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This week's Saturday Timewatch features the Aermotor USA windmill. They are quite common in rural areas in various states of working order - perhaps not surprising as the company has been around since 1888. All sorts of ownership changes and manufacturing locations took place after WW2. However, in 1986 everything relocated to San Angelo, Texas.
The company has been owned by a private group of West Texas ranchers since 2006 and they restored the original name that was established in 1888…The Aermotor Company.
There are more famous locations along Dorset's Jurassic Coast for fossils. However, after heavy rain and therefore minor landslips last week, there were some decent finds yesterday at Ringstead Bay.
The oyster (Deltoideum delta) is by far the most common at the site and you can find similar on any visit to Ringstead Bay. Looking clockwise, there is a segment from quite a large ammonite. Top left is the best find of the day. It is an echinoid (sea urchin) and is probably one of the micraster species. Next there is a bivalve of some sort. Finally a small piece of belemnite sits on top of some sort of what I think is a fossil tube worm. All of these are from approximately 150 million years ago.
Even experts cannot always be precise concerning fossil finds, so I should repeat what I wrote on my other fossil posts that I am very, very, very far from an expert so rely heavily on information posted by e.g. Southampton University. If any of the above is hopelessly incorrect, i apologise!
Running at speed down the mainline between Wool and Moreton, Dorset, 35018 British India Line takes the curve at Winfrith. Having left London, she is hauling a Saturday seaside special bound for Weymouth.
Built in 1945, 35018 was withdrawn from service in 1964. Although rescued from the scrapheap in 1979, it wasn't until 2012 that serious restoration began and it is only in the last couple of years that once again British India Line began work on the national rail network.
Aside : Can you see a few buildings mostly hidden behind the pine trees to the top right? Out of view but adjacent to those buildings are the remains of the Winfrith Atomic Energy Establishment. Only ever designed as a test facility, it housed several small reactors between 1959 and 1995. Several decades of decommissioning will not finish until 2021.
Yet steam lives on!!!
The S&D exploration (Somerset and & Dorset Railway) continues. This is a set of level crossing gates at Corfe Mullen. You can also just make out remnants of track.
Another week, another Saturday Timewatch. This features a classic example of the Isle of Portland's military / naval history, namely Verne High Angle Battery. Hopefully you can click the link below onto large size so you can read the interpretation board about the site.
This week's Saturday Timewatch features NS 248 "Sik" based at the Dutch heritage railway ZLSM. There seem to be quite a number of similar machines preserved around the Netherlands country but this one is a runner. Built in 1935 by Werkspoor, the class NS 200 diesel locomotive was mainly used for shunting duties.
What is most interesting - and can be seen in the photo - is that the locomotive was designed to be operated from a running board on the outside of the engine.
This week's Saturday Timewatch features a roadside billboard photo taken in either July or August 1980, shortly before Hughes Airwest was purchased by Republic Airlines. The 35mm slide photo was taken out west in America and given the destinations mentioned (Houston Hobby and Denver) it was likely to have been in or around Las Vegas. For those who want more detail, here is the wiki about the airline whose slogan was "Top Banana in the West" en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hughes_Airwest
BITHBOX # 048
CREEDENCE CLEARWATER REVIVAL "PROUD MARY"
www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOfHOMpU4iE
One of the two big wheels of Waverley, the last seagoing passenger-carrying paddle steamer in the world.
As always, should there be any problem with copyright I will happily remove this photo.
The photo was taken by Stuart Morris in 1979, probably in February of that year. It shows yet another flood in the vicinity of Brandy Row, Chesil, pronounced like 'chisel' the woodworking tool. Floods have been a fact of life here for centuries and continue to be a threat despite modern sea defences. Indeed there are flood warning sirens nearby.
This photo was seen in b-side's "Weather or Not" series. It has particular interest because as we were studying the photo, we got talking, as you do, to the chap next to us. He proudly told us that the car in the foreground belonged to his father and that when he came to rescue the vehicle, it started first time!!
One of three Saturday Timewatch photos this week featuring rail transportation used in Mexico during a visit ten years ago. You can see the other two here :
In a major city of over 8 million people, public transport is essential to stop the city grinding to complete gridlock, let alone choking on its own fumes. By 2014, As of 2014, the system comprised 12 lines with a total track length of 226 kms (140 miles) and 195 stations.
