The final trailer for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker has been released.
I am so looking forward to this….
Comes to the cinema on the 20th December 2019.
Star Trek: Picard
I quite enjoyed Star Trek: The Next Generation: so I am quite looking forward to the new Star Trek series Picard.
It is released on Amazon Prime on the 23rd January 2020.
There is a trailer out which has some old friends in and certainly looks like an exciting series
Quite impressed with the special effects, will be interesting to see how they “improve” the technology and effects from when they filmed The Next Generation
Should be fun.
The Longleat Miniature Railway
On a recent visit to Longleat Wildlife and Safari Park we rode on the Miniature Railway. It reminded me that we, as a family, had done this quite a few times over the years. So when we got home I looked over my photographs and it bought back lots of happy memