Monday 21 October 2013

On Trafalgar Day - one for our High Speed Friends...

Admiral Lord Nelson's last signal:



That is all!

UPDATE: The Commander writes...
 

In spite of suffering possible over-indulgence of the Warre’s ’83 at our celebration of the 208th Anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar last night, one still manages to commend your flag rather than railway semaphore signal in the current Railway Eye.

These would translate, correctly using the Popham code book issued to Nelson’s fleet at Cadiz in 1805 as Flag 1 and Flag 6, making signal 16 decoding numeric – alpha as the letter Q, which confused oneself initially.

However ‘Signal 16’ – “Engage the Enemy more closely” is probably more likely to appeal to your readership, but beware consulting the Flags of the World website, which incorrectly quotes the flags using the 1799 Code, which was withdrawn after its capture by the French.

Those of us of a more bi-lingual capability will appreciate Admiral Villeneuve’s last signal to Admiral Nelson on the eve of the Battle; to save the mental exertion of our lesser-endowed friends I shall relate the English translation thus: 


“To The Water, It Is The Hour!”

Pip, Pip, Pip, Peeeeep!
 

Hammond Eggs - On opacity

Another gem from the new railway minister...

Mrs Gillan: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what recent estimate he has made of the total number of passengers travelling between Birmingham and (a) Manchester, (b) Leeds and (c) Wigan by rail during an average week day.

Stephen Hammond: Though some estimates for journeys such as these have been produced for departmental purposes, these estimates are not available for publication as the underlying data belong to the train operators and are considered commercially confidential.

Presumably this is civil service speak for can't be @rsed.

UPDATE: This from JH...

Presumably this applies to all TOC's on all lines. 

If so, where does HS2 Ltd get the "current" data to use as a base?

Contrition Corner - Woemar seeks forgiveness

A clearly contrite Wolmar writes...

"Oh dear, oh dear!

"I just broke the rule of a lifetime and said ‘do you now know who I am?’ 

"A FGW press officer returning my call about the absence of wi-fi on its trains, first made the mistake of calling me ‘Chris’ a name I have never answered to, and then he said, ‘where are you calling from?’ 

"I very rudely replied that I had only been writing a column for Rail magazine for nearly 20 years but perhaps he did not read it and then uttered the fateful words...

"Can I be forgiven?"


Quite so Chris. Perhaps you can let us know where you are from, so we can see if Eye can help...

UPDATE: This from Captain Deltic, who is never knowingly out contritioned... 

That is nothing.

This morning I have called RVEL of Derby, REVEL in my e-Preview blog (is that a plug? Ed) and promptly corrected it to REVL in a follow up e-mail to the over 2500 subscribers (that's enough plugs Deltic! Ed).

And I also got the loco class number, which I saw being worked on by RVEL, wrong.

Can anyone beat that?


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