In this photo taken in 2010, a service on Line 2 races into a city centre station with the destination Tasquena. Immediately after grabbing the photo, I hopped on board.
This week's Saturday Timewatch goes back almost a century to show what a Dutch steel hulled Gaff Cutter from the 1930s looks like under sail. This is the sailing vessel Moonfleet, currently based in Portland Harbour.
Compared to some similar ventures, Sherborne Steam and Waterwheel Centre is run by volunteers on something of a shoestring. It was one of their occasional open days this weekend and both their restored waterwheel and this Hindley engine were running, though I should point out they are not currently linked together.
The back story is that in the 19th century, waterborne diseases were rife in Sherborne, just like many towns and cities throughout Britain. For example, in 1829 a gentleman from Salisbury was not impressed when he visited the town. He wrote ‘The lower part of Sherborne is a most obnoxious place. The stench in Half Moon Street is such as to cause ordinary gentlemen to vomit and ordinary ladies to be overcome by attacks of the vapours. Those persons living in this part of the town have become so used to this awful stench that they go about their daily work as if living in the middle of a fragrant flower meadow’.
In the late 1860s a plan was developed and quickly implemented for a waterwheel connected to lift pumps to move clean water from two new boreholes up to a reservoir at the top of the town. A photo concerning this may follow on another occasion. In 1876, only 7 years later, demand for clean water was so great that a new steam engine was built by E S Hindley of Bourton, near Gillingham, Dorset to draw water from the boreholes and boost the waterwheel's output.
The photo above shows a very similar and now restored Hindley steam engine that originally ran at Gillingham brickworks. It is now in full working order but currently does nothing more than run the eleven foot flywheel that weighs about two tons. By the way, the volunteers managed to get hold of the coal-fired boiler, seen at the far end, when it became redundant from heating a greenhouse in Holland!
Wearing Great Western Railway colours, 4566 (built in 1924) crosses Victoria Bridge (1861) northbound near Arley on the Severn Valley Railway. Not only was it a wonderful sight, but the sounds of hissing as the locomotive approached unseen were superbly evocative of another age.
Flickr Explore #218, 2nd July 2012
There'll be a few regulars around this corner of flickr who will easily remember this scenario, especially from the various slam door DMUs or EMUs across the decades.
This poster is on display at Corfe Castle station. It is a classic British Railways poster circa 1950s with artwork by Fyffe. In full it reads "PLEASE BE CAREFUL. Many avoidable accidents are due to careless opening of carriage doors before the train stops"
(The poster copyright lies with the National Rail Museum / Pictorial Collection / Science & Society Picture Library)
...that scheduled steam-hauled services ended on the Southern Region of British Rail - July 9th 1967.
Yesterday, the Railway Touring Company ran "The End of Southern Steam" special from London Waterloo to Weymouth and return. With outbound routing via Yeovil Jct, where there is a turntable, the return service was steam-hauled out of Weymouth "the right way around". It is the first time this has happened for a couple of years.
This is not the most spectacular of steam locomotive photos. However, it was a delight to see 34046, Braunton (in my opinion stupidly running under Lord Dowding titles) making easy work of the bank climbing through Upwey Station. I suspect the diesel at the back was providing quite a bit of the power! However, a working steam locomotive still makes a wonderful sound approaching out of sight from Weymouth and then again disappearing out of sight before entering the ridgeway tunnel and coasting back down to Dorchester on the north side of the escarpment.
BITH'S JUKEBOX #222
CLIFF RICHARD "SUMMER HOLIDAY"
Drop a coin in the slot to hear this classic flashback!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbNP5yqg7hc
The photos were taken this morning in sunny Charmouth on the south coast of England.
This week's Saturday Timewatch marks the completion of the transcontinental railroad at Promontory Summit, Utah, on May 10th 1869. A final golden spike was driven into the rails to connect the Central Pacific and Union Pacific Railroads. You may recall the photos of Big Boy steam locomotive? 4014 was out on the UP rails of America to celebrate the 150 anniversary of the event, visiting Ogden, Utah on the exact anniversary date. This poster, photographed from the Union Pacific exhibition as Big Boy went through Houston, TX, shows the initial sales pitch and advertising as the transcontinental railroad opened. The detail can be read on large size.
