Combo quiz - one of each type - 22nd Dec 2020

[whole diary]

[eightonedee]

1 is Southminster, Essex.  After some thought and detective work, helped by remembering my involvement professionally with one of the housing sites you can see!

[grahame]

1 is Southminster, Essex.  After some thought and detective work, helped by remembering my involvement professionally with one of the housing sites you can see!

Correct - quite a small town for a good service - unusually, runs every 40 minutes (I know of only one other line with a similar frequency).  I suspect the service is justified to this level as a dormitory town, and because of other towns and villages along the branch.

Open season - please post any remaining answers that you know ...

[TonyN]

12 Portsmouth and Southsea

15/12/71 A Hymek hauled Cardiff Portsmouth Harbour train ran into the back of a Victoria Portsmouth Harbour EMU^▸ (Electric Multiple Unit). Hymeks where not fitted with BR^▸ (British Rail(ways)) AWS^▸ (Automatic Warning System - an arrangement of permanent magnets and electro-magnets that convey information about the associated signal to the train driver) and this was criticised by the Inspector. Thet where replaced by Class 31s on this route shortly after this.

[stuving]

9. That's Claridge's London Hotel ... Taunton! Claridge had the hotel from 1900-1913, so it seems odd he was still using an advert referring to "new proprietorship" in 1911. Also, he was keen on motoring, as the picture shows - so it's a bit hard to see why it offers "stabling" but not car garaging. Did it come from a railway timetable, perhaps?

[stuving]

5. Coffee shop passenger forum *

* Other word orders are just about possible

[grahame]

9. That's Claridge's London Hotel ... Taunton! Claridge had the hotel from 1900-1913, so it seems odd he was still using an advert referring to "new proprietorship" in 1911. Also, he was keen on motoring, as the picture shows - so it's a bit hard to see why it offers "stabling" but not car garaging. Did it come from a railway timetable, perhaps?

Yes, and yes ... from Bradshaw, 1911

12 Portsmouth and Southsea

15/12/71 A Hymek hauled Cardiff Portsmouth Harbour train ran into the back of a Victoria Portsmouth Harbour EMU^▸ (Electric Multiple Unit). Hymeks where not fitted with BR^▸ (British Rail(ways)) AWS^▸ (Automatic Warning System - an arrangement of permanent magnets and electro-magnets that convey information about the associated signal to the train driver) and this was criticised by the Inspector. Thet where replaced by Class 31s on this route shortly after this.

Correct in place and source of data too.

5. Coffee shop passenger forum *

* Other word orders are just about possible

Yep ... I wonder how many people were looking for physical places 

[stuving]

Do you think the disassembled multitude are suffering from a bit of quiz fatigue? After all, from a picture a day last year, it's roughly a dozenfold jump in the QQ (question quantity) for this.

But another "easy" one is 13: Cruachan. Well, it's that wee loch with a dam across it, and then there's the airstrip just to the south ... hang on, that's in Loch Awe (or maybe the river)! So it's other of those water features, such as a pontoon for a fish farm.

[grahame]

Do you think the disassembled multitude are suffering from a bit of quiz fatigue? After all, from a picture a day last year, it's roughly a dozenfold jump in the QQ (question quantity) for this.

But another "easy" one is 13: Cruachan. Well, it's that wee loch with a dam across it, and then there's the airstrip just to the south ... hang on, that's in Loch Awe (or maybe the river)! So it's other of those water features, such as a pontoon for a fish farm.

"Falls of Cruachan" rather than "Cruachan", but, yes, it is.   The loch in the hill is part of the pumped water / stored power system which is used to generate power (and quickly) at times of peak need and then in essence turned into reverse when there's excess power on the grid to pump water back up again.   I'm not sure how much the level in the lower loch - Loch Awe - rises and falls during this operation, but I suspect the upper lochan sees dramatic changes.  There are one or two similar schemes in North Wales (Tan-y-grisiau and Dinorwic) and one due to open on 1st April next on Shippea Hill.

Quiz fatigue?   Maybe - massive subject I've been looking at (goes wider too); there has been a degree of syncronisation from day to day, but this particular quiz (22nd) that we're writing in was a last-minute stand-in - the "hot spare".     I have been looking at visitor numbers, poster numbers, numbers of different people answering the quizzes, looking at those that I would have expected to be easy and hard before they went live, etc.; more to follow as the remaining quiz data responses come in.   And I will look at that in a separate thread, and in the wider context of what's going in across the world, in the UK^▸ (United Kingdom), on GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) transport, and in many of our personal lives which has all been so different in 2020 that it's not realistic to use 2019 as a comparative / control in isloation.

[brooklea]

3 is, I believe, Melksham

[Oxonhutch]

8: I believe is Pwllheli with a direct (ex LNWR^▸ (London North Western Railway)) service from Euston via Bangor, and Afon Wen (now closed). Pothmadoc was similarly served using running rights secured over the old Cambrian Railways by the LNWR. Date 1964?

[TonyN]

4 Alston Branch?

[grahame]

8: I believe is Pwllheli with a direct (ex LNWR^▸ (London North Western Railway)) service from Euston via Bangor, and Afon Wen (now closed). Pothmadoc was similarly served using running rights secured over the old Cambrian Railways by the LNWR. Date 1964?

You are so close - just a shilling from the bullseye!

4 Alston Branch?

It isn't, Tony ... it's something (even) more unconventional

[Oxonhutch]

You are so close - just a shilling from the bullseye!

Then I shall revise it for Penychain - the Butlin's holiday camp east of Pwllheli

[Oxonhutch]

Oh, and as 15 is a binary question, I am going for 'something else'.

Commodore pet 64 (1978) taught me everything ...

[bobm]

Oh, and as 15 is a binary question, I am going for 'something else'.

Commodore pet 64 (1978) taught me everything ...

Fond memories.  Was the spark on which I founded my business.  Wrote a program in Locomotive Basic to work out football league tables and other stats.  Remember what a revelation it was when a chip came out which speeded up how quickly it stored data to the cassette tapes.   I sometimes wish I had moved on to other programming languages but could never find the time.   Fast forward a few years and Graham could have taught me - in the same way he got me up to speed on website design.