Great Western Coffee Shop

Pot Pourri - Please try just one question each for the first 24 hours (Stuving put it so much better yesterday than I do on telling you that you can have another go if you get your first one wrong) Can you identify ...

1. A recent ariel view - Southminster - eightonedee
(http://www.wellho.net/pix/eve_20_01.jpg)

2. An old map - Morar - eightonedee
(http://www.wellho.net/pix/eve_20_10.jpg)

3. A picture - Melksham - brooklea
(http://www.wellho.net/pix/eve_20_07.jpg)

4. A timetable
(http://www.wellho.net/pix/eve_20_06.jpg)

5. An Anagram - where am I if I'm at the "megaphone profuse scoffers"
Coffee shop passenger forum - Stuving

6. A modern Map
"Kolari" or "Yllasjokisuu" - eightonedee
(http://www.wellho.net/pix/eve_20_08.jpg)

7. A metro Schematic - Zurich - Stuving
(http://www.wellho.net/pix/eve_20_02.jpg)

8. An ABC description - Penychain - Oxonhutch
(http://www.wellho.net/pix/eve_20_05.jpg)

9. A hotel advert from 1911 - Taunton - Stuving
(http://www.wellho.net/pix/eve_20_03.jpg)

10. I am at Dog inland not pond [London Paddington].
How many of these stations can I get a direct train to? Answered by Oxonhutch
** Hut my Woe - Weymouth
** Gears Wink - Kingswear
** Chalk foot mud - Falmouth Dock
King unseal - Gunnislake
* Bridal Yarns - Barry Island
*** Reset Superwoman - Weston-super-mare
** Afraid rough shrub - Fishguard Harbour
Cheap placable rulebooks - Blackpool Pleasure Beach
** House and stone - Southend on Sea
Pointy gremlin - Lymington Pier
Hippies Hall - Shippea Hill
Borrowed snug tit - Stourbridge Town

*** - through services today
** - through services in the past
* - MIGHT have been a through carriage??

11. A description of somewhere with a railway connection - but of where?
Ffarquhar  - Hal. (Isle of Sodor / Thomas the Tank Engine)

The oldest part of the village stands astride the xxxxxx road. In the troubled times of xxxxxx  a fort stood here as an outpost for xxxxxx Castle. Following the acceptance of Henry IV as Overlord in 1404, the fort fell into disuse, and little remains except the hillock on which it once stood. It is still called "The Fort". Some of the older houses in the village are built from its masonry.  St Finan's church, which mainly dates from the thirteenth century, has a circular tower of a much earlier date and was massively built. It cannot be entered except by a ladder from inside the church, and seems to have been intended as a peel or tower of refuge.

12. Where is this? Portsmouth and Southsea - TonyN
(http://www.wellho.net/pix/eve_20_04.jpg)

13. A Station aree plan - Falls of Cruachan - Stuving
(http://www.wellho.net/pix/eve_20_09.jpg)

14. A railway line - Firsby - TonyN
(http://www.wellho.net/pix/eve_20_11.jpg)

15. The sky at night - or something else?? - something else - Oxonhutch
(others welcome to add a more specific answer)  ;D
Lincolnshire - stuving
(http://www.wellho.net/pix/eve_20_12.jpg)

14 Former Junction at Firsby Lincolnshire

7. The city is Zurich. I ought to have recognised its layout, having been there not so long ago ... but didn't.

So most of those "Metro" lines are trams and buses, with just a few S-Bahn lines (drawn narrower) and no U-Bahn.

It is - readable plan at https://www.zvv.ch/zvv-assets/fahrplan/pdf/stadt_zuerich.pdf from which this is a sample:
(http://www.wellho.net/pix/zurmap.jpg)
Good to see the various modes of transport on the same map - "people don't really mind if it's a train, a tram or a bus when they're going between places" paraphrases a comment I read. 


