Advent quiz 2019

[whole diary]

[martyjon]

21.3 Standing alongside a Cross Country Voyager 

[grahame]

21.1 is Calne with the DMU^▸ (Diesel Multiple Unit) just departing towards Chippenham.

Yes it is and , my goodness that was quick.

Calne was at the end of a branch from Chippenham. What has struck me as I've looked at it over the years is just how quickly it appears to have gone from a pretty significant freight operation and good passenger timetable (but I don't know how busy the trains were) to closure.   Different times - but perhaps a warning if we end up in other different times - of how fast things can turn around.

Others here may well have fuller information and knowledge of the Calne branch and other Wiltshire lines which closed around 50 years ago.

[martyjon]

Calne was a casualty of Beeching.

[Oxonhutch]

What has struck me as I've looked at it over the years is just how quickly it appears to have gone from a pretty significant freight operation and good passenger timetable (but I don't know how busy the trains were) to closure.   Different times - but perhaps a warning if we end up in other different times - of how fast things can turn around.

Others here may well have fuller information and knowledge of the Calne branch and other Wiltshire lines which closed around 50 years ago.

Adrian Vaughan in his 'Signalling Reflections' covers the Calne branch in quite some detail. The biggest freight customer was Harris's Pork Pies who shipped all of their products by rail until a prolonged and damaging rail strike in the late 1950s - you can see their vans in the goods yard. This saw a transfer to road haulage to the detriment of rail.  There were also two large RAF^▸ (Royal Air Force) stations served by Calne which subsequently closed chopping a lot of the passenger traffic.

[martyjon]

21.3 Standing alongside a Cross Country Voyager 

OK. I'll be more precise.

21.3 Standing alongside a Cross Country Voyager at a station with at least one derelict platform face on a curve and its not Taunton cos that stations unused platform face is straight 

[grahame]

21.3 Standing alongside a Cross Country Voyager 

OK. I'll be more precise.

21.3 Standing alongside a Cross Country Voyager at a station with at least one derelict platform face on a curve and its not Taunton cos that stations unused platform face is straight 

You are correct as far as you go but I would like you to go as far as mentioning specific station. Clearly, your description eliminates stations all the way from Sugar Loaf to Waterloo from Exeter St. Thomas to Dingwall, but still leaves plenty of choice.

[martyjon]

I well remember motoring to and from home and Slough before the M4 days when I was on a sandwich course at Slough College sponsored by ICI Paints Division in the town passing RAF^▸ (Royal Air Force) Yatesbury on the A4 which was a Radio / Radar Training Establishment.

Yes, Harris's, famous for their pork pies but also for their sausages and bacon. When Marks and Spencers moved into the food business almost all off their offerings were marketed under the St. Micheal brand. Harris's products were some of the finest products available in the field and so much wanted by M & S to be on their shelves but Harris's would only allow this on the condition that they (Harris's) could be accredited on the packaging with wording such as 'Produced and Packed for Marks and Spencers by Harris's of Calne'/

[martyjon]

You are correct as far as you go but I would like you to go as far as mentioning specific station. Clearly, your description eliminates stations all the way from Sugar Loaf to Waterloo from Exeter St. Thomas to Dingwall, but still leaves plenty of choice.

But I am abiding by the rules as I have already correctly guessed a couple including Altnabraec when all seemed lost. In todays case I honestly haven't a clue at the moment but I'll eliminate another station that XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)) serves with a derelict platform. Newton Abbot but that stations derelict platform face is straight too and at the wrong end of the piccy. 

[froome]

You are correct as far as you go but I would like you to go as far as mentioning specific station. Clearly, your description eliminates stations all the way from Sugar Loaf to Waterloo from Exeter St. Thomas to Dingwall, but still leaves plenty of choice.

But I am abiding by the rules as I have already correctly guessed a couple including Altnabraec when all seemed lost. In todays case I honestly haven't a clue at the moment but I'll eliminate another station that XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)) serves with a derelict platform. Newton Abbot but that stations derelict platform face is straight too and at the wrong end of the piccy. 

It is worth remembering that Cross Country have been serving some stations they wouldn't normally serve during recent engineering work diversions. But I have no idea if that is applicable in this case.

[SandTEngineer]

20.2 As nobody has guessed correctly I will.  1970.  I know that coz I was there (its my photograph)

[brooklea]

21.3 Hazarding a guess with Newquay

[grahame]

21.3 Hazarding a guess with Newquay

Correct

[grahame]

Saturday, 22nd December 2018 - the Coffee Shop Advent Quiz.

22.1 - Where was this picture taken?

21.2 - And in which year?

22.3 Where was this picture taken?

22.4 Care to guess when it was taken?

[ellendune]

22.2 Herras fencing and shipping container in the background suggests very recently

[Oxonhutch]

22.1-2 Porthmadoc 2016