(Note : I am back in England but will continue with a few more American photos in the coming days)
Another combined Saturday Timewatch and Sunday Landscape this weekend.
On both the modern Ordnance Survey map and that published between 1888 - 1892, the public right of way running down the hill is named "Sandy Drove". As can be seen it is a very wide route, with the name indicating that farm animals have been driven up and down the escarpment. These were probably sheep in this part of the world but could have been cattle and just possibly pigs.
Known as a "transhumance" this Dorset movement is likely to have been the reverse of what normally takes place. The animals will probably have spent the winter on this relatively high ground which would rarely be frozen or snowed in so close to the sea on the south coast of England. Once any winter flooding had receded, the animals would then have been taken down to the valley and lowland heaths for summer grazing. Most transhumance across the world goes in the opposite direction - low altitudes in winter with summer grazing on high mountain pastures.
I will readily admit another possibility is that Sandy Drove was an access track to the main west - east ridgeway from which this photo was taken. This right of way is known to be prehistoric and even up to the eighteenth century formed the main highway from Weymouth to Wool. It is entirely possible that animals were driven to market along this ridgeway track.
I couldn't let today pass without a bonus "Timewatch" photo from 2011 featuring a Virgin Pendolino slowing to a brief halt at Macclesfield Station after an approx 1 hour 45 trip en route from London Euston to Manchester. Yesterday (7th December 2019) saw Virgin's final service on Britain's WCML (West Coast Main Line) and as of today the new franchise commenced operated by Avanti West Coast.
Not everyone will agree but from my fairly extensive rail passenger travels, Virgin Trains were Britain's best Train Operating Company (TOC) for 22 years by a country mile. I'll concentrate on the Manchester - London service...
* Three services per hour for much of the day
* Fast services...around 2 hours.
* Reasonable comfort.
* Quirky and efficient staff.
* A decent reliability, sometimes thwarted by Network Rail workings rather than any failing of their own. You often arrived a few minutes early in London.
* Cheap tickets, so long as you could book in advance. I often got tickets in the £10 - £20 range.
* Their early introduction of automatic delay-repay.
* ....and who could forget the 'talking toilets' !
I'll even add that on several occasions their internet booking system even allowed my purchase of First Class tickets at a cheaper price than Standard Class, giving access to their terminus lounges, free newspaper, food and drinks on board. Result! I'll never forget a mid-evening trip back up north in First Class. The chap reminded me that he was only allowed to serve me seven free alcoholic beverages per trip. Did I want to be carried off the train my destination? No!
The new franchise have a hard act to follow.
Saturday Timewatch this week features an old milking parlour. It is not a museum but has simply been left in situ by the farmer from whenever it was last used, presumably after a dairy herd was abandoned.
I was pleased to come across this, possibly just in time. Already there is a small holiday let on the land. Now the rooms next door to this were being completely refurbished with new electrics, plumbing etc etc probably for a second holiday cottage. Maybe this area will be the next project and it will all be lost?
On the Isle of Portland, Dorset, there are still disused derricks that were once used to lift blocks of the famous Portland Stone.
It is surprisingly difficult to find much written or pictorial history about them. Their situation on the edge of cliffs strongly suggests they were initially used to lift blocks of stone from the quarry onto a waiting vessel below for transportation off the island. Later, some at least were also definitely used to lift small rowing / fishing boats in and out of the water.
To put it mildly, both operations must have been precarious. Even on a calm day, Portland experiences significant swells and fast running tides, not to mention underwater rocks adjacent to the cliffs.
Nevertheless shipping out appears to be the original purpose of the cranes. Below there are two historic photographs taken in the same era approximately 15 miles away on the Purbeck coast. One clearly shows a vessel waiting offshore to be loaded.
Boat lifts!
Edwin Clark figured out the principle of hydraulic balance for the first ever boat lift that, although modernised, still operates today at Anderton, Cheshire.
