The All New Megathread

[garynortheast]

Evening. How's everyone's day been?

[maviczap]

Twas busy, went to view a car, which turned out to be a piece of junk
Finished the last but one job on our house, which will go on sale in November
Then picked up my daughter from Uni, as all her trains had been cancelled

[garynortheast]

Originally Posted by maviczap

Then picked up my daughter from Uni, as all her trains had been cancelled

Bugger! Any idea why they were cancelled?

[maviczap]

According to Greater Anglia a signalling fault!

Bad day for them, as all their trains to and from London were cancelled all day because of overhead line problems.

Never seemed to happen when we had diesel locos?

[Sir Trev]

Originally Posted by maviczap

Never seemed to happen when we had diesel locos?

Bring back the Duffs, and the Peds for branch line working!

I'll never forget being on a Southern (third rail electric) service on the classic day back in 1991 when we had the "wrong type of snow". Nobody believes it these days but they really did announce it and I was very lucky to get back to Brighton at all that evening.

[SV650rules]

Originally Posted by Sir Trev

Bring back the Duffs, and the Peds for branch line working!

I'll never forget being on a Southern (third rail electric) service on the classic day back in 1991 when we had the "wrong type of snow". Nobody believes it these days but they really did announce it and I was very lucky to get back to Brighton at all that evening.

Anyone see the documentary on the great freeze of 1962/3 a few months ago?

There was great footage of steam locomotives with ploughs on powering through snow that was almost as deep as the loco, can't see that happening with diesel or electric trains.

[garynortheast]

Evening all. That was a long but rewarding day

[maviczap]

What did you achieve?

[garynortheast]

A lot of satisfaction, a small profit and enjoyable day. That’s enough to make me happy!

[garynortheast]

I’ll expand a bit on that.

I took my button accordion and met up with a fiddle playing friend in order to play music at the large, bustling street market in Machynlleth. We had a great day; got folks dancing, had loads of appreciative comments about bringing the street to life, earned a decent amount of money between us, had lunch at a brilliant little Asian street food stall, followed by tea and (for me, vegan) cake. Part of our takings for the day included a very nice loaf of bread and two 2ft long leeks!

All of this was bookended for me by the glorious train ride from Welshpool to Machynlleth and back.



If I could earn a living playing street music I’d give up most of the IT work. Part of the trouble though is that the weather is too unreliable and travel costs are now too high. Fuel costs for the car make any distance prohibitively expensive, and rail fares, while cheap west of the border (especially with a Cambrian rail card) skyrocket as soon as I get into England. A shame, as I like travelling by train.