Moment of Foment

Eric Schmidt ~ who effectively sponsored this platform ~ recently said that the one thing he missed during the search revolution was the fact that phone numbers were ever likely to be the key to ongoing social mediation; chances are the man inventing the phone 150 years ago didn't anticipate that either.

I've worked in foam for decades and always felt it was a contender... and nowadays most of the experimental builds featuring on YouTube (thanks again Eric) are rarely pursued without expanded plastic foam of one kind or another.

This one, in Germany I'm guessing, carries paper aeroplane modelling to extremes however. It's not truly flat like something we'd assemble from jig-sawed templates in balsa, but it's not far off.

This pic best illustrates, as you can see that XPS sheet (like Depron) has been glued to each side of a framework that in view of its complexity is likely CNC or laser-cut.

Designed nominally as an indoor flyer, given the scale it's inaugural flight took place outdoors, as seen here.

What also made it possible that I didn't foresee ~ though no-one driving Teslas saw it either ~ was how electric motors would drive experimentation even moreso than materials.

Bad boy! Bad, bad boy!

(Ed. XPS or eXtruded Poly Styrene... don't ever turn up not knowing your plastics).

APX Hydroplane Record Attempt

Before we launch, there's a young man who is standing on my shoulders ~ and it's killing me ~ at university in Southampton who's attempting to break the electrical-powered speed record on water.

This currently stands at 114 m.p.h. by a hydroplane which was built by a team from Princeton University... I myself only get out of bed to compete with the world's elite (Ed. he doesn't, and is still in bed).

I can't recall his name, as these things are unimportant, but like us he's gone with air-propellers instead of screws as these are more efficient among the speeds he is aiming for... as per the handout he provides on the accompanying vid.

I guessed he was testing in Southampton, because I recognised the view of Fawley oil-refinery from days I lived in Lee-on-Solent and drove a truck to top up customer Calor Gas.

I appear on LinkedIn as Director of Renewables, and my job as pump-attendant as a teenager features as Petroleum Distribution Executive (with spots).

Running on Rails

Before we depart railways (from Platform 5), do check out Fern Bahn's epic footage of the last steam locos in industrial service... in the Bosnian town of Tuzla, where I went for a wedding and am gutted to have missed out on this means of making it a most special day for all involved.

You just have to love all of it: and doesn't all the mud, coal, dust, smoke and sheer volume of carbon being emitted make life feel worthwhile?

And a shout out too for the university team from Sheffield (where else?), for having won the Institute of Mechanical Engineers railway challenge last year.

But now I really must get back to building boats, and out of this dressing-gown in order to lead the field.

Locomotion

I'm not sure the core readership is at all interested in what I have to say about the various transport museums I visit, but these are glimpses of Locomotion museum located on what was originally the Stockton-to-Darlington railway line which began life 200 years ago and featured the first steam-locomotives running upon iron rails. 

It did eventually offer services to passengers as well as freight, but the honour of being the first commercial rail service went to the Liverpool-Manchester railway that was pioneered by George Stephenson. I came here to see his locomotive ~ ROCKET ~ as it inaugurated the service having trounced all-comers during the Rainhill Trials.

The locomotive had been removed to the national railways museum in York just three weeks prior, though I didn't let that spoil my enjoyment.

Meanwhile I'd like regular readers to accommodate those forwarded from my review of the Locomotion museum amongst others I've posted on Google's pages: they're here to look at the pictures, and we welcome them on board!

Windermere Jetty Museum

I've brought you along for the ride with it being a wet Saturday morning!

The tag-line, ‘Stories of Boats and Steam’ is somewhat better than the name, ‘Windermere Jetty Museum’, but then perfect is the enemy of the good isn’t it?

Don’t let my smorgasbord put you off going either, but simply treat is a taster. 

Viewing then from top to bottom and left to right:

1/ The entrance to the refurbished building that opened in 2019 on the shores of Lake Windermere.

2/ The cafe, sumptuous views and fare, in my case a cauliflower soup with a soupçon of coconut milk.

3/ Triple expansion steam engine… each crankshaft bearing lubricated by its own oil-reservoir!

4/ In those proud days, toilets would often feature a name and this is the legendary “SL”.

5/ A selection of fast boats, nearest of which of wood and linen fabric construction not unlike an airship.

6/ East German hydroplane, fitted with the expansion-box invented thereabouts to boost power output.

