Replace 13 descriptions

Replacing an earlier digital photo with a better version 05-Jan-22 (DeNoise AI).

 

UK Football Association 'Emirates FA Cup' logojet (right side).

 

First flown in Jul-13 with the Airbus test registration F-WWAD, this aircraft was ferried to the Airbus Factory airfield at Hamburg-Finkenwerder for cabin fitout and painting. it was delivered to Emirates Airline as A6-EES in Dec-13.

 

The aircraft was withdrawn from service in Mar-20 and stored at Dubai-World Central due to the COVID-19 Pandemic. It was moved back to Dubai-International in Oct-21 and returned to service in late Nov-21 after repainting in the 'DUBAI EXPO' special livery. Current, updated 05-Jan-22.

Replacing an earlier scanned photo with a better version, plus Topaz DeNoise AI 19-Nov-23.

 

Boeing 707-300C's were all built with a main deck cargo door and could be used for either passengers or freight. This aircraft was delivered to Northwest Orient Airlines as N376US in Nov-67.

 

It was sold to BWIA International (Trinidad & Tobago) as 9Y-TEK in May-75. In Mar-82 it was sold to Caribbean Air Cargo (Barbados) as 8P-CAD and converted to a full freighter configuration with the cabin windows replaced with blanks.

 

The aircraft was sold to Dynair Tech of Florida Inc in Oct-89 and stored. It was sold to Skyways International in Dec-90 and in May-91 it was sold to First City Texas Houston as N707KV. It was transferred to New First City Texas Houston in Nov-92 and stored at Athens, Greece.

 

In Feb-94 it was sold to Nordstrom Holdings and leased to TAAT Trans Arabian Air Transport as ST-ANP. The aircraft was sold to TAAT Uganda as 5X-ARJ and leased back to Trans Arabian (Sudan) in Dec-96 (when Sudan registered aircraft were banned from Europe).

 

It was re-registered ST-ANP again in Apr-99 when Trans Arabian Air Transport (Sudan) bought it. The aircraft was damaged beyond repair just 4 months later, in Aug-99, when it landed with a strong tailwind at Juba, South Sudan and overran the end of the runway.

(Replaced with a slightly rotated version.)

Replacing an earlier scanned photo with a better version 09-Apr-14.

 

Operated as a freighter by Baltic Airlines, it's seen here still in the basic livery of Manx Airlines, it's previous operator.

 

This was quite a late build Viscount which first flew in Aug-59. Originally ordered by Trans Australia Airlines as a Viscount 816, it should have become VH-TVR but the order was cancelled before delivery.

 

It was initially stored and then converted to a type V.836 in Apr-60 and sold to the Union Carbide Corporation for executive operation as N40N in May-60. It was sold to the Royal Australian Air Force in Aug-64 as A6-435 and operated for five years until it was sold in the USA in Nov-69 as N40NA to the Alda Corporation.

 

It returned to Australia the following month as VH-EQP with Jet Air Australia and was sold to the Brins Finance Corporation in Sep-70 and sold on the same day to Gates Aviation Turbine Propeller Sales.

 

In Jun-71, continuing it’s ‘executive’ role, it was sold to The Sultan of Oman’s Air Force serialled ‘501’. In Sep-78 it was sold to Royal Swazi National Airways as 3D-ACM but the sale was never completed and the aircraft stayed in Oman until Mar-79 when it was sold to British Midland Airways in the UK as G-BFZL.

 

The aircraft was briefly leased to BMA subsidiary Manx Airlines in Oct/Nov-83 and then leased to them again in Nov-85. In May-86 it was sold to British Aerospace (BAe), leased back to BMA and sub-leased to Manx Airlines, all on the same day.

 

It continued in service with Manx until it was returned to BAe in Nov-88 and immediately leased to Baltic Airlines. It was briefly sub-leased to Manx Airlines again in Apr/May-90 (when this photo was taken).

 

In May-90 Baltic Airlines was merged into British Air Ferries who changed their name to British World Airlines in Apr-93. In Apr-97 it was sold to Heli-Lift Ltd and leased to their subsidiary Heli Jet Aviation.

 

In Mar-98 it was transferred to their South African division as ZS-NNI and was later stored at Lanseria, South Africa, until it was sold to Trans Inter Congo in Nov-02 as 9Q-CGL. In Apr-03, now 44 years old, it was written off in a take-off accident in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Spot-bellied Eagle Owl

 

The spot-bellied eagle-owl (Bubo nipalensis), also known as the forest eagle-owl is a large bird of prey with a formidable appearance. It is a forest-inhabiting species found in the Indian Subcontinent and Southeast Asia. This species is considered part of a superspecies with the barred eagle-owl (Bubo sumatranus), which looks quite similar but is allopatric in distribution, replacing the larger spot-bellied species in the southern end of the Malay Peninsula and the larger island in Southeast Asia extending down to Borneo.

 

The spot-bellied eagle-owl is a large species of owl. It measures from 50 to 65 cm (20 to 26 in) in length. It is the sixth longest owl in the world on average and has the ninth longest wings of any living owl. The ear-tufts of the spot-bellied are very long and conspicuously of variable length, giving them a somewhat scraggly appearance at the tips. The ear-tufts of the spot-bellied eagle-owl measure up to 63 to 76 mm (2.5 to 3.0 in) in length. Most eagle-owls are well-feathered on both their leg and toes, while the barred eagle-owl is featherless on the toes and feathered on the legs, and the spot-bellied eagle-owl has feathered legs and feet, but the terminal digits of the toes are bare before the talons. The feet and talons as formidable as any eagle-owl, being very large, heavy and powerful for their size.

 

The spot-bellied eagle-owl is overall a stark, grayish brown bird, with dark, coarse brown coloration over the back and upper wings. The throat and underparts are mainly pale fulvous in color with black and white horizontal stripes along the flanks of the body that become broad spots on the abdomen and under tail coverts. On the wings, the primaries are dark brown with lighter brown stripes and the secondaries are more heavily barred with buff-brown coloration. The lores are covered in bristly feathers and the cheeks are brownish-white with black feather shafts. The large ear tufts slant off to the sides.

This owl is noted for its strange, human-sounding call, and it has been suggested that it is the same as the cryptid known as ulama or "Devil Bird" in Sri Lanka. A local name is Maha Bakamuna ("large horned owl"). According to www.cryptozoology.com, in July 2001 it was confirmed that ulama description perfectly matches spot-bellied eagle-owl. This call consists of a scream, which rises and then falls in tone. The territorial call of the species, like that of most other eagle-owls, consists of low hoots with two-second intervals between hoos. The voice is booming, deep and carries quite far. It is usual for forest-dwelling owls (and many different kinds of birds) to have an extensive and complex range of vocalizations since vision is more limited than in open or semi-open habitats. However, the spot-bellied eagle owl has relatively small ear openings even for a member of the genus Bubo, suggesting that some territorial behaviour is carried out visually instead of auditorily.

 

This species is distributed the Lower Himalayas from Kumaon east to Burma, thence to central Laos and central Vietnam. They are found throughout the Indian subcontinent and peninsular Southeast Asia down into the southernmost limits of the range in Sri Lanka and to 12 degrees north in southern Thailand. The spot-bellied eagle-owl dwells mainly in primary or older second growth forests. Potentially, they can come to inhabit nearly all varieties of land-based habitats but prefer those such as dense, evergreen forests or moist deciduous forests within its range, though can range secondarily into tropical valleys, terrai and shola in the lower hills of India. Although often considered uncommon to somewhat rare, recent photographic evidence indicates that they are particularly widely found in different parts of India and may simply avoid detection, so long as appropriate wooded habitat remains.

 

The spot-bellied eagle-owl is nocturnal and often spends its day hidden in the dense foliage of large forest trees. However, they have been observed on the move and even hunting during the day, especially in forests with minimal human disturbance. Their activity normally picks up at dusk as they begin to hunt. This species is generally uncommon, likely needing large hunting and breeding territories and thus occurs at low densities. However, it continues to occur over a large range and is not thought to be conservation dependent. Areas, where deforestation occurs, are likely to be vacated by this species, which is perhaps the only widespread threat faced by this owl.

