Replacing an earlier scanned photo with a better version 20-May-16, plus Topaz DeNoise AI 31-Aug-24.

 

Delivered to Continental Airlines as N17321 in Feb-86. This aircraft was retired at Goodyear, AZ, USA in Sep-08 after more than 22 years in service. It was broken up at Goodyear in Nov-09.

Replacing an earlier scanned photo with a better version 07-Jun-22 (DeNoise AI).

 

On a misty morning at Manchester...

 

This aircraft was originally destined for lease to Dan-Air Services (UK) but they were merged into British Airways in Nov-92 before the aircraft was built.

 

It was delivered to ILFC International Lease Finance Corporation and leased to British Airways as G-BUHK in Jun-93. It was wet-leased to Nigeria Airways for four weeks between Mar/Apr-98. The aircraft was returned to the lessor in Feb-03.

 

In Mar-03 the aircraft was leased to CSA Czech Airlines as OK-YGU and returned to the lessor in Oct-07 and leased to Pacific Airlines (Vietnam) as VN-A192 the following month. Pacific Airlines was renamed Jetstar Pacific in May-08.

 

It was returned to the lessor in Dec-12 and permanently retired at St. Athan, Wales, UK. It was sold to Capstar Aviation in Feb-13 as N262CS and broken up at St. Athan in mid 2015. Updated 07-Jun-22.

Replaced with full size image on 15 October 2006

Replacing an earlier scanned print with a better version 17-Jul-21 (DeNoise AI).

 

"Chatham Historic Dockyard" - UK World Tail Livery.

 

This livery was originally 'just another world tail' livery. For most people it was either like 'em or hate 'em (I liked 'em!). The UK's Prime Minister of the day, Margaret Thatcher, most definitely disliked them and drooped her handkerchief over the tail of a large model on the BA stand at a Conservative Conference to show what she felt, in front of the World's media. After that they were gradually repainted into the Chatham Historic Dockyard livery which then became the standard BA livery.

 

First flown with the Boeing test registration N6005C, this aircraft was delivered to British Airways as G-BNWH in Oct-90. After 24 years in service the aircraft was permanently retired at Victorville, CA, USA in Aug-14.

(for ODC) old farm machinery rusting in the field

With Halton Transport having met its demise, various operators have filled the gaps. Arriva have replaced many service runs, including parts of servcies 14A, 61, 62 and 200, Warrington's Own Buses have taken on parts of service 62 and some college work, Stagecoach have taken on some schools work and Ashcroft Travel have taken on services 26/27.

 

Arriva have taken a quartet of rental vehicles including VDL SB180 / MCV 7931 (YJ62JXW).

Replacing the usual Boeing 787-9.

Replacing an earlier digital photo with a better version 19-Jul-17.

 

Pulling off Runway 05L after an aborted takeoff , causing an aircraft on approach to 'go around' (I have no idea why!). It then rejoined the departure queue and eventually departed

 

This aircraft was delivered to American Airlines as N384AA in Aug-93. It was fitted with Blended Winglets at Tulsa, OK, USA in Feb-14. After 26 years in service with American the aircraft was withdrawn and stored at Roswell, NM, USA in Nov-19.

 

It was sold to CAM Cargo Aircraft Management Inc in Jan-20 and ferried to Tel Aviv, Israel in Feb-20 for cargo conversion. It was converted to freighter configuration with a main deck cargo door in Jul-20 and returned CAM in early Aug-20 when it was re-registered N.3.4.9.C.M.

 

It was due to be leased to ATI Air Transport International as N.4.7.9.A.Z and operated for Amazon Prime Air. However, the lease didn't happen and the aircraft was leased to AmeriJet International Airlines in late Sep-20. Current, updated 18-Jul-21.

Scanned from a slide taken by Graham Pearson, ex-colleague of my late father. With permission.

Replacing an earlier scanned photo with a better version 20-Mar-22 (DeNoise AI).

 

First flown with the British Aerospace test registration G-6-197, this aircraft was delivered to East-West Airlines (Australia) as VH-EWS in Jun-91. It was transferred to Ansett Airlines in May-93.

 

Ansett suffered a financial crisis in Sep-01 and the aircraft was withdrawn from service and stored at Brisbane, QLD, Australia. Ansett Airlines continued a limited timetable using just A320's but ceased operations in Mar-02.

 

The aircraft was sold to Hemus Air (Bulgaria) and immediately leased to Albanian Airlines as ZA-MEV in Feb-03. Albanian Airlines ceased operations on 11-Nov-11 when the Albanian Civil Aviation Authority withdrew it's operating certificate. The aircraft was stored at Tirana, Albania in Nov-11 and eventually broken up.

Replacing an earlier scanned photo with a better version 02-Nov-18, plus Topaz DeNoise AI 27-Jan-25.

 

There were two B707 aircraft registered HS-TFS with Thai Flying Services which appear to overlap slightly. c/n 19519 was also registerd HS-TFS between Apr/Oct-99 (the above was c/n 19373).

 

Quite a long history, it didn't stay anywhere for very long!!! This aircraft was delivered to Pan American World Airways as N462PA in Dec-67. It was sold to ATASCO Leasing in Dec-76 and leased to Korean Air Lines as HL7427 in Feb-77.

 

Korean Air Lines was renamed Korean Air in Jun-84. It was sold to Tempair International Airlines in Oct-87 and sold on to Fast Cargo Airways (Iceland) as TF-IUE the following month. They didn't keep it long either as it was sold to GAS Air Nigeria as 5N-AWO in Dec-87.

 

The aircraft was sold to Regaline Jersey Ltd as 9G-ESI (Ghana) and leased to REAL Aviation in Jan-93. It returned to Regaline Jersey in May-93 and was sold to Imperial Cargo Airlines as 9G-EBK the following month.

 

It was sold to Summit Aviation in Oct-94 and sold to Trans Saharan Airlines in Oct-96. In Sep-97 it was sold to Al-Waha Aviation as 9G-SGF and leased to Sky Power Express Airways the following month.

 

The aircraft was returned to Al-Waha in Dec-98. It was sold to Thai Flying Services at the end of Sep-99 as HS-TFS and withdrawn from service in Apr-01 when it was stored at Southend, UK.

 

It was sold to Johnsons Air as 9G-JET (Ghana) in Dec-01 and leased to Tobruk Air (Libya ?) in Sep-02. The aircraft was returned to Johnsons Air in 2004 and was 'permanently retired' at Sharjah, UAE in 2005.

 

However, it was 'resurrected' in 2009 and registered J5-CGU (Guinea Bissau !) although, as far as I'm aware, it never left Sharjah.

Coutrney replaced the pair of Optare Tempo buses used on the Chineham Business Park contract with two Volvo B8RLE buses with Wrightbus bodywork. BU16UYD stands at the contract bus stop opposite the railway station at Basingstoke. (Stagecoach uses a larger stand further back up the road.)

This replaced the Jolly Roger video option noddy the screen on noddy was negative. Unfortunately this unit is mute

Replaced the trans-dark blue facade from my original model with the trans-light blue found in the LEGO Architecture set.

The Belmon/Kimbell CTA depot, which is set for destruction soon, to be replaced by some new, modern monstrosity.

A BURROWING OWL from Cape Coral of Florida a couple of months ago (June). VIEW LARGE SIZE.

  

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NO comment is necessary. This image will replace the last image...Thanks.

 

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Replacing an earlier scanned photo with a better version, plus Topaz DeNoise AI 25-Mar-24

 

Fly FTI (Frosch Touristik International - a German tour operator) was another offshoot of the UK tour operator Airtours International.

 

This was another lessor owned aircraft with a long history. First flown in Jun-93 with the Airbus test registration F-WWDM, this aircraft was stored at Toulouse, France in Jul-93 before delivery to the Orix Aircraft Corporation in Sep-93. It remained in storage until it was re-registered N437RX in Mar-94.

 

It was leased to Airworld, UK as G-BVJV in Apr-94 for the summer season. On it's return to Orix in Nov-94 it was stored at Stansted, UK and leased to Airworld again in Apr-95. It was sub-leased to Skyservice Airlines (Canada) as C-FWOQ in Nov-95 and returned to Airworld as G-BVJV in Apr-96.

 

It was leased to Transmeridian Airways, USA as N437RX in Nov-96 for the winter, returning to Airworld as G-BVJV in Apr-97. The aircraft returned to Orix in Nov-97 and was leased to Airtours International Airways as G-EPFR two weeks later.

 

It was sub-leased to Skyservice as C-FTDF in Dec-97 and returned to Airtours in Apr-98. In Nov-98 it was sub-leased to Airtours subsidiary SkyserviceUSA and returned to Airtours as G-EPFR in Apr-99.

 

In Feb-00 the aircraft was leased to Airtours German subsidiary FlyFTI (operating for German Tour Operator, Frosch Touristik International). It was re-registered D-AAMS in Mar-00. It returned to Airtours in Jan-01 and was sub-leased to Skyservice Airlines, Canada as C-FTDF in Feb-01.

 

The sub-lease to Skyservice continued with the aircraft being sub-leased back to Airtours International for the summer season from Apr/Nov-01.

 

Airtours was renamed MyTravel Airways in Apr-02 and the summer sub-leases from Skyservice, Canada continued between May/Nov-02, Apr/Nov-03, May/Nov-04, May/Nov-05 and Mar/Nov-06. The aircraft was returned to MyTravel Airways, this time as G-FTDF, in Apr-07.

 

MyTravel was merged into Thomas Cook Airlines UK in Mar-08. The aircraft continued in service until it was permanently retired and stored at Manchester, UK in Jan-11. It was ferried to Greenwood, MS, USA for further storage. The registration was cancelled in Aug-11 and it was later broken up.

Winter is coming - dark weather is replaced by frosty days and nights - frost bright days

Beamish Museum is the first regional open-air museum, in England, located at Beamish, near the town of Stanley, in County Durham, England. Beamish pioneered the concept of a living museum. By displaying duplicates or replaceable items, it was also an early example of the now commonplace practice of museums allowing visitors to touch objects.

 

The museum's guiding principle is to preserve an example of everyday life in urban and rural North East England at the climax of industrialisation in the early 20th century. Much of the restoration and interpretation is specific to the late Victorian and Edwardian eras, together with portions of countryside under the influence of Industrial Revolution from 1825. On its 350 acres (140 ha) estate it uses a mixture of translocated, original and replica buildings, a large collection of artefacts, working vehicles and equipment, as well as livestock and costumed interpreters.

 

The museum has received a number of awards since it opened to visitors in 1972 and has influenced other living museums.[citation needed] It is an educational resource, and also helps to preserve some traditional and rare north-country livestock breeds.

 

In 1958, days after starting as director of the Bowes Museum, inspired by Scandinavian folk museums, and realising the North East's traditional industries and communities were disappearing, Frank Atkinson presented a report to Durham County Council urging that a collection of items of everyday history on a large scale should begin as soon as possible, so that eventually an open air museum could be established. As well as objects, Atkinson was also aiming to preserve the region's customs and dialect. He stated the new museum should "attempt to make the history of the region live" and illustrate the way of life of ordinary people. He hoped the museum would be run by, be about and exist for the local populace, desiring them to see the museum as theirs, featuring items collected from them.

 

Fearing it was now almost too late, Atkinson adopted a policy of "unselective collecting" — "you offer it to us and we will collect it." Donations ranged in size from small items to locomotives and shops, and Atkinson initially took advantage of a surplus of space available in the 19th-century French chateau-style building housing the Bowes Museum to store items donated for the open air museum. With this space soon filled, a former British Army tank depot at Brancepeth was taken over, although in just a short time its entire complement of 22 huts and hangars had been filled, too.

 

In 1966, a working party was established to set up a museum "for the purpose of studying, collecting, preserving and exhibiting buildings, machinery, objects and information illustrating the development of industry and the way of life of the north of England", and it selected Beamish Hall, having been vacated by the National Coal Board, as a suitable location.

 

In August 1970, with Atkinson appointed as its first full-time director together with three staff members, the museum was first established by moving some of the collections into the hall. In 1971, an introductory exhibition, "Museum in the Making" opened at the hall.

 

The museum was opened to visitors on its current site for the first time in 1972, with the first translocated buildings (the railway station and colliery winding engine) being erected the following year. The first trams began operating on a short demonstration line in 1973. The Town station was formally opened in 1976, the same year the reconstruction of the colliery winding engine house was completed, and the miners' cottages were relocated. Opening of the drift mine as an exhibit followed in 1979.

 

In 1975 the museum was visited by the Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, and by Anne, Princess Royal, in 2002. In 2006, as the Grand Master of the United Grand Lodge of England, The Duke of Kent visited, to open the town masonic lodge.

 

With the Co-op having opened in 1984, the town area was officially opened in 1985. The pub had opened in the same year, with Ravensworth Terrace having been reconstructed from 1980 to 1985. The newspaper branch office had also been built in the mid-1980s. Elsewhere, the farm on the west side of the site (which became Home Farm) opened in 1983. The present arrangement of visitors entering from the south was introduced in 1986.

 

At the beginning of the 1990s, further developments in the Pit Village were opened, the chapel in 1990, and the board school in 1992. The whole tram circle was in operation by 1993. Further additions to the Town came in 1994 with the opening of the sweet shop and motor garage,Beamish Museum 2014 followed by the bank in 1999. The first Georgian component of the museum arrived when Pockerley Old Hall opened in 1995, followed by the Pockerley Waggonway in 2001.

 

In the early 2000s two large modern buildings were added, to augment the museum's operations and storage capacity - the Regional Resource Centre on the west side opened in 2001, followed by the Regional Museums Store next to the railway station in 2002. Due to its proximity, the latter has been cosmetically presented as Beamish Waggon and Iron Works. Additions to display areas came in the form of the Masonic lodge (2006) and the Lamp Cabin in the Colliery (2009). In 2010, the entrance building and tea rooms were refurbished.

 

Into the 2010s, further buildings were added - the fish and chip shop (opened 2011) band hall (opened 2013) and pit pony stables (built 2013/14) in the Pit Village, plus a bakery (opened 2013) and chemist and photographers (opened 2016) being added to the town. St Helen's Church, in the Georgian landscape, opened in November 2015.

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based historical facts. BEWARE!

  

Some background:

The Temco Model 63 "Buckskin" trainer was designed by Texas Engineering & Manufacturing Company (TEMCO) as a private venture to replace the US Navy's piston-engine, land-based Beech Model B45 'Mentor' primary trainers in the mid 1960ies, but with better performance and more likeliness to modern jet fighters.

The Model 63’s forerunner, the Temco Model 51, had been initially proposed to the US Air Force in response to an Air Force competition for a jet-powered primary trainer, which was eventually won by the Cessna T-37 Tweet. A small number of the Model 51 were built and put into service, powered by a Continental Motors J69-T-9 (a license-built Turbomeca Marboré) jet engine and officially designated TT-1 ‘Pinto, but only saw a limited career.

 

Like the Pinto, the Model 63 was a mid-wing, tricycle landing gear trainer with an enclosed cockpit. What made the Model 63 unusual was a pull/push tandem engine arrangement, similar to the Cessna 336/337 that was under development at the same time. The Temco Model 63 was driven by two small Turbomeca Bastan IV turboprop engines, each developing 650 shp (485 kW).

 

The rationale behind this layout were the compact dimensions, actually, the aircraft was not bigger than the single engine TT-1. Studies undertaken during the early design stages had shown that a classic layout with wing-mounted engines would have necessitated a considerably higher wing span and a longer fuselage, too. Another benefit was the improved safety of two engines, esp. during envisioned long navigation flights over the open sea, and the Bastan engines gave the Model 63 the ability to fly safely even with one of the engines shut down.

 

Compared with the TT-1’s small jet engine, the propellers gave the Model 63 a better responsiveness to pilot input and the turboprop engines offered a very good fuel economy, while enabling almost the same performance as the single jet precursor. Furthermore, the two engines gave instructors the option to simulate different flight regimes, while the tandem arrangement helped avoid torque and asymmetrical thrust issues. Besides, the T2T was equipped with many of the same features found in contemporary operational jets, including ejection seats, liquid oxygen equipment, speed brakes, along with typical flight controls and instrument panels.

 

Anyway, the unusual layout came at a price: it necessitated a totally different tail section with twin tail booms and a single, high stabilizer connecting them at the tips of the fins. Despite familiar outlines, only parts of the TT's outer wings and the cockpit could be used on the Model 63 - the rest had to be re-designed and/or strengthened, so that the aircraft's overall weight became markedly higher than the TT's. Despite this drawback, officials became interested enough in the turboprop trainer program to procure a pre-series for trials and direct comparison with jet- and piston-engine alternatives.

 

The aircraft received the official designation T2T. Like the Pinto, the T2T was intended as a primary trainer, so it carried no internal armament but could be outfitted with wing tip tanks and had two underwing hardpoints for 500 lb each, placed outside of the strengthened landing gear. These hardpoints were reserved for auxiliary tanks, cargo boxes, smoke generators or camera pods.

 

The first XT2T maiden flight took place in summer 1959. Flight characteristics were considered good, and, compared with the earlier TT-1, the machine was not as underpowered (which was a problem during landing abortions and touch-and-go manoeuvers). After initial tests with two more prototypes in summer 1960, a batch of five YT2T-1 pre-production aircraft, which were updated to the intended serial production standard and incorporated some minor modifications, was ordered and directly sent to the Naval Air Test Center (NATC) Patuxent River.

 

Results were generally positive, so that a further batch of 24 aircraft were produced as T2T-1s between 1962 and 1963. These aircraft served in the Air Training Command at Pensacola, Florida and used in a training program demonstration testing the feasibility of using jet- and turboprop-powered trainer for primary flight training.

 

The tests were not conclusive, though, and no further T2Ts ordered. The 'Buckskin', how the aircraft was christened unofficially, was pleasant to fly and offered very good performance. But the aircraft was – esp. for its limited role – complex. Maintenance costs were high, and the authorities were never really happy about the French engines on board of the home-grown trainer type.

 

The US Navy liked the turboprop engine, though, but wanted a less complex aircraft. This eventually materialized in the early Seventies with the T-34C Turbo-Mentor. After a production hiatus of almost 15 years, the Beech Model 45 returned, powered by a Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6A-25 turboprop engine. Mentor production restarted in 1975 for deliveries of T-34Cs to the USN and of the T-34C-1 armed version for export customers in 1977, this version featuring four underwing hardpoints. Since the late 1970s, T-34Cs have been used by the Naval Air Training Command to train numerous Naval Aviators and Naval Flight Officers for the U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps, U.S. Coast Guard, and numerous NATO and Allied nations - and the small T2T fleet was phased out by 1979.

  

General characteristics:

Crew: two

Length: 32 ft 7 in (9.93 m)

Wingspan (incl. tip tanks): 29 ft 10 in (9.09 m)

Height: 8 ft 1 1/2 in (2.48 m)

Wing area: 150 sq ft (13.9 m2)

Empty weight: 2,848 lb (1,292 kg)

Loaded weight: 5,400 lb (2,448 kg)

 

Powerplant:

2× Turbomeca Bastan IV turboprop engines, rated at 650 shp (485 kW) each

 

Performance:

Maximum speed: 345 mph (300 knots, 556 km/h) at 15,000 ft (4,600 m)

Never exceed speed: 518 mph (450 knots, 834 km/h)

Cruise speed: 247 mph (215 knots, 398 km/h) at 25,000 ft (7,600 m)

Stall speed: 69 mph (60 knots, 111 km/hr)

Endurance: 2.5 hr

Service ceiling: 30,000 ft (9,145 m)

Rate of climb: 1,900 ft/min (9.7 m/s)

 

Armament:

2x underwing hardpoints for a total load of up to 1.000 lb (454 kg)

2x optional wing tip tanks

  

The kit and its assembly:

The final entry for the 2016 "In the Navy" Group Build at whatifmodelers.com, and a close call since I started work on this conversion only 5 days before the GB's deadline!

 

The original inspiration was the photoshopped picture of a private TT-1 in all-blue USN markings, created by artist "Stéphane Beaumort" in 2010 (check this illustration originally posted at AviaDesign: aviadesign.online.fr/images/temco-buckskin2.jpg).

 

A slightly bizarre aircraft with the tandem propellers and the twin tail booms, and IMHO with some fishy details in the CG rendition, e.g. including the idea of driving both propellers with a single engine through shafts and gearboxes. But the concept looked overall feasible and Special Hobby offers a very nice TT-1 Pinto kit, which I was able to procure from Poland an short notice. As a bonus, this kit comes with markings for this specific, blue aircraft (“13/S”), actually a re-constructed, privately owned machine.

 

The Special Hobby kit became the basis for my personal interpretation of the T2T, and it underwent some conversions, being outfitted with a variety of donation parts:

- The front engine once was a cut-away Merlin from a Hobby Boss Hawker Hurricane

- The tail booms and fins come from a Revell Focke Wulf Flitzer

- The stabilizer was created from two Hobby Boss He 162 tail elements

- Propellers come from a vintage, box scale Revell Convair Tradewind

- In order to attach them, styrene tubes were implanted and the props mounted on metal axis’

- The front wheel also belongs to a Hobby Boss He 162, longer than the OOB parts

- The main wheels are bigger, from a Matchbox Folland Gnat

 

Work started with the central fuselage, the added front engine and conversions for the rear pusher engine. Once the wings were in place and the propeller diameter clear, attachment points for the tail booms were scratched from styrene tube and added to the wings' upper sides (leaving the lower surface free, so that the OOB landing gear could be used). Then the tail booms and the tailored stabilizer were mounted, as well as the wing tip tanks.

 

The landing gear came next; the main struts and covers were used, but slightly bigger wheels chosen from the scrap box. For the front wheel well, a "hole" had to be dug out of the massive new nose section (consisting of 2C putty and lead beads) - the OOB covers were used, though, and a longer and more massive front wheel was mounted.

 

Sounds simple and conclusive, but things evolved gradually and the job involved a lot of body work - under dire time pressure. The fact that the kit fell from my workbench after day #2 and hit the floor in a nasty angle, so that the tails suffered severely and needed repair, did not help either...

Another issue became the canopy. I am not certain where the problem lies, but the canopy turned out to be 2mm too short for the fuselage? Could be the result of the massive rhinoplasty with the added front engine, but I am also a bit worried about the position of the cockpit tubs – when I mounted them, the appeared to be in the correct position, but once the fuselage was closed both seat positions appear to be too far to the back – even though the dashboards seem to be correct?

  

Painting and markings:

I used the CG drawing as benchmark, also because the Special Hobby kit came with the right decal set for an all-blue USN livery, which historically was about to be changed in the late Fifties to brighter schemes.

 

The interior surfaces, both cockpit and the landing gear, were painted in a very light gray (FS 36495, Humbrol 147), just as on the real world TT-1. All outside surfaces became Sea Blue FS 35042 (ModelMaster). Very simple, and some panel shading with was done for a more dramatic look on the otherwise uniform airframe.

 

The silver leading edges on wings and stabilizer, as well as the yellow canopy framing, were created from decal strips. The propeller spinners became, as a small highlight, bright red, and some of the OOB sheet’s red trim for “13/S” were used, too. No more weathering was done, and, finally, everything sealed under a coat of gloss acrylic varnish, except for the propeller blades and the black anti-glare panel, which became matt.

  

An odd creation, and taking into account the four and a half days time frame from sprues to beauty pics (including background research and text), as well as the body work involved in the building process with the new front engine and the tail booms, I am quite happy with the result. Could have been better, sure, but it was finished in time, just as planned/hoped for. ;)

 

Anyway, the T2T looks interesting; my build slightly differs from the benchmark CG renditions, but remains true to Stéphane Beaumort’s basic idea. Cheers!

Replacing an earlier scanned photo with a (slightly) better version 18-May-16, plus Topaz DeNoise AI 18-Mar-24

 

Another photo taken from the International Office Centre at the end of Ringway Road (where the Emirates UK North offices were located). My longest lens at the time was a 200mm and this is a 'blow up' from a small image at maximum focal length. The only one I have of this aircraft in the full Airtours livery.

 

First flown with the Airbus test registration F-WWDU, this aircraft was delivered to Conair of Scandinavia as OY-CND in Sep-91. In Jan-94 Conair merged with Scanair to form Premiair.

 

In Feb-97 the aircraft was returned to the lessor and leased to Airtours International Airways as G-RDVE. Airtours was renamed MyTravel Airways in May-02.

 

In Dec-03 it was returned to the lessor and leased to WindJet (Italy) as I-LINH. It was due to return to the lessor in Jun-09 for lease to XL Airways France as F-GTHL but the lease was cancelled and the aircraft remained with WindJet.

 

It was returned to the lessor in Mar-10 and permanently retired at Chateauroux, France. It was broken up at Chateauroux in Sep/Oct-11.

The Shard or London Bridge Tower at Southwark, London. Shot from Tower Hill. 3 Image full HDR vertorama.

 

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The Shard (also referred to as the Shard of Glass, Shard London Bridge or the London Bridge Tower) is a skyscraper in London. Its construction began in March 2009; it was topped out on 30 March 2012 and inaugurated on 5 July 2012. Standing 309.6 metres (1,016 ft) high, the Shard is the tallest completed building in the European Union, and is also the second-tallest free-standing structure in the United Kingdom, after the 330-metre (1,083 ft) concrete tower at the Emley Moor transmitting station.

 

The Shard replaced Southwark Towers, a 24-storey office block built on the site in Southwark in 1975. Renzo Piano, the Shard's architect, worked with the architectural firm Broadway Malyan during the planning stage. The tower has 72 habitable floors, with a viewing gallery and open-air observation deck – the UK's highest – on the 72nd floor, at a height of 245 metres (804 ft). The Shard was designed with an irregular pyramidal shape from the base to the top, and is clad entirely in glass.

 

WIKI

 

Copyright Nielskristianphotography.com

 

This photo may not be used without my explicit permission

   

Replacing an earlier digital photo with a better version 11-Apr-24.

 

First flown with the ATR test registration F-WWEQ, this aircraft was delivered to a lessor and leased to Aer Arann as EI-REN in Mar-08. It operated some service for Aer Lingus Regional but didn't stay long and returned to the lessor in Nov-08.

 

It was sold to Erik Thun AB the following day as SE-MDA and leased to Golden Air Flyg (Sweden) at the end of Nov-08 and operated on behalf of Kullaflyg. It was returned to Golden Air Fly in 2009.

 

Golden Air Flyg was sold to Braathens Regional Airlines in late 2012 and was merged into BRA Braathens Regional Airlines on 01-Jan-13. The aircraft was leased to DAT Danish Air Transport in Apr-19 and sub-leased to Caribbean Airlines a week later. It returned to DAT and Braathens Regional in Sep-19.

 

In Jul-20 the aircraft was operated for Air Leap, a Swedish Virtual Airlines. It returned to Braathens Regional in late Dec-21 and was parked at Billund, Denmark. It was returned to the lessor at the end of Jan-22 and stored at Halmstad AFB, Sweden.

 

In Apr-22 the aircraft was ferried to East Midlands Airport, UK and was repainted in full Blue Islands livery. It was leased to Blue Islands Airways, UK as G-ISLO in May-22. Current, updated 11-Apr-24.

Replacing the B744 on flight BA 285.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beamish_Museum

 

Beamish Museum is the first regional open-air museum, in England, located at Beamish, near the town of Stanley, in County Durham, England. Beamish pioneered the concept of a living museum. By displaying duplicates or replaceable items, it was also an early example of the now commonplace practice of museums allowing visitors to touch objects.

 

The museum's guiding principle is to preserve an example of everyday life in urban and rural North East England at the climax of industrialisation in the early 20th century. Much of the restoration and interpretation is specific to the late Victorian and Edwardian eras, together with portions of countryside under the influence of industrial revolution from 1825. On its 350 acres (140 ha) estate it uses a mixture of translocated, original and replica buildings, a large collection of artefacts, working vehicles and equipment, as well as livestock and costumed interpreters.

 

The museum has received a number of awards since it opened to visitors in 1972 and has influenced other living museums. It is an educational resource, and also helps to preserve some traditional and rare north-country livestock breeds.

 

History

Genesis

In 1958, days after starting as director of the Bowes Museum, inspired by Scandinavian folk museums, and realising the North East's traditional industries and communities were disappearing, Frank Atkinson presented a report to Durham County Council urging that a collection of items of everyday history on a large scale should begin as soon as possible, so that eventually an open air museum could be established. As well as objects, Atkinson was also aiming to preserve the region's customs and dialect. He stated the new museum should "attempt to make the history of the region live" and illustrate the way of life of ordinary people. He hoped the museum would be run by, be about and exist for the local populace, desiring them to see the museum as theirs, featuring items collected from them.

 

Fearing it was now almost too late, Atkinson adopted a policy of "unselective collecting" — "you offer it to us and we will collect it." Donations ranged in size from small items to locomotives and shops, and Atkinson initially took advantage of a surplus of space available in the 19th-century French chateau-style building housing the Bowes Museum to store items donated for the open air museum. With this space soon filled, a former British Army tank depot at Brancepeth was taken over, although in just a short time its entire complement of 22 huts and hangars had been filled, too.

 

In 1966, a working party was established to set up a museum "for the purpose of studying, collecting, preserving and exhibiting buildings, machinery, objects and information illustrating the development of industry and the way of life of the north of England", and it selected Beamish Hall, having been vacated by the National Coal Board, as a suitable location.

 

Establishment and expansion

In August 1970, with Atkinson appointed as its first full-time director together with three staff members, the museum was first established by moving some of the collections into the hall. In 1971, an introductory exhibition, "Museum in the Making" opened at the hall.

 

The museum was opened to visitors on its current site for the first time in 1972, with the first translocated buildings (the railway station and colliery winding engine) being erected the following year. The first trams began operating on a short demonstration line in 1973. The Town station was formally opened in 1976, the same year the reconstruction of the colliery winding engine house was completed, and the miners' cottages were relocated. Opening of the drift mine as an exhibit followed in 1979.

 

In 1975 the museum was visited by the Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, and by Anne, Princess Royal, in 2002. In 2006, as the Grand Master of the United Grand Lodge of England, The Duke of Kent visited, to open the town masonic lodge.

 

With the Co-op having opened in 1984, the town area was officially opened in 1985. The pub had opened in the same year, with Ravensworth Terrace having been reconstructed from 1980 to 1985. The newspaper branch office had also been built in the mid-1980s. Elsewhere, the farm on the west side of the site (which became Home Farm) opened in 1983. The present arrangement of visitors entering from the south was introduced in 1986.

 

At the beginning of the 1990s, further developments in the Pit Village were opened, the chapel in 1990, and the board school in 1992. The whole tram circle was in operation by 1993.[8] Further additions to the Town came in 1994 with the opening of the sweet shop and motor garage, followed by the bank in 1999. The first Georgian component of the museum arrived when Pockerley Old Hall opened in 1995, followed by the Pockerley Waggonway in 2001.

 

In the early 2000s two large modern buildings were added, to augment the museum's operations and storage capacity - the Regional Resource Centre on the west side opened in 2001, followed by the Regional Museums Store next to the railway station in 2002. Due to its proximity, the latter has been cosmetically presented as Beamish Waggon and Iron Works. Additions to display areas came in the form of the Masonic lodge (2006) and the Lamp Cabin in the Colliery (2009). In 2010, the entrance building and tea rooms were refurbished.

 

Into the 2010s, further buildings were added - the fish and chip shop (opened 2011)[28] band hall (opened 2013) and pit pony stables (built 2013/14) in the Pit Village, plus a bakery (opened 2013) and chemist and photographers (opened 2016) being added to the town. St Helen's Church, in the Georgian landscape, opened in November 2015.

 

Remaking Beamish

A major development, named 'Remaking Beamish', was approved by Durham County Council in April 2016, with £10.7m having been raised from the Heritage Lottery Fund and £3.3m from other sources.

 

As of September 2022, new exhibits as part of this project have included a quilter's cottage, a welfare hall, 1950s terrace, recreation park, bus depot, and 1950s farm (all discussed in the relevant sections of this article). The coming years will see replicas of aged miners' homes from South Shields, a cinema from Ryhope, and social housing will feature a block of four relocated Airey houses, prefabricated concrete homes originally designed by Sir Edwin Airey, which previously stood in Kibblesworth. Then-recently vacated and due for demolition, they were instead offered to the museum by The Gateshead Housing Company and accepted in 2012.

 

Museum site

The approximately 350-acre (1.4 km2) current site, once belonging to the Eden and Shafto families, is a basin-shaped steep-sided valley with woodland areas, a river, some level ground and a south-facing aspect.

 

Visitors enter the site through an entrance arch formed by a steam hammer, across a former opencast mining site and through a converted stable block (from Greencroft, near Lanchester, County Durham).

 

Visitors can navigate the site via assorted marked footpaths, including adjacent (or near to) the entire tramway oval. According to the museum, it takes 20 minutes to walk at a relaxed pace from the entrance to the town. The tramway oval serves as both an exhibit and as a free means of transport around the site for visitors, with stops at the entrance (south), Home Farm (west), Pockerley (east) and the Town (north). Visitors can also use the museum's buses as a free form of transport between various parts of the museum. Although visitors can also ride on the Town railway and Pockerley Waggonway, these do not form part of the site's transport system (as they start and finish from the same platforms).

 

Governance

Beamish was the first English museum to be financed and administered by a consortium of county councils (Cleveland, Durham, Northumberland and Tyne and Wear) The museum is now operated as a registered charity, but continues to receive support from local authorities - Durham County Council, Sunderland City Council, Gateshead Council, South Tyneside Council and North Tyneside Council. The supporting Friends of Beamish organisation was established in 1968. Frank Atkinson retired as director in 1987. The museum has been 96% self-funding for some years (mainly from admission charges).

 

Sections of the museum

1913

The town area, officially opened in 1985, depicts chiefly Victorian buildings in an evolved urban setting of 1913.

 

Tramway

The Beamish Tramway is 1.5 miles (2.4 km) long, with four passing loops. The line makes a circuit of the museum site forming an important element of the visitor transportation system.

 

The first trams began operating on a short demonstration line in 1973, with the whole circle in operation by 1993.[8] It represents the era of electric powered trams, which were being introduced to meet the needs of growing towns and cities across the North East from the late 1890s, replacing earlier horse drawn systems.

 

Bakery

Presented as Joseph Herron, Baker & Confectioner, the bakery was opened in 2013 and features working ovens which produce food for sale to visitors. A two-storey curved building, only the ground floor is used as the exhibit. A bakery has been included to represent the new businesses which sprang up to cater for the growing middle classes - the ovens being of the modern electric type which were growing in use. The building was sourced from Anfield Plain (which had a bakery trading as Joseph Herron), and was moved to Beamish in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The frontage features a stained glass from a baker's shop in South Shields. It also uses fittings from Stockton-on-Tees.

 

Motor garage

Presented as Beamish Motor & Cycle Works, the motor garage opened in 1994. Reflecting the custom nature of the early motor trade, where only one in 232 people owned a car in 1913, the shop features a showroom to the front (not accessible to visitors), with a garage area to the rear, accessed via the adjacent archway. The works is a replica of a typical garage of the era. Much of the museum's car, motorcycle and bicycle collection, both working and static, is stored in the garage. The frontage has two storeys, but the upper floor is only a small mezzanine and is not used as part of the display.

 

Department Store

Presented as the Annfield Plain Industrial Co-operative Society Ltd, (but more commonly referred to as the Anfield Plain Co-op Store) this department store opened in 1984, and was relocated to Beamish from Annfield Plain in County Durham. The Annfield Plain co-operative society was originally established in 1870, with the museum store stocking various products from the Co-operative Wholesale Society (CWS), established 1863. A two-storey building, the ground floor comprises the three departments - grocery, drapery and hardware; the upper floor is taken up by the tea rooms (accessed from Redman Park via a ramp to the rear). Most of the items are for display only, but a small amount of goods are sold to visitors. The store features an operational cash carrier system, of the Lamson Cash Ball design - common in many large stores of the era, but especially essential to Co-ops, where customer's dividends had to be logged.

 

Ravensworth Terrace

Ravensworth Terrace is a row of terraced houses, presented as the premises and living areas of various professionals. Representing the expanding housing stock of the era, it was relocated from its original site on Bensham Bank, having been built for professionals and tradesmen between 1830 and 1845. Original former residents included painter John Wilson Carmichael and Gateshead mayor Alexander Gillies. Originally featuring 25 homes, the terrace was to be demolished when the museum saved it in the 1970s, reconstructing six of them on the Town site between 1980 and 1985. They are two storey buildings, with most featuring display rooms on both floors - originally the houses would have also housed a servant in the attic. The front gardens are presented in a mix of the formal style, and the natural style that was becoming increasingly popular.

 

No. 2 is presented as the home of Miss Florence Smith, a music teacher, with old fashioned mid-Victorian furnishings as if inherited from her parents. No. 3 & 4 is presented as the practice and home respectively (with a knocked through door) of dentist J. Jones - the exterior nameplate having come from the surgery of Mr. J. Jones in Hartlepool. Representing the state of dental health at the time, it features both a check-up room and surgery for extraction, and a technicians room for creating dentures - a common practice at the time being the giving to daughters a set on their 21st birthday, to save any future husband the cost at a later date. His home is presented as more modern than No.2, furnished in the Edwardian style the modern day utilities of an enamelled bathroom with flushing toilet, a controllable heat kitchen range and gas cooker. No. 5 is presented as a solicitor's office, based on that of Robert Spence Watson, a Quaker from Newcastle. Reflecting the trade of the era, downstairs is laid out as the partner's or principal office, and the general or clerk's office in the rear. Included is a set of books sourced from ER Hanby Holmes, who practised in Barnard Castle.

 

Pub

Presented as The Sun Inn, the pub opened in the town in 1985. It had originally stood in Bondgate in Bishop Auckland, and was donated to the museum by its final owners, the Scottish and Newcastle Breweries. Originally a "one-up one down" cottage, the earliest ownership has been traced to James Thompson, on 21 January 1806. Known as The Tiger Inn until the 1850s, from 1857 to 1899 under the ownership of the Leng family, it flourished under the patronage of miners from Newton Cap and other collieries. Latterly run by Elsie Edes, it came under brewery ownership in the 20th Century when bought by S&N antecedent, James Deuchar Ltd. The pub is fully operational, and features both a front and back bar, the two stories above not being part of the exhibit. The interior decoration features the stuffed racing greyhound Jake's Bonny Mary, which won nine trophies before being put on display in The Gerry in White le Head near Tantobie.

 

Town stables

Reflecting the reliance on horses for a variety of transport needs in the era, the town features a centrally located stables, situated behind the sweet shop, with its courtyard being accessed from the archway next to the pub. It is presented as a typical jobmaster's yard, with stables and a tack room in the building on its north side. A small, brick built open air, carriage shed is sited on the back of the printworks building. On the east side of the courtyard is a much larger metal shed (utilising iron roof trusses from Fleetwood), arranged mainly as carriage storage, but with a blacksmith's shop in the corner. The building on the west side of the yard is not part of any display. The interior fittings for the harness room came from Callaly Caste. Many of the horses and horse-drawn vehicles used by the museum are housed in the stables and sheds.

 

Printer, stationer and newspaper branch office

Presented as the Beamish Branch Office of the Northern Daily Mail and the Sunderland Daily Echo, the two storey replica building was built in the mid-1980s and represents the trade practices of the era. Downstairs, on the right, is the branch office, where newspapers would be sold directly and distributed to local newsagents and street vendors, and where orders for advertising copy would be taken. Supplementing it is a stationer's shop on the left hand side, with both display items and a small number of gift items on public sale. Upstairs is a jobbing printers workshop, which would not produce the newspapers, but would instead print leaflets, posters and office stationery. Split into a composing area and a print shop, the shop itself has a number of presses - a Columbian built in 1837 by Clymer and Dixon, an Albion dating back to 1863, an Arab Platen of c. 1900, and a Wharfedale flat bed press, built by Dawson & Son in around 1870. Much of the machinery was sourced from the print works of Jack Ascough's of Barnard Castle. Many of the posters seen around the museum are printed in the works, with the operation of the machinery being part of the display.

 

Sweet shop

Presented as Jubilee Confectioners, the two storey sweet shop opened in 1994 and is meant to represent the typical family run shops of the era, with living quarters above the shop (the second storey not being part of the display). To the front of the ground floor is a shop, where traditional sweets and chocolate (which was still relatively expensive at the time) are sold to visitors, while in the rear of the ground floor is a manufacturing area where visitors can view the techniques of the time (accessed via the arched walkway on the side of the building). The sweet rollers were sourced from a variety of shops and factories.

 

Bank

Presented as a branch of Barclays Bank (Barclay & Company Ltd) using period currency, the bank opened in 1999. It represents the trend of the era when regional banks were being acquired and merged into national banks such as Barclays, formed in 1896. Built to a three-storey design typical of the era, and featuring bricks in the upper storeys sourced from Park House, Gateshead, the Swedish imperial red shade used on the ground floor frontage is intended to represent stability and security. On the ground floor are windows for bank tellers, plus the bank manager's office. Included in a basement level are two vaults. The upper two storeys are not part of the display. It features components sourced from Southport and Gateshead

 

Masonic Hall

The Masonic Hall opened in 2006, and features the frontage from a former masonic hall sited in Park Terrace, Sunderland. Reflecting the popularity of the masons in North East England, as well as the main hall, which takes up the full height of the structure, in a small two story arrangement to the front of the hall is also a Robing Room and the Tyler's Room on the ground floor, and a Museum Room upstairs, featuring display cabinets of masonic regalia donated from various lodges. Upstairs is also a class room, with large stained glass window.

 

Chemist and photographer

Presented as W Smith's Chemist and JR & D Edis Photographers, a two-storey building housing both a chemist and photographers shops under one roof opened on 7 May 2016 and represents the growing popularity of photography in the era, with shops often growing out of or alongside chemists, who had the necessary supplies for developing photographs. The chemist features a dispensary, and equipment from various shops including John Walker, inventor of the friction match. The photographers features a studio, where visitors can dress in period costume and have a photograph taken. The corner building is based on a real building on Elvet Bridge in Durham City, opposite the Durham Marriot Hotel (the Royal County), although the second storey is not part of the display. The chemist also sells aerated water (an early form of carbonated soft drinks) to visitors, sold in marble-stopper sealed Codd bottles (although made to a modern design to prevent the safety issue that saw the original bottles banned). Aerated waters grew in popularity in the era, due to the need for a safe alternative to water, and the temperance movement - being sold in chemists due to the perception they were healthy in the same way mineral waters were.

 

Costing around £600,000 and begun on 18 August 2014, the building's brickwork and timber was built by the museum's own staff and apprentices, using Georgian bricks salvaged from demolition works to widen the A1. Unlike previous buildings built on the site, the museum had to replicate rather than relocate this one due to the fact that fewer buildings are being demolished compared to the 1970s, and in any case it was deemed unlikely one could be found to fit the curved shape of the plot. The studio is named after a real business run by John Reed Edis and his daughter Daisy. Mr Edis, originally at 27 Sherburn Road, Durham, in 1895, then 52 Saddler Street from 1897. The museum collection features several photographs, signs and equipment from the Edis studio. The name for the chemist is a reference to the business run by William Smith, who relocated to Silver Street, near the original building, in 1902. According to records, the original Edis company had been supplied by chemicals from the original (and still extant) Smith business.

 

Redman Park

Redman Park is a small lawned space with flower borders, opposite Ravensworth Terrace. Its centrepiece is a Victorian bandstand sourced from Saltwell Park, where it stood on an island in the middle of a lake. It represents the recognised need of the time for areas where people could relax away from the growing industrial landscape.

 

Other

Included in the Town are drinking fountains and other period examples of street furniture. In between the bank and the sweet shop is a combined tram and bus waiting room and public convenience.

 

Unbuilt

When construction of the Town began, the projected town plan incorporated a market square and buildings including a gas works, fire station, ice cream parlour (originally the Central Cafe at Consett), a cast iron bus station from Durham City, school, public baths and a fish and chip shop.

 

Railway station

East of the Town is the Railway Station, depicting a typical small passenger and goods facility operated by the main railway company in the region at the time, the North Eastern Railway (NER). A short running line extends west in a cutting around the north side of the Town itself, with trains visible from the windows of the stables. It runs for a distance of 1⁄4 mile - the line used to connect to the colliery sidings until 1993 when it was lifted between the town and the colliery so that the tram line could be extended. During 2009 the running line was relaid so that passenger rides could recommence from the station during 2010.

 

Rowley station

Representing passenger services is Rowley Station, a station building on a single platform, opened in 1976, having been relocated to the museum from the village of Rowley near Consett, just a few miles from Beamish.

 

The original Rowley railway station was opened in 1845 (as Cold Rowley, renamed Rowley in 1868) by the NER antecedent, the Stockton and Darlington Railway, consisting of just a platform. Under NER ownership, as a result of increasing use, in 1873 the station building was added. As demand declined, passenger service was withdrawn in 1939, followed by the goods service in 1966. Trains continued to use the line for another three years before it closed, the track being lifted in 1970. Although in a state of disrepair, the museum acquired the building, dismantling it in 1972, being officially unveiled in its new location by railway campaigner and poet, Sir John Betjeman.

 

The station building is presented as an Edwardian station, lit by oil lamp, having never been connected to gas or electricity supplies in its lifetime. It features both an open waiting area and a visitor accessible waiting room (western half), and a booking and ticket office (eastern half), with the latter only visible from a small viewing entrance. Adorning the waiting room is a large tiled NER route map.

 

Signal box

The signal box dates from 1896, and was relocated from Carr House East near Consett. It features assorted signalling equipment, basic furnishings for the signaller, and a lever frame, controlling the stations numerous points, interlocks and semaphore signals. The frame is not an operational part of the railway, the points being hand operated using track side levers. Visitors can only view the interior from a small area inside the door.

 

Goods shed

The goods shed is originally from Alnwick. The goods area represents how general cargo would have been moved on the railway, and for onward transport. The goods shed features a covered platform where road vehicles (wagons and carriages) can be loaded with the items unloaded from railway vans. The shed sits on a triangular platform serving two sidings, with a platform mounted hand-crane, which would have been used for transhipment activity (transfer of goods from one wagon to another, only being stored for a short time on the platform, if at all).

 

Coal yard

The coal yard represents how coal would have been distributed from incoming trains to local merchants - it features a coal drop which unloads railway wagons into road going wagons below. At the road entrance to the yard is a weighbridge (with office) and coal merchant's office - both being appropriately furnished with display items, but only viewable from outside.

 

The coal drop was sourced from West Boldon, and would have been a common sight on smaller stations. The weighbridge came from Glanton, while the coal office is from Hexham.

 

Bridges and level crossing

The station is equipped with two footbridges, a wrought iron example to the east having come from Howden-le-Wear, and a cast iron example to the west sourced from Dunston. Next to the western bridge, a roadway from the coal yard is presented as crossing the tracks via a gated level crossing (although in reality the road goes nowhere on the north side).

 

Waggon and Iron Works

Dominating the station is the large building externally presented as Beamish Waggon and Iron Works, estd 1857. In reality this is the Regional Museums Store (see below), although attached to the north side of the store are two covered sidings (not accessible to visitors), used to service and store the locomotives and stock used on the railway.

 

Other

A corrugated iron hut adjacent to the 'iron works' is presented as belonging to the local council, and houses associated road vehicles, wagons and other items.

 

Fairground

Adjacent to the station is an events field and fairground with a set of Frederick Savage built steam powered Gallopers dating from 1893.

 

Colliery

Presented as Beamish Colliery (owned by James Joicey & Co., and managed by William Severs), the colliery represents the coal mining industry which dominated the North East for generations - the museum site is in the former Durham coalfield, where 165,246 men and boys worked in 304 mines in 1913. By the time period represented by Beamish's 1900s era, the industry was booming - production in the Great Northern Coalfield had peaked in 1913, and miners were relatively well paid (double that of agriculture, the next largest employer), but the work was dangerous. Children could be employed from age 12 (the school leaving age), but could not go underground until 14.

 

Deep mine

Reconstructed pitworks buildings showing winding gear

Dominating the colliery site are the above ground structures of a deep (i.e. vertical shaft) mine - the brick built Winding Engine House, and the red painted wooden Heapstead. These were relocated to the museum (which never had its own vertical shaft), the winding house coming from Beamish Chophill Colliery, and the Heapstead from Ravensworth Park Mine in Gateshead. The winding engine and its enclosing house are both listed.

