Bank Holiday Quiz

Most of these pictures come from blogs of the last few months, but not all of them. There are a few real teasers. Answers will follow later in the week.

1. Who operates the B617

The service is named after an aircraft which did NOT fly from any airfield on the route of the B617.

2. Where could you "join" this club?

And it was not in Market Deeping. OK, it was a play! Where was it performed?

3. Where is this subway?

It led from a railway station to a palace; and a palace which burned down.

4. Who operates this rake of coaches?

Yes, it used to run between Waterloo, Bournemouth and Weymouth.

5. Which consortium used this London terminus?

It was a coal yard and is now a library! The consortium soon ceased to consort.

6. Where will this commuter service be based? 

Its London terminus is a convenient (?) Drayton Park station,

7. Where might you have seen these Routemasters?

Apart from London Transport, they had two consecutive owners in the same town.

7.  Where are these iconic bus shelters?

The name of the town or city is required. They are not far from a stop once called "Aquarium"

8. Where is this bus station?

City name, please! Buses are being re-located to a smaller bus station at the railway station, further away!

9. Which operator originally ran this bus?

It was called a "Queen Mary".

10. In which borough did Boro'line run?

Its buses used to be brown!

11. In which county does this company operate?

It has no connection with the Greenslades that became part of the National Bus Company.

12. On which Island would you find this box?

It has no connection with Inspector Morse!

13. Near which town did this derailment happen?

The cause was buckled track due to hot weather.

14. Which two islands are joined by this road.

The middle island is called Eileann Ban (Ban Island).. 

15. Where would you find this enquiry office?

Definitely a museum piece, near Christ's Hospital.

16. Which airport?

It is purely a works service 'more' than for catching a plane.

17. Which London borough ran this bus?

The Community Interest Company went spectactularly bust!

18. Which railway station?

Its Junction station is now called Feniton; which is no longer a junction,

19. What Junction was this?

It had connections with Express Dairies and now has tenuous links with trams. It has been closed since the mid 1960s.

20. Where is this?

It looks very different today. It used to be the main tramway terminus and interchange called "The Tramway Centre".

There are no prizes, just the joy of self congratulation if you get some or all of them right. How many can you get right without recourse to the interwebnet?

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Tomorrow we return to South Yorkshire.

 Next Gaumont links blog : Tues 1st Sept 

Sunday Variety

 It All Began Here

This picture appeared in an arbitrary Pinterest collection, and fbb was anxious to identify both bus operators, the number plate and destination were illegible on the good old fashioned half cab, but from the positioning of the plate abd the shape of the blind aperture, fbb guessed ...

.... Doncaster. The above is an ex Trolleybus body on a motor bus chassis, but you will get the idea. To confirm his suspicions fbb typed 'Gaumont Doncaster' into his search engine. 

Looks about right.

Research suggests that the cinema is (or was!) at the junction if Thorne Road and Hall Gate.

The site was once occupied by the Majestic theatre and cinema ...

... replaced by a gorgeous art deco Gaumont in 1934. The safety curtain featured memories of the town's Railway Unydustry.

The original glazed frontage was later obscured by cladding ...

... and the Doncaster bus is now in South Yorkshire PTE livery. The cladding was.probaby necessary to allow for the creation of two smaller auitoria under the balcony.

Next came rebranding as 'Odeon' and the cladding painted grey.

The bus is now in pre-privatised South Yorkshire's Transport Livery.

But, in passing, note the church spire in the background, far right.

This is Christ Church ...

... a truly magnificent building. Older knowledgeable readers may remember that Christ Church was the terminus for a number of independent operators plying the Thorne Road to Thorne (there's a surprise) and on to Goole.

Here are just three of those companies; Severn ...

... Felix ...

... and Premier.

The full name of the above was H Wilson Premier Services. Amusingly, when fbb first enjoyed Christ Church terminus another H Wilson ...

... was very much Premier of the UK!

The operators on the main road route were not in destructive competition; they ran as a consortium, rotating the duties to ensure that all participants got their fair dibs of the revenue over each cycle of several weeks.

Back to the Gaumont/Odeon

The Odeon was closed on 10th April 2008 with the final film screened being Sean Faris in “Never Back Down”. It has been sold to a local company Lazarus Properties, who specialize in town centre re-developments. 

They had no plans for use of the building at the time of closure, but in February 2009, plans were proposed to demolish and build a casino. Attempts were made to save the building, but these were overturned.

Demolition was in October/November 2009. 

The bas relief sculpture on the façade ...

... was saved, but was then ‘lost’. It was found a few years later in a council building yard at thebtown' cemetery. In 2019 it was awaiting renovation and a decision on where to display it. 

This was completed in 2020 and is now on view in the town.

Its location, spookily, also has strong connections with public transport.