Yes - an astonishing journey.   Hammering across the flat lands of Lincolnshire, your train slows down in the middle of no-where and goes around this incredibly tight corner ... before accelerating away again.   It strikes me that perhaps the cheapest solution possible was chosen when it was realised that the train service to Skegness was still required ...
(http://www.wellho.net/pix/fircur.jpg)

10: Only One:- Reset Superwoman

And there's more - boats on the Zurichsee, though on the degraded version you can't really see the ones along the Limmat. I hadn't spotted those, but oddly I had noticed how the river junction (of the Sihl and the Limmat) curves the "wrong way", without deducing anything useful from it. That too should have been helpful; the fact that the Limmat flows out of the Zurichsee never did feel quite right somehow.

You are correct and very quick!   Did you identify all places?

P.S. I believe that at one time, six of the places could ave been reached in through carriages ...

All except Chalk Food Mud which might be one of those six - I might see if that clue helps me - but then again, Hut My Woe might be the one. Further research required! :)

Background research ...

(http://www.wellho.net/pix/replacefoodwithfoot.jpg)

Big apology - please replace "Food" with "Foot" ... "Chalk Foot Mud" it should have been.   Totally my error ... sorry.

I think I have got it, but as far as I can see, one of these objects needs to be plural. Mud is already a collective noun, Feet won't work so it has to be Chalks.

And it might be one of the six - still doing my research.

Modified to add, if I am right about the above, - it is one of the six!

Yes - I have checked back and in this particular case it's a plural - there are other stations with a singular.    There are five very clear, a further one which is certain but will come as a surprise to many youngsters not aware of the history and another that I would describe as plausible, but I have no evidence it actually happened.  TV evidence suggests that in recent times there was a direct coach run by Dave - a local independent operator.

11 is Ffarquhar (Thomas the Tank Engine)

Yes, it is - https://ttte.fandom.com/wiki/Ffarquhar and https://ttte.fandom.com/wiki/Ffarquhar_Branch_Line

2 is around Morar on the last stretch of the West Highland into Mallaig

Yes - and I have updated the original post to "cut in" the answers so far.  And here are the answers to the anagrams in question 10 (where the starter was London Paddington).  Clearly all worked out by Oxonhutch (who correctly identified which anagram was / is incorrecly set up ...

** Hut my Woe - Weymouth
** Gears Wink - Kingswear
** Chalks foot mud - Falmouth Docks
King unseal - Gunnislake
* Bridal Yarns - Barry Island
*** Reset Superwoman - Weston-super-mare
** Afraid rough shrub - Fishguard Harbour
Cheap placable rulebooks - Blackpool Pleasure Beach
** House and stone - Southend on Sea
Pointy gremlin - Lymington Pier
Hippies Hall - Shippea Hill
Borrowed snug tit - Stourbridge Town

*** - through services today
** - through services in the past
* - MIGHT have been a through carriage??

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 ...

12 Portsmouth and Southsea

15/12/71 A Hymek hauled Cardiff Portsmouth Harbour train ran into the back of a Victoria Portsmouth Harbour EMU. Hymeks where not fitted with BR AWS and this was criticised by the Inspector. Thet where replaced by Class 31s on this route shortly after this.

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?
(https://files.widgetic.com/file/widgetic-uploads/weebly/image-loupe/6324851/jvh0znrk-22mz9c6.jpg)

5. Coffee shop passenger forum *

* Other word orders are just about possible

Yes, and yes ... from Bradshaw, 1911

(http://www.wellho.net/pix/1911_tau.jpg)


Correct in place and source of data too.


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

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, on GWR 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.

3 is, I believe, Melksham

8: I believe is Pwllheli with a direct (ex LNWR) 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?

4 Alston Branch?

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


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

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

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.

And be correct - 5p off each fare, and a few minutes off the journeys


You are correct, it is something else!

Reminds me of someone coming up and saying "Can I ask you a question" and me answering "You just have done, so it appears you can".

Reminds me of the programming specialist who was sent out by his partner to get a litre of milk.

