superatticman

I think something along these lines would be more appropriate for modern day BMW!!!! Would not touch one with a bargepole unless it came with a cast iron warranty.

This is what happens when the metropolitan brigade get out into the real world. Not only does it often shock them but some take offence at practices such as deer and fox shooting by farmers who are doing it to for justified reasons. They also get a bit tetchy with people burning peat and bonfires too. No Wifi or Cellular sounds like bliss to me.

Good reading this thread. I also did poorly at school. Very poorly. Just wasn't interested or motivated. So a few years of menial jobs with little prospects followed. This was during the early 90s where the job/training market was in transition. Apprenticeships were rapidly dying out and the focus seemed to be more geared towards academic or vocational training at college. Appalling to think that I turned my nose up at a FREE BTEC course in computing because I just didn't like the learning environment! My cousin of similar age did this a few years earlier and within 5 years had a HND in computing and was earning a lot of money in his first job. That should have been the inspiration I needed but I just wasn't interested. However in about 1997 I found a computer and monitor in a skip and decided to take it home. It was in an affluent area where I was working as a delivery driver so there was every chance it was still working. Fired it up and amazingly it all burst into life. Was a 486 based machine with about 4mb RAM and little else. However my desire to turn it into a games machine was the driving force behind my first steps to learning the ropes. Up until now I had had little interest in IT! I bought a book and went on a 2 week A+ course. Ended up upgrading it to 16mb, DX2 overdrive, sound card, 2Mb VGA card and was able to play DOOM, Duke Nukem and the like!!! All of a sudden it all clicked into place and was soon upgrading, repairing friends PC's etc. Got my first job in IT when I approached the local (extremely busy) repair shop and asked them whether they wanted a spare pair of hands. I was told politely that yes they could offer me something but that it would be £100 a week for the first 3 months and they'd then review it. I thought long and hard as in my driver role was earning about £250 take home p/w. My dad more or less had me in a Darth Vader like grip and said "Son this is your best opportunity to finally learn a profession, so go straight back to that shop and bite their hands off". I did and within 3 years was back up to that level of income but now far more skilled and finally had a brighter future ahead. Manage to blag my way into contracting with a friend of mine and for 4 years earned some decent money looking after a fairly large site. Taught me a hell of a lot about life in general and never to take getting paid for granted! Things went pair shaped when the company went into administration and we basically got our contracts terminated as they sought to cut costs. By the way they did actually beg me to come back two years later but the damage was done. They wouldn't pay me the large (but fair given the context) 'signing on fee' that I wanted nor would they give me a more robust contract. I'd already managed to secure a less well reimbursed but far more secure role at an independent school in West London. Have managed to skill myself up there and become more involved in managing projects and helping across the site in general. I like variety so it still keeps me interested.

Moon and Venus over Harrow School

Hi All We're about to install a Riello SPVD 1100 UPS into a small server rack. Its a brand new device with all batteries etc attached. Very familiar configuring them to shutdown etc from the server. Do we have to 'calibrate' the batteries or is that only when you change them over??? Cheers

Operators effectively have a monopoly on most routes too. You really only have one choice of operator to go from London to Glasgow or London to Plymouth. This means they can turn out whatever cheap, tacky ironing board seated rubbish they want. I'd happily suggest if a competitor to LNER provided a refurbished, slightly slower but more comfy mk4 /125 consist then they would hoover up the market. Little point in arriving at Edinburgh 10 minutes quicker if you can't feel your @rs3 anymore...... London to Birmingham is an interesting one as there are three major operators that serve it. Chiltern, Avanti (ex Virgin) and London and North Western. You actually have a choice as to fast, expensive but claustrophobic. Slightly slower, cheaper but comfy. Or slower than that, cheaper and fairly comfy. No surprise the middle option has taken a fair share of the market.

To be fair people do use the trains. Passenger numbers have grown massively. I always thought it was a bit ironic when some would say things to the tone of "I had to stand for two hours on a railway that no one wants to use!"

Yes Pacers are indeed awful. Okay for very short journeys on rural branch lines but the problem is they end up making it on to busy commuter services. I'm actually more concerned with the poor quality ironing board seat stock that's going to form the backbone of our longer distance services. Not being able to sit in relative comfort is a massive turn off for me. The ironic thing is that buses and coaches are actually more comfortable than they used to be.

Exactly. This is why we need brand new lines to be built. Widening or increasing height on existing routes is a logistical nightmare. They do drop the rails to install overhead electrification though so it can be done. I do believe that width is also an issue too. There are a lot of railway expansion projects on the go though. I did list them on another thread but can't remember where. Most of them are lines that were closed in the Beeching era.

Correct. Virtually every diesel powered train is actually a diesel-electric. The old slam door Diesel Multiple Units that sounded like buses were actually diesel mechanical. They used to change gear on acceleration and were fairly crude and slow. They were built as a stop gap but lasted at least twice as long as intended! Multiple pantographs means more chance of the wires being brought down.

Yes applies to all. Overheard powered, 3rd rail powered, diesel powered. The issue with overhead is that the wires can be brought down by high winds or a moody pantograph (the device that collects the electric from the wires). Saying that though the likes of the Swiss run everything overhead powered through the mountains. That being a place of some pretty harsh weather patterns. Most overhead lines are powered by 25Kv. The issue with 3rd rail is obviously its not ideal having 750V DC at ground level. Plus maximum speeds tend to be limited to around 100mph as a lot of heat is generated with conductor shoes. Not sure you can drive the same amount of current down a third rail either.

Virtually all new trains that run on our network are 'multiple units' that have traction motors in each carriage. This is whether the train is 2 or 12 carriages. The advantages are greater adhesion putting power to the rails and the fact a unit can usually carry on even with a duff traction unit. Relatively easy to couple up units to form a longer train too. Disadvantages are more to go wrong and it would appear that track wear is actually worse with multiple units, especially those that are diesel powered with extra weight. Traditional 'loco hauled' sets are slowly but surely being replaced by units worldwide. However, there is now an argument that its actually more economical to shift a large amount of people with a single high powered unit and unpowered carriages.

1) Agree with this. Quite a few stations already have 'through lines' that bypass the platforms. Not enough though. The problem is complications in pathing when a train is running late. 2) These types of vehicle usually go under the names of a 'bus'. The whole idea of a train is to couple together a number of vehicles to shift people from A to B in a more economical manner. In the days of steam you did used to have 'slip' coaches that would detach (at speed!) to drop passengers off at various platforms whilst the rest of the train would steam on. It worked in general although H and S must have been having palpitations even back then. 3) Again, this is a bus! Must say I've never liked the shortening of trains to single vehicles except on the barely viable rural branch lines. Couple the damn things up, run longer trains and build more lines. By the way anyone know why we don't use double decker trains in the UK??? The restrictive British loading gauge. This more than anything is the root of a lot of our congestion issues.

That's guaranteed mate.

We also need to build a hell of a lot of new lines if the railway is going to absorb those motorists that are going to be forced off the roads. Funnily enough when we do try to build a new line people object to it.

I think the main issue with public transport is the fact that its 'public'. If we're going to force people out of their cars then we need to ensure public transportation is not only fit for purpose when it comes to punctuality, frequency and comfort. We also need to ensure that standards of etiquette are enforced. Of course criminal activity already has measures in place to deal with it. However its issues such as standards of behaviour, personal hygiene and the increasing use of mobile devices without headphones that needs to be addressed. This is the main reason I don't like using buses if I'm being honest. If they had a first class section on buses which excluded under 21's and chavs then I'd be a bit more interested. However for Intercity transportation then the train is the obvious way forward. Some of the new long distance trains are appalling though. Awful, rock hard seats and actually far less comfortable than an Underground train from the 1960s. Up to recently I used to happily get the train from London to Inverness. Now, I'll fly every time. 8 hours sitting in an LNER 'Azuma'...no thanks. They've even screwed up the new Caledonian Sleeper. What was once a slightly rattly but comfy old bed on steel wheels is now a tacky, unreliable poor riding overpriced shambles. You need to be doing better than that to tempt people out of their cars.

Loving my 'new' 70-200mm Nikon F4 + D7200 combo. Low light images at ISO6400 still about to get around 1/1000th and relatively noise free.

Went to see it earlier. Mildly impressed. Thought the pacing of the film too fast and the action simply too frantic. Shades of the prequels with too much going on on the screen. Maybe that's what the kids like these days??? I actually think this trilogy has slowly declined since a really promising start with the Force Awakens. That first movie managed to engage the audience with the characters. You were really rooting for them throughout. Think this fell away somewhat towards the end.

Hi all Are there any monitors than would be recommended for use on a lectern? We are looking for something that has a flat back primarily. Ideally 16:10 WUXGA resolution too. 19-22" Regards ADam

Yes that's a great lens by all accounts. Does appear that Tamron and Sigma are seriously breathing down the necks of Nikon now with a 'G2' and 'Sport' 70-200 F2.8 lens of which are around half the price but according to reviews optically equal. The only risk with these two lenses is not have full functionality with Nikon bodies. Often 90% of functions will work perfectly but extensive in depth testing may reveal that a certain shooting mode may cause a lens malfunction with specific bodies.

Some photographs from the mighty Wealdstone FC in action. Sports photography is a fairly exclusive skill set. Post processing is usually minimal but hand to eye coordination a must. Fairly pleased with my results from moderate 2nd hand 'home user' equipment. Nikon D5100 and Nikon 70-300mm F4.5-5.6 lens. Might treat myself to a Nikon 70-200 F4 which is very sharp throughout its range.

Greater West London

Hi All We are looking to implement a professional AV system into a large hall. Projector...screen...sound system. Can anyone recommend an installation company? Thanks

Hi all We have traditionally used Keyspan USA 19HS adapters to turn USB into serial for use with our older interactive boards. These have been really good. However, on some of our windows 10 machines we are getting regular blue screening and we suspect the issue is these adaptors. There doesn't appear to be an updated driver for them and they are about 10 years old. Anyone else recommend a converter that fully supported by Win 10? Thanks

Hi all Presently midway through a comprehensive hardware audit. Have a very accurate idea of what model of kit is assigned to users. Am now looking to obtain service tags and serial numbers. Short of verifying every machine manually is there anything that can resolve these types of detail??? Thanks