Replacing the 22

 

When eventually completed, the new tram extension will replace several Lothian Buses service. One of the routes impacted is the 22, on which 358 (SN11EBG) is seen here. The squiggle on the destination indicates a bus service that has to divert from it’s normal route due to roadworks.

 

The advert on the side of the bus may need reviewing in the current circumstances….:

Replacing an earlier scanned photo with a better version, plus Topaz DeNoise AI 28-Dec-25.

 

First flown with the Boeing test registration N1786B, this aircraft was delivered to Air-Berlin as D-ABAX in Apr-00. It was fitted with Blended Winglets in May-01.

 

The aircraft was sold to Jackson Square Aviation in Nov-07 and leased to Shenzhen Airlines as B-5361 later the same month.

 

After 12 years with Shenzhen Airlines the aircraft was returned to the lessor in early Apr-19 and permanently retired at Castellon de la Plana - Costa Azahar, Spain. It was broken up there in Aug-19.

Replacing an earlier scanned photo with a better version 10-Jun-21, plus Topaz DeNoise AI 22-Sep-23.

 

'Blue Poole', England World Tail livery. The tail scheme appears to be a lighter blue compared to the same livery on other aircraft.

 

First flown in Oct-82, this was a very early B757 (c/n 9), it was British Airways first Boeing 757 (although it was the fourth to be delivered after G-BIKB/C/D) and was delivered as G-BIKA in Mar-83.

 

It was sold to DHL (Holdings) UK in Jul-00 and stored at Wichita, KS, USA until it was converted to freighter configuration with a main deck cargo door in Feb-01. It was leased to EAT European Air Transport as OO-DLN in Mar-01 and operated on behalf of DHL Europe.

 

The aircraft was transferred to EAT Leipzig GmbH (European Air Transport Germany) as D-ALEA in Mar-10 while operations for DHL Europe continued. In Mar-16 it was transferred to DHL (Holdings) UK as G-BIKA again and continued until it was permanently retired at Madrid, Spain, in Dec-16 after almost 34 years in service. The registration was cancelled in Aug-17.

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

 

Sub-leased by AirWorld to Ryan International for the winter season in the USA, it was sub-sub-lsd back to AirWorld and operated by Ryan International during the 1998 summer months.

 

A lessor owned aircraft with a long history!

 

First flown with the Airbus test registration F-WWIX, this aircraft was delivered to GECAS and leased to Air World as G-BXKA in Nov-97. It was sub-leased to Ryan International Airlines as N714AW on delivery and operated for Apple Vacations (USA).

 

It returned to Air World in Apr-98, sub-sub-leased from and operated by Ryan International. Air World was merged into Flying Colours Airlines on 01-Nov-98 and the aircraft returned to Ryan International two weeks later for the winter season. It was returned to Flying Colours at in Apr-99 as G-BXKA.

 

It was sub-leased to Ryan International/Apple Vacations again in Nov-99, this time operated by Flying Colours. In Mar-00, Flying Colours was merged with Caledonian Airways to form jmc AIR and the aircraft returned to jmc Air in Apr-00.

 

It was sub-leased to Ryan International/Apple Vacations again between Dec-00/Apr-01 and again between Oct-01/Apr-02. It was leased to Ryan International again in Nov-02. jmc Air was renamed Thomas Cook Airlines UK at the end of Mar-03 and the aircraft returned to Thomas Cook at the end of Apr-03.

 

In Dec-03 It was leased to USA 3000 Airlines (Bredan Airways) and returned to Thomas Cook in Apr-04. It was leased to USA 3000 again between Dec-04/Apr-05. The aircraft returned to GECAS in Jan-08 and was immediately leased to Vladivostok Avia as VP-BFY.

 

In Feb-14 the aircraft was returned to GECAS and stored at Shannon, Ireland before being leased to Hamburg Airways as D-AHHH in Jun-14. In Dec-14 Hamburg Airways AOC was temporarily suspended by the German Authorities and the aircraft was returned to GECAS and again stored at Shannon, Ireland.

 

It was sold to Sunrise Asset Management and leased to Allegiant Air as N227NV in Apr-15. The aircraft was stored at Tampa, FL, USA on delivery. It was moved to Grissom AFB, Peru, IN, USA in Jul-15 (maintenance?) and back to Tampa in early Aug-15. It eventually entered service on 22-Oct-15.

 

The aircraft was permanently retired at Orlando-Sanford in Nov-20. It was sold to Alaris Aerospace in Apr-22 and broken up at Sanford in 2024. Updated 16-Aug-25.

 

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.

It's gone!!

Sold to a nice young chap called Tom who is more machanically minded than me!

He lives in Sheffield too and so he says I might see him or Navi around the place!!

(Once he's done some 'fettling' he says!!)

I have had Navi since 2013. (Cagiva Navigator 1000)

mes bottes dunlop vertes sont devenues inutilisables.Les semelles sont si fines que l'on sent à travers elles le moindre objet sur lequel on marche. La marche en devient douloureuse

Les semelles complètement lisses rendent la marche très difficile

.

c'est la fin il est temps de céder la place à d'autres bottes

 

je teste d'autres bottes pour les remplacer

 

my green dunlop boots have become unusable.The soles are so thin that we feel through them the smallest object on which we walk. Walking becomes painful

The completely smooth soles make walking very difficult.

 

it's the end it's time to give way to other boots

 

I test other boots to replace them

Built in 1929, this 17-story Art Deco-style former passenger railroad station was designed by Fellheimer & Wagner to replace the multiple previous train stations and termini in Buffalo, which were scattered throughout the city and belonged to different railroads. The structure stands on the site of the old Union Depot built in 1874, which closed in the early 1920s. The station began construction in 1925 when the New York Central Railroad settled on building their new union terminal in Buffalo at the site, with the station being built to accommodate the expected growth of Buffalo from a city of about 550,000 people to one with 1.5 million people, and to accommodate continued growth in passenger numbers. However, both of these projections never materialized, with the city’s population growth and the railroad’s passenger numbers growth, already slowing in the 1920s, slowing further due to the Great Depression during the 1930s, and then beginning a long, steady decline, only being briefly buoyed by World War II before falling out of favor as automobile travel proved more flexible and air travel more swift than train travel. Due to these circumstances, the terminal was overbuilt and never reached its full capacity during its operations, only coming close during World War II due to resource shortages and mass mobilization of the United States during wartime. The terminal was offered for sale by the New York Central Railroad for one million dollars in 1956, but found no buyers, with continuing declines in passenger numbers, coupled with the decline in the population of Buffalo itself, leading to several services being ended during the 1950s and 1960s. In 1966, the railroad, in an effort to save costs and downsize their facilities, demolished several outbuildings in the complex, and in 1968, the once powerful New York Central Railroad, a husk of its former self, merged with the Pennsylvania Railroad in an attempt to consolidate their expenses and save both companies, but this merger proved unsuccessful, leading to their bankruptcy in 1976, with both railroads absorbed into the public-private partnership known as Conrail.

 

In the meantime, Amtrak was formed in 1971 to provide passenger rail service in the United States, operating out of the terminal until 1979, with the agency facing budgetary limitations that did not allow them to renovate the aging structure, which, when coupled with the massive expenses of keeping the building comfortable, dry, and well-lit, led to the agency building two smaller stations in Buffalo during the 1970s to replace it. The terminal was subsequently purchased by Anthony T. Fedele, whom managed to maintain the building in decent condition, but was unable to find any interested developers to reuse the building, and eventually fell behind on taxes, leading to the building being seized at foreclosure so the taxes could be recouped by the government. During the time it was owned by Fedele, the building was vacated by Conrail’s offices between 1980 and 1984, and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984, with the final operations at the terminal, the interlocking towers that once signaled trains arriving at the station, being shut down in 1985. In 1986, the building was purchased at auction by Thomas Telesco, whom did not maintain the building, selling off many artifacts and fixtures from its interior, and proposing grandiose and unrealistic schemes of what he would do with the building, including being a stop on a high-speed rail line between New York and Toronto. The building was then sold to Bernie Tuchman and Samuel Tuchman, with the building seeing further elements removed and sold, and the building continuing to decay.

 

In 1997, the terminal, then in poor condition, was purchased by Scott Field of the Preservation Coalition of Erie County, whom paid for the building’s back taxes, and shortly thereafter, formed the Central Terminal Restoration Corporation, transferring ownership of the building to the organization. The building was stabilized and secured under the stewardship of the Central Terminal Restoration Corporation, which opened the building for public tours in 2003, and holds many fundraising events at the station every year. The building has been preserved, but a restoration or adaptive reuse of the structure has so far remained elusive.

 

The building features a brown brick exterior with an octagonal corner tower, with a large barrel-roofed main concourse structure wrapping around the tower to the south and east. The facade of the tower features multiple setbacks, chamfered corners, corner clock faces at the roofline above the twelfth floor, a rotunda with large archways and buttresses atop the tower with a decorative trim crown at the parapet, vertical window bays that stretch from the building’s base to the roofline, large entrances with metal canopies, large transoms, and stone surrounds, pilasters, and stone trim and caps atop the parapets. The main concourse portion of the building features large arched curtain walls at the ends of its barrel vaulted roof, a cavernous barrel vaulted interior, large metal canopies over the entrances, and a tunnel underneath that once allowed traffic on Curtiss Street to run beneath the building, though this has been closed since the 1980s due to the building’s decay, with a light court between the waiting room and a low-rise office block in the front, which sits just east of the tower and presents a similar facade treatment to that of the tower, with vertically accentuated window bays and pilasters. The rear of the building is more spartan in appearance, with a scar from the former location of the entrance to the train concourse to the rear, with the connecting structure having been removed following the discontinuation of railroad services at the building in 1979. The train concourse features multiple platforms with Art Deco-style aluminum canopies with sleek columns, thin-profile roofs, and rounded ends, with the train concourse featuring arched clerestory windows and a gabled roof, and being in a rather advanced state of deterioration with vegetation having grown throughout the structure and the surrounding abandoned tracks between the platforms. Attached to the southwest corner of the main building is the baggage building, a simpler six-story Art Deco-style structure with a buff brick exterior, a penthouse above the main entrance to the building, pilasters, vertically accentuated window bays, steel windows, stone spandrel panels, stone trim, and stone parapet caps, with long canopies along the base of the front and rear of the building that protected incoming and outgoing mail and baggage from inclement weather. To the west of the baggage building is the one-story mail processing building, which features a similar facade treatment, with the main difference besides height being the rooftop monitor windows in the middle of the building’s roof. Southwest of the baggage and mail processing building, sitting close to Memorial Drive, is a structure that formerly housed the Railway Express Agency, which is more utilitarian than the rest of the surviving complex, and is in an advanced state of decay, with the demolition of the structure being planned to take place sometime this decade. The structure features large window bays with steel windows, stucco cladding on the brick structure, and the remnants of canopies on the north and south facades of the first floor, with a long and low one-story wing to the rear.

 

The complex is one of the largest designed by Fellheimer & Wagner, and has maintained a remarkable state of preservation in its original form with few changes since its construction, besides some damage from the years of decay and neglect in the 1980s and 1990s. Another notable structure by the firm, and one of the most well-known railroad stations in the world, is Grand Central Terminal in New York City, which was also built for the New York Central Railroad. In addition to Grand Central Terminal, the firm also designed terminals that are more similar in appearance to the Buffalo Central Terminal, including Union Station in South Bend, Indiana, and Cincinnati Union Terminal, with Grand Central Terminal, Buffalo Central Terminal, and Cincinnati Union Terminal being among the largest, most impressive, and most significant railroad stations ever built in the United States. The station, though unrestored, is still impressive, and hopefully will be eventually adaptively reused for an economically sustainable function.

Replacing those very tired looking omnidekkas since brand new, a smarter looking Pink line takes place in the roads around Bilborough and the city centre. Think pink as you can guarantee a smooth ride with free wifi and USB onboard. And a perfect day to photograph these as they look super smart.

 

no. YN19 EFO

Replacing an earlier scanned slide with a better version 21-Feb-16.

 

Looks like there's a storm brewing Cap'n....

 

Ordered by Singapore Airlines, it was originally to have been registered 9V-SXC but that registration wasn't taken up and it was delivered in Oct-77 as 9V-SGC. Singapore operated it for less than 3 years before selling it to Dan-Air Services in Jun-80 as G-BHVT. It was wet-leased to LACSA Costa Rica in Nov-81 for the winter season, returning to Dan-Air in Apr-82. In Oct-82 it was sold to LACSA as TI-LRR and then leased back for the European summer season by Dan-Air as G-BHVT from Apr/Oct-83 when it returned to LACSA as TI-LRR for the winter. In Apr-84 it was again leased to Dan-Air as G-BHVT for the summer, but in Sep-84 they decided to buy it again. Dan-Air then started a regular winter wet-lease to Sun Country Airlines (USA) from Jan/Apr-85, Dec-85/Apr-86, Jan/Apr-87, Dec-87/Apr-88, Dec-88/Apr-89 and Dec-89/Apr-90. In Nov-92 it was sold to Conifair Aviation as C-FRYS and leased to Royal Airlines. Royal Airlines bought it in Jan-94. They sold it to Finova Capital Corporation in Aug-97 and leased it back. In Jan-99 Royal transferred the lease to CLA Canada Inc and operated the aircraft for another 3 weeks before returning it to CLA Canada Inc and Finova Capital at the end of Jan-99 when it was re-registered N591DB. It underwent conversion into a freighter in Mar-99 and was also fitted with winglets. It was sold to Aircorp Inc the following month. In May-99 it was re-registered N319NE and leased to Express One International. In Jun-99 it was sub-leased to Asia Pacific Airlines. Express One relinquished the lease in Jan-00 and it was leased direct to Asia Pacific Airlines. At the end of Oct-00 Aircorp Inc sold it to Aero Micronesia Inc while the lease to Asia Pacific Airlines continued. Now almost 39 years old (as of Feb-16), it's still in service with Asia Pacific and was photographed at Honolulu in Dec-15.

Nikon D810 Beautiful Ballerina Goddess Dancing Ballet!

 

Nikon D810 Ballet Photos of Pretty Ballerina Dancing in Malibu! Captured with the Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8G ED VR II AF-S Nikkor Zoom Lens and the 50mm Sigma Art Lens !

 

facebook.com/mcgucken

 

instagram.com/45surf

instagram.com/johnnyrangermccoy/

 

Join me friends!!

 

instagram.com/45surf

 

www.facebook.com/elliot.mcgucken

 

I'm working on an anthology of classic, epic poetry, which begins with selections from Homer's Iliad and Odyssey! :) I've replaced the Roman names with the Greek names: "RAGE, Sing, O goddess, the rage of Achilles son of Peleus, that brought countless ills upon the Greeks. Many a brave soul did it send hurrying down to Hades, and many a hero did it yield a prey to dogs and vultures, for so were the counsels of Zeus fulfilled from the day on which the son of Atreus, king of men, and great Achilles, first fell out with one another."

 

All the best on your epic hero's odyssey into the art of photography!

 

Nikon D810 Beautiful Ballerina Dancers! Goddesses Dancing Ballet! Ballet amongst the California Spring Wildflowers!

Replaced the Photoshopped one with this one which I like more!

Replacing an earlier scanned photo with a better version 28-May-22 (DeNoise AI).

 

First flown with the Boeing test registration N6009F, this aircraft was delivered to Air New Zealand as ZK-NBC in Sep-86. It was sold to Castle Harbour Leasing Inc in Jun-01 and leased back to Air New Zealand.

 

The aircraft was returned to the lessor as N328MT and initially stored at Auckland. It was converted to freighter configuration with a main deck cargo door in Feb-05 and leased to Star Air (Denmark) the following month as OY-SRG.

 

The aircraft was parked at Shannon, Ireland in mid Aug-21 and returned to service in late Sep-21. It's now 36 years old.

Current, updated 28-May-22.

Replacing an earlier scanned photo with a better version 27-Dec-21 (DeNoise AI).

 

British Airways, operated by franchise partner, Loganair.

 

First flown by Saab Aircraft as SE-F72, this aircraft was delivered to Metroflight (USA) as N589MA in Dec-89. It was sold to a lessor on delivery and leased back to Metroflight, operating on behalf of American Eagle.

 

Metroflight was merged into Simmons Airlines in May-93, the aircraft continued in service until it was returned to the lessor in Jul-96 and stored. It was leased to Business Air (UK) as G-GNTI in Dec-96 and sub-leased to BMA British Midland Airways in Mar-97.

 

It became British Midland Regional in Mar-01 and was returned to the lessor in Aug-01. It was leased to Loganair as G-LGNE at the end of the month. and operated on behalf of British Airways in full livery.

 

The aircraft was returned to Loganair in Oct-08 and immediately sub-leased to FlyBe Airlines in full FlyBe livery. It was returned to Loganair in Sep-17 and repainted in Loganair's latest livery.

 

It was repainted all white at East Midlands (UK) in early Mar-21 and ferried to Linkoping (Sweden) in Apr-21 for storage and return to Saab Aircraft. Stored, updated 27-Dec-21.

Replacing an earlier scanned photo with a better version 14-Dec-16, plus Topaz DeNoise AI 23-Mar-24.

 

First flown with the Airbus test registration F-WWKL, this aircraft was delivered to Garuda Indonesia Airways as PK-GPG in Apr-97.

 

23 years later the aircraft was withdrawn from service and stored at Jakarta-CGK in Feb-20, probably because of the COVID-19 Pandemic. However, it never returned to service. Permanently retired. Updated 23-Mar-24.

Replacing an earlier scanned slide with a better version 09-Oct-15.

 

Fleet No: "967".

 

This aircraft was delivered to Caribair Puerto Rico as N967PR in Mar-68. Caribair was merged into Eastern Air Lines in May-73 and it continued to operate for Eastern until they ceased trading in Jan-91 when the aircraft was stored at Mojave, CA, USA.

 

It was sold by the liquidators to AVENSA, Venezuela, in Aug-91 as YV-82C. It was leased to LAV Linea Aerea Venezolana for a year between Aug-93 and Aug-94 and continued in service with AVENSA until, at the age of 31 it was retired and stored at Caracas, Venezuela, in Dec-99.

 

It was last noted still stored at Caracas in Feb-09 in derelict condition and has, presumably, since been broken up.

Replacing an earlier scanned photo with a better version 09-Oct-21 (DeNoise AI).

 

Taken from the YVR South Terminal.

 

Still in basic Royal Airlines livery.

 

This aircraft was delivered to Piedmont Airlines as N772N in Sep-79. It was re-registered N228US in Nov-88 ahead of Piedmont's merger into US Air in Aug-89. US Air was renamed US Airways in Feb-97.

 

The aircraft was leased to Royal Airlines (Canada) as C-GNAU in Jan-01. Royal Airlines was merged into Canada 3000 in May-01. Canada 3000 ceased operations in Nov-01 (as a consequence of the downturn in travel after '9/11'), the aircraft was returned to US Airways and stored at Edmonton, AB, Canada.

 

It was sold to Structures Unlimited Inc in Feb-02 and leased to Air North Charter in May-02. The aircraft was permanently retired at Whitehorse, YU, Canada in Oct-11 after 32 years service and subsequently broken up.

 

Replacing an earlier digital photo with a better version, plus Topaz DeNoise AI 28-Mar-23.

 

Southern England storm 'Katie' diversion from London-Heathrow.

 

This aircraft was delivered to British Airways as G-VIIW in Jul-99. It was stored at London-Gatwick at the end of Mar-20 due to the COVID-19 Pandemic.

 

It returned to service in Jul-20 before being stored again, at Teruel, Spain in Apr-21. It returned to London-Heathrow and returned to service at the end of Jan-22. Current, updated 28-Mar-23.

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

 

Ryanair's only B737-200 with 'billboard' titles.

 

This aircraft was delivered to Orion Airways as G-BGTW in Feb-80. It was sold to ILFC International Lease Finance Corporation in Mar-85 and immediately sold to Transavia Holland as PH-TVX.

 

The aircraft was leased to Lauda Air as OE-ILE in Dec-85 and returned to Transavia Holland as PH-TVX again in Mar-88. It was leased to KLM Royal Dutch Airlines between May-88 and Apr-94 and leased to KLM again between Nov-94/May-95.

 

It was sold to Ryanair as EI-CKS in Jun-95. Retired and stored at Prestwick, Scotland, UK in Oct-03, the aircraft was broken up there in Apr-05.

This is meant to go with my Shelby Cobra when I'm finished :-)

 

I got the idea for doing the logos brick-built from Ryan Link

 

Thanks for rendering Blackout!

 

Looks best when either far away or small

Replacing an earlier scanned photo with a better version 01-May-16.

 

Air France by ProteuS AirlineS.

 

First flown with the Dornier test registration D-CDXK, this aircraft was ordered by Tahiti Conquest Airlines but the order was cancelled. It was delivered to Proteus Air System as F-GNPA in Mar-96 and operated for a joint company Air France/Air Inter Express.

 

The product was renamed Air France by ProteuS AirlineS in 1998 after Air Inter had been merged into Air France. The aircraft was returned to Proteus and the lessor in May-00.

 

The following month it was leased to Air Alps Aviation as D-CALP and operated as KLM Alps under a franchise agreement with KLM Royal Dutch Airlines. It was returned to Air Alps Aviation in Apr-01 and was re-registered in Austria in May-03 as OE-LKE.

 

The aircraft was operated by Air Alps Aviation until it was sold to AeroCardal (Chile) as CC-ACG in Aug-10. In Sep-14 it was sold to TEC Aircraft Leasing and leased to Private Wings Flugcharter as D-CITO. Current, updated 07-Aug-24.

Replacing an earlier scanned photo with a better version, plus Topaz DeNoise AI 11-Feb-24.

 

Air France by Jersey European.

 

First flown with the British Aerospace test registration G-5-071, this aircraft was delivered to CAAC Civil Aviation Administration of China as B-2706 in Feb-87. It was transferred to China Eastern Airlines in May-88.

 

It was sold back to BAe (Operations) Ltd as G-BVUY in Nov-94. It was leased to Carib Express as J8-VBB (J8 = St. Vincent & the Grenadines) in Feb-95. The aircraft returned to BAe (Operations) Ltd in Apr-96.

 

In Jun-96 it was transferred to British Aerospace Holdings Inc as N171TR for lease to TriStar Airlines (USA) but the lease wasn't taken up.

 

It was leased to Jersey European Airways as G-JEAT in Oct-96 and JEA bought it in Sep-97. It was one of several BAe 146's that were operated on behalf of Air France in full Air France livery.

 

JEA was renamed FlyBe Airlines in Jul-02 and the aircraft was permanently retired at Exeter, UK, in Aug-04. It was used as a Fire Service training aircraft before being broken up.

Replacing an earlier digital photo with a better version 19-Apr-24.

 

This aircraft was delivered to Aero Lloyd (Germany) as D-ALLF in Dec-87. It was sold to a lessor in Mar-95 and leased back to Aero Lloyd. It was withdrawn from service and stored at Frankfurt, Germany in Nov-01.

 

In Jan-02 the aircraft was returned to the lessor and ferried to Nimes-Garons, France for further storage. In May-02 it was leased to MD Airlines (Iceland) as TF-MDD.

 

It was wet-leased to Alisea Airlines (Italy) in Dec-02. In May-03 the aircraft was sold to GATX Third Aircraft Corporation as N491GX and leased direct to Alisea. It was returned to the lessor in Sep-03 and returned to storage at Nimes [Alisea ceased operations in Dec-03].

 

In Mar-05 the aircraft was leased to Dubrovnik Airlines (Croatia) as 9A-CDA. It was wet-leased to Kan Air (Afghanistan) in Nov-07 for a Haj Pilgrimage operation and returned to Dubrovnik Airlines in Dec-07.