 

The winding engine was the source of power for hauling miners, equipment and coal up and down the shaft in a cage, the top of the shaft being in the adjacent heapstead, which encloses the frame holding the wheel around which the hoist cable travels. Inside the Heapstead, tubs of coal from the shaft were weighed on a weighbridge, then tipped onto jigging screens, which sifted the solid lumps from small particles and dust - these were then sent along the picking belt, where pickers, often women, elderly or disabled people or young boys (i.e. workers incapable of mining), would separate out unwanted stone, wood and rubbish. Finally, the coal was tipped onto waiting railway wagons below, while the unwanted waste sent to the adjacent heap by an external conveyor.

 

Chophill Colliery was closed by the National Coal Board in 1962, but the winding engine and tower were left in place. When the site was later leased, Beamish founder Frank Atkinson intervened to have both spot listed to prevent their demolition. After a protracted and difficult process to gain the necessary permissions to move a listed structure, the tower and engine were eventually relocated to the museum, work being completed in 1976. The winding engine itself is the only surviving example of the type which was once common, and was still in use at Chophill upon its closure. It was built in 1855 by J&G Joicey of Newcastle, to an 1800 design by Phineas Crowther.

 

Inside the winding engine house, supplementing the winding engine is a smaller jack engine, housed in the rear. These were used to lift heavy equipment, and in deep mines, act as a relief winding engine.

 

Outdoors, next to the Heapstead, is a sinking engine, mounted on red bricks. Brought to the museum from Silksworth Colliery in 1971, it was built by Burlington's of Sunderland in 1868 and is the sole surviving example of its kind. Sinking engines were used for the construction of shafts, after which the winding engine would become the source of hoist power. It is believed the Silksworth engine was retained because it was powerful enough to serve as a backup winding engine, and could be used to lift heavy equipment (i.e. the same role as the jack engine inside the winding house).

 

Drift mine

The Mahogany Drift Mine is original to Beamish, having opened in 1855 and after closing, was brought back into use in 1921 to transport coal from Beamish Park Drift to Beamish Cophill Colliery. It opened as a museum display in 1979. Included in the display is the winding engine and a short section of trackway used to transport tubs of coal to the surface, and a mine office. Visitor access into the mine shaft is by guided tour.

 

Lamp cabin

The Lamp Cabin opened in 2009, and is a recreation of a typical design used in collieries to house safety lamps, a necessary piece of equipment for miners although were not required in the Mahogany Drift Mine, due to it being gas-free. The building is split into two main rooms; in one half, the lamp cabin interior is recreated, with a collection of lamps on shelves, and the system of safety tokens used to track which miners were underground. Included in the display is a 1927 Hailwood and Ackroyd lamp-cleaning machine sourced from Morrison Busty Colliery in Annfield Plain. In the second room is an educational display, i.e., not a period interior.

 

Colliery railways

The colliery features both a standard gauge railway, representing how coal was transported to its onward destination, and narrow-gauge typically used by Edwardian collieries for internal purposes. The standard gauge railway is laid out to serve the deep mine - wagons being loaded by dropping coal from the heapstead - and runs out of the yard to sidings laid out along the northern-edge of the Pit Village.

 

The standard gauge railway has two engine sheds in the colliery yard, the smaller brick, wood and metal structure being an operational building; the larger brick-built structure is presented as Beamish Engine Works, a reconstruction of an engine shed formerly at Beamish 2nd Pit. Used for locomotive and stock storage, it is a long, single track shed featuring a servicing pit for part of its length. Visitors can walk along the full length in a segregated corridor. A third engine shed in brick (lower half) and corrugated iron has been constructed at the southern end of the yard, on the other side of the heapstead to the other two sheds, and is used for both narrow and standard gauge vehicles (on one road), although it is not connected to either system - instead being fed by low-loaders and used for long-term storage only.

 

The narrow gauge railway is serviced by a corrugate iron engine shed, and is being expanded to eventually encompass several sidings.

 

There are a number of industrial steam locomotives (including rare examples by Stephen Lewin from Seaham and Black, Hawthorn & Co) and many chaldron wagons, the region's traditional type of colliery railway rolling stock, which became a symbol of Beamish Museum. The locomotive Coffee Pot No 1 is often in steam during the summer.

 

Other

On the south eastern corner of the colliery site is the Power House, brought to the museum from Houghton Colliery. These were used to store explosives.

 

Pit Village

Alongside the colliery is the pit village, representing life in the mining communities that grew alongside coal production sites in the North East, many having come into existence solely because of the industry, such as Seaham Harbour, West Hartlepool, Esh Winning and Bedlington.

 

Miner's Cottages

The row of six miner's cottages in Francis Street represent the tied-housing provided by colliery owners to mine workers. Relocated to the museum in 1976, they were originally built in the 1860s in Hetton-le-Hole by Hetton Coal Company. They feature the common layout of a single-storey with a kitchen to the rear, the main room of the house, and parlour to the front, rarely used (although it was common for both rooms to be used for sleeping, with disguised folding "dess" beds common), and with children sleeping in attic spaces upstairs. In front are long gardens, used for food production, with associated sheds. An outdoor toilet and coal bunker were in the rear yards, and beyond the cobbled back lane to their rear are assorted sheds used for cultivation, repairs and hobbies. Chalkboard slates attached to the rear wall were used by the occupier to tell the mine's "knocker up" when they wished to be woken for their next shift.

 

No.2 is presented as a Methodist family's home, featuring good quality "Pitman's mahogany" furniture; No.3 is presented as occupied by a second generation well off Irish Catholic immigrant family featuring many items of value (so they could be readily sold off in times of need) and an early 1890s range; No.3 is presented as more impoverished than the others with just a simple convector style Newcastle oven, being inhabited by a miner's widow allowed to remain as her son is also a miner, and supplementing her income doing laundry and making/mending for other families. All the cottages feature examples of the folk art objects typical of mining communities. Also included in the row is an office for the miner's paymaster.[11] In the rear alleyway of the cottages is a communal bread oven, which were commonplace until miner's cottages gradually obtained their own kitchen ranges. They were used to bake traditional breads such as the Stottie, as well as sweet items, such as tea cakes. With no extant examples, the museum's oven had to be created from photographs and oral history.

 

School

The school opened in 1992, and represents the typical board school in the educational system of the era (the stone built single storey structure being inscribed with the foundation date of 1891, Beamish School Board), by which time attendance at a state approved school was compulsory, but the leaving age was 12, and lessons featured learning by rote and corporal punishment. The building originally stood in East Stanley, having been set up by the local school board, and would have numbered around 150 pupils. Having been donated by Durham County Council, the museum now has a special relationship with the primary school that replaced it. With separate entrances and cloakrooms for boys and girls at either end, the main building is split into three class rooms (all accessible to visitors), connected by a corridor along the rear. To the rear is a red brick bike shed, and in the playground visitors can play traditional games of the era.

 

Chapel

Pit Hill Chapel opened in 1990, and represents the Wesleyan Methodist tradition which was growing in North East England, with the chapels used for both religious worship and as community venues, which continue in its role in the museum display. Opened in the 1850s, it originally stood not far from its present site, having been built in what would eventually become Beamish village, near the museum entrance. A stained glass window of The Light of The World by William Holman Hunt came from a chapel in Bedlington. A two handled Love Feast Mug dates from 1868, and came from a chapel in Shildon Colliery. On the eastern wall, above the elevated altar area, is an angled plain white surface used for magic lantern shows, generated using a replica of the double-lensed acetylene gas powered lanterns of the period, mounted in the aisle of the main seating area. Off the western end of the hall is the vestry, featuring a small library and communion sets from Trimdon Colliery and Catchgate.

 

Fish bar

Presented as Davey's Fried Fish & Chip Potato Restaurant, the fish and chip shop opened in 2011, and represents the typical style of shop found in the era as they were becoming rapidly popular in the region - the brick built Victorian style fryery would most often have previously been used for another trade, and the attached corrugated iron hut serves as a saloon with tables and benches, where customers would eat and socialise. Featuring coal fired ranges using beef-dripping, the shop is named in honour of the last coal fired shop in Tyneside, in Winlaton Mill, and which closed in 2007. Latterly run by brothers Brian and Ramsay Davy, it had been established by their grandfather in 1937. The serving counter and one of the shop's three fryers, a 1934 Nuttal, came from the original Davy shop. The other two fryers are a 1920s Mabbott used near Chester until the 1960s, and a GW Atkinson New Castle Range, donated from a shop in Prudhoe in 1973. The latter is one of only two known late Victorian examples to survive. The decorative wall tiles in the fryery came to the museum in 1979 from Cowes Fish and Game Shop in Berwick upon Tweed. The shop also features both an early electric and hand-powered potato rumblers (cleaners), and a gas powered chip chopper built around 1900. Built behind the chapel, the fryery is arranged so the counter faces the rear, stretching the full length of the building. Outside is a brick built row of outdoor toilets. Supplementing the fish bar is the restored Berriman's mobile chip van, used in Spennymoor until the early 1970s.

 

Band hall

The Hetton Silver Band Hall opened in 2013, and features displays reflecting the role colliery bands played in mining life. Built in 1912, it was relocated from its original location in South Market Street, Hetton-le-Hole, where it was used by the Hetton Silver Band, founded in 1887. They built the hall using prize money from a music competition, and the band decided to donate the hall to the museum after they merged with Broughtons Brass Band of South Hetton (to form the Durham Miners' Association Brass Band). It is believed to be the only purpose built band hall in the region. The structure consists of the main hall, plus a small kitchen to the rear; as part of the museum it is still used for performances.

 

Pit pony stables

The Pit Pony Stables were built in 2013/14, and house the museum's pit ponies. They replace a wooden stable a few metres away in the field opposite the school (the wooden structure remaining). It represents the sort of stables that were used in drift mines (ponies in deep mines living their whole lives underground), pit ponies having been in use in the north east as late as 1994, in Ellington Colliery. The structure is a recreation of an original building that stood at Rickless Drift Mine, between High Spen and Greenside; it was built using a yellow brick that was common across the Durham coalfield.

 

Other

Doubling as one of the museum's refreshment buildings, Sinker's Bait Cabin represents the temporary structures that would have served as living quarters, canteens and drying areas for sinkers, the itinerant workforce that would dig new vertical mine shafts.

 

Representing other traditional past-times, the village fields include a quoits pitch, with another refreshment hut alongside it, resembling a wooden clubhouse.

 

In one of the fields in the village stands the Cupola, a small round flat topped brick built tower; such structures were commonly placed on top of disused or ventilation shafts, also used as an emergency exit from the upper seams.

 

The Georgian North (1825)

A late Georgian landscape based around the original Pockerley farm represents the period of change in the region as transport links were improved and as agriculture changed as machinery and field management developed, and breeding stock was improved. It became part of the museum in 1990, having latterly been occupied by a tenant farmer, and was opened as an exhibit in 1995. The hill top position suggests the site was the location of an Iron Age fort - the first recorded mention of a dwelling is in the 1183 Buke of Boldon (the region's equivalent of the Domesday Book). The name Pockerley has Saxon origins - "Pock" or "Pokor" meaning "pimple of bag-like" hill, and "Ley" meaning woodland clearing.

 

The surrounding farmlands have been returned to a post-enclosure landscape with ridge and furrow topography, divided into smaller fields by traditional riven oak fencing. The land is worked and grazed by traditional methods and breeds.

 

Pockerley Old Hall

The estate of Pockerley Old Hall is presented as that of a well off tenant farmer, in a position to take advantage of the agricultural advances of the era. The hall itself consists of the Old House, which is adjoined (but not connected to) the New House, both south facing two storey sandstone built buildings, the Old House also having a small north–south aligned extension. Roof timbers in the sandstone built Old House have been dated to the 1440s, but the lower storey (the undercroft) may be from even earlier. The New House dates to the late 1700s, and replaced a medieval manor house to the east of the Old House as the main farm house - once replaced itself, the Old House is believed to have been let to the farm manager. Visitors can access all rooms in the New and Old House, except the north–south extension which is now a toilet block. Displays include traditional cooking, such as the drying of oatcakes over a wooden rack (flake) over the fireplace in the Old House.

 

Inside the New House the downstairs consists of a main kitchen and a secondary kitchen (scullery) with pantry. It also includes a living room, although as the main room of the house, most meals would have been eaten in the main kitchen, equipped with an early range, boiler and hot air oven. Upstairs is a main bedroom and a second bedroom for children; to the rear (i.e. the colder, north side), are bedrooms for a servant and the servant lad respectively. Above the kitchen (for transferred warmth) is a grain and fleece store, with attached bacon loft, a narrow space behind the wall where bacon or hams, usually salted first, would be hung to be smoked by the kitchen fire (entering through a small door in the chimney).

 

Presented as having sparse and more old fashioned furnishings, the Old House is presented as being occupied in the upper story only, consisting of a main room used as the kitchen, bedroom and for washing, with the only other rooms being an adjoining second bedroom and an overhanging toilet. The main bed is an oak box bed dating to 1712, obtained from Star House in Baldersdale in 1962. Originally a defensive house in its own right, the lower level of the Old House is an undercroft, or vaulted basement chamber, with 1.5 metre thick walls - in times of attack the original tenant family would have retreated here with their valuables, although in its later use as the farm managers house, it is now presented as a storage and work room, housing a large wooden cheese press.[68] More children would have slept in the attic of the Old House (not accessible as a display).

 

To the front of the hall is a terraced garden featuring an ornamental garden with herbs and flowers, a vegetable garden, and an orchard, all laid out and planted according to the designs of William Falla of Gateshead, who had the largest nursery in Britain from 1804 to 1830.

 

The buildings to the east of the hall, across a north–south track, are the original farmstead buildings dating from around 1800. These include stables and a cart shed arranged around a fold yard. The horses and carts on display are typical of North Eastern farms of the era, Fells or Dales ponies and Cleveland Bay horses, and two wheeled long carts for hilly terrain (as opposed to four wheel carts).

 

Pockerley Waggonway

The Pockerley Waggonway opened in 2001, and represents the year 1825, as the year the Stockton and Darlington Railway opened. Waggonways had appeared around 1600, and by the 1800s were common in mining areas - prior to 1800 they had been either horse or gravity powered, before the invention of steam engines (initially used as static winding engines), and later mobile steam locomotives.

 

Housing the locomotives and rolling stock is the Great Shed, which opened in 2001 and is based on Timothy Hackworth's erecting shop, Shildon railway works, and incorporating some material from Robert Stephenson and Company's Newcastle works. Visitors can walk around the locomotives in the shed, and when in steam, can take rides to the end of the track and back in the line's assorted rolling stock - situated next to the Great Shed is a single platform for passenger use. In the corner of the main shed is a corner office, presented as a locomotive designer's office (only visible to visitors through windows). Off the pedestrian entrance in the southern side is a room presented as the engine crew's break room. Atop the Great Shed is a weather vane depicting a waggonway train approaching a cow, a reference to a famous quote by George Stephenson when asked by parliament in 1825 what would happen in such an eventuality - "very awkward indeed - for the coo!".

 

At the far end of the waggonway is the (fictional) coal mine Pockerley Gin Pit, which the waggonway notionally exists to serve. The pit head features a horse powered wooden whim gin, which was the method used before steam engines for hauling men and material up and down mineshafts - coal was carried in corves (wicker baskets), while miners held onto the rope with their foot in an attached loop.

 

Wooden waggonway

Following creation of the Pockerley Waggonway, the museum went back a chapter in railway history to create a horse-worked wooden waggonway.

 

St Helen's Church

St Helen's Church represents a typical type of country church found in North Yorkshire, and was relocated from its original site in Eston, North Yorkshire. It is the oldest and most complex building moved to the museum. It opened in November 2015, but will not be consecrated as this would place restrictions on what could be done with the building under church law.

 

The church had existed on its original site since around 1100. As the congregation grew, it was replaced by two nearby churches, and latterly became a cemetery chapel. After closing in 1985, it fell into disrepair and by 1996 was burnt out and vandalised leading to the decision by the local authority in 1998 to demolish it. Working to a deadline of a threatened demolition within six months, the building was deconstructed and moved to Beamish, reconstruction being authorised in 2011, with the exterior build completed by 2012.