Our Variety story will conclude in TUESDAY'S blog, after an fbb quiz tomorrow.

Bet you can'r wait.

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The bodge was to turn the green squares into a larger green background. 

Then any minor slips with the scalpel with be lost from the normal viewing distance. fbb hasn't had the courage to tackle the smaller logos for the tank ends, The logos were glued in place and sealed with spray can matt varnish.

Thus the fbb version stands up well to distant examination when compared with the actual Triang Hornby model.

The official logos are still printed not transfers so fbb has preserved something of the integrity of the model.

But some questions remain.

How much did the original wagon cost and how does that compare with an equivalent today.

Secondly, did these BP chemicals tanks ever exist on the real railway?

 Next Bank Holiday Quiz : Mon 31 Aug 

Saturday Variety

What Links 'Midlands Today' ...

...  with Sheffield Supertram?

In the far off days of fbb's youth, his local BBC tv news programme adopted a new introductory caption, It was similar to the above, but the 'Midlands' area map was black and the 'Midlands Today' text was white, all on a grey background. There was no colour TV and only 505 scan lines!

fbb, wit that he was, even then, (maybe hall right, some might say) wrote to the programme, using pen, paper, envelope and Royal Mail postage stamp (how quaint!).

The gist of his witty missive was to express concern that the Midlands area of the country has been replaced with a mysterious black emptiness. The letter went on to express the view that the missing bit of UK was now in the hands if a local (w)holesaler!

Hopefully blog readers have been able to stifle their uncontrollable guffaws!

What, retrospectively, is amazing is that the letter was read out loud as the closing "funny" of the programme - and fbb never saw it!

A chum phoned to congratulate him on his first and only contribution to live television.

Supertram's (W)holesale Disruption!

Birley Wood Golf Course is quite close to Birley Lane tram stop.

Birley Lane is on Sheffield's BLUE tram route to Halfway.

It is on the east-west bit of line ...

... in the above enlargement, lower right.

Just by the Golf Course, the tram track has found a hole in one --- for giant golf balls.

Another job for fbb's (w)holesaler! But, good news folks, the local MP, Clive Betts ...

... is quickly in the job with an incisive and dynamic proposal.

fbb can help you there, Clive.

Nobody knew it was there!

fbb is pleased to be able to contribute to the democratic process for which our nation is justly proud!

The whole area was littered with mines and small industrial premises in the distant past.

Only a couple of years ago the (w)holesaler was hard at work in a nearby wooded area.

So no real surprise!

A replacement bus service is operating between Gleadless and Halfway.

Every 15 Minutes?

The news that Tricky Dicky ...

... has won paths for his services, competing with Eurostar, has prompted journos to get out their pocket calculators and work out how many passenger trains will be zooming 'Sous La Manche'!

Sadly, the press chooses not to explain that, unless there are to be request stops near the Tunnel mouths on both sides of the wet (Folkestone and Sangatte), nobody will get a 15 minute service.

And, of course, tickets will not be interavailable and only the really brave will try turning up at St Pancras and hopping on the next departure.

Cop The Speed Freaks

Network Rail and the Police are working together to nab members of the public who drive dangerously over level crossings.

The high-roof Ford Transit has cameras front and rear and a tall pole thing (aerial for real time video?) plus plenty of scary graphics.

Now you can own one for your OO gauge model railway. No 4mm-to-the-foot car driver would dare break the rules with this model on hand to keep watch!

A distinctive addition to any modern railway or emergency services collection. This British Transport Police Ford Transit represents one of the Mobile Enforcement Vans used in partnership with Network Rail to help tackle misuse at level crossings.

Finished in the striking Police and Network Rail livery, the model features detailed camera graphics, ANPR markings and distinctive roof-mounted camera equipment making it an unusual and highly detailed Transit for your collection. 

Residents of Peterville and visitors to the railway are stiffly upright ...

... and honest citizens, standing firm and utterly rigid against such irresponsible activity.

Anyway, fbb doesn't have a level crossing on his layout.

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When fbb closely examined his freightliner tanks, devoid of BP logos ...

... he was in for a shock. It was only a small shock from which the old man soon recovered. Upon close examination ...

... you can just see the line of muck which marks the edge of a 'shield' BP logo - which had all fallen off. They were not ttransfers, bur bits of printed paper stuck on. They had all fallen off.

The picture above, not one of fbb's wagons, illustrates that fbb had just one errant paper 'shield' logo in the delivery package as more evidence. And it was a small one from the end of a tank.

Anyway, fbb could never cut around something as tiny as that. The larger shields are just 8mm across, this small on only 5mm.

So fbb printed some squared shields.

But they didn't work. He couldn't cut evenly between the logos to leave a reasonable amount of square border on both.

It needed a bodge!

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 Next Variety blog : Sunday 30th Aug