The new news 24 thread

[Tadhg Tiogar]

On 2/9/2020 at 11:17 AM, mk2_craig said:

I picked up the full set of those (four) off eBay a year ago “for my son” neither of us have read any yet though. 

Apparently these were written by the same author who created the God's Wonderful Railway series.....

[Tadhg Tiogar]

On 2/9/2020 at 4:58 PM, rickvw72 said:

Busy weekend here smashing up a Bora for parts.

Anyone need anything? It’s off to be a coffee table on Saturday.

If you do get one in with a non-dented n/s/f wing in reflex silver and non-milky headlamps, do let me know.....

[High Jetter]

2 hours ago, Zelandeth said:

Given I can't let them run around the garden unattended at the moment because 30% of the fence is missing, took the dogs elsewhere for a run around today. 

It was predictably a complete mud pit...however they enjoyed themselves immensely.

They are now filthy and stink of wet dog.

Was about to go and see if I could salvage a couple of the fence panels from yesterday...then had to retreat from marble sized hail coming at me sideways 30 seconds after going out the door.  Sod that nonsense...

I thought that post was by @xtriple until I looked at the dogs!

[Tadhg Tiogar]

On 2/8/2020 at 7:29 PM, mitsisigma01 said:

The anticipation is getting too much or was it your right training shoe you got in the expansion tank ?

The contents were revolting, but I managed to fish the foreign body out.

Made feck all difference in the end, as the coolant had gone the colour of Bailey's again. 

[Bren]

A replacement for the passat has been obtained. Collection tomorrow.

[Yoss]

On 2/5/2020 at 8:23 PM, Split_Pin said:

I stopped updating my threads because nobody reads them and I have only recently started adding the odd update the the N24 thread. Here it is:

 

 

 

 

Don't think anyone reads mine either, except egg who still has Skoda licking tendencies from his brief Favorit ownership, but I just add to them for my own benefit. It's easier to find stuff there, should I need to find something, than trawl through the many thousands of mostly pointless pictures on my cloud that I never delete. 

 

Here's an example. Just scrolled down and stopped at a random place. 

It's actually an old railway trackbed outside Winchester but it's hardly photo worthy is it. 

[egg]

I think people read more than they necessarily react to or comment on. E.g. at FoTU last year, a chap came up to me who said he was just a lurker on here, but really enjoyed my Mondeo thread. A nice moment!

But, there's also the AS thing that any new chod gets a huge reaction (e.g. the typical 'first post collection pics' get between 20-70 likes) and then people stop following things. I do it for sure. Despite the fact many of us often say the content we enjoy most is people actually doing stuff to their cars.

It's because we're all trained to get the next dopamine hit these days...

[Supernaut]

Meanwhile, this is how Aberdeen looked while I was having lunch in the van earlier:

 

It was a wee bit breezy, but nothing more. In feckin' Aberdeen.

[dozeydustman]

Slightly high tide in Selsey today....

[SiC]

1 hour ago, egg said:

I think people read more than they necessarily react to or comment on. E.g. at FoTU last year, a chap came up to me who said he was just a lurker on here, but really enjoyed my Mondeo thread. A nice moment!

It's reckoned that only between 1 to 10% of users actually contribute and post. 

[Tadhg Tiogar]

1 hour ago, Yoss said:

... Just scrolled down and stopped at a random place. 

It's actually an old railway trackbed outside Winchester but it's hardly photo worthy is it. 

Former Didcot, Newbury and Southampton route?

[Skizzer]

1 hour ago, Yoss said:

Don't think anyone reads mine either, except egg who still has Skoda licking tendencies from his brief Favorit ownership

I’ve just been catching up on your thread. I like it a lot.

Threads can easily drop down the page and get missed if you’re not looking out for them. This is a lot better now we have more sections, but it still happens a bit.

What egg says about shiny new things is spot on, too.

[Yoss]

^^ Yes. The route from Hockley viaduct, clearly visible from the M3, into Winchester. There's still a fair bit of railway architecture visible, I did take some more interesting pictures, but that one is particularly dull. 

[Tadhg Tiogar]

7 minutes ago, Yoss said:

^^ Yes. The route from Hockley viaduct, clearly visible from the M3, into Winchester. There's still a fair bit of railway architecture visible, I did take some more interesting pictures, but that one is particularly dull. 

The DN&S was a fascinating cross-country route. Single-line for much of the way until WW2, it wasn't exactly high-speed.

The last services ran on it around 1960, I think.

 

[Mr Pastry]

On 2/10/2020 at 10:08 PM, Tadhg Tiogar said:

The DN&S was a fascinating cross-country route. Single-line for much of the way until WW2, it wasn't exactly high-speed.

The last services ran on it around 1960, I think.

That takes me back.  I remember the last freights on the DN&S in 1964, maybe one or two a day.  Some were still steam.  My cousin's house backed onto the line and as small boys do, we used to get through the fence and walk by the track, and in the sidings to an abandoned brick works  - that was when I first heard the call of the railway!  My cousin actually rode on one of the last trains - he was given a ride on the  demolition contractor's loco.  I wish I'd been there that day..... 

[Tadhg Tiogar]

8 minutes ago, Mr Pastry said:

That takes me back.  I remember the last freights on the DN&S in 1964, maybe one or two a day.  Some were still steam. ..... 

There was a very remote station - not much more than a halt in what was then the arse-end of nowhere: Worthy Down. No road access back then!