 

While the structure was found to contain some stones from the 1100 era, the building itself however dates from three distinct building phases - the chancel on the east end dates from around 1450, while the nave, which was built at the same time, was modernised in 1822 in the Churchwarden style, adding a vestry. The bell tower dates from the late 1600s - one of the two bells is a rare dated Tudor example. Gargoyles, originally hidden in the walls and believed to have been pranks by the original builders, have been made visible in the reconstruction.

 

Restored to its 1822 condition, the interior has been furnished with Georgian box pews sourced from a church in Somerset. Visitors can access all parts except the bell tower. The nave includes a small gallery level, at the tower end, while the chancel includes a church office.

 

Joe the Quilter's Cottage

The most recent addition to the area opened to the public in 2018 is a recreation of a heather-thatched cottage which features stones from the Georgian quilter Joseph Hedley's original home in Northumberland. It was uncovered during an archaeological dig by Beamish. His original cottage was demolished in 1872 and has been carefully recreated with the help of a drawing on a postcard. The exhibit tells the story of quilting and the growth of cottage industries in the early 1800s. Within there is often a volunteer or member of staff not only telling the story of how Joe was murdered in 1826, a crime that remains unsolved to this day, but also giving visitors the opportunity to learn more and even have a go at quilting.

 

Other

A pack pony track passes through the scene - pack horses having been the mode of transport for all manner of heavy goods where no waggonway exists, being also able to reach places where carriages and wagons could not access. Beside the waggonway is a gibbet.

 

Farm (1940s)

Presented as Home Farm, this represents the role of North East farms as part of the British Home Front during World War II, depicting life indoors, and outside on the land. Much of the farmstead is original, and opened as a museum display in 1983. The farm is laid out across a north–south public road; to the west is the farmhouse and most of the farm buildings, while on the east side are a pair of cottages, the British Kitchen, an outdoor toilet ("netty"), a bull field, duck pond and large shed.

 

The farm complex was rebuilt in the mid-19th century as a model farm incorporating a horse mill and a steam-powered threshing mill. It was not presented as a 1940s farm until early 2014.

 

The farmhouse is presented as having been modernised, following the installation of electric power and an Aga cooker in the scullery, although the main kitchen still has the typical coal-fired black range. Lino flooring allowed quicker cleaning times, while a radio set allowed the family to keep up to date with wartime news. An office next to the kitchen would have served both as the administration centre for the wartime farm, and as a local Home Guard office. Outside the farmhouse is an improvised Home Guard pillbox fashioned from half an egg-ended steam boiler, relocated from its original position near Durham.

 

The farm is equipped with three tractors which would have all seen service during the war: a Case, a Fordson N and a 1924 Fordson F. The farm also features horse-drawn traps, reflecting the effect wartime rationing of petrol would have had on car use. The farming equipment in the cart and machinery sheds reflects the transition of the time from horse-drawn to tractor-pulled implements, with some older equipment put back into use due to the war, as well as a large Foster thresher, vital for cereal crops, and built specifically for the war effort, sold at the Newcastle Show. Although the wartime focus was on crops, the farm also features breeds of sheep, cattle, pigs and poultry that would have been typical for the time. The farm also has a portable steam engine, not in use, but presented as having been left out for collection as part of a wartime scrap metal drive.

 

The cottages would have housed farm labourers, but are presented as having new uses for the war: Orchard Cottage housing a family of evacuees, and Garden Cottage serving as a billet for members of the Women's Land Army (Land Girls). Orchard Cottage is named for an orchard next to it, which also contains an Anderson shelter, reconstructed from partial pieces of ones recovered from around the region. Orchard Cottage, which has both front and back kitchens, is presented as having an up to date blue enameled kitchen range, with hot water supplied from a coke stove, as well as a modern accessible bathroom. Orchard Cottage is also used to stage recreations of wartime activities for schools, elderly groups and those living with dementia. Garden Cottage is sparsely furnished with a mix of items, reflecting the few possessions Land Girls were able to take with them, although unusually the cottage is depicted with a bathroom, and electricity (due to proximity to a colliery).

 

The British Kitchen is both a display and one of the museum's catering facilities; it represents an installation of one of the wartime British Restaurants, complete with propaganda posters and a suitably patriotic menu.

 

Town (1950s)

As part of the Remaking Beamish project, with significant funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, the museum is creating a 1950s town. Opened in July 2019, the Welfare Hall is an exact replica of the Leasingthorne Colliery Welfare Hall and Community Centre which was built in 1957 near Bishop Auckland. Visitors can 'take part in activities including dancing, crafts, Meccano, beetle drive, keep fit and amateur dramatics' while also taking a look at the National Health Service exhibition on display, recreating the environment of an NHS clinic. A recreation and play park, named Coronation Park was opened in May 2022 to coincide with the celebrations around the Platinum Jubilee of Elizabeth II.

 

The museum's first 1950s terrace opened in February 2022. This included a fish and chip shop from Middleton St George, a cafe, a replica of Norman Cornish's home, and a hairdressers. Future developments opposite the existing 1950s terrace will see a recreation of The Grand Cinema, from Ryhope, in Sunderland, and toy and electricians shops. Also underdevelopment are a 1950s bowling green and pavilion, police houses and aged miner's cottages. Also under construction are semi-detached houses; for this exhibit, a competition was held to recreate a particular home at Beamish, which was won by a family from Sunderland.

 

As well as the town, a 1950s Northern bus depot has been opened on the western side of the museum – the purpose of this is to provide additional capacity for bus, trolleybus and tram storage once the planned trolleybus extension and the new area are completed, providing extra capacity and meeting the need for modified routing.

 

Spain's Field Farm

In March 2022, the museum opened Spain's Field Farm. It had stood for centuries at Eastgate in Weardale, and was moved to Beamish stone-by-stone. It is exhibited as it would have been in the 1950s.

 

1820s Expansion

In the area surrounding the current Pockerley Old Hall and Steam Wagon Way more development is on the way. The first of these was planned to be a Georgian Coaching Inn that would be the museum's first venture into overnight accommodation. However following the COVID-19 pandemic this was abandoned, in favour of self-catering accommodation in existing cottages.

 

There are also plans for 1820s industries including a blacksmith's forge and a pottery.

 

Museum stores

There are two stores on the museum site, used to house donated objects. In contrast to the traditional rotation practice used in museums where items are exchanged regularly between store and display, it is Beamish policy that most of their exhibits are to be in use and on display - those items that must be stored are to be used in the museum's future developments.

 

Open Store

Housed in the Regional Resource Centre, the Open Store is accessible to visitors. Objects are housed on racks along one wall, while the bulk of items are in a rolling archive, with one set of shelves opened, with perspex across their fronts to permit viewing without touching.

 

Regional Museums Store

The real purposes of the building presented as Beamish Waggon and Iron Works next to Rowley Station is as the Regional Museums Store, completed in 2002, which Beamish shares with Tyne and Wear Museums. This houses, amongst other things, a large marine diesel engine by William Doxford & Sons of Pallion, Sunderland (1977); and several boats including the Tyne wherry (a traditional local type of lighter) Elswick No. 2 (1930). The store is only open at selected times, and for special tours which can be arranged through the museum; however, a number of viewing windows have been provided for use at other times.

 

Transport collection

Main article: Beamish Museum transport collection

The museum contains much of transport interest, and the size of its site makes good internal transportation for visitors and staff purposes a necessity.

 

The collection contains a variety of historical vehicles for road, rail and tramways. In addition there are some modern working replicas to enhance the various scenes in the museum.

 

Agriculture

The museum's two farms help to preserve traditional northcountry and in some cases rare livestock breeds such as Durham Shorthorn Cattle; Clydesdale and Cleveland Bay working horses; Dales ponies; Teeswater sheep; Saddleback pigs; and poultry.

 

Regional heritage

Other large exhibits collected by the museum include a tracked steam shovel, and a coal drop from Seaham Harbour.

 

In 2001 a new-build Regional Resource Centre (accessible to visitors by appointment) opened on the site to provide accommodation for the museum's core collections of smaller items. These include over 300,000 historic photographs, printed books and ephemera, and oral history recordings. The object collections cover the museum's specialities. These include quilts; "clippy mats" (rag rugs); Trade union banners; floor cloth; advertising (including archives from United Biscuits and Rowntree's); locally made pottery; folk art; and occupational costume. Much of the collection is viewable online and the arts of quilting, rug making and cookery in the local traditions are demonstrated at the museum.

 

Filming location

The site has been used as the backdrop for many film and television productions, particularly Catherine Cookson dramas, produced by Tyne Tees Television, and the final episode and the feature film version of Downton Abbey. Some of the children's television series Supergran was shot here.

 

Visitor numbers

On its opening day the museum set a record by attracting a two-hour queue. Visitor numbers rose rapidly to around 450,000 p.a. during the first decade of opening to the public, with the millionth visitor arriving in 1978.

 

Awards

Museum of the Year1986

European Museum of the Year Award1987

Living Museum of the Year2002

Large Visitor Attraction of the YearNorth East England Tourism awards2014 & 2015

Large Visitor Attraction of the Year (bronze)VisitEngland awards2016

It was designated by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council in 1997 as a museum with outstanding collections.

 

Critical responses

In responding to criticism that it trades on nostalgia the museum is unapologetic. A former director has written: "As individuals and communities we have a deep need and desire to understand ourselves in time."

 

According to the BBC writing in its 40th anniversary year, Beamish was a mould-breaking museum that became a great success due to its collection policy, and what sets it apart from other museums is the use of costumed people to impart knowledge to visitors, rather than labels or interpretive panels (although some such panels do exist on the site), which means it "engages the visitor with history in a unique way".

 

Legacy

Beamish was influential on the Black Country Living Museum, Blists Hill Victorian Town and, in the view of museologist Kenneth Hudson, more widely in the museum community and is a significant educational resource locally. It can also demonstrate its benefit to the contemporary local economy.

 

The unselective collecting policy has created a lasting bond between museum and community.

ift.tt/29IQU89

Star Trek: The Motion Picture (Paramount, 1979).

putlocker.bz/watch-star-trek-the-motion-picture-online-fr... Full Feature

 

Starring William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, James Doohan, George Takei, Majel Barrett, Walter Koenig, Nichelle Nichols, Persis Khambatta, Stephen Collins, Grace Lee Whitney, Mark Lenard. Directed by Robert Wise.

  

In Klingon space, three Klingon battle cruisers encounter a huge cloud-like anomaly. On the bridge of one of the ships, the captain (Mark Lenard) orders his crew to fire torpedoes at it, but they have no effect. The ships take evasive action.

 

Meanwhile, in Federation space, a monitoring station, Epsilon 9, picks up a distress signal from one of the Klingon ships. As the three ships are attempting to escape the cloud, energy beams shoot out and engulf each ship one by one, and they vanish. On Epsilon 9, the crew tracks the course of the cloud and discovers that it is headed for Earth.

 

On Vulcan, Spock (Leonard Nimoy) has been undergoing the kohlinahr ritual, in which he has been learning how to purge all of his emotions, and is nearly finished with his training. A female Vulcan Master (Edna Glover), surrounded by two men, is about to give him an ornate necklace as a symbol of pure logic, when Spock holds out his hand to stop her. Confused, she mind-melds with him and senses a consciousness calling to him from space that is affecting his human side. She drops the necklace. "You have not yet achieved kohlinahr. You must look elsewhere for your answer," she says as they leave Spock. "You will not find it here."

 

In San Francisco, Admiral James T. Kirk (William Shatner) arrives at Starfleet Headquarters in a shuttlecraft. He sees Commander Sonak (Jon Rashad Kamal), a Vulcan science officer who is joining the Enterprise crew and recommended for the position by Kirk himself. Kirk is bothered as to why Sonak is not on board yet. Sonak explains that Captain Willard Decker (Stephen Collins), the new captain of the Enterprise, wanted him to complete his science briefing at Headquarters before they left on their mission. The Enterprise has been undergoing a complete "refitting" for the past 18 months and is now under final preparations to leave, which would take at least 20 hours, but Kirk informs him that they only have 12. He tells Sonak to report to him on the Enterprise in one hour; he has a short meeting with Admiral Nogura and is intent on being on the ship.

 

Kirk transports to an office complex orbiting Earth and meets Montgomery Scott (James Doohan), the Enterprise's chief engineer. Scotty expresses his concern about the tight departure time. The cloud is less than three days away from Earth, and the Enterprise has been ordered to intercept it because they are the only ship in range. Scotty says that the refit can't be finished in 12 hours, and tries to convince him that the ship needs more work done as well as a shakedown cruise. Kirk insists that they are leaving, ready or not. They board a travel pod and begin the journey over to the drydock in orbit that houses the Enterprise.

 

Scotty tells Kirk that the crew hasn't had enough transition time with all the new equipment and that the engines haven't even been tested at warp power, not to mention that they have an untried captain. Kirk tells Scotty that two and a half years as Chief of Starfleet Operations may have made him a little stale, but that he wouldn't exactly consider himself untried. Kirk then tells a surprised Scotty that Starfleet gave him back his command of the Enterprise. Scotty doubts it, saying that he doesn't think it was that easy with Admiral Nogura, who gave Kirk his orders. They arrive at the Enterprise, and Scotty indulges Kirk with a brief tour of the new exterior of the ship.

 

Upon docking with the ship, Scotty is summoned to Engineering. Kirk goes up to the bridge, and is informed by Lt. Uhura (Nichelle Nichols) that Starfleet has just transferred command from Captain Decker over to him. Kirk finds Decker in engineering, whom is visibly upset when Kirk breaks the news that he is assuming command, but recognizes it is because Kirk has more experience. Decker will remain on the ship as 2nd officer. As Decker storms off, an alarm sounds. Someone is trying to beam over to the ship, but the transporter is malfunctioning. Kirk and Scotty race to the transporter room. Transporter operator Janice Rand (Grace Lee Whitney) is frantically trying to tell Starfleet to abort the transport, but it is too late. Commander Sonak and an unknown female officer are beaming in, but their bodies aren't re-forming properly in the beam. The female officer screams, and then their bodies disappear. Starfleet signals to them that they have died. Kirk tells Starfleet to express his sympathies to their families.

 

In the corridor, Kirk sees Decker and tells him they will have to replace Commander Sonak and wants another Vulcan. Decker tells him that no one is available that is familiar with the ship's new design. Kirk tells Decker he will have to double his duties as science officer as well.

 

In the recreation room, as Kirk briefs the assembled crew on the mission, they receive a transmission from Epsilon 9. Commander Branch (David Gautreaux) tells them they have analyzed the mysterious cloud. It generates an immense amount of energy and measures 2 A.U.s (300 million km) in diameter. There is also a vessel of some kind in the center. They've tried to communicate with it and have performed scans, but the cloud reflects them back. It seems to think of the scans as hostile and attacks them. Like the Klingon ships earlier, Epsilon 9 disappears.

 

Later on the bridge, Uhura informs Kirk that the transporter is working now. Lt. Ilia, (Persis Khambatta), a bald being from the planet Delta IV, arrives. Decker is happy to see her, as they developed a romantic relationship when he was assigned to her planet several years earlier. Ilia is curious about Decker's reduction in rank and Kirk interrupts and tells her about Decker being the executive and science officer. Decker tells her, with slight sarcasm, that Kirk has the utmost confidence in him. Ilia tells Kirk that her oath of celibacy is on record and asks permission to assume her duties. Uhura tells Kirk that one of the last few crew members to arrive is refusing to beam up. Kirk goes to the transporter room to ensure that "he" beams up.

 

Kirk tells Starfleet to beam the officer aboard. Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy (DeForest Kelley) materializes on the platform. McCoy is angry that his Starfleet commission was reactivated and that it was Kirk's idea for him to be brought along on the mission. His attitude changes, however, when Kirk says he desperately needs him. McCoy leaves to check out the new sickbay.