 

It was wet-leased to AviaJet (Ireland) in Apr-06 and returned to Dubrovnik Airlines in Oct-06. It was wet-leased to MontAir (Bosnia/Herzegovina) in Mar-10. Return date unknown. Dubrovnik Airlines ceased operations on 23-Oct-11 and the aircraft was stored at Dubrovnik. It was 24 years old and was permanently retired.

Replacing an earlier scanned slide with a better version 02-Jan-16

 

Delivered to Eastern Air Lines in Dec-73 as N326EA, the aircraft was leased to TWA Trans World Airlines in May-74 and returned to Eastern in Oct-74. It was leased to Cathay Pacific Airways in Sep-76. In May-77 Cathay Pacific bought it and it became VR-HHX. It was sold to Norske Finance Nederland BV in Dec-95 as TF-ABH and leased to Air Atlanta Icelandic in Jan-96. It was sub-leased to Peach Air in May-97 and returned to Air Atlanta Icelandic in Apr-98. It was leased to Peach Air again for the summer season between May/Oct-98. It was retired at Manston, UK, in Apr-99 and was broken up there in Nov-99.

 

As well as being a fruit, Peach is also an anagram for 'cheap'... say no more!

The K50 is intended to replace the Tsar-class, as that design was found to be heavily flawed. However, the good features were borrowed from the Tsar-class, like its bridge that gave an excellent view on the battlespace.

 

The ship is based on the Pearl battlecruiser's hull, but modified to meet the needs of battleship. This class is supposed to fill out the gap between the said battlecruiser and The Divine superbattleship.

 

It utilizes many new features that makes it lighter and cheaper. Firtsly, it has only three turret versus the usual four of other nations' battleships while still having the same number of cannons. With one less turret a lot of weight was saved due to less machinery and a shorter citadel, this way more weight could be used for armor. At standard load it has a displacement of 38,230 t.

 

Armor

 

The ships' armor protection was designed to break up 16-inch (406 mm) shells from a distance of 15,000–20,000 meters and the primary armor plates made of Krupp cemented armor (which reduces spalling) are backed up by splinter bulkheads intended to contain any shell fragments.

The ship's waterline armor belt is 305 mm (12 in) thick and tapered to a thickness of 100 mm (3.9 in) at its bottom edge; above it is a strake of 229 mm (9.0 in) armor. The main deck armor is 104 mm (4 in). The turrets are protected with an armor thickness of 305 mm on the face, 230–190 mm (9.1–7.5 in) on the sides, and 152 mm on the roof. The barbettes of the second turret is protected by armor 305 mm thick, while the casemates of the 150 mm guns are protected by 37 mm armor plates. The sides of the conning tower are 369 mm (14.5 in) thick.

 

Propulsion

 

K50 is equipped with four steam turbines, each of which drove one propeller shaft. The turbines were designed to produce a total of 91,000 shaft horsepower provided by oil-fueled boilers. The ship could carry 5,000 long tons of fuel oil, giving her a range of 10,200 km at a speed of 16 knots. The ship exceeded her designed speed of 26.5 knots during her sea trials, reaching 26.7 knots .

  

Armament

 

K50 class' eight 50-caliber 41-centimeter guns are mounted in three turrets, one twin and two triple superfiring turrets fore and aft. Numbered one through three from front to rear, the hydraulically powered turrets give the guns an elevation range of −2 to +35 degrees, giving them a maximum range of 30,200 m. The rate of fire for the guns is around two rounds per minute.

The ship's secondary armament of 18 150 mm guns is mounted in four twin turrets and the rmaining in casemates. These guns have a maximum range of 20,500 metres and fired at a rate of six to ten rounds per minute. The gun between the turrets might be replaced with a torpedo launcher from the Plunderer class to give the ship more versatility.

Anti-aircraft defense is provided by eight 84 mm high elevation guns, eight 40 mm guns in two quad turrets and eight 25mm guns, six in twin turrets and two as single mounts.

  

Replaces the Old Blue Sign used when this store had Pickup services

Replacing an earlier scanned print with a better version 11-Mar-13.

 

This aircraft was delivered to AWAS Ansett Worldwide Aviation Services and leased to Ethiopian Airlines as ET-ALC in Jan-99. It was returned to AWAS in Feb-15 and stored at Shannon, Ireland.

 

It was re-registered LZ-AWC the following week in preparation for a lease to BH Air (Balkan Holidays). The lease didn't happen. Then it was due to be leased to euroAtlantic Airways (Portugal) as CS-TKR but that lease also fell through.

 

The aircraft was leased to Katekavia (Russia) as VQ-BUP at the end of May-15 and operated on behalf of Azur Air, a Russian Tour Operator. It was due to be sub-leased to Azur Air Germany as D-AZUB for the 2016 summer season but stayed in Russia. Current, updated (Jun-19).

Replacing an earlier digital photo with a better version 09-Apr-20.

 

First flown with the Boeing test registration N1786B, this aircraft was delivered to Maersk Air as OY-APR in Oct-98. It was sold to a lessor in Nov-01 and leased back to Maersk Air. It was returned to the lessor in Jun-04 and leased to CSA Czech Airlines as OK-DGC a week later. The aircraft was returned to the lessor in Jun-07 and immediately leased to AeroSvit (Ukraine) as UR-VVQ. AeroSvit ceased operations in Feb-13 and the lease was transferred to Ukraine International Airlines. It was returned to the lessor in Nov-13 and stored at Bournemouth, UK. In Oct-14 the aircraft was re-registered N292GL with Wells Fargo Bank Northwest (Trustee) and remained stored. It was noted at Bournemouth in Aug-15, now repainted in Azman Air livery (Nigeria) but remained stored.

It was sold to European Aviation in Apr-16 and transferred to Southern Aircraft Consultancy on the same day. The aircraft was eventually sold to Azman Air as 5N-AIS in Nov-16. It was temporarily stored at Kano, Nigeria in Mar-20 due to the COVID-19 Pandemic. Current, updated (Apr-20).

Sunbeam Tiger 1 (1964-67) Engine 4261cc V8 OHV Production 6450

Registration Number 5005 UZ (Belfast)

SUNBEAM SET

www.flickr.com/photos/45676495@N05/sets/72157623847032276...

 

The Sunbeam Tiger is a high-performance V8 version of the British Rootes Group's Sunbeam Alpine roadster, designed in part by American car designer and racing driver Carroll Shelby and produced from 1964 until 1967. Shelby had carried out a similar V8 conversion on the AC Cobra, and hoped to be offered the contract to produce the Tiger at his facility in America. Rootes decided instead to contract the assembly work to Jensen at West Bromwich in England, and pay Shelby a royalty on every car produced.

Launched in 1964, and powered by a 260 cu in (4.3 ltr) V8 of 164bhp The suspension was independent at the front, using coil springs, and at the rear had a live axle and semi-elliptic springs. Apart from the addition of a Panhard rod to better locate the rear axle, and stiffer front springs to cope with the weight of the V8 engine, and with disc braking at the front and drums on the rear. The first cars were exclusively shipped to America and badged as powered by Ford, selling at $ 3499. The Mark I remained unavailable in the UK until March 1965, when it was priced at £1446, it was also sold in South Africa, nadged as the Sunbeam Alpine 260 and priced at R 3350

 

The Mark 1 was replaced in 1967 by the 4.7 litre Tiger 2, with a further 633 produced for one season only, before the Tiger was cancelled by new owners Chrysler, who would not offer a car powered by a rivals engine.

One of the most underated sports cars of its era.

 

Diolch am 97,600,360 o olygiadau gwych, mae pob un ohonynt yn cael eu gwerthfawrogi'n fawr.

 

Thanks for 97,600,360 amazing views, every one is greatly appreciated.

 

Shot 21.08.2022, at Lupin Farm, Kings Bromley, Staffordshire REF 163-312

One of 19 Lynx supplied to Preston Bus, G215KRN's original DP seating has been replaced with something rather more modern, but perhaps not as comfortable.

Replacing an earlier scanned photo with a better version 22-Jan-18, plus Topaz DeNoise AI 04-Dec-23.

