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  1. Springs Branch

    Short-term Pre-paid Mobile Phone SIM cards for UK Visitors

    I'm planning a trip to the UK for a month during May. I'm looking to buy a SIM card for my smartphone for the duration to get a UK mobile number & avoid high roaming charges from my Aussie provider for use in the UK. A Google search throws up a plethora of options - some order on-line &...
  2. Springs Branch

    Split ticketing and Nexus Transfare tickets

    I'm looking for some advice / reassurance from anyone familiar with ticket splits using PTE products and railcard time restrictions. Here's the story:- I'll be making a return journey with the missus via the Tyne Valley line, continuing to East Boldon on the T&W Metro. We'll both have Carlisle...
  3. Springs Branch

    Banking locos on the WCML in 1950s-60s

    We've had a couple of interesting threads recently on freight workings on the northern WCML towards the end of steam. These made me realise I have a gap in my knowledge of that era - which I couldn't easily answer from my book collection or on-line searching. It's regarding provision of...
  4. Springs Branch

    Secret bus timetables in Dublin

    Not sure whether this question should go into the Buses & Coaches or Trip Planning forum, but here goes . . . I was recently looking to plan a bus journey in Ireland, involving a route operated by Dublin Bus. Specifically, I want to travel between the centre of Dublin and Chapelizod, just to...
  5. Springs Branch

    4 light headcode clusters on LNER-era EMUs (LNER = the original Big Four company)

    Following on from recent thread on 2-character headcodes on first generation BR DMUs, I wondered if anyone knows anything about the four light headcodes used by the LNER on the various EMUs it built or designed during the interwar years? Specifically, any explanation (from Working Timetables or...
  6. Springs Branch

    Using E-tickets for more than one passenger

    A query about using e-tickets bought for more than one passenger . . . Later this year, I'll be visiting the UK with the missus. I'm contemplating ditching trusty old orange credit-card size tickets (CCST) and dabbling for the first time in the brave new world of e-tickets - mainly on the...
  7. Springs Branch

    Hidden gems on the Clyde Coast?

    Prompted by the recent thread on Hidden gems in the South?, and the excellent replies received - which I'll bookmark for my own future use - I have a similar request located a bit further north. Here's the story:- - Later this year in early September, Mrs S.B. and I will be spending a week or...
  8. Springs Branch

    Older design €5 and €10 banknotes.

    Are the original Euro banknotes issued in 2002 still readily accepted by shops and traders on the Continent? According to the European Central Bank's website, the older versions have remained legal tender after the newer Europa designs were introduced from 2013 onwards. Which is all good in...
  9. Springs Branch

    Small Signal Boxes continuously manned

    I came across this document on the public part of the Network Rail website which gives opening and closing times of signal boxes around the system. www.networkrail.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Compendium-of-Signal-Box-Opening-Times.pdf Looking at my own area of interest - North West &...
  10. Springs Branch

    QI TV series: Has it passed its Use By Date?

    Years ago, like any right-thinking, middle-class ratepayer of a certain age, I would settle down in my armchair on a Thursday evening in my slippers & St. Michael cardigan to watch QI on the telly. At the time it was hosted by that clever 'national treasure' Mr. Fry, lots of jolly chaps on the...
  11. Springs Branch

    British Transport Hotels in the 1970s & 80s

    Does anyone remember staying at any of the British Transport Hotels in their later days? What were they like? Browsing through old BR timetables, you inevitably come across a page up the front listing British Transport Hotels. Up until sell-off to private operators around 1984 (a decade ahead...
  12. Springs Branch

    Slip coaches & Slipping Distant signals

    I was reading recently about the operation of slip coaches. One thing mentioned was that on the approach to the station where a slip coach would be detached, there was a Slipping Distant semaphore signal. The purpose of the Slipping Distant was to inform the driver (and presumably the slip...
  13. Springs Branch

    Gold-painted points - where were they?

    Forecasts of ongoing hot weather reminded me that some lengths of running rail are now painted white to reduce the temperature by a few degrees to help avoid buckling etc. In similar vein, I read some years ago (possibly in Modern Railways) that the points at certain junctions had been painted...
  14. Springs Branch

    Alternative Railway History - 1984/85 Miners' Strike

    With some spare time recently, I've been reading a bit of "alternative history" fiction - e.g. Len Deighton's book SS-GB, set in a Britain after the Nazis had invaded and successfully taken control in the 1940s. This prompted thoughts about possible alternative railway histories. For example...
  15. Springs Branch

    Microsoft Office 2010 - support ending in October

    I have MS Office 2010 installed on my home PC, and use Word and Excel almost daily. Sporadically over the past year, and now continuously, a banner appears alerting me that support for Office 2010 will end on 13 October 2020. I'm reluctant to move to Office 365 and pay rolling year-in-year-out...
  16. Springs Branch

    Which Signal Box would you have liked to work?

    Not getting out much at present, I've being blowing off the dust and re-reading some older items on my bookshelf. This week it's been Adrian Vaughan's Signalman's Morning - an account of life in the 1960s in the mostly bucolic mechanical box at Challow on the GW main line in the Vale of White...
  17. Springs Branch

    Birmingham to Blackpool by DMU circa 1970

    With a bit more time to sit indoors at present, I've had an excuse to browse through some old BR timetables. Here's a question about West Midlands Class 116 DMUs and whether these units regularly worked to Blackpool on summer Saturdays in the late 1960s/early 70s:- Does anyone have...
  18. Springs Branch

    Kirkdale station - did it ever have four platforms?

    Did Kirkdale ever have four platforms? Until the 1960s, there were four main running lines between Liverpool Exchange and Walton Junction, and passing through Kirkdale station. The fast lines were the eastern pair (continuing towards Wigan), while slow lines were on the western side...
  19. Springs Branch

    Beer in cans versus bottles

    There seems to be a push by some brewers to migrate their beers from bottles into cans. The recent proliferation of cans first came about via craft & microbreweries - these operations generally don't have the production volume to make bottling in glass economic, whereas affordable small scale...
  20. Springs Branch

    Through trains at Manchester London Road prior to 1959

    Here’s a question about Manchester London Road in the British Railways era, before AC electrification and renaming to Piccadilly in 1960. I seem to remember reading that before 1959, when the old MSJ&A platforms were re-built into today’s 13 & 14, the connecting tracks between there and the...

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