 

The crew finishes its repairs and the Enterprise leaves drydock and into the solar system. Dr. McCoy comes up to the bridge and complains that the new sickbay is nothing but a computer center. Kirk is anxious to intercept the cloud intruder, and orders Hikaru Sulu (George Takei) to go to warp speed. Suddenly, the ship enters a wormhole, which was created by an engine imbalance, and is about to collide with an asteroid that has been pulled inside. Kirk orders the phasers to be fired on it, but Decker tells Pavel Chekov (Walter Koenig) to fire photon torpedoes instead. The asteroid and the wormhole are destroyed. Annoyed, Kirk wants to meet with Decker in his quarters. Dr. McCoy decides to go along.

 

Kirk demands an explanation from Decker. Decker pointed out that the redesigned Enterprise channeled the phasers through the main engines and because they were imbalanced, the phasers were cut off. Kirk acknowledged that he had saved the ship; however, he accuses Decker of competing with him. Decker tells Kirk that, because of his unfamiliarity with the ship's new design, the mission is in jeopardy. Decker tells Kirk that he will gladly help Kirk understand the new design. Kirk then dismisses him from the room. In the corridor, Decker runs into Ilia. Ilia asked if the confrontation was difficult, and he tells her that it was about as difficult as seeing her again, and apologizes. She asked if he was sorry for leaving Delta IV, or for not saying goodbye. He said that if he had seen her again, would she be able to say goodbye? She says "no," and walked around him and entered her quarters nearby.

 

Back in Kirk's quarters, McCoy accuses Kirk of being the one who was competing, and the fact that it was Kirk who used the emergency to pressure Starfleet into letting him get command of the Enterprise. McCoy thinks that Kirk is obsessed with keeping his command. On Kirk's console viewscreen, Uhura informs Kirk that a shuttlecraft is approaching and that the occupant wishes to dock. Chekov also pipes in and replies that it appears to be a courier vessel. Kirk tells Chekov to handle the situation.

 

The shuttle approaches the Enterprise from behind, and the top portion of it detaches and docks at an airlock behind the bridge. Chekov is waiting by the airlock doors and is surprised to see Spock come aboard. Moments later, Spock arrives on the bridge, and everyone is shocked and pleased to see him, yet Spock ignores them. He moves over to the science station and tells Kirk that he is aware of the crisis and knows about the ship's engine design difficulties. He offers to step in as the science officer. McCoy and Dr. Christine Chapel (Majel Barret Roddenberry) come to the bridge to greet Spock, but Spock just stares alarmingly at their emotional outburst. Spock leaves to discuss fuel equations with Scotty in engineering.

 

With Spock's assistance, the engines are now rebalanced for full warp capacity. The ship successfully goes to warp to intercept the cloud. In the officers lounge, Spock meets with Kirk and McCoy. They discuss Spock's kohlinahr training on Vulcan, and how Spock broke off from his training to join them. Spock describes how he sensed the consciousness of the intruder, from a source more powerful that he has ever encountered, with perfect, logical thought patterns. He believes that it holds the answers he seeks. Uhura tells Kirk over the intercom that they have visual contact with the intruder.

 

The cloud scans the ship, but Kirk orders no return scans. Spock determines that the scans are coming from the center of the cloud. Uhura tries sending "linguacode" messages, but there is no response. Decker suggests raising the shields for protection, but Kirk determines that that might be considered hostile to the cloud. Spock analyzes the clouds composition, and discovers it has a 12-power energy field, the equivalent of power generated by thousands of starships.

 

Sitting at the science station, Spock awakens from a brief trance. He reveals to Kirk that the alien was communicating with him. The alien is puzzled; it contacted the Enterprise--why has the Enterprise not replied? A red alert sounds, and an energy beam from within the cloud touches the ship, and begins to overload the ship's systems. Bolts of lightning surround the warp core and nearly injure some engineering officers, and Chekov is also hurt--his hand is burned while sitting at the weapons station on the bridge. The energy beam then disappears. A medical team is summoned to the bridge, and Ilia is able to use her telepathic powers to soothe Chekov's pain.

 

Spock confirms to Kirk that the alien has been attempting to communicate. It communicates at a frequency of more than one million megahertz, and at such a high rate of speed, the message only lasts a millisecond. Spock programs to computer to send linguacode messages at that frequency. Another energy beam is sent out, but Spock transmits a message just in time, and the beam disappears. The ship continues on course through the cloud. They pass through many expansive and colorful cloud layers and upon clearing these, a giant vessel is revealed. It is roughly cylindrical in shape, with large spikes jutting out from the surface at equidistant angles between each other, forming a hexagon-like shape.

 

Kirk tells Uhura to transmit an image of the alien to Starfleet, but she explains that any transmission sent out of the cloud is being reflected back to them. Kirk orders Sulu to fly above and along the top of the vessel. The Enterprise is so small compared to the size of the alien vessel that it appears only as a little white dot next to it. The ship travels past many oddly-shaped structures, including a sunken area where the energy beams originate.

 

An alarm sounds, and yet another energy bolt approaches the ship. It appears on the bridge as a column of bright light that emits a very loud noise. The crew struggles to shield their eyes from its brilliant glow. Chekov asks Spock if it is one of the alien's crew, and Spock replies that it is a probe sent from the vessel. The probe slowly moves around the room and stops in front of the science station. Bolts of lightning shoot out from it and surround the console--it is trying to access the ship's computer. Spock manages to smash the controls to prevent further access, and the probe gives him an electric shock that sends him rolling onto the floor. The probe approaches the helm/navigation console and it scans Lt. Ilia. Suddenly, she vanishes, along with the probe.

 

Ahead of the ship looms another giant section of the vessel. A tractor beam is drawing the Enterprise toward an opening aperture. Decker calls for Chief DiFalco (Marcy Lafferty) to come up to the bridge as Ilia's replacement. The ship travels deep into the next chamber. Decker wonders why they were brought inside--they could have been easily destroyed outside. Spock deduces that the alien is curious about them. Uhura's monitor shows that the aperture is closing; they are trapped. The ship is released from the tractor beam and suddenly, an intruder alert goes off. Someone has come aboard the ship and is in the crew quarters section.

 

Kirk and Spock arrive inside a crewman's quarters to discover that the intruder is inside the sonic shower. It is revealed to be Ilia, although it isn't really her--there is a small red device attached to her neck. In a mechanized voice, she replies "You are the Kirk unit--you will listen to me." She explains that she has been programmed by an entity called "V'Ger" to observe and record the normal functions of the carbon-based units (humans) "infesting" the Enterprise. Kirk opens the shower door and "Ilia" steps out, wearing a small white garment that just materialized around her. Dr. McCoy and a security officer enter the room, and Kirk tells McCoy to scan her with a tricorder.

 

Kirk asks her who V'Ger is. She replies "V'Ger is that which programmed me." McCoy tells Kirk that Ilia is a mechanism and Spock confirms she is a probe that assumed Ilia's physical form. Kirk asks where the real Ilia is, and the probe states that "that unit" no longer functions. Kirk also asks why V'Ger is traveling to Earth, and the probe answers that it wishes to find the Creator, join with him, and become one with it. Spock suggests that McCoy perform a complete examination of the probe.

 

In sickbay, the Ilia probe lays on a diagnostic table, its sensors slowly taking readings. All normal body functions, down to the microscopic level, are exactly duplicated by the probe. Decker arrives and is stunned to see her there. She looks up at him and addresses him as "Decker", rather than "Decker unit," which intrigues Spock. Spock talks with Kirk and Decker in an adjoining room, and Spock locks the door. Spock theorizes that the real Ilia's memories and feelings have been duplicated by the probe as well as her body. Decker is angry that the probe killed Ilia, but Kirk convinces him that their only contact with the vessel is through the probe, and they need to use that advantage to find out more about the alien. Suddenly, the probe bursts through the door, and demands that Kirk assist her with her observations. He tells her that Decker will do it with more efficiency.

 

Decker and Ilia are seen walking around in the recreation room. He shows her pictures of previous ships that were named Enterprise. Decker has been trying to see if Ilia's memories or emotions can resurface, but to no avail. Kirk and McCoy are observing them covertly on a monitor from his quarters. Decker shows her a game that the crew enjoys playing. She is not interested and states that recreation and enjoyment has no meaning to her programming. At another game, which Ilia enjoyed and nearly always won, they both press one of their hands down onto a table to play it. The table lights up, indicating she won the game, and she gazes into Deckers eyes. This moment of emotion ends suddenly, and she returns to normal. "This device serves no purpose."

 

"Why does the Enterprise require the presence of carbon units?" she asks. Decker tells her the ship couldn't function without them. She tells him that more information is needed before the crew can be patterned for data storage. Horrified, he asks her what this means. "When my examination is complete, all carbon units will be reduced to data patterns." He tells her that within her are the memory patterns of a certain carbon unit. He convinces her to let him help her revive those patterns so that she can understand their functions better. She allows him to proceed.

 

Spock slowly enters an airlock room. He sees an officer standing at a console, his back to Spock. Spock quietly approaches him, and gives him the Vulcan nerve pinch to render him unconscious.

 

Decker, the probe, Dr. McCoy, and Dr. Chapel are in Ilia's quarters. Dr. Chapel gives the probe a decorative headband that Ilia used to wear. Chapel puts it over "Ilia's" head and turns her toward a mirror. Decker asks her if she remembers wearing it on Delta IV. The probe shows another moment of emotion, saying Dr. Chapel's name, and putting her hand on Decker's face, calling him Will. Behind them, McCoy reminds Decker that she is a mechanism. Decker asks "Ilia" to help them make contact with V'Ger. She says that she can't, and Decker asks her who the Creator is. She says V'Ger does not know. The probe becomes emotionless again and removes the headband.

 

Spock is now outside the ship in a space suit with an attached thruster pack. He begins recording a log entry for Kirk detailing his attempt to contact the alien. He activates a panel on the suit and calculates thruster ignition and acceleration to coincide with the opening of an aperture ahead of him. He hopes to get a better view of the spacecraft interior.

 

Kirk comes up to the bridge and Uhura tells him that Starfleet signals are growing stronger, indicating they are very close to Earth. Starfleet is monitoring the intruder and notifies Uhura that it is slowing down in its approach. Sulu confirms this and says that lunar beacons show the intruder is entering into orbit. Chekov tells Kirk that Airlock 4 has been opened and a thruster suit is missing. Kirk figures out that Spock has done it, and orders Chekov to get Spock back on the ship. He changes his mind, and instead tells him to determine his position.

 

Spock touches a button on his thruster panel and his thruster engine ignites. He is propelled forward rapidly, and enters the next chamber of the vessel just before the aperture closes behind him. The thruster engine shuts down, and the momentum carries Spock ahead further. He disconnects the thruster pack from his suit and it falls away from him.

 

Continuing his log entry, Spock sees an image of what he believes to be V'Gers home planet. He passes through a tunnel filled with crackling plasma energy, possibly a power source for a gigantic imaging system. Next, he sees several more images of planets, moons, stars, and galaxies stored and recorded. Spock theorizes that this may be a visual representation of V'Gers entire journey. "But who or what are we dealing with?" he ponders.

 

He sees the Epsilon 9 station, and notes to Kirk that he is convinced that all of what he is seeing is V'Ger; and that they are inside a living machine. Then he sees a giant image of Lt. Ilia with the sensor on her neck. Spock decides it must have some special meaning, so he attempts to mind-meld with it. He is quickly overwhelmed by the multitude of images flooding his mind, and is thrown backward.

 

Kirk is now in a space suit and has exited the ship. The aperture in front of the Enterprise opens, and Spock's unconscious body floats toward him. Later, Dr. Chapel and Dr. McCoy are examining Spock in sickbay. Dr. McCoy performs scans and determines that Spock endured massive neurological trauma from the mind-meld. Spock tells Kirk he should have known and Kirk asks if he was right about V'Ger. Spock calls it a conscious, living entity. Kirk explains that V'Ger considers the Enterprise a living machine and it's why "Ilia" refers to the ship as an entity and the crew as an infestation.

 

Spock describes V'Ger's homeworld as a planet populated by living machines with unbelievable technology. But with all that logic and knowledge, V'Ger is barren, with no mystery or meaning. He momentarily lapses into sleep but Kirk rouses him awake to ask what Spock should have known. Spock grasps Kirk's hand and tells him "This simple feeling is beyond V'Ger's comprehension. No meaning, no hope. And Jim, no answers. It's asking questions. 'Is this all that I am? Is there nothing more?'"

 

Uhura chimes in and tells Kirk that they are getting a faint signal from Starfleet. The intruder has been on their monitors for a while and the cloud is rapidly dissipating as it approaches. Sulu also comments that the intruder has slowed to sub-warp speed and is three minutes from Earth orbit. Kirk acknowledges and he, McCoy and Spock go up to the bridge.

 

Starfleet sends the Enterprise a tactical report on the intruders position. Uhura tells Kirk that V'Ger is transmitting a signal. Decker and "Ilia" come up to the bridge, and she says that V'Ger is signaling the Creator. Spock determines that the transmission is a radio signal. Decker tells Kirk that V'Ger expects an answer, but Kirk doesn't know the question. Then "Ilia" says that the Creator has not responded. An energy bolt is released from V'Ger and positions itself above Earth. Chekov reports that all planetary defense systems have just gone inoperative. Several more bolts are released, and they all split apart to form smaller ones and they assume equidistant positions around the planet.

 

McCoy notices that the bolts are the same ones that hit the ship earlier, and Spock says that these are hundreds of times more powerful, and from those positions, they can destroy all life on Earth. "Why?" Kirk asks "Ilia." She says that the carbon unit infestation will be removed from the Creator's planet as they are interfering with the Creator's ability to respond and accuses the crew of infesting the Enterprise and interfering in the same manner. Kirk tells "Ilia" that carbon units are a natural function of the Creator's planet and they are living things, not infestations. However "Ilia" says they are not true life forms like the Creator. McCoy realizes V'Ger must think its creator is a machine.

 

Spock compares V'Ger to a child, and suggests they treat it like one. McCoy retorts that this child is about to wipe out every living thing on Earth. To get "Ilia's" attention, Kirk says that the carbon units know why the Creator hasn't responded. The Ilia probe demands that the Creator "disclose the information." Kirk won't do it until V'Ger withdraws all the orbiting devices. In response to this, V'Ger cuts off the ship's communications with Starfleet. She tells him again to disclose the information. He refuses, and a plasma energy attack shakes the ship. McCoy tells Spock that the child is having a "tantrum."

 

Kirk tells the probe that if V'Ger destroys the Enterprise, then the information it needs will also be destroyed. Ilia says that it is illogical to withhold the required information, and asks him why he won't disclose it. Kirk explains it is because V'Ger is going to destroy all life on Earth. "Ilia" says that they have oppressed the Creator, and Kirk makes it clear he will not disclose anything. V'Ger needs the information, says "Ilia." Kirk says that V'Ger will have to withdraw all the orbiting devices. "Ilia" says that V'Ger will comply, if the carbon units give the information.

 

Spock tells Kirk that V'Ger must have a central brain complex. Kirk theorizes that the orbiting devices are controlled from there. Kirk tells "Ilia" that the information cant be disclosed to V'Ger's probe, but only to V'Ger itself. "Ilia" stares at the viewscreen, and, in response, the aperture opens and drags the ship forward with a tractor beam into the next chamber. Chekov tells Kirk that the energy bolts will reach their final positions and activate in 27 minutes. Kirk calls to Scotty on the intercom and tells him to stand by to execute Starfleet Order 2005; the self-destruct command. A female crewmember asks Scotty why Kirk ordered self-destruct, and Scotty tells her that Kirk hopes that when they explode, so will the intruder.

 

The countdown is now down to 18 minutes. DiFalco reports that they have traveled 17 kilometers inside the vessel. Kirk goes over to Spock's station, and sees that Spock has been crying. "Not for us," Kirk realizes. Spock tells him he is crying for V'Ger, and that he weeps for V'Ger as he would for a brother. As he was when he came aboard the Enterprise, so is V'Ger now--empty, incomplete, and searching. Logic and knowledge are not enough. McCoy realizes Spock has found what he needed, but that V'Ger hasn't. Decker wonders what V'Ger would need to fulfill itself.