Exactly the same principle was applied to the Houdeng-Goegnies lift on Belgium's Canal du Centre, shown above. After delays, it finally opened in 1888 but only for experimental and tourist purposes. Reason? The Canal du Centre, connecting the rivers Meuse and Scheldt, was not actually completed for commercial traffic until 1917.
In this photo, the left caisson is down and the right caisson raised. A UNESCO World heritage Site, this and three other similar nearby boat lifts still function using the original machinery. Although no craft were seen going through the system during our visit (late in the season) there are other related photos that will follow in due course and one will show a lift in operation!
Ordered and built for LNER, this ex-British Railways B1 4-6-0 carries the original "apple green" livery in which she was delivered to the newly-nationalised BR in 1948. Here she powers up the bank from Corfe Castle to Harmans Cross hauling a rare special from London to Swanage.
These "Saturday Timewatch" photos might be considered unspectacular. However, the back story has thousands of years of history.
This is Ringmoor, north Dorset. If you look carefully you can see two slightly raised banks leading away towards the tallest tree in the distance. To take the photo, I am standing in the middle of an Iron Age trackway. Behind me it connects within a couple of hundred yards to what is now known as the Wessex Ridgeway, an ancient route that followed the highest ground over many, many miles to connect farmsteads and settlements long before we had 'roads'. This Ringmoor track is a bit like a sunken lane along which animals could be led.
Where it reaches the trees, there is a raised earth ring bank (see photo below). It is about 150' by 100' across. Within that existed an Iron Age farmstead. If you click on the photo below, I've added a note to show where the low raise embankment remains even after several thousand years.
This week's Saturday Timewatch continues our musical pilgrimage through Texas. So far this trip there have been ZZ Top in La Grange; Gruene Hall (the oldest dancehall in TX); Bob Wills in Turkey and Hayden Pedigo in Amarillo. Next up is Waylon Jennings who many see as the pioneer of the Outlaw Country musical genre.
Thanks to Kim for her collage showing him as the most famous son of Littlefield, Texas, pop 5871. His younger brother, James, owns and operates Waymore's Liquor Store. After Waylon's death, he converted a small back room of this ex-garage into a tiny museum honouring his elder brother's life and times. Whilst small there is still plenty of memorabilia from clothing to guitars to records, posters and newspaper cuttings etc. James had just left for the day but the lady tending the bar was happy to tell us and another couple who happened to also be making a pilgrimage stop about the various displays.
Luckenbach, Texas, pop 13, is hundreds of miles away so here is one of Waylon's classic tunes
bithbox # 209
Waylon Jennings "Luckenbach Texas"
I should add that despite only having 13 residents, Luckenbach, town motto "Everybody's Somebody in Luckenbach" still has a dancehall. Pretty much everyone who is anyone in country music has played there. Apparently, the 13 residents can be joined by as many as a 1000 music lovers at the weekend.
This week's Saturday Timewatch goes back more than 1000 years. This footpath public right of way is just a tiny section of a lengthy "shire rack" that originally divided two grand estates but now, along more or less the exact same line, divides the counties of Wiltshire and Dorset. I've chosen this particular photo because if I've understood the rather complicated history and literature correctly, this coppiced tree coincides with one of the "charter markers" of 956 AD when the boundaries were set.
Dorset is this side of the tree whilst Wiltshire is on the far side. The tree is on the line of a slightly raised 'rack' bank.
Created for dA Users Gallery Challenge 98 – Steampunk Fairy 2
Source images with thanks to:
♥ Model by Magikstock
♥ Bird Cage by Made to be Unique stock
♥ Clock by Frozen Stocks
♥ Hat by Richard Symon
♥ Textures by Valeriana Stock and Karen Brown
This image came in 2nd place in the challenge!!
Durdle Pier, on the Isle of Portland, dates back to the 17th century when stone quarries were in the immediate vicinity. According to The Encyclopaedia of Portland History it first appeared on a map dated 1745 as "Dirtle Key" and later as "New Key" or "Dirtle Pier" on a 1765 map. It was "Durtle Pier" on a map from 1800 and "Dirdale Pier" on a map of 1811. Finally it became known as "Durdle Pier" on the Ordnance Survey map of 1863. However, by then, the shipping of stone had already ended when the Merchant's Railway opened in 1826.
