Michael Ashworth
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clive BRretired posted an update 2 weeks ago
2 weeks ago (edited)
(Leaf litter) Early morning ‘first train’ out might sometimes see me climbing down to our cabs lower step! Wheels spinning (Lack of adhesion), A little sand in our cabs bucket in my left hand! Invariably the wheels would bite at 5mph? ‘Ive got it’ shouts my driver! Its just the same old areas when leaf litter would fall! All locos had a…
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clive BRretired posted an update 3 weeks ago
(Horses for courses) I had several of the Riddle 4Mt sorts! 80037, 41, and 64, to memory? But the 82 standard 3Mt sort being allowed to be cut up with not one survivor beats me! Not very old? Not too many miles? And a very nice in between engine that would replace or merge in with the M7 or Ivatt 2Mt beauties! On branchline work i would have…
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clive BRretired posted an update 3 weeks ago
Those steam engines i would see in Ghana and Nigeria back in 1970 were large normal gauge ones! The one that fascinated me was the Hudswell Clarke built in Leeds (but only 2ft gauge)! Built for the Allied troops in the 1st world war it later worked in the goldmines of Ghana! But derailed and fell into a river killing its driver! Its now…
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clive BRretired posted an update 3 weeks ago
(Gold for a President) Well! With gold still $2737 an oz i don’t think the world awaited our Budget result? So over £2130 an oz the gold they seem to trip over in the Australian outback must be USA inspired? I would suffer the bloodless loss of General Gowan, But Murtala Muhammid was nice bloke? President Jimmy Carter turns up! So it…
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I did’nt head this very well? It covers my years working in West Africa installing water filtration and distribution works from early 1970s! Poor water would mean a long walk with a heavy container! General Muhammid now has an international airport named after him! (Formally Lagos Ikedja)
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clive BRretired posted an update 3 weeks ago
(All’s ship shape) In return for a neighbour hanging me over nearby cliffs for seagull eggs when i was a kid, He would lend his wife’s pram for me to get coke from the (street lighting) gas works! And later, I would get that very coal with my BR Ivatt engine at the port /docks, Cant remember if coal imported or Welsh coal come round lands end…
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Nuclear missiles offered to Cuba! So beer n fags go up in budget? So nothing changed much really?
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clive BRretired posted an update 3 weeks ago
3 weeks ago (edited)
(A quick yarn)? Then i ‘shut up’ promise? Saw a GW Hall 6990 somewhere on here? One of my engines on Barrow road shed (Bristol). In fact one of the many i would take to scrap all through 1965 and leave at Severn tunnel jct sidings for the scrapyard! From my footplate i felt like some past band leader! My live pulling engine would hammer out…
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clive BRretired posted an update 3 weeks ago
Ive taken this picture of Clan line from an old video of mine! (Where you ‘still’ the picture and take ‘A frame’)? Its last carriage is where the new Marsh Barton station now stands on the GW Penzance line! You can see by the track distance that it was once 7ft Broad gauge, (Until 1892). And Atmospheric propulsion for a while of course!
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clive BRretired posted an update 3 weeks ago
Dawn, And clouds of seagull fly upriver and inland to herald the first working day since the clocks went back!
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clive BRretired posted an update 4 weeks ago
(crazy nuts) Last week i said Gold gone crazy! Now its nuts with trouble in Iran! (and its implications with the oil price), But Gold now £2124 an oz? But that’s not why i write, Because up the shop for my newspaper and i bump into 80 Japanese students! I must of said good morning forty times? Friendly bunch, But got me thinking that if we…
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clive BRretired posted an update 4 weeks ago
(Good fireman never die)! Wonder how they fared long ago? Steam died a death end of 1965! My firing days at Bristol slowly diminished! Dirty overalls on diesel Western Prince etc! The dear old 800 Warship! (My bull nosed Bentley)? The faithful 7000 Hymek? (17 n 18 still about). And them peak things that didnt ever get excited? Throb throb and…
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