7/ A boat was built around its engine, a Rolls-Royce derived from an airship: note the hand-crank.

8/ A lake steamer whose steering wheel appears ideal for reversing, but less so for cruising.

9/ An inboard four-stroke petrol engine: they don’t make them like that any more, fortunately.

10/ The float from a Short Sunderland flying boat, some built here, and converted later into a canoe.

11/ A boat-launched glider built by Slingsby and trialed unsuccessfully by the War Office in WW2.

12/ The way they ferried things across Windermere prior engines of any sort: with oars called ‘sweeps’.

13/ Workshop, where I guess those are thickness measurements in millimetres to check for corrosion.

14/ A glorious 1930s-era Chris-Craft from the US.

15/ Aluminium-bodied Albatross and Coventry Climax engine combination from the UK.

16/ Steamer Osprey used for lake tours, though sadly not today.

17/ A vintage sailboat, still in use today on the lake next door.

18/ Beatrix Potter’s boat: couldn't she have got something better given she owned a matching tarn?

Altogether a great day out with free parking if you spend £5 or more; the only criticisms a paucity of fridge-magnets and substitution of the steamer by a diesel for the cruise I didn't take anyway, what with Storm Amy passing through.

(Strong Message Here)

PM returns to Downing Street in his German taxi

The title stems from a podcast featuring Armando Iannucci, creator of the national treasure that is Alan Partridge, and is derived from a speech given by then leader of the Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn: who read out that stage direction in his speech. It is said that David Cameron could memorise a speech, one of the few things he seems to have got right, but you have to go back to the likes of Churchill to find a leader who both wrote and delivered a speech.

I'd like to be a speech-writer (although there are lots of things I'd like to be) and so here's an opening the PM can use for free during this traditional conference season:

(Strong message here, insert saline solution to create tear)

Welcome delegates!

(Polite ripple of applause.)

In the Britain I grew up in they used to say that whereas kids seeing someone drive a luxury car in America would one day hope to do the same, here they would throw stones at them instead.

(Murmurs of agreement.)

But let me tell you that we've come a long way since then, and now our kids steal luxury cars and export them to Dubai!

(Whoops and hollers.)

You know, with my wife and our two point four kids I was recently in Germany, and I saw how all public service vehicles were German, and all taxis were German.

And I told my wife, THAT's how the UK should be! And I stand before you to tell you that just six months on, vehicles the emergency services and taxi-drivers use here are German too!

(More whoops and hollers. Remove flag from under seat and wave.)

Milton (Keynes): Paradise Lost

The UK's newest luxury rail service ~ from London to the Lake District ~ just broke down at Milton Keynes, a quarter of the way there, after its automatic doors failed.

For years I used the 'slam' doors as a commuter on third-rail electrified services into London, and despite being in use for around half a century I don't recall any of them ever failing to open or close... which in an ideal world is everything you want from a door.

Thomas Cooks rail tours meanwhile ran for a century and a half without, to the best of my knowledge, ever failing because passengers could not get in or out.

Meanwhile Edmondson's classic cardboard railway ticket introduced and patented in 1840 continues in use in some of the countries it was exported to two centuries on.

As we dwell on two hundred years of passenger railways, it is worth reflecting upon what works and what doesn't and increasingly the latter includes modern cars.

The desperate net-zero measures in the UK in particular means that increasingly a smaller and smaller engine has to rely on more and more exotic means of squeezing every last ounce of power from that of petrol: which means buying, maintaining and servicing them costs more than ever.

It also means that because fewer make it into the third-tier of used cars of around a decade old, increasingly cars are the preserve of the well-off. At the same time the necessary replacement of failing vehicles with brand new ones emits more carbon or environmental pollution than would be the case were we continuing to operate cars like my own twelve-year old Suzuki.

All tho' what you'd expect from any flavour of government, but especially one that advertises itself as 'socialist' or on the side of the people.

Southern Rail ran electrical multiple units non-stop from East Croydon where I first worked, to London Bridge and as it barrelled along on a summer's evening it was a joy to drop the window and lean your head out like a dog.

Occasionally this meant passengers were decapitated by not withdrawing their head prior impact with a railway bridge or tunnel, but this only added to the excitement.

It also meant the population steadily evolved toward people intelligent enough not to lose their head, or at least not in this way.

You can read a history of trains with doors that worked as per the inset above.

You can't knock the carriages though and I'd be happy to live in one should (a) they deliver to your driveway and (b) retro-fit a slam-door.