Great Western Coffee Shop

Today is 25th December - first day of Christmas.  Can you identify these "12 days of Christmas pictures.  I doubt members will have much else to do today so, please, just one each until midnight!

1.
(http://www.wellho.net/pix/bw12x01.jpg)

2.
(http://www.wellho.net/pix/bw12x02.jpg)

3.
(http://www.wellho.net/pix/bw12x03.jpg)

4.
(http://www.wellho.net/pix/bw12x04.jpg)

5.
(http://www.wellho.net/pix/bw12x05.jpg)

6.
(http://www.wellho.net/pix/bw12x06.jpg)

7.
(http://www.wellho.net/pix/bw12x07.jpg)

8.
(http://www.wellho.net/pix/bw12x08.jpg)

9.
(http://www.wellho.net/pix/bw12x09.jpg)

10.
(http://www.wellho.net/pix/bw12x10.jpg)

11.
(http://www.wellho.net/pix/bw12x11.jpg)

12.
(http://www.wellho.net/pix/bw12x12.jpg)

I'm off (after. quick coffee) to peel the carrots and to two Christmas Dinners ... so responses today will be a little slower than usual, but I'll be around. Should any members be at a loose end then please do drop in at the Assembly Hall lunch at (err) the Melksham Assembly Hall at the conventional time, or at "ours" at 4 p.m. to join the cast of our friends and family with 4 continents represented already.

No 4 Looks like a train emerging from the west portal of the Redcliffe tunnel on the Redcliffe Tunnel at Guinea Street in Bristol with the General Hospital Building as a background.  The loco is on the Bathurst Basin Swing Bridge. 

12 Weynouth Tramway, corner of Commercial Road with Westham Road

3 - Crescent Quay, Wexford.

Thanks Grahame for all your efforts putting this and you advent quizzes together. Thanks also for today's double helping of pannier tanks - a real Great Western treat!

1: Platform 1 at Douglas, IoM. The Donegal railcars, nos 19/20, about to depart for Peel on the west coast of the island.

This photo is early on in their use as parcels and small goods are being loaded into a covered goods wagon attached to the rear of the consist. At Peel, the short headshunt meant that these goods wagons could not be run around for the return journey - which was not a major problem as the goods and parcel flow was mainly east to west and a siding was installed at Peel where the wagon would be backed in and left.

The wagons built up in the siding until a steam loco was sent to collect them as it could run-around them for the return. Later a specially modified light goods wagon was permanently inserted between the two railcars and the brand new siding fell quickly into disuse.

Peel was our summer holiday destination in the 1960s and 70s and I distinctly remember two steam trips across the island from Peel to Douglas and back by train.  We avoided the diesels, which is a shame as they are now historic vehicles too.  I explored the station at Peel extensively after closure and discovered the strange siding shortly before all track was lifted in 1973. Only recently I found out what it was for.

9. Newquay (harbour!)

I nearly said Pontsticill for 10!  But it's not.

You're right, it's not ... I can see strong similarities (based on what little I know of that line) but geographically it's a long way from there!

Correctly identified so far:
1: Douglas, IoM - OxonHutch
3: Wexford - eightonedee
4: Brisol Docks / Floating Harbour - ellendune
9: Newquay - old original
12: Weymouth - bradshaw

11 Chur?  featuring the Arosa service?

10: Maine Narrow Gauge Railroad, Portland, Maine. Graham visited on his North American cruise a couple of years back.

Now I look more closely the Words "Maine Narr..." on the rear carriage might have been a bit of a giveaway. 

Oops!

I reckon 8 is the FEVE platforms of Oviedo station. In which case the photo, for all that colourlessness lends an air of age, is recent.

Ah - you have twigged me.  The picture was taken just under 75 days ago.

 5 is at Keynsham with the cl 25 loco on the start of the short goods line to Fry’s Somerdale  Chocolate factory.
Rail traffic ceased in 1980 and the factory closed in 2011 with the factory then demolished and in its place a large housing development has been built.

6.  Reminds me of the U3 on Monkedamm between Rodingsmarkt and Baumwall in Hamburg.  It certainly looks similar but it's been a few years now.

Have you realised that no. 6 is another "oops"? That cute little train has "Hochbahn" on its nose, strongly implying it's it's running on Hamburg U3. Here it's descending from Rödingsmarkt into a swamp at Mönkedamm. I think this section is now open again, having been closed last year for rebuilding (of the swamp).

Just two remain to be identified.   Correct answers so far:

1: Douglas, IoM - OxonHutch
2:
3: Wexford - eightonedee
4: Brisol Docks / Floating Harbour - ellendune
5: Keynsham - AMLAG
6: Hamburg - johnneyw and stuving
7:
8: Oviedo - stuving
9: Newquay - old original
10: Portland, Main - OxonHutch and ellendune
11: Chur - PhilWakely
12: Weymouth - bradshaw

7.  Forth Worth, Texas.

Texas for sure - maybe Fort Worth for all I would know

2: Gela.

Indeed - on Scicily.  And that's the final place identified. In the 1 black and whites of Christmas.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6BwZ-4yumM&t=38s&ab_channel=CBSSundayMorning

You might think a little old railmotor like that had been pottering about on Sicily since it was built in the 80s. But no - part of the process of locating it was finding a report* that it moved from Treviso to Catania in May this year, and then started operating between Gela and Siracusa. And Treviso is up north of Venice!

*on a site that keeps track of the hundreds of these ALn 668 things: you find those railway enthusiasts everywhere! 

Fascinating ... I had arrived in Gela on this service from Siracusa and it had felt like it was out of the ark and had been there for ever. We left Siracusa full and standing and lost passengers along the way until there were just a handful of us by Gela.  We lost time along the way as we interacted with engineering works, then waited in  a loop for a train coming the other way so that it could maintain time and connections (there were no immediate onward connections off our train, so it was logical to delay it further).  The conductor advised us that we woud be at that intermediate unstaffed statioon for a while, and that we would make sure to call us back before it left (rail-aware, I had my ear and eyes open for the train coming the other way anyway).   It's that friendliness and locallity of single car trains - no "mass" of mass transit that makes longer trains impersonal - that brings a love for this sort of train / service.

I suppose we should not be surprised at the movement of these things around a nation.  153s that were familiar to us in Melksham will turn up now at Fishguard or Crewe, and there's five of them in the West Highlands. We outgrew the 153s at Melksham and that's really a good thing - the economics of maintaing a line just for a single 153 are dubious but there is still a historic love for what Casper and his friends brought us.   Casper would be welcome back to provide a "contra" service - leaving Swindon ten minutes after the tine the grown up train leaves Westbury, and leaving Westbury ten minutes before the grown up train leaves Swindon.