 

An early build B757 (Line No:35), this aircraft was delivered to Eastern Air Lines as N517EA in Oct-84. It was sold on delivery to the Wilmington Trust Company and leased back to Eastern.

 

Eastern ceased operations in Jan-91, the aircraft was repossessed by the lessor and stored at Mojave, CA, USA. It was leased to America West Airlines as N913AW in Jun-92.

 

America West was merged into US Airways in Sep-05 and the aircraft continued in service until it was retired and stored at Roswell, NM, USA in Aug-08 after 24 years in service. The registration was cancelled the following month. It was last noted still at Roswell in Apr-09.

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

 

First flown with the ATR test registration F-WWEQ in Jan-95, this aircraft was stored at Toulouse, France until it was leased to Gill Airways, UK as G-BWDA in Jun-95. Gill Air ceased operations in Sep-01, the aircraft was returned to ATR and initially stored at Newcastle, UK.

 

It was sold to Aeronautix Leasing as F-WQNG in Oct-01 and transferred to Dinard, France for further storage. The aircraft was transferred to Montpelier, France in Aug-02 and was repainted in full Aero Malaysiana livery as 9M-AMB by the following month.

 

Unfortunately, Aero Malaysiana failed to gain Certification from the Malaysian Authorities and the lease was cancelled. It remained stored until it was leased to Aurigny Air Services (Guernsey, Channel Islands) as G-BWDA in Aug-03.

 

The aircraft was wet-leased, short term, to Aer Arann (Ireland) for just over two weeks in Mar-05. The aircraft was returned to the lessor in Jul-09 and leased to Royal Air Maroc Express as CN-COB the following month.

 

It was returned to the lessor in Oct-12 and stored at Monchengladbach, Germany. It was re-registered T7-COB in Jun-13 and remained stored (The registration prefix 'T7' is San Marino - see below).

 

In mid 2015 the aircraft was due to be sold in the Philippines to the Alphaland Balesin Island Club as RP-C9017, however the sale was cancelled and it remained stored. In Nov-15 it was ferried to Toulouse-Francazal for freighter conversion.

 

It was sold to Summit Air Charter (Canada) as C-GJPY in Jan-16. The freighter conversion was completed at the end of Jul-16 and the aircraft was delivered to Canada. It was stored at Edmonton, AB, Canada in Apr-20, presumably due to the COVID-19 Pandemic. It returned to service a few months later. Current, updated 24-Dec-25.

 

Note: San Marino is described as "an Enclaved European microstate surrounded by Italy". It's officially The Republic of San Marino, also known as The Most Serene Republic of San Marino! It does have an airfield which can take aircraft up to small business-jets)

Replacing an earlier digital photo with a better version 16-May-22 (DeNoise AI).

 

"Berlin Bearbus" logojet

 

First flown with the Airbus test registration D-AVWI, this aircraft was delivered to US Airways as N727UW in Dec-99. It was sold to a lessor and leased back in Mar-03. The lease was rejected and it returned to the lessor while in 'Chapter 11' bankruptcy protection in Mar-05.

 

The aircraft was leased to Germanwings in the 'Berlin Bearbus' special livery as D-AKNO in Jun-05. It was repainted in standard livery in Jan-11.

 

At midnight on 28-Oct-17, the day Air Berlin ceased operations, Germanwings quietly changed from being an operating airline to being an ACMI Operator (Aircraft, Crew, Maintenance & Insurance) when all it's aircraft were wet-leased to Eurowings.

 

The same flights continued to operate as before, but now with a Eurowing flight prefix. The aircraft was withdrawn from service and stored at Stuttgart, Germany in Mar-20 at the start of the COVID-19 Pandemic.

 

The following month, Apr-20, Lufthansa closed Germanwings down and all the aircraft leases (and crew) were transferred to Eurowings. In Sep-20 the aircraft was ferried to Kaunas, Lithuania for long-term storage. It returned to Dusseldorf in Apr-22 and the ferried to St. Athan, Wales, UK in May-22 where it was permanently retired. Updated 16-May-22.

Spot-bellied Eagle Owl

 

The spot-bellied eagle-owl (Bubo nipalensis), also known as the forest eagle-owl is a large bird of prey with a formidable appearance. It is a forest-inhabiting species found in the Indian Subcontinent and Southeast Asia. This species is considered part of a superspecies with the barred eagle-owl (Bubo sumatranus), which looks quite similar but is allopatric in distribution, replacing the larger spot-bellied species in the southern end of the Malay Peninsula and the larger island in Southeast Asia extending down to Borneo.

 

The spot-bellied eagle-owl is a large species of owl. It measures from 50 to 65 cm (20 to 26 in) in length. It is the sixth longest owl in the world on average and has the ninth longest wings of any living owl. The ear-tufts of the spot-bellied are very long and conspicuously of variable length, giving them a somewhat scraggly appearance at the tips. The ear-tufts of the spot-bellied eagle-owl measure up to 63 to 76 mm (2.5 to 3.0 in) in length. Most eagle-owls are well-feathered on both their leg and toes, while the barred eagle-owl is featherless on the toes and feathered on the legs, and the spot-bellied eagle-owl has feathered legs and feet, but the terminal digits of the toes are bare before the talons. The feet and talons as formidable as any eagle-owl, being very large, heavy and powerful for their size.

 

The spot-bellied eagle-owl is overall a stark, grayish brown bird, with dark, coarse brown coloration over the back and upper wings. The throat and underparts are mainly pale fulvous in color with black and white horizontal stripes along the flanks of the body that become broad spots on the abdomen and under tail coverts. On the wings, the primaries are dark brown with lighter brown stripes and the secondaries are more heavily barred with buff-brown coloration. The lores are covered in bristly feathers and the cheeks are brownish-white with black feather shafts. The large ear tufts slant off to the sides.

This owl is noted for its strange, human-sounding call, and it has been suggested that it is the same as the cryptid known as ulama or "Devil Bird" in Sri Lanka. A local name is Maha Bakamuna ("large horned owl"). According to www.cryptozoology.com, in July 2001 it was confirmed that ulama description perfectly matches spot-bellied eagle-owl. This call consists of a scream, which rises and then falls in tone. The territorial call of the species, like that of most other eagle-owls, consists of low hoots with two-second intervals between hoos. The voice is booming, deep and carries quite far. It is usual for forest-dwelling owls (and many different kinds of birds) to have an extensive and complex range of vocalizations since vision is more limited than in open or semi-open habitats. However, the spot-bellied eagle owl has relatively small ear openings even for a member of the genus Bubo, suggesting that some territorial behaviour is carried out visually instead of auditorily.

 

This species is distributed the Lower Himalayas from Kumaon east to Burma, thence to central Laos and central Vietnam. They are found throughout the Indian subcontinent and peninsular Southeast Asia down into the southernmost limits of the range in Sri Lanka and to 12 degrees north in southern Thailand. The spot-bellied eagle-owl dwells mainly in primary or older second growth forests. Potentially, they can come to inhabit nearly all varieties of land-based habitats but prefer those such as dense, evergreen forests or moist deciduous forests within its range, though can range secondarily into tropical valleys, terrai and shola in the lower hills of India. Although often considered uncommon to somewhat rare, recent photographic evidence indicates that they are particularly widely found in different parts of India and may simply avoid detection, so long as appropriate wooded habitat remains.

 

The spot-bellied eagle-owl is nocturnal and often spends its day hidden in the dense foliage of large forest trees. However, they have been observed on the move and even hunting during the day, especially in forests with minimal human disturbance. Their activity normally picks up at dusk as they begin to hunt. This species is generally uncommon, likely needing large hunting and breeding territories and thus occurs at low densities. However, it continues to occur over a large range and is not thought to be conservation dependent. Areas, where deforestation occurs, are likely to be vacated by this species, which is perhaps the only widespread threat faced by this owl.

Replacing an earlier digital photo with a better version 09-Apr-20.

 

Additional 'Official Airline CHOGM 2005 MT' titles (= 'Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting' 2005 Malta).

 

First flown with the Airbus test registration D-AVWQ. This aircraft was delivered to ILFC International Lease Finance Corporation and leased to Air Malta as 9H-AEG in Feb-04.