[Eyersey1234]

This was the scene at Trowell Services earlier while waiting for an ambulance due to a passenger on the coach being taken ill. 

[mitsisigma01]

7 hours ago, egg said:

Right, no bloody luck on that Mazda 323 in Redhill (no answer today) - but have just arranged to see another sub £400 90's car on Thursday night. Buy to Roffle, but no details until I've seen the thing...

A bit ironic that his advert says no messers.... 

Nothing worse than people who advertise things for sale and don't end the adverts properly so they stay live with auto repost on some sites... ?

[Mr Pastry]

6 hours ago, Tadhg Tiogar said:

There was a very remote station - not much more than a halt in what was then the arse-end of nowhere: Worthy Down. No road access back then!

There was also Churn Halt.  Pretty remote even today, must go up and have a look sometime.

[catsinthewelder]

Of course I'm working outside today ?

[andy18s]

Whereas I'm working inside for a change!

Was offered some work in a welding shop for a few days a week 

Nothing special but gives me a reason to get up in the mornings and see sights like this

[stuboy]

Luckily I had man flu and stayed at missus, fortunately I took the galaxy as fence panels near my allocated space had blown down in storm chlamidia..

[Split_Pin]

Audi MOT at a different garage today. 

New balljoints, column stalk assembly and dampers in the boot so I think my prediction was fair. It had been sitting since Sunday so the emissions fail is not a surprise really and hopefully a grease up of the sliders on the back brakes will sort that issue.

Just waiting to hear from the garage about a price for the work required.

 

[Yoss]

17 hours ago, Tadhg Tiogar said:

Former Didcot, Newbury and Southampton route?

 

16 hours ago, Tadhg Tiogar said:

The DN&S was a fascinating cross-country route. Single-line for much of the way until WW2, it wasn't exactly high-speed.

The last services ran on it around 1960, I think.

 

 

16 hours ago, Mr Pastry said:

That takes me back.  I remember the last freights on the DN&S in 1964, maybe one or two a day.  Some were still steam.  My cousin's house backed onto the line near Hermitage and as small boys do, we used to get through the fence and walk by the track, and in the sidings to the abandoned brick works  - that was when I first heard the call of the railway!  My cousin actually rode on one of the last trains - he was given a ride on the  demolition contractor's loco to Hampstead Norris and back.  I wish I'd been there that day..... 

Ironic that a picture I chose for its dullness actually generated some interest. 

So this is Hockley Viaduct. You can park here (as I did). Right by J11 of the M3, the viaduct is visible from the motorway. 

 

It's about a 40 minute walk into Winchester City centre most of it on or alongside the old railway. On the way in you can see such delights as... 

I know at least some and maybe a lot of the formation north of Winchester was used when the A34 was converted to dual carriageway. 

[Bren]

A replacement for the passat is at chez bren. Thread to follow - at some point.

[Zelandeth]

FFS. Currently been waiting 23 minutes and counting for the idiot who owns the Vauxhall Insignia estate to turn back up from picking their kids up from school and sod off from parking across our driveway.

It would be a terrible shame if he suddenly had five flat tyres and had to walk the 0.3 miles back to where they live...

[mitsisigma01]

Fish oil down the air intake, scuttle area, makes them smell lovely ?

[somewhatfoolish]

On 2/10/2020 at 3:44 PM, Zelandeth said:

Given I can't let them run around the garden unattended at the moment because 30% of the fence is missing, took the dogs elsewhere for a run around today.

It was predictably a complete mud pit...however they enjoyed themselves immensely.

They are now filthy and stink of wet dog.

Was about to go and see if I could salvage a couple of the fence panels from yesterday...then had to retreat from marble sized hail coming at me sideways 30 seconds after going out the door.  Sod that nonsense...

Are the saddlebags for ballast to stop them blowing away in the gales?

[Tadhg Tiogar]

56 minutes ago, Yoss said:

 

 

Ironic that a picture I chose for its dullness actually generated some interest. 

So this is Hockley Viaduct. You can park here (as I did). Right by J11 of the M3, the viaduct is visible from the motorway. .....

I know at least some and maybe a lot of the formation north of Winchester was used when the A34 was converted to dual carriageway. 

The northern half of the route between Didcot and Newbury also lost part of the formation to A34 improvements. Jubilee Way roundabout and Hitchcock Way now sit at the Didcot East Junction end where the line to Upton used to diverge to the south, and the route of the line towards Upton & Blewbury there is now footpath 544:

and an industrial estate built on where the route curved to the north (extreme left of photo below), at the east end of Newbury:

There have been a few models of DN&S stations - probably the best known is of Winchester Chesil Station and the line towards Bar End Yard, which was built in the 1980s to 4mm scale/P4 and featured in a Railscale VHS video with a suitably adenoidal commentary. The layout was donated to the Milestones Museum in Basingstoke, and housed within a sort-of-replica of Chesil station building. The Museum website makes no absolutely no mention of its existence - a bit poor given the effort put into building it.

There is YouTube video of it running, though....

....and it looks like the Museum have ruined it by running trains at breakneck speeds (real speeds were never more than about 10mph through station limits) and overlaying OO track on top of the original handbuilt 18.83 gauge. Not sure the layout's creators would have approved the donation if they knew how it was going to be "looked after".....

[Skizzer]

It’s my 10-year anniversary on AS today.

I’m not sure whether this calls for a celebration or a course of therapy.

I am marking it by commuting 185 miles in a 31 year old Japanese shooting brake with popup headlamps. That’ll do.