A second life commenced lifting fishing boats in and out of the water and this continued until relatively recently, towards the end of the 20th century, when the crane became beyond repair.
For reference, the Purbeck coast is shown in the distance, stretching out to St. Alban's Head.
I hope fluffy5518 won't take umbrage at me for linking a photo from 2009 showing what it was like. The big storms of early 2014 finally did for the structure. All that is left is the remains shown above, with assorted timbers and rusted winches scattered nearby.
....a red blood night.
Saturday Timewatch this week is inspired by recent posts from Rob and Ray that included a reference to either Transaero or Zenit FC (St. Petersburgh)
It was 2008 and the day of the EUFA Cup Final in Manchester. Here Transaero B747 VP-BQC touches down at Ringway, one of numerous Russian aircraft bringing Zenit fans into town for the match. The aircraft lasted another 3 years before going into storage and was eventually broken up at Rome Griffiss International (USA) in June 2015.
To this day, I'm delighted to report that Zenit won 2-0 against Glasgow Rangers. Why? Over 100,000 Glasgow Rangers fans, many would say "scum", descended on Manchester, most without tickets. They absolutely trashed the city centre. Police officers fought running battles with the thugs throughout the night and there were many injuries. Cars were vandalised and shop windows smashed in. As the following day dawned, the city was strewn with broken glass and the detritus of many hours of rioting. A dozen people were eventually sentenced with this quote from the judge "By 8.45pm that evening Piccadilly Gardens had become a battleground. Riot police were deployed and struggled to contain the trouble and restore order. What followed was the worst night of violence and destruction suffered by Manchester city centre since the blitz"
Conversely : Sharon Gibson, the Rangers fan who saved a police officer from serious injury, was awarded £200 from the public purse for what the judge called her ‘enormous courage’
Zenit fans were largely well behaved. Fortunately they were also largely out of the way of the mayhem as the vast majority had tickets for the match so were isolated from being attacked when things really kicked off.
(Note : I'll add that being a football fan I've seen plenty of incidents over the years but nothing remotely on the scale of what happened that night)
Paddle Steamer Waverley. the last seagoing passenger-carrying paddle steamer in the world, passes the fortified entrance to Portland Harbour. She had just left Weymouth on one of her annual south coast cruises.
Launched in Glasgow in October 1946, she entered service with the London and North Eastern Railway in June 1947, working LNER's Firth of Clyde steamer route from Craigendoran Pier, near Helensburgh, up Loch Long to Arrochar. In her first year in service she wore that company's red, white and black funnel colours, seen here. Other livery features from that year are the traditional brown-grained superstructure and black paddle-wheel boxes, decorated with gold lettering on each side....see post below from 2013.
By the way, the austere building on the top of Portland is Verne Prison.
Today's Saturday Timewatch concludes "Steam Week" with a look back to the reddest of red-letter days in 2019 when witnessing UP's 4014 'Big Boy' highballing through TX after leaving Spring.
The photo is a reworking of one taken at the time. You can also see Mrs. Kim's video and just listen out for that horn at around 34 seconds before 4014 even comes into view.
Going underground through the Wheal Mexico tin mine, part of the Geevor Mine Museum complex. It is thought this section dates from the 18th or early 19th century and as such was dug mostly by hand apart from one harder section of rock where explosives have been used. "Wheal" means "place of work" in Cornish but no-one knows why the word "Mexico" was used.
The tunnel is quite low. I gave my helmet a good whack at least four times!
Wednesday's routing out of Heathrow Airport provided a good view of the royal residence, Windsor Castle. According to WikiWhoKnowsAlmostEverything, Queen Elizabeth has increasingly used the castle as a royal palace as well as her weekend home. It is now as often used for state banquets and official entertaining as Buckingham Palace. It is also a major tourist attraction.
The original castle was built in the 11th century after the Norman invasion of England by William the Conqueror. Since the time of Henry I (1068 – 1135) it has been used by the reigning monarch of the day and is the longest-occupied palace in Europe. From left to right in the photo, you can see the Lower Ward; the Middle Ward and Round Tower; the Upper Ward and the Long Walk in the lower right hand corner. The River Thames is in the upper part of the photo.