 

It was subleased to Skyservice Airlines Canada as C-GAEG in Dec-05, returning to Air Malta in Mar-06, and again between Oct-07/Apr-08. The aircraft was returned to the lessor in Dec-15 and stored at Shannon.

 

It was re-registered EI-FMT in Feb-16 and leased to Volotea Airlines a week later. It was re-registered EC-MTN in Dec-17. The aircraft was placed in temporary storage at Nantes, France in Mar-20 due to the COVID-19 Pandemic. It returned to service briefly in Oct-21 and was stored again until Feb-22. Current, updated 30-Sep-22.

Replacing an earlier scanned phoro with a better version, plus Topaz DeNoise AI 30-Jul-24.

 

Taken into a low sun on a misty Manchester Morning.

 

First flown as G-PRIN in Nov-89 as a standard B.Ae 146-200, this aircraft was converted to a 'QC' version with a main-deck cargo door in May-90 and delivered to Princess Air in Jun-90.

 

It was repossessed by British Aerospace in Feb-91 and re-registered G-6-148. It was leased to Air UK as G-BTIA in Mar-91 for 2 months, returning to British Aerospace in May-91.

 

It was leased to BAF British Air Ferries the following month. They briefly sub-leased it British Airways in Jun-92 before returning it to B.Ae in Sep-92. It was leased to Safair (South Africa) as ZS-NCB in Oct-92 and returned to B.Ae Asset Management in Feb-95.

 

The aircraft was stored until it was leased to Titan Airways as G-ZAPK in Apr-96. It was sub-leased to Meridiana in May-96 for 1 month and Titan Airways bought it in Feb-97.

 

As well as being used on Titan's own charter services it was leased to Jersey European Airways (Mar/Jun-97), CityJet (Jan/Dec-01), British Airways Citiexpress (Jun/Aug-02) and Scot Airways (May-05/Aug-06). It was retired by Titan in Nov-13 and stored.

 

It was due to be sold in Australia to Skyforce Aviation as VH-SJF but that didn't happen (Skyforce Aviation ceased operations in May-15 but was later rebranded as Pionair).

 

It remained stored until it was sold to Pionair Australia as VH-SAZ in Nov-17. Still in Titan Airway black livery with the orange sun and Pionair titles. The aircraft seems to operate intermittently and was parked at Cairns, QLD, Australia in Nov-21. It was back in service by Aug-22. Stored again, date unknown. Updated 29-Jul-24.

Replacing an earlier scanned photo with a better version 28-Jan-22 (DeNoise AI).

 

A very early Boeing 767-200 (line no:35), this aircraft first flew with the Boeing test registration N8289V. It was delivered to Ansett Airlines as VH-RMG in Aug-83. Ansett Airlines was renamed Ansett Australia in Jan-91.

 

In financial difficulties in Oct-01, Ansett grounded their Boeing 737 and 767 fleets (a limited operation was resumed in Nov-01 with around 5 A320's but operations ceased completely in Mar-02).

 

The aircraft was stored at Melbourne in Oct-01. It remained stored until it was sold to AeroTurbine Inc as N862AT in Feb-05.

 

After some maintenance it was ferried to Opa Locka, FL, USA in Mar-05 and permanently retired. The registration was cancelled in May-06 and the aircraft was broken up for spares.

The area that was to become West Palm Beach was settled in the late 1870s and 1880s by a few hundred settlers who called the vicinity "Lake Worth Country." These settlers were a diverse community from different parts of the United States and the world. They included founding families such at the Potters and the Lainharts, who would go on to become leading members of the business community in the fledgling city. The first white settlers in Palm Beach County lived around Lake Worth, then an enclosed freshwater lake, named for Colonel William Jenkins Worth, who had fought in the Second Seminole War in Florida in 1842. Most settlers engaged in the growing of tropical fruits and vegetables for shipment the north via Lake Worth and the Indian River. By 1890, the U.S. Census counted over 200 people settled along Lake Worth in the vicinity of what would become West Palm Beach. The area at this time also boasted a hotel, the "Cocoanut House", a church, and a post office. The city was platted by Henry Flagler as a community to house the servants working in the two grand hotels on the neighboring island of Palm Beach, across Lake Worth in 1893, coinciding with the arrival of the Florida East Coast railroad. Flagler paid two area settlers, Captain Porter and Louie Hillhouse, a combined sum of $45,000 for the original town site, stretching from Clear Lake to Lake Worth.

 

On November 5, 1894, 78 people met at the "Calaboose" (the first jail and police station located at Clematis St. and Poinsettia, now Dixie Hwy.) and passed the motion to incorporate the Town of West Palm Beach in what was then Dade County (now Miami-Dade County). This made West Palm Beach the first incorporated municipality in Dade County and in South Florida. The town council quickly addressed the building codes and the tents and shanties were replaced by brick, brick veneer, and stone buildings. The city grew steadily during the 1890s and the first two decades of the 20th century, most residents were engaged in the tourist industry and related services or winter vegetable market and tropical fruit trade. In 1909, Palm Beach County was formed by the Florida State Legislature and West Palm Beach became the county seat. In 1916, a new neo-classical courthouse was opened, which has been painstakingly restored back to its original condition, and is now used as the local history museum.

 

The city grew rapidly in the 1920s as part of the Florida land boom. The population of West Palm Beach quadrupled from 1920 to 1927, and all kinds of businesses and public services grew along with it. Many of the city's landmark structures and preserved neighborhoods were constructed during this period. Originally, Flagler intended for his Florida East Coast Railway to have its terminus in West Palm, but after the area experienced a deep freeze, he chose to extend the railroad to Miami instead.

 

The land boom was already faltering when city was devastated by the 1928 Okeechobee hurricane. The Depression years of the 1930s were a quiet time for the area, which saw slight population growth and property values lower than during the 1920s. The city only recovered with the onset of World War II, which saw the construction of Palm Beach Air Force Base, which brought thousands of military personnel to the city. The base was vital to the allied war effort, as it provided an excellent training facility and had unparalleled access to North Africa for a North American city. Also during World War II, German U-Boats sank dozens of merchant ships and oil tankers just off the coast of West Palm Beach. Nearby Palm Beach was under black out conditions to minimize night visibility to German U-boats.

 

The 1950s saw another boom in population, partly due to the return of many soldiers and airmen who had served in the vicinity during the war. Also, the advent of air conditioning encouraged growth, as year-round living in a tropical climate became more acceptable to northerners. West Palm Beach became the one of the nation's fastest growing metropolitan areas during the 1950s; the city's borders spread west of Military Trail and south to Lake Clarke Shores. However, many of the city's residents still lived within a narrow six-block wide strip from the south to north end. The neighborhoods were strictly segregated between White and African-American populations, a legacy that the city still struggles with today. The primary shopping district remained downtown, centered around Clematis Street.

 

In the 1960s, Palm Beach County's first enclosed shopping mall, the Palm Beach Mall, and an indoor arena were completed. These projects led to a brief revival for the city, but in the 1970s and 1980s crime continued to be a serious issue and suburban sprawl continued to drain resources and business away from the old downtown area. By the early 1990s there were very high vacancy rates downtown, and serious levels of urban blight.

 

Since the 1990s, developments such as CityPlace and the preservation and renovation of 1920s architecture in the nightlife hub of Clematis Street have seen a downtown resurgence in the entertainment and shopping district. The city has also placed emphasis on neighborhood development and revitalization, in historic districts such as Northwood, Flamingo Park, and El Cid. Some neighborhoods still struggle with blight and crime, as well as lowered property values caused by the Great Recession, which hit the region particularly hard. Since the recovery, multiple new developments have been completed. The Palm Beach Mall, located at the Interstate 95/Palm Beach Lakes Boulevard interchange became abandoned as downtown revitalized - the very mall that initiated the original abandonment of the downtown. The mall was then redeveloped into the Palm Beach Fashion Outlets in February 2014. A station for All Aboard Florida, a high speed passenger rail service serving Miami, Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach, and Orlando, is under construction as of July 2015.

 

Credit for the data above is given to the following website:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Palm_Beach,_Florida

 

© All Rights Reserved - you may not use this image in any form without my prior permission.