"... oh and by the way, if they have eggs, please get me a dozen".

He arrives home with twelve litres of milk.

"What the actual !?", she asks ...

"They had eggs"

I assume that 6 is from the OPNVKarte layer of OpenStreet Map. Not sure how I would query the non-British road numbers to narrow it down.

Christmas is a festive in the far, far, far north and this is a festive quiz.  If you start looking at the very top, it shouldn't take long.

Ok - here's the answer to the most obscure of these (no6) - it's that well-known Finnish settlement of Yllasjokisuu (don't ask me to pronounce that). Possibly it's a Santa experience destination.

Really obscure fact to give you - both Finnish Highway no 21 and the railway shown start at their southern end in Tornio (I have actually been there!), which is twinned with our very own Devizes - is there an extra mince pie for that ;D!

Is number 15 what is currently the Tier 4 Lorry Park? (with the Southeast London suburbs at the top left and the green blob at the bottom right being Dover Priory)


John

Or how about ... No. 15: Lincolnshire?

And what does blob size/colour represent? Presumably it's station usage figures, though I guess some other readily available per-station dataset might have been involved.

I was intrigued by Grahame apparently choosing a station in Finland with no apparent claim to fame. Further investigation on Google and Google maps reveals that the station is Kolari station - the northern-most in Finland. The main town of Kolari lies a little to the south-east. It does not look like a terminus because the railway continues north, then divides with both branches ending up at what appear to be quarries.

So I think the answer Grahame is looking for is "Kolari".

For those without a map of Lincolnshire in front of them (or a very good visual memory):
 Skegness is on the far right, with its tail of station curving up to the prettily-named Thorpe Culvert.
 That line goes to Boston, next big blob to the south-west.
 Upper right is Grimsby/Cleethorpes, with a diagonal line leading south-west via Lincolo, Newark, Nottingham.
 And west from Grimsby is via Barnetby, Scunthorpe, and into Yorkshire via Doncaster.

So yes, a bit more than just Lincolnshire.

"Kolari" was what I was looking for; "Yllasjokisuu" is also correct - I looked that up soon after you posted it but then spent many interving hours in an online conference (yes, really, Christmas Eve!) before getting back here.

Kolari was an early "Save the Train" comparator being - as far as I could tell - just one of two railway stations in Europe who's train service called eniirely in the dark during the winter.  The other (after December 2006 service decimation) was Melksham ...

Part of http://new.passenger.chat/map/_DFBGABBCAA.jpg ...  from within http://new.passenger.chat/better/map.html when certain of the options at the base of the map (to change map and features) are selected. Labelling major stations is in the next phase of work on this

Surprising how similar it can look to Kent, though, with the big conglomeration in the top left corner for London (as opposed to West Yorkshire) to that was a good guess!

Here's the solution to the final question - the timetable

(http://www.wellho.net/pix/rattytt.jpg)

"Incredibly", the Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway ran a passenger service all year to bring people who lived in Eskdale to Ravenglass for work and perhaps education ... but then, why not - it should not be incredible.  I think there was a school train on the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch too and both have me asking "if the tiny trains can do it, why not certain standard gauge lines".

I can now vagley remember having seen something in Railway mag about school trains on the Ratty.

Is this from the all line timetable and what year is the timetable from?

ABC Rail Guide, October, 1967. A fascinating document (to me, though perhaps not to other!!). Two pages of minor railways showing the embryo of the heritage rail movement, and the final one that ran under a British Rail flag.

(http://www.wellho.net/pix/abc_67_cover.jpg)

(http://www.wellho.net/pix/abc_67_140_1.jpg)

(http://www.wellho.net/pix/abc_67_140_2.jpg)

Thanks for that
Amazing to see the Bluebell where running at weekends in November that early on.

The BEA advert on the front cover also brings back memories of my school trip to Heathrow in 1967. Through Hymek hauled school charter train from Cheltenham Malvern road to Windsor Central.