(Catching up this week on some road trip photos from the USA)
These two buildings are in a back road, one-horse settlement, name of Carter, Wyoming, population 10 in the 2010 census. However, just behind where I am standing, there is still a very active freight railroad (but with abandoned sidings), which gives the clue as to why Carter existed in the first place. The story goes that in approx 1868 one of the principal railroad locating engineers couldn't obtain a quart of whiskey over what was then the Utah state line on Sunday. So therefore he moved the rail route to pass nine miles to the north in Wyoming, resulting in the establishment of Carter Station at the junction of the east-west Union Pacific Railroad and the new road built from Fort Bridger to the north. A telegraph line was also built to connect the Fort with the Union Pacific Railroad, as it was that fort providing protection to the workers.
The timber building was the Carter Hotel. I don't know anything about the building with the false-frontage flag.
Another old building in Trowbridge features as this week's Saturday Timewatch. It is so named because there are no windows.
Dating from circa 1758, it was used as a lock-up for almost a century until the town had an official police station. One use was for locking up drunks until they sobered up.
However, there was clearly more to it than that. During a riot in 1826, the roof was ripped off and the prisoners released. The date is significant as the year saw major labour unrest in many Lancashire mill towns known as The Weavers' Uprising. Remember that Trowbridge's economy of the time was based on wool and weaving. I suspect the two events were connected.
This week's "Saturday Timewatch" goes back to 1954. Apart from showing a classic page from an original "Ladybird Senior" book, the following is just so evocative of the time -
"(Blue Tits) are also very fond of pecking off the caps of milk-bottles when left on the doorstep in the morning"
The way around this was to have a box outside the front door. Having collected the empties for re-use, the milkman put the glass milk-bottles inside and put the lid back on!
This week's Saturday Timewatch goes back around 80 years to the 4-8-8-2 cab forward steam locomotives purchased by the Southern Pacific Railroad. 4151 is illustrated here as part of the Union Pacific Exhibition car. Similar earlier classes and a later version were also built, as well as the AC-7 illustrated above. However, all were designed with a cab forward configuration so that the engine crew were ahead of the steam exhaust through the miles of tunnels and snow sheds that were found across the steep mountain passes of the Sierra Nevada. It is over and through that terrain for which these hugely powerful locomotives were primarily designed.
The final survivor of the class, 4172, was scrapped in 1959.
Although franchises have now spread to states other than TX, Shipley Donuts is a Houston institution going back almost 80 years, firstly as a wholesale and then retail operation. Luckily this outlet, always regarded as the best in town, is just up the road on Ella. It has been there since the late 50's or early 60's and as far as I can see has changed little since then. Queues for the drive-thru window regularly block the adjacent junction whilst foot traffic often queues outside the door. What do I have? ALWAYS, hot glazed donuts straight out of the fryer.
A quirk. This is the only branch named "Shipley's" with an apostrophe. All others are "Shipley".
Escapades and photos posted by flickr friends often contain a back story. So it is here. A winter ticket to Texas was purchased way back around Easter before we even knew that Union Pacific No. 4104 was finally making a return to operations in May. We agreed then that if 'Big Boy' ever came south from home base in Cheyenne, Wyoming, we'd be travelling to see it.
Then came news of a nationwide tour on UP rails! However, the schedule was only published as far as September out west and the south west. Would 4014 then head east and more importantly, make sufficiently slow progress so that we too would be in Texas?
To cut a long story sideways, it was only weeks before that it became clear we would arrive in Houston on the very same day, November 6th! The schedule showed a one-day static display on the 7th at Houston's Amtrak station, with departure the following morning to start heading back north towards Cheyenne.
So on the very first morning back in the Lone Star State, it was straight down to H-Town's station for the time-limited open day. Predictably the conditions were nothing short of monsoon like. Nevertheless thousands turned out, photography was nigh on impossible and where the locomotive was parked meant you could not get any full side-on view.
Nevertheless, returning home like drowned rats, knickers soaking wet; shoes sodden; everything wet, wet, wet, we agreed it was still wonderful.
The photo above gives a hint of the deluge, outlined against the darkness of the cab. The photo below show the sheer size of the wheels. The second subsidiary photo, taken leaning over the fence, catches the fire and something of the length of the train.
Tomorrow, there'll be information about the locomotive and photos giving much better views of 4014 out on the tracks as we chased the train!
Part of the wider Merchant's Railway on the Isle of Portland, the diagonal track plunging down the hill is the Freeman's incline, aka Merchant's incline. Opened in 1826, the purpose was to transport Portland stone from various quarries to what is now known as Portland Harbour.
The system was apparently rather more complicated than the following single sentence suggests. However, the gist of how the incline operated was based on the concept of counterbalance, in which a heavily loaded wagon of stone, once descending, would be counterbalanced by a sufficient number of empty wagons ascending.
The railway finally closed in October 1939.
From this vantage point, it is just possible to make out a little of Weymouth to the top right of the photo. A section of Portland Harbour can be seen. The buildings on the hill on the far side of the harbour are in Wyke Regis. The shingle bank, with a lagoon on the landward side is Chesil Beach, 18 miles / 29 kilometres long, leading towards West Bay, Charmouth and Lyme Regis.
This week's Saturday Timewatch features the first in an occasional series about aviation history in Dorset. They will all be taken from the excellent Rodney Legg book "Dorset Flight : The Complete History". I will of course be removing this and any other images should anyone moan about copyright. However, I think the photos deserve a wider showing.
Here is the moment when for the first time in Britain, in Portland Harbour, an aircraft takes off from a moving ship. Lieutenant Charles Rumney Samson was flying a Short Improved S.27 from a ramp fitted to the battleship HMS Hibernia. Four months earlier, using the same aircraft and ramp he had successfully taken off from HMS Africa, a battleship moored in the River Medway.
This week's Saturday Timewatch features a locomotive with quite a varied life. The photo above shows TKh 5387 going across an unmanned crossing at Vierves-sur-Viroi, Belgium, hauling the afternoon passenger service from Mariembourg to Treignes on the heritage Chemin de fer a vapeur des 3 vavallees (Three Valleys Steam Railway).
There are many details of her life that I cannot answer. However, the 0-6-0T locomotive was built in Poland in 1959, destined for work at the Cementownia Saturn (Saturn Cement Plant) Wojkowice, Poland. I do not know when that work came to an end. At some stage she then found herself in England, being a resident at the Northampton and Lamport Railway, though whether this was directly from Poland or via a stint in Belgium again I do not know. What is clear is that in more recent years she has been based at Maldegem Stoomcentrum, Belgium, but is now to loan to Three Valleys Steam Railway.
Two asides :
# 1 The volunteer on the footplate had just got back on board having used a 'flag' to ensure a safe crossing of the road.
#2 A close relative TKh 2944 (built earlier in 1952) currently runs at Churnet Valley Railway, Staffordshire.
(...translates as Public Holiday for those who live offshore)
Today, the tradition of a wet Bank Holiday Monday continued. It has chucked it down all day. So here is a celebration of one of the very few interesting shops in Weymouth "Rude Not To".
Who remembers Mods and Rockers and their traditional Bank Holiday Monday punch-ups at the seaside resorts? For those who live abroad, the rockers (motorcycles) and mods (scooters) created the moral panic of the day in the red-top press. As always the youth sub-cultures of the day were demonised and most teens were supposed to belong to one or the other. That was rubbish.
Personally, I was never a 'rocker' even though I bought a motorcycle to be able to drive 30 miles to/from an early job. Likewise, even though I was heavily into soul and Jamaican sounds, I was never a mod! It was all great fun though. So it is a delight to have such a retro clothes shop in town. I never go in. However, I do like to loiter outside listening to the music emanating from within.
Representing the rockers, Gene Vincent has featured here before flic.kr/p/9mnLvc
So here is a classic tune representing the mods and yes, I do have the Island Records 45rpm : )
bithbox # 218
"What shall we do with a drunken sailor?"
Following on from flic.kr/p/2rbqgsN this display indicated the typical sailor's diet in the time of the Mary Rose during first half of the 16th century. Remember that beer was a much safer drink than water in those days!