Replacing an earlier scanned photo with a better version 07-Nov-17.

 

Fleet No: '3059'.

 

Originally built as a DC-10-30CF with a main deck cargo door enabling it to carry passengers or cargo, this aircraft was delivered to World Airways as N109WA in Apr-80. It was sold to a lessor in Feb-82 and leased back to World.

 

It was sub-leased to Air Florida between Mar-83 and Jul-84. It was also sub-leased to Malaysia Airlines between Jul/Sep-85 for a Haj Pilgrimage operation. The aircraft was leased to United Airlines in Apr-86.

 

It was sold to United in Sep-86 and re-registered N1859U. In Mar-97 it was converted to a full freighter configuration and transferred to United Airlines Cargo.

 

The aircraft was retired by United in Dec-00 and initially stored at Marana, AZ, USA. It was moved to Roswell, NM, USA in Dec-01 and was due to be sold to Federal Express (N327FE assigned) but the deal fell through.

 

It was sold to a lessor in Aug-02 and leased to Brasmex (Brasil Minas Express) as PR-BME in Sep-02. It returned to the lessor in Feb-04 and was stored at Sao Paulo-Guarulhos.

 

The aircraft was re-registered N478CT in Nov-04 and ferried to Marana the following month for further storage. In Feb-05 it was leased to Arrow Air Cargo.

 

They ceased operations at the end of Jun-10 and the aircraft was returned to the lessor in Jul-10 and was stored at Opa-Locka, FL, USA. It never flew again and was broken up there in Apr-14.

Questa è la 4° foto e appartiene al progetto 52 weeks of stories - 4° sett Gennaio

 

Trainspotting, film del 1996 con Ewan McGregor, regia di Danny Boyle, tratto dall'omonimo libro di Irvine Welsh.

 

Scegliete la vita, scegliete un lavoro, scegliete una carriera, scegliete la famiglia, scegliete un maxitelevisore del cazzo, scegliete lavatrici, macchine, lettori cd e apriscatole elettrici.

Scegliete la buona salute, il colesterolo basso e la polizza vita, scegliete un mutuo a interessi fissi, scegliete una prima casa, scegliete gli amici, scegliete una moda casual e le valigie in tinta, scegliete un salotto di tre pezzi a rate e ricopritelo con una stoffa del cazzo, scegliete il fai da te e chiedetevi chi cacchio siete la domenica mattina, scegliete di sedervi sul divano a spappolarvi il cervello e lo spirito con i quiz mentre vi ingozzate di schifezze da mangiare.

Alla fine scegliete di marcire, di tirare le cuoia in uno squallido ospizio ridotti a motivo di imbarazzo per gli stronzetti viziati ed egoisti che avete figliato per rimpiazzarvi, scegliete un futuro, scegliete la vita.

Ma perché dovrei fare una cosa così?

Io ho scelto di non scegliere la vita, ho scelto qualcos'altro, le ragioni?

Non ci sono ragioni, chi ha bisogno di ragioni quando ha l'eroina? (Mark Renton)

 

Choose life; choose a job; choose a career; choose a family; choose a fucking big television, choose washing machines, cars, compact disk players and electrical tin openers; Choose good health, low cholesterol and dental insurance; choose fixed-interest mortgage repayments; choose a starter home; choose your friends; Choose leisurewear and matching luggage; Choose a three-piece suite on hire purchase in a range of fucking fabrics; choose DIY and wondering who the fuck you are on sunday morning; choose sitting on the couch watching mind numbing, spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing junk food into your mouth; choose rotting away at the end of it all, pishing your last in amiserable home nothing more than an embarassement to the selfish, fucked-up brats you spawned to replace yourself; choose your future; choose life. But why would i want to do a thing like that? I chose not to choose life: I chose something else. And the reasons? There are no reasons. Who needs reasons when you've got heroin? (Mark Renton)

 

Trainspotting, the 1996 movie starring Ewan McGregor, directed by Danny Boyle, based on the book by Irvine Welsh

Replacing an earlier scanned photo with a slightly better version, plus Topaz DeNoise AI 25-Mar-25. Not the best shot in the box but as I didn't get a better shot, it'll have to do...

 

Operated on behalf of Team Lufthansa by Contactair.

 

First flown with the Fokker test registration PH-EXN, this aircraft was delivered to DLT Deutsche Luftverkehrhesellschaft as D-AFKK in Dec-90 and operated on behalf of Lufthansa. DLT was re-named Lufthansa CityLine in Mar-92.

 

The aircraft continued to operate for Team Lufthansa. In May-96 it was leased to Contactair. Lufthansa CityLine bought it in Jan-99 while the lease to Contactair and operation for Team Lufthansa continued.

 

In Oct-03 Team Lufthansa became Lufthansa Regional, still operated by Contact Air. The aircraft was sold to Air Iceland as TF-JMO in Aug-04 and in late Jan-14 Air Iceland sold it to 'fly CAA', Democratic Republic of Congo as 9Q-CJB.

 

Sadly the aircraft was damaged beyond repair at Goma, DR Congo on 14-Jul-15 when the left main undercarriage collapsed during engine runs after maintenance. It was broken up at Goma in Dec-19.

This fly past was the only appearance of the Red Arrows during the 2016 Farnborough Airshow.

 

The Airbus A400M Atlas is a multi-national, four-engine turboprop military transport aircraft. It was designed by Airbus Military (now Airbus Defence and Space) as a tactical airlifter with strategic capabilities to replace older transport aircraft, such as the Transall C-160 and the Lockheed C-130 Hercules. The A400M is positioned, in terms of size, between the C-130 and the C-17; it can carry heavier loads than the C-130, while able to use rough landing strips. Along with the transport role, the A400M can perform aerial refuelling and medical evacuation when fitted with appropriate equipment. A real Thunderbird 2.

 

The A400M's maiden flight, originally planned for 2008, took place on 11 December 2009 from Seville, Spain. Between 2009 and 2010, the A400M faced cancellation as a result of development programme delays and cost overruns; however, the customer nations chose to maintain their support of the project. A total of 174 A400M aircraft had been ordered by eight nations by July 2011. In March 2013, the A400M received European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) certification. The first aircraft was delivered to the French Air Force in August 2013.

  

The Red Arrows, officially known as the Royal Air Force Aerobatic Team, is the aerobatics display team of the Royal Air Force based at RAF Scampton. The team was formed in late 1964 as an all-RAF team, replacing a number of unofficial teams that had been sponsored by RAF commands.

 

The Red Arrows have a prominent place in British popular culture, with their aerobatic displays a fixture of British summer events. The badge of the Red Arrows shows the aircraft in their trademark diamond nine formation, with the motto Éclat, a French word meaning "brilliance" or "excellence".

 

Initially, they were equipped with seven Folland Gnat trainers inherited from the RAF Yellowjacks display team. This aircraft was chosen because it was less expensive to operate than front-line fighters. In their first season, they flew at 65 shows across Europe. In 1966, the team was increased to nine members, enabling them to develop their Diamond Nine formation. In late 1979, they switched to the BAE Hawk trainer. The Red Arrows have performed over 4,700 displays in 56 countries worldwide.

 

The Farnborough International Airshow is a week-long event that combines a major trade exhibition for the aerospace and defence industries with a public airshow. The event is held in mid-July in even-numbered years at Farnborough Airport in Hampshire, United Kingdom. The first four days (Monday to Thursday) are dedicated exclusively to trade, with the final three days open to the public.

 

The airshow is an important event in the international aerospace and defence industry calendar, providing an opportunity to demonstrate civilian and military aircraft to potential customers and investors. The show is also used for the announcement of new developments and orders, and to attract media coverage. It is one of the largest air shows, after France's Salon du Bourget.

 

The UK show is organised by Farnborough International Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of ADS Group Limited (ADS). According to the organisers, the 2012 Farnborough show attracted 109,000 trade visitors over the first five days, and 100,000 public visitors during the weekend. Orders and commitments for 758 aircraft were announced, worth US$72 billion.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_A400M_Atlas

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Arrows

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farnborough_Airshow