Recent content by Madge Wildfire

Presumably if you can't see it and can't smell it, then it must be ok? Which is why vehicle exhaust pollution in urban areas is doing far more damage than passive smoking ever will; and why many cities exceed the maximum permitted levels of certain poisonous gases every time we have a slow...

I remember having this "regret" conversation with a colleague many years ago; and we came to the conclusion that whatever we had done we would regret not doing something else. I regret not taking enough photos, but I couldn't afford it; and if I had had the money I would have regretted not...

A similar situation maybe, but one that lends credence to the theory that the management were thinking of more than 100 extra Brush Type 4s at one time or another. They were obviously thinking of more than 100 Sulzer Type 2s, and after D5299 there were not any other number sequences which...

That is not what my Trains Illustrated Annual for 1962 says. It has a table listing the current and proposed diesel orders which gives the Peaks as D148-D199 and D1500-D1513. And D1400 was just as vacant as D1100 once they had reached D1999.

I have raised this question elsewhere, but no one ever seems to give a satisfactory answer gained from an inside knowledge of the decision. Why were the last twelve Brush 4s numbered D1100 to D1111? (Yes I know they ran out of numbers at D1999) Why not do the slightly more logical...

That is a rather sweeping statement, which seems to be a result of distant memories playing tricks as one gets older. There were certainly far more than "very few" green engines left in 1970. There were "very few" green engines left in 1978, and it is believed that 20141 was the final...

That is correct. There must have been very few blue locomotives in service anywhere when the last A4s were withdrawn from Scotland. However, if you want to run the occasional A4 alongside blue and green diesels, you could always have one on a 1967 railtour before the steam ban came into...

I spent some time trying to scan the works yards with binoculars on 19th Oct 1976, although having seen all the Westerns I was more interested in 24s that might have crept into the works after dark. In addition to all the ones you have listed, I have 1028, 1034, 1037 and 1043, but I have no...

Yes, I saw M50394+M56147 and M50392+M56148 at Watford in Jan 1976, M55009+M50391+M56145 0n 3rd May 1976, M55009 on its own on 8th May. M50392+M56148 on 4th Sep, M56149+M50393 on 23rd Sep, M56145+M50392 on 23rd Apr 1977 M50391+M56148 on 21st May with M55009 parked in a siding. After...

I am trying to compile a list of loco workings through South Devon during the last 2 weeks of August 1969. I know that it is almost half a century ago, but I spent a lot of time at Exeter and Newton Abbot during that fortnight, with occasional forays to Temple Meads, and have my spotting notes...

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/08/17/police-film-80-motorists-slowed-down-crews-free-woman-horrific-m1_n_1795098.html?icid=maing-grid7%7Cuk%7Cdl1%7Csec1_lnk2%26pLid%3D122832

Are you sure some of these would pay their way? Keighley to Halifax? Ilkley to Skipton? Harrogate to Northallerton? I can see the Scarborough - Whitby as a tourist route, but would there be many on the trains between November and April? Even Bradford to Halifax via Queensbury, much...

I read Beeching when it came out in the 1960s. I did not agree with it then, and don't agree with it now. What annoys me is that the planning for Milton Keynes was already at a pretty advance stage by then, and yet they still closed the Wolverton to Newport Pagnell line despite it running...

When I have cycled on country roads, I have found that certain drivers are careful when they come up behind me on my bike, and others are not. The worst drivers in that respect seem to drive certain makes of vehicles, Audi, BMW, Mercedes and Volvo being the regular transgressors. The drivers...