Out of Office quiz - September 2019

[whole diary]

[GBM]

There's quite a bit of fat on that meat!

[grahame]

There's quite a bit of fat on that meat!

Indeed - but (should I admit) I personally don't like my meat too lean or dry.   Pictures in the month's out of office quiz reflect on transport related items - and this (believe it or not) is the food available at a Bus Station.  We had the best American Pancakes way back in 2000 in the Day's Inn in Vancouver - still remember that. The wonderful bowl of food in the picture is, thank goodness, much closer to home.

[johnneyw]

I walked past this noodle bar by Bath Spa Bus Station yesterday on a rather jolly day out exploring a bit more just south of the city.

I remembered you mentioned some surprisingly good nosebag at a bus station once and it didn't take long to find the thread with that very picture.

[grahame]

I walked past this noodle bar by Bath Spa Bus Station yesterday on a rather jolly day out exploring a bit more just south of the city.

I remembered you mentioned some surprisingly good nosebag at a bus station once and it didn't take long to find the thread with that very picture.

Totally correct - please help keep it a secret as it's pretty busy and we want to be able to get in when we get back. Some good food on this trip, but the only thing that can close to the "superb" at the Bus Station was the pancakes  at Junior's just off Time Square.

Let's see what I have for today - a late posting as we recover from New York!

[JayMac]

The scrolling display looks like it has Bow Brickhill partly showing. So you were in a London Northwestern Railway Class 230 (former Underground D78 Stock) on the Marston Vale Line between Bletchley and Bedford.

[johnneyw]

The scrolling display looks like it has Bow Brickhill partly showing. So you were in a London Northwestern Railway Class 230 (former Underground D78 Stock) on the Marston Vale Line between Bletchley and Bedford.

Binkin' flip, that's detective stuff. New prime time crime series, Inspector BNM? Get an agent.

[grahame]

Yesterday's correct identified as a D78 running from Bedford to Bletchley, next station Bow Brickhill.

[grahame]

Will post follow ups later - greeting from Bar Harbour, Maine.  Land of the queueing tourist!!

[grahame]

Yesterday's ...



Today's



What was supposed to be a day at sea between St John (New Brunswick) and Sydney (Nova Scotia, Cape Breton Island) has been modified with an extra short port call into Halifax, this afternoon, to disembark a passenger who's been taken ill and needs specialist hospital treatment.    Good on the decision made by the operator to make this diversion; very much the sort of public (?) transport disruption which we all appreciate the need for and thoroughly understand.

The Sydney visit is still on for tomorrow - briefest of pauses, I suspect, in Halifax and most of the time will be made up by cranking the engines.  Then at sea until early on Tuesday next week, when I hope to hit the ground running.

[Rob on the hill]

Yesterday's: Warminster (visit to Imber?).

[Merthyr Imp]

Today's is the National Railway Museum.

[Adelante_CCT]

Then at sea until early on Tuesday next week, when I hope to hit the ground running.

Is that a good thing to say whilst out at sea?

[grahame]

Warminster and National Railway Museum are both correct

Into the final week of the quiz ... not a view that I'll be seeing today!

[JayMac]

Well, that's the excellent Milton Keynes Central.

[grahame]

Looking back through quiz pictures I have posted this month (and to quiz pictures waiting in the wings for the next few days), I'm noting 7 out of the 31 were / are not of rail locations, but rail meetings I have attended in the very recent past.

4th – Bristol – GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) Community Rail Conference
7th – Semington – Melksham Rail User Group
12th – Darlington – Railfuture bi-Annual conference
18th – Norton Fitzwarren – Railfuture, supporting Bristol Branch
21st – Dilton Marsh – Railfuture Bristol Branch AGM^▸ (Annual General Meeting)
22nd – Westbury – updating Westbury Town Council on upcoming transport issues
One more to come over the next few days.

Other pictures are from journeys to or from these various events – today's from Milton Keynes, for example, was from a journey up there for a Railfuture specialist group meeting, and the Taunton picture at the start of the month (2nd) and the Westbury room on 10th were from TravelWatch SouthWest meetings.

I can't help but notice that these "meeting" pictures stick around and aren't placed for far longer than the location pictures.  And I suppose that's natural because there's actually quite a small pool of activists involved / often the same people.  And that's at both the public meeting pictures I have posted and the meetings in York, Swindon, Bristol, Taunton, Melksham, Milton Keynes, Trowbridge and perhaps other places that have been 'select group / invite' and that I have not photographed or posted.

When I get back, I need to hit the ground running.  I'm in Telford on Thursday, Melksham on Sunday, Dublin from Tuesday to Thursday and London on Friday, Swindon (daytime) and Melksham (evening) the following Wednesday and Taunton that Friday.  Somewhere in there I need to add a day in Swansea or Coatbridge, and prepare for a Birmingham presentation later in the month.

You'll note that three of my pictures were RailFuture, and that one of my upcoming October events is too. I continue to believe that there is very much a place for an organisation that brings together individuals and local campaign groups looking for a bigger and better railway across the whole of Great Britain, and that at present there is only Railfuture of any significant size in that arena. Next month, I'm into the sixth month of my one year term as a director there, and already I'm looking forward at their extended process of elections and deciding whether or not to retire without looking to stand again, or to stand for a further term.

I have learned a very great deal during and since the election process for the current year, and have concluded that although I see an organisation I'll continue to promote, a continuing directorship there for the 2020 to 2021 year isn't really my thing, and that the board would be far better served by someone who's not holding down a part-time job away from the rail industry [I recon on doing about 24 hours a week on IT work].  And I can list other characteristics I lack and I think they need too.  So I won't be standing again.

Not all bad news, though. Candidates for the RailFuture board are constrained during the election period (from submission of statement in the new year to closing of voting in May) from communicating in many ways with members in a way that will promote their position / reputation.  A period of purdah designed to give equal weight to call candidates whether or nor they're good at things like social media to a very thinly but widely spread electorate.   It's designed to make the playing field level.  By not standing again, I can (and will) work to help co-ordinate branches and skills – a role I have been assigned - from a launch at the Branches and Groups day in late October.   And that's an eight month activity that I can undertake, secure in the knowledge that it can't be seen as electioneering beyond the rules.