 

Spock comments that each one of us, at some point in our lives asks, "Why am I here?" "What was I meant to be?" V'Ger hopes to touch its Creator and find those answers. DiFalco directs Kirk's attention to the viewscreen. Ahead of them is a structure with a bright light. Sulu reports that forward motion has stopped. Chekov replies that an oxygen/gravity envelope has formed outside of the ship. "Ilia" points to the structure on the screen and identifies it as V'Ger. Uhura has located the source of the radio signal and it is straight ahead. A passageway forms outside the ship as Kirk Spock, McCoy, Decker, and "Ilia" enter a turbolift.

 

The landing party exits an airlock on the top of the saucer section and walks up the passageway. At the end of the path is a concave structure, and in the center of it is an old NASA probe from three centuries earlier. Kirk tries to rub away the smudges on the nameplate and makes out the letters V G E R. He continues to rub, and discovers that the craft is actually Voyager 6. Kirk recalls the history of the Voyager program--it was designed to collect data and transmit it back to Earth. Decker tells Kirk that Voyager 6 disappeared through a black hole.

 

Kirk says that it must have emerged on the far side of the galaxy and got caught in the machine planet's gravity. Spock theorizes that the planet's inhabitants found the probe to be one of their own kind--primitive, yet kindred. They discovered the probe's 20th century programming, which was to collect data and return that information to its creator. The machines interpreted that instruction literally, and constructed the entire vessel so that Voyager could fulfill its programming. Kirk continues by saying that on its journey back, it amassed so much knowledge that it gained its own consciousness.

 

"Ilia" tells Kirk that V'Ger awaits the information. Kirk calls Uhura on his communicator and tells her to find information on the probe in the ship's computer, specifically the NASA code signal, which will allow the probe to transmit its data. Decker realizes that that is what the probe was signaling--it's ready to transmit everything. Kirk then says that there is no one on Earth who recognizes the old-style signal--the Creator does not answer.

 

Kirk calls out to V'Ger and says that they are the Creator. "Ilia" says that is not logical--carbon units are not true life forms. Kirk says they will prove it by allowing V'Ger to complete its programming. Uhura calls Kirk on his communicator and tells him she has retrieved the code. Kirk tells her to set the Enterprise transmitter to the code frequency and to transmit the signal. Decker reads off the numerical code on his tricorder, and is about to read the final sequence, but Voyager's circuitry burns out, an effort by V'Ger itself to prevent the last part of the code from being transmitted.

 

"Ilia" says that the Creator must join with V'Ger, and turns toward Decker. McCoy warns Kirk that they only have 10 minutes left. Decker figures out that V'Ger wanted to bring the Creator here and transmit the code in person. Spock tells Kirk that V'Ger's knowledge has reached the limits of the universe and it must evolve. Kirk says that V'Ger needs a human quality in order to evolve. Decker thinks that V'Ger joining with the Creator will accomplish that. He then goes over to the damaged circuitry and fixes the wires so he can manually enter the rest of the code through the ground test computer. Kirk tries to stop him, but "Ilia" tosses him aside. Decker tells Kirk that he wants this as much as Kirk wanted the Enterprise.

 

Suddenly, a bright light forms around Decker's body. "Ilia" moves over to him, and the light encompasses them both as they merge together. Their bodies disappear, and the light expands and begins to consume the area. Kirk, Spock, and McCoy retreat back to the Enterprise. V'Ger explodes, leaving the Enterprise above Earth, unharmed. On the bridge, Kirk wonders if they just saw the beginning of a new life form, and Spock says yes and that it is possibly the next step in their evolution. McCoy says that its been a while since he "delivered" a baby, and hopes that they got this one off to a good start.

 

Uhura tells Kirk that Starfleet is requesting the ship's damage and injury reports and vessel status. Kirk reports that there were only two casualties: Lt. Ilia and Captain Decker. He quickly corrects his statement and changes their status to "missing." Vessel status: fully operational. Scotty comes on the bridge and agrees with Kirk that it's time to give the Enterprise a proper shakedown. When Scotty offers to have Spock back on Vulcan in four days, Spock says that's unnecessary, as his task on Vulcan is completed.

 

Kirk tells Sulu to proceed ahead at warp factor one. When DiFalco asks for a heading, Kirk simply says "Out there, thataway." With that, the Enterprise flies overhead and engages warp drive.

  

youtu.be/4n2dGwYcp9k?t=8s Star Trek Theme

 

Replacing an earlier scanned photo with a better version, plus Topaz DeNoise AI 19-Jan-24. The negative was very badly 'yellowed', sadly I haven't been able to remove it all.

 

This aircraft was delivered to the GPA Group Ltd (later to become GECAS) and leased to Cayman Airways as VR-CAB in Oct-89. It was returned to the lessor in Feb-92 and leased to Istanbul Airlines as TC-ACA the following month.

 

Istanbul Airlines ceased operations in Aug-00 and the aircraft was repossessed by the lessor, re-registered N519AP and stored at Fayetteville, AR, USA in Sep-00.

 

It was due to be leased to Royal Airlines, (Canada) in Mar-01 but the lease wasn't taken up. It was leased to Skynet Airlines (skynet,aero) as EI-CZK in Jan-03. Skynet ceased operations in May-04 and the aircraft was returned to the lessor and stored.

 

In Jul-04 it was leased to Transaero Airlines (Russia). Transaero ceased operations in Oct-15 and the aircraft returned to the lessor and was stored at Moscow-Vnukovo. It was sold to LG Aviation Inc as N826LG in Feb-17 and remained in storage at Vnukovo.

 

The aircraft was ferried to Greenville-Donaldson Centre, SC, USA for further storage in Oct-17. It was sold to FX Aviation Capital in Apr-18, then sold to CF Aviation Trust in Jul-18 and re-registered N422CF in Aug-18. it remains stored at Greenville-Donaldson, SC, USA.

 

It was sold to TVPX Trust Services in Nov-19. Now over 34 years old, the aircraft has been stored for more than 8 years and I don't think it will be flying again. Permanently retired? Updated 19-Jan-24.

Replacing an earlier scanned photo with a better version 10-Apr-14.

 

The Dassault Mercure was an oddball aircraft, similar to the B737-200 but bigger and heavier and a bit under powered. Only 12 were built for the French domestic market with a very short range, about 1,000miles/1,700km. Consequently it didn't sell outside France, everyone else went for the B737-200.

 

This particular aircraft was delivered to Air Inter as F-BTTC in Jul-74 and was permanently retired 20 years later at Paris-Orly, in late 1994.

Arriving into Butterley after a quick jaunt down to Hammersmith is this preserved British Rail Class 127, wearing the attractive BR Green with yellow 'Cat Whiskers'.

 

The Class 127's were a fleet of first generation DMU's built by British Rail's Derby Works in 1959, used to replace many steam locomotives on local passenger services. 30 units were built in formations of 4-carriages, although they would sometimes run as two-car sets based on demand.

 

The units were primarily run out of London St Pancras on the Midland Mainline to Bedford, which resulted in them being the first bearer of the "Bed-Pan" nickname. Trains were maintained at Cricklewood depot in north London.

 

Class 127's were powered by 476hp Rolls Royce C8NFLH engines which were placed underneath the driving cars. These contained a hydraulic transmission (as opposed to the more commonly used mechanical transmission), which meant that the driver of the train had to select gears using a lever in the cab.Top speed of these units was 70mph, which wasn't exactly much better than the steam engines they replaced, but was sufficient for their commuter tasks.

 

By the end of the 1970's, it was apparent that the design was starting to get very long in the tooth, and the 127's were looking very tired. As part of the London commuter service, these units saw some of the most intensive operation of DMU's in the country, as other DMU's were usually operated away from the London area. Eventually, electrification came to the Midland Mainline between London St Pancras and Bedford in 1982, and 127's were meant to be disposed of that year. However, an industrial dispute between drivers and management regarding Driver Only operation (a particularly troublesome chestnut that still haunts us today), meant that the new Class 317 EMU's were stored at Cricklewood for over a year, and 127's had no choice but to remain in operation. Eventually, the 317's entered operation in 1983, and 127's were disposed of.

 

It wasn't the end for the 127's however, as some were put to work on the Barking to Gospel Oak line, one of the few unelectrified railways in the London area. These units worked this route until 1984 in two-car formations, being replaced by Class 150's. These units eventually ended up in Birmingham, based at Tyseley depot for work on the Chiltern Mainline out of Moor Street, eventually being replaced, once again, by Class 150's in October 1993.

 

22 redundant units, however, were converted in 1985 to carry parcels, having their internal seats removed and being fitted with roller-shut doors. Units were formed in two-car sets and were based at Chester depot, being used to work parcels services in the Manchester and Liverpool area. Eventually, these units met their end in 1989, being replaced by locomotive hauled stock.

 

Today, three units have been preserved in varying degrees of preservation, including one trailer.

architecture from the street series. west los angeles, ca.

Replaced and left to rot

Replacing an earlier scanned photo with a better version, plus Topaz DeNoise AI 15-Jan-25.

 

This aircraft was delivered to Pacific Western Airlines, Canada as C-GLPW in May-80. Pacific Western was merged with Canadian Pacific to for Canadian Airlines International in Apr-87.

 

It was sold to PLM International and leased to Bahamasair in Dec-97. The aircraft continued in service until it was permanently retired at Opa Locka, FL, USA in Sep-08.

When I saw that 740 had replaced 743 moments after I saw it heading into town I had to stay and get a photo of it, I've seen people say that it's a permanent transfer and not a loan but I'm gonna take that with a pinch of salt because of the people who are saying it however it would be nice if it is true.

 

Trent Barton Volvo B7RLE Wright Eclipse Urban 740 (FJ09BXE) is pictured on Meadows Way working a Skykink Express service to East Midlands Airport via Clifton and East Midlands Gateway.

I have passed St Mary a number of times since travelling to see the orchids at a nearby reserve. So with some time to kill a couple of weeks ago, I decide to call in.

 

The church is nearer to the village of Metfield than the one it is parish church for, and parking was problematic, as the church is off the main road, and the small houses and farms that make this part of Withersdale all had rather unwelcoming do not park here signs, and nearer the church, do not park on the grass signs. So where doe the visitor who arrives by car actually park? I ended up on the verge of the B road that passes close by, but the unwelcoming nature of the area had put me in a bad mood.

 

St mary is a small and simple church, a small bellcote at the west end, a fine ancient font on a new pedestal, some small but old pews and a fine roof.

 

------------------------------------------

 

(Introduction: Back in 2002, Withersdale was the 500th church on the Suffolk Churches site. You might say that the end of the journey was in view. I had recently had a conversation with some friends about writing parodies, using the style of other authors for those things we would have written anyway. One friend, a teacher, claimed to have written an entire school report in the style of Raymond Chandler. Some writers are easy to replicate - TS Eliot and Hemingway, for example - but it is harder to sustain a parody when the parodied writer is best known for going on at length. I said I'd have a go at Proust, which I did here, and James Joyce for church 501, Bungay St Mary. It's not for me to say how successful the parodies are, although the Joyce one has been complimented kindly by some of the man's fans. Nobody has ever said anything about the Withersdale parody - perhaps more people read Joyce than Proust, I don't know. In 2007, when I began revisiting Suffolk churches to replace the old photographs I had taken with brand spanking new digital ones, I came back to Withersdale. Unfortunately, I got here at the dullest hour on a dull day, and so the exteriors are not what I had hoped for. Still, that's a good excuse to go back again. As for the text, I have not seen any reason to change it, other than to add one hyperlink to a page on the Norfolk Churches site. I realise that this will be an annoyance for anyone wanting to find out more about Withersdale and its church. For this, I apologise.)

 

2002: For a long time, I used to read French novels in bed. And then, mid-morning, I'd get up and wander through an industrial wasteland.

I was living in Sheffield, in South Yorkshire, in the years when the coal and steel industries were finally coming to an end, and I'd walk through the battlefields of Brightside and Attercliffe, wondering at the abandoned factories and mills, and the wasted infrastructure, the boarded-up pubs and shops, the graffiti, the row upon row of derelict terraces. One day, I even found an old railway station, the door onto the platform hanging open, the wind howling through the gap into the tunnel, the line going nowhere.

 

Often, I would imagine what these places had once been like, when they were still alive, for I was not born to this, coming as I did from the flat fields of East Anglia. The first time I saw it all, it was already over. I loved the litany of names: Attercliffe and Brightside I have already mentioned, and there was Eccleshall and Carbrook, Intake and Millhouses. I don't know now if I knew them from visiting them, or only knew them from their names, bold on the fronts of buses.

 

I would wander alone through the broken streets, gazing up at the brick-faced shells, and imagine them full of activity, and try to decide what this winch had been for, or the platform where the lorries came, or the booth by the gate. This was all the evidence, and this was all I had to go on, as I reconstructed a world I had never seen. And what really interested me was not the places at all, but the people who had once inhabited them; those people who had now gone, but these buildings were once the focus of their lives, and they had known them very differently to the way I was knowing them now.

 

Using material evidence to reconstruct their activities, I could perhaps begin to understand their lives.

 

I was thinking about this as I cycled along the Waveney valley - but then something else happened. I had come to Withersdale from Weybread, up on the Norfolk border. In fact, I had reached Weybread from the northern side of the Waveney, since the most direct route from Mendham to Weybread had been across the river into Norfolk, and through the lanes that lead into Harleston. About fifteen years before all this happened, when I was living on the south coast of England, I had had a brief but passionate affair with a girl who came from Alburgh, a Norfolk village on the other side of the border to Mendham. I hadn't thought of this for years, but suddenly seeing the name of the village, which I had never visited, on a road sign, startled me. And then something extraordinary happened. As I sat on my bike, savouring this shock of recognition, an agricultural lorry passed me, and I noticed that the name of the town painted on the side of the lorry was the same south coast town where this occured.

 

I was still wondering at this as I threaded through the back lanes between Weybread and Withersdale, a world away from the post-industrial ruins of South Yorkshire, or the misery of the south coast, for I had not often been happy there, and never wish to be so poor or so far from home again. When I moved to the south, I had not many months since finished an increasingly pointless relationship that should have stopped after six months, and unfortunately went on for another two years. My habit of reading Proust in bed had come towards the end of this; that, and wandering around east Sheffield, were, I think, displacement activities of a kind, not only to avoid spending too much time with her, but also to avoid doing anything about it. It also had much to do with me leaving Sheffield shortly afterwards. It was a year later that I moved to the south coast, and I was already seeing the girl who would become my wife. And then I met this woman from a Norfolk village shortly after I arrived in the unfamiliar coastal town, in the warmest October of the century. The leaves were only just beginning to colour and fall, and I remembered the way the woods rode the Downs, and the way the fog hid all day in the valleys.

 

And then I thought, well, it must have been more than fifteen years ago, because I could remember leaving her bed in the early hours of one Friday morning, the paleness just beginning to appear in the east, and being stopped on a roadblock on the bypass, where it joined the Lewes road. It was the night that the IRA had bombed the Tory party conference at the Grand Hotel, and everyone leaving town was being stopped and questioned. I had no idea what had happened, and the policeman didn't tell me. As I explained where I had been, I watched the police coaches hurtling back westwards out of Kent, away from the miners' strike.

 

When I had made my life less complicated, I used to cycle around the Sussex lanes, finding lonely churches and sitting in them. When I'd lived in Sheffield, I liked to wander up on to the moors, perhaps to Bradfield, where the church looks out on an empty sky. Standing in its doorway took me out of the world altogether, and was the first time I experienced that sense of communion with the past. St Mary Magdalene, Withersdale, reminded me a bit of Bradfield, although busy Suffolk is much noisier than the peace around Sheffield. Here was an ancient space, plainly Norman in origin, that had stood here stubbornly while the world changed around it. Wars had come and gone, times of great prosperity had warmed it and depressions had made it cold again. Disease and famine had emptied it, until the irrepressible energy of human activity had restored it to life. And it was still here, so unlike our own transitory existences. But perhaps there is a resilience in stone that reflects the human spirit.

 

What would I have found most extraordinary back then, on the south coast? That we would now have known ten years of relative peace in Ireland? That the time of the Tories would finally come to an end, and it would be hard to imagine them ever regaining power? That I would be married with children in East Anglia? I think I would have found the Tories being out of power least believable.

 

I had been looking forward to reaching Withersdale for several years, and it had increasingly become the sole quest of the day, like people who set out on a journey to see with their own eyes some city they have always longed to visit, and imagine that they can taste in reality what has charmed their fancy.

 

Everybody who writes about it seems to like it, Mortlock calling it a dear little church, Simon Jenkins thought it unusually atmospheric, and Arthur Mee writes as though he actually visited the place for a change, and curiously mentions half a dozen pathetic old benches... which once held an honoured place in God's house and are now a shelter from the sun for a few of God's sheep, which is typical of barmy Arthur.

The church sits right beside the busy Halesworth to Harleston road, which you wouldn't expect from its reputation for being remote and peaceful. Incidentally, this is a road I always find difficult when I'm cycling, since it bends and twists through high Suffolk, and you can never be entirely clear about which way it is heading, and several times I have made the mistake of absent-mindedly turning for Harleston when I wanted Halesworth, and so on. Withersdale was the last piece of the jigsaw in north east Suffolk for me; I had visited every single other medieval church beyond the curve that connects Diss in Norfolk to Halesworth, and then the sea.

 

It was a crisp, bright afternoon towards the end of February, and my next stop after Withersdale would be the railway station at Halesworth, where I planned to catch the train that left at 4.30pm, en route from Lowestoft to Ipswich. Before Halesworth, the train would pass through Beccles, where I had stepped off of it earlier that morning, and cycled off to visit the churches of Worlingham, Mettingham and Shipmeadow workhouse. It was after this that I had made the somewhat convoluted journey through the Saints to reach Mendham in the early afternoon. Each of the Saints is an event, as if a counterpoint to the time it takes to travel through them, creating a history, a tradition of the distance, each one connected to and yet significantly different from the others, and sometimes events can overtake history and change its course, as I had discovered.

 

Now, I was nine miles from Halesworth, with less than an hour to go before the train left, which would give me time to visit Withersdale, but would concentrate my mind, since the 4.30pm train was the last that I could reasonably catch, having no lights, and needing to cycle a further two miles from the station when I arrived in Ipswich.

 

So, if I was to decide that the setting or interior of St Mary Magdalene were in any way timeless, this would have to be set against a pressing urgency - or, if not quite an urgency, a sense that an urgency would be created if I did not remain aware of the passing of time.

 

I stepped through the gate into the sloping churchyard, passing 18th and 19th century headstones as I walked to the east of the building. Here, I discovered that the church was not entirely rendered rubble, for the east wall had been partly rebuilt in red brick, and the window frame above was made of wood, which would be a memory of times past, and a hint of things to come.

 

The south side of the building was dappled in winter sunlight, and I remembered how Arthur Mee had found this church surrounded by elm trees, and how their leaves must have sent shadows scurrying along this wall, and how the sunlight had been washing it for generations. I wondered if there could be some kind of photographic effect, perhaps caused by chemicals in the rendering responding to the photons in the sunlight, and I remembered how Proust had watched from his curtained apartment the streets below, imagining scenes into stillness. I thought of my own small world, my transitory journey, and how this would be a blink of an eye, a relative stillness in comparison to the long centuries the wall had stood, and how everything I cared about, my passions, hopes and fears, signified nothing beside it.

 

I looked up at the pretty weather-boarded turret, and the little porch below. Although the church is visibly Norman in construction, the turret and porch have a later historical resonance, because they were the gift of William Sancroft, later to be Archbishop of Canterbury, who in the long years of the 17th century Commonwealth lived at nearby Fressingfield, during the time that the episcopal government of the Church of England was supressed.

 

Fressingfield was his native village, but Fressingfield church is a medieval wonder, and it is not too fanciful to imagine that Sancroft made St Mary Magdalene his quiet project, although of course it cannot be the work of one man, or even one generation or epoch, but his touch must have fallen firmly here.

 

I stepped inside to a cool light suffusing the nave and chancel, and I climbed up to the tiny gallery at the west end to look down on the space below. St Mary Magdalene is a relatively unspoiled prayerbook church, almost entirely of the 17th century, with some sympathetic Victorian additions. The pulpit is against the north wall as at All Saints South Elmham, to take full advantage of the theatrical sunlight from the windows in the south wall. The pulpit is tiny, barely two feet across, and the benches face it, and so do the box pews to south and east.

 

The woodwork is mellow, breathing a calmness into the silence, while the chancel beyond is gorgeous, a tiny altar surrounded by three-sided rails sitting beneath the elegant window, two brass vases of pussywillow sweet upon its cloth. I stood for some time looking down, and then descended, finding a superb font carved with a tree of life and a grinning face. It may be Norman, it may be older. It is set upon a modern brick base, but even this is fitting, as are the benches with strange ends, with a hole for the candlepricks, and I ran my hand over the golden curve, an eroticism stirring in the memory as the scent of flowers in a window splay touched my senses, an echo of a spring evening some twenty years before, when I had first ever thought myself in love, and this came to me now.

There was a crisp confidence to this building; it was expressed in the curious elegance of the 17th century English Church which had furnished it that, despite so many traumas, had finally come to represent the simplicity of the Puritans, the seemliness of the Anglicans, and that was the Elizabethan Settlement of the previous century fulfilled. Here Sancroft waited, while the world turned upside down around him, and then Cromwell died, and so too did the Puritan project; Sancroft became Dean of St Paul's Cathedral in London, witnessing its destruction by fire in 1666, and overseeing its complete rebuilding in the classical style, and such a contrast with St Mary Magdalene it must have made that perhaps he sometimes wished he was back here. A High Anglican, he crowned the Catholic James II with some misgivings, but then refused to recognise the Protestant coup of William III in 1688, returning once more to Suffolk, where he died.

 

I sat in the shadowed pew and felt the distant beat, the quiet trick of history turned and played. I thought of the certainty that this interior represented, the triumph of the will, of belief over mystery, and how the rationalist, superstitious 18th century worshippers here could not have conceived of the great sacramental fire that would one day flame out of Oxford and lick them clean.

 

I sat there, long enough to forget that I must of necessity move on, and the place began to cast a spell which I thought mostly due to the light, which was becoming pale as the sun faded beyond the distant trees, or perhaps the silence, but I knew in fact it was because of the matter on my mind.

 

You see, there's another thing. A few days before my visit to Withersdale I had spent a weekend abroad with three female friends, one of whom I felt increasingly drawn to, to the extent that I wondered if anything might come of it. This was also on my mind as I sat in the neat coolness of St Mary Magdalene, looking at the pussy willows in the altar vases, and talking to someone, possibly God.

 

How to understand flowers on altars, I wonder. How the 18th century puritans who furnished this place would be appalled! And yet they were perfect, as if the entire building had been constructed and furnished for them to be placed here, on this day, at this time, with the late afternoon light glancing down the hillside and leading my gaze to the brass vases. What did they mean to me, in comparison with their meaning for the people who placed them there? I ought to mention that the friends I went away with were all younger then me, at least twelve years, and it is to my great delight how younger people reinvent the world I think I understand, just as I must have done, and still do for people that much older than me. This constant process of reinterpretation must be immensely annoying for those who think they have grown old and wise, but I rejoice in it; it is a beautiful chaos, and keeps the world fresh and new, and history could not exist without it. By history, I mean of course the gradual process of constant change, which was also Newman's definition of the word tradition, rather than anything about dates and famous people.

 

So I sat there, and wondered if I should try and make something happen with the woman I mentioned, if I should tell her how I felt, and discover if what seemed to be the case was actually so, and so as I sit here now, writing this, I know the full story, and how it finally ended some weeks later, and this makes complete the circle from the moment I crossed the Waveney at Mendham, putting in chain an irrevokable sequence that would lead me here now to this computer keyboard, on this sunny spring evening in Ipswich. In A L'ombre des Jeunes Filles en Fleurs, Proust remembers crossing France by train at night, and the dislocation and alienation of being hurtled through an invisible, unfamiliar landscape. He cannot sleep, and in the middle of the night the train stops in a secret valley, far from the nearest town, perhaps because there is a station, or because the track is blocked, I don't remember. He opens the carriage window; it is a hot, sultry night.

 

Suddenly, a woman appears from the nearest cottage, with a jug of coffee, and he watches her give the coffee to a group of passengers, or perhaps they were the men removing the blockage, which I think was a tree, but may have been an animal of some kind, or perhaps it was to do with a swollen river. Proust thinks of her life in this lost valley ...from which its congregated summits hid the rest of the world, she could never see anyone save those in the trains which stopped for a moment only.

 

She moves back down the track, and gives the narrator some coffee. Wordlessly, he drinks it, returns the bowl, and the train starts to move, and he watches her silently as she recedes into the blackness, not knowing where he is, and only being certain that he will never see her again.

Instantly, the day is magnified, signified: Il faisait grand jour maintenant, says the narrator, je m'eloignais de l'aurore... This is history, thousands of these events, infuriatingly disparate and yet somehow connected. And this is so for everyone, for millions of us. I think now of Withersdale, and see connections ramifying, spiralling outwards, always becoming endless.

 

www.suffolkchurches.co.uk/withersdale.htm

Replaces an earlier photo; cropped out the extraneous cosmetic infrastructure to generate a bigger photo with better detail.

 

via Instagram kotaserang.net/1TQhA6p, When the sunset has come, no candle can replace it. #repost Photo by : @dilhamnandi . . #serang #kotaserang #pulautiga #sunset #island #karangantu #holiday #weekend #senja #Banten #indonesia. . kotaserang.net/1BFtNAa , May 29, 2016 at 07:46PM When the sunset has come, no candle can replace it. #repost Photo by : @dilhamnandi . . #serang #kotaserang #pulautiga #sunset #island #karangantu #holiday #weekend #senja #Banten #indonesia. . kotaserang.net/1BFtNAa #KotaSerangDotCom #KotaSerang Original Post: kotaserang.net/1TQhA6p Link Gambar: kotaserang.net/1qUjvLG By: www.kotaserang.net

Replacing an earlier scanned photo with a better version 18-Feb-22 (DeNoise AI).

 

First flown in Mar-89 with the Short Brothers test registration G-BPKX, this aircraft was transferred to Shorts Aircraft Delivery Inc as N754CN later that month.

 

It was sold to State Street Bank & Trust Co in Apr-89 and leased to Business Express (USA) in Aug-89 and re-registered N829BE in Oct-89. It was returned to the lessor in Mar-94 and stored at Opa Locka, FL, USA.

 

The aircraft remained stored for over two years until it was leased to Gulfstream International Airlines in Jun-96. It was re-registered N263GA in Nov-96. It was repossessed by the lessor in Aug-97 and stored at Melbourne, FL, USA in Dec-97.

 

It was leased to FedEx Federal Express in Feb-99 and converted to a small parcel freighter (window blanks only) before being transferred to Express Airlines Germany as D-CFXA in Jun-99 and operated on behalf of FedEx.

 

The aircraft was returned to the lessor as N263GA in Dec-02 and stored. It was sold to Falcon Leasing (USA) in Nov-04 and leased to Air Cargo Carriers. It was returned to the lessor in Aug-07, re-registered N972AA and leased to Alliance Air Carriers.

 

The aircraft was sold to AFAB Capital LLC (USA) and leased again to Air Cargo Carriers in Dec-20. Now 35 years old, it's still in service. Updated 18-Feb-24.

Replacing an earlier scanned photo with a better version 28-May-22 (DeNoise AI). Cleaned up from a very 'yellowed' negaitve.

 

Air New Zealand Link operated by Eagle Airways.

Replacing an earlier scanned photo with a better version, plus Topaz DeNoise AI 08-Aug-25

 

Originally named: "Armando Sallo de Olivera".

 

This aircraft was delivered to Mitsui Finance and leased to VASP Airlines as PP-SOW in Feb-92. It was returned to the lessor in Apr-00 and leased to VARIG Brasil as PP-VQL the following month. The aircraft was returned to the lessor in Aug-04 and stored at Rio de Janeiro-Galileo, Brasil.

 

It was ferried to Singapore-Seletar in Sep-04 and sold to Wells Fargo Bank Northwest (as Trustee for Lufthansa) as N413LT in Oct-04. The aircraft was converted to freighter configuration with a main deck cargo door at Seletar in Jul-05. It was delivered to Lufthansa Cargo as D-ALCO a few days later.

 

The aircraft was damaged during a hard landing at Mexico City on 13-Sep-09 which caused fuselage wrinkling and a bent nosewheel leg. It was very close to being written off but the insurers decided it was repairable and it was ferried to Victorville, CA, USA in Nov-09 with the nosewheel leg locked down.

 

The repairs took almost a year and after maintenance at Xiamen, China the aircraft returned to service in Nov-10. It was only 22 years old when Lufthansa permanently retired it at Tulsa, OK, USA in Jan-14 and subsequently broken up.

Replacing an earlier scanned photo with a better version, plus Topaz DeNoise AI 25-Feb-25.

 

First flown in Mar-88 with the British Aerospace (Avro) test registration G-5-099, this aircraft was delivered to Trident Aviation Leasing and leased to Loganair as G-OLCA in Jul-88.

 

It was wet-leased to British Airways for three months between May / Jul-90 and wet-leased to NortJet (a Spanish charter airline) for four months between Sep / Nov-90. It was also wet-leased to AirSur (Spain) between Dec-90 / Feb-91.

 

The aircraft was returned to British Aerospace Asset Management in Nov-91 and stored until it was leased to Air UK for three months between Jan / Mar-92. A few days later it was leased to LAR Transregional (Portugal) and returned to the lessor in Oct-92.

 

It was immediately leased to Malmo Aviation (Sweden) and returned to the lessor in Feb-93. The aircraft was leased to Jersey European Airways in Mar-93 and was re-registered G-JEAJ in Sep-93. It was wet-leased to Malmo Aviation in Mar-98 and returned to Jersey European the following month.

 

In Jun-00 Jersey European was renamed British European Airways (the original British European [BEA] was merged with BOAC to form British Airways in 1974). This British European was renamed FlyBe Airlines in Jul-02.

 

The aircraft was returned to the lessor and stored at Kemble, UK in Oct-06. It was ferried to Bacau, Romania in Mar-07 and converted to B.Ae 146-200QT standard with the addition of a main deck cargo door.

 

It was due to be leased to Amerer Air (Austria) as OE-IAA but the lease wasn't taken up and the aircraft was ferried to Southend, UK, in Jun-08 for further storage. It returned to Bacau in Dec-08 and returned to long-term storage. Converting it to a freighter appears to have been a waste of money as it was broken up at Bacau, Romania in 2015. Updated 25-Jan-23.

This replaced the Zamperla zap 50 car. Unfortunately kids were climbing all of it and it fell down and broke so now there's a city fun bus in that location

Replacing a digital photo with a better version 29-Dec-22.

 

'Real Norwegian Edvard Munch' tail livery.

 

This aircraft was delivered to a leasing company and leased to Air Caledonie International (Aircalin) as F-ODGX in Jun-89. It was returned to the lessor in May-04.

 

It was immediately sold to Airwork (New Zealand) Ltd as ZK-PLU and leased to Palau Micronesia Air in Jul-04. Unfortunately it didn't stay long and was returned to Airwork (NZ) Ltd at the end of Dec-04 and stored at Christchurch, New Zealand in Jan-05.

 

The aircraft was leased to Norwegian Air Shuttle as LN-KKS in Apr-05. It returned to the lessor in May-12 and was permanently retired at Stuttgart, AR, USA. The registration was cancelled the same month.

 

I also have a shot of this with Aircalin at ...

www.flickr.com/photos/kenfielding/6237485227

One of the 11 new 2015 CE's replacing the '03s. A 2015 IC CE with a MaxxForce DT, this bus is replacing bus 03-39.

I replaced it . This is after my new edit. On the old one I uploaded earlier today, the quality sucked ass on the left side, so I spent like 20 minutes or so on the retouching part on iPhoto...it took to effing long...but it's worth it :) I know it's not perfect...'cause I don't wanna spend like an hour on it...but it's way better :)

 

Enjoy :)

   

On black

 

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Replacing an earlier scanned 6"x4" print with a better version 20-Aug-21 (DeNoiseAI).

 

Typical Manchester weather!!! A grey day and a grey aircraft don't go well together.

 

This aircraft was first flown in Jul-86 as 82-0074, it was delivered to USA Foreign Military Sales in Feb-87 and was transferred to the RSAF Royal Saudi Air Force as 1814 on the same day. As far as I'm aware, the aircraft is still operational. Current (Apr-18).