2012

Here's the station under the trees.

One of the Ffestiniog's freight customers over the years was the Maenofferen Quarry, and there's still a yard here. However, business has always been sporadic. The first use of the railway was between 1848 and 1850 (the quarry predates the railway by about 36 years, having been started in 1800), then 1857-1865, when there was a pause, and then the longest continuous freight service was in 1865-1962, even the period from 1946-1954, when the Ffestiniog wasn't operating and the quarry operated its own trains by leasing the section of the line to Duffws, where there was a connection with the LMS and later BR.

This is the Ffestiniog's main locomotive works, Boston Lodge. It's small, but over the years most of the railway's locomotives have been built here. Naturally, heavy overhauls are also conducted here.

This is a causeway of sorts called "The Cob," across the bay that separates Boston Lodge from Porthmadog. It actually predates the railway by many years, having been completed in 1811 by William Madocks, a local "agricultural improver," who also founded Porthmadog. Many people don't know that Wales was relatively undeveloped until the 19th Century, although there are Medieval castles like Conwy.

Here's the Porthmadog yard, with the station on the right.

Jumping ahead a few days to my long-distance train trip back to Prague, I had a layover in Koln, and went for a walk near the station. This is the St. Gereon church, which admittedly I know very little about.

This was one of the side streets near the St. Gereon church. It was unclear whether it was really worn, or scraped clean awaiting repaving, but you could see the cobblestones underneath the blacktop.

This band were unknown to me, and I've had trouble finding information about them online, although they already had T-shirts made (I don't remember if they were selling their demo). They were on a triple bill with Think Twice and Abolition. All I was able to find out was that they were from Germany.

This was the only decent photo that I got of Think Twice, who were from Britain. They've already got several releases on vinyl.

This was Abolition, also from Britain, who had an LP that I bought. It was a great show, although I haven't played the LP yet as I don't have a turntable at the moment.

This was an alternate shot. All of my photos were blurred, which is normal for my cameraphone when I take it to a punk club at night.

I first saw this plane a number of years ago, but didn't get around to photographing it until 2012, when I was thinking of doing a CSA repaint for the Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004 DC-3. I never got around to the repaint project, but I decided to post these research shots as they stand reasonably well on their own. At least...I think they're decent for cameraphone shots from a day when the weather wasn't ideal.

Here's a frontal shot. Getting all of the wings was difficult with the cameraphone.

Here's the nose, with a very early CSA logo on it.

On September 17th, there as an electric and LPG vehicle show on Vaclavske Namesti. Electric cars aren't normally my thing, but a number of the models on display looked very refined. This is an Opel Ampera, presumably a 2013 model, which is based on the Chevy Volt. It is slightly sleeker than the Volt, however (unless that's an optical illusion). I didn't get the sense that it was a concept car, as there were several on hand in different colors, and Wikipedia claims that thousands had already been produced since the 2011 model year.

The Smart Eon is the electric version of the Smart ForTwo, and is already in wide service in Prague, although primarily as a fleet vehicle. One user is this ambulance service, one of several in Prague (I don't know the background on them, but there are several EMS providers in Prague). Another fleet are operated by a hotel, presumably in livery or rental service.

Even if cars are eventually abolished, there will probably always be trucks (or at least they'll outlive cars). This was an LPG-powered garbage truck, already painted for Prazske Sluzby, who handle trash collection in Prague.

This was an odd find. Every now and then I spot an unusual ticket on the floor of a Metro station. This one may not even be from a real train, as it has an LGB logo on it. LGB make model trains only, mostly in G Scale. The ticket is an obsolete ticket style called an "Edmundson" ticket, and used extensively in Britain until the advent of computerized ticket printing machines in the 1980's. Today they're used mostly be heritage railways and tour operators.