.

Lumo And L N E R

Lumo is First’s competitive service between Kings Cross and Edinburgh. There are five trains each way each day (with some minor exceptions). 

Lumo trains cane be faster than L N E R.

But L N E R runs every 30 minutes!

Is that the same as Limo Fixed Advance?

Then fbb trief for next Saturday 10th. Because you cannot find fares without finding a journey first. Shouldn’t the search be the other way round?

A list of fares and the journeys to which they apply would be useful!

You what?

fbb was offered an option from Edinburgh to Axminster next Saturday involving nine changes and a long wait overnight.

And would fbb’s Senior Saver be valid on Lumo if he just turned up at Kings Criss and sat down on the Lumo train?

Clearly a brief weekend nlyog intermingled with meeting preparation is totally inadequate to delve into the impenetrable depths of a  theoretical trip to Edinburgh.

So after screaming for a while, fbb gave up!

A longer and more considered blog will follow after fbb has had a few days therapy!

The old TTA tank wagon still appears in Hornby’s 2024 catalogue. You can buy a set of three from the Rail Road range, but without ladders,

The price is a little over £30 for the three; somewhat cheape than fbb’s new-tool version, one for £35!

There are a few videos on YouTube explaining how you can improve these cheapo tankers.

You buy a paint sprayer …

… and lots of muck coloures paints (including flavours called “ballast chippings”, “brake shoe dust”, “old oil spills” and plain and simple “rust”. Then you make your wagons filthily mucky …

… just like the real thing!

Or, even better, worse than the real thing.

That way you don’t really notice the weak detail if the older wagons, you just enjoy the grime – all the time.

And fbb’s self-created problem

Hattons sent fbb an email to tell him that he had put a pre-ordered model in a trunk. It would now be compulsorily despatched as no more sales are being made.

The “trunk scheme” was Hattons idea to allow you to accumulate several orders of models and group them in one parcel to save postage.

But if fbb did he didn’t remember doing!

He thought that his TTA order had failed or been passed on to the Planet Zog!

Frustratingly, and arriving tomorrow, is a second expensive BP green TTA wagon, just like to first expensive BP green TtA wagon that he has recently received from the Cheltenham Model company.

fbb can’t see Hattons being keen to take it back as their trading.operation is closed down from today..

An expensive “senior moment”??

In an attempt to tyutn to sanity, fbb intends to go back to Unuversity in tomorrow’s blog.

 Next Birmingham Academic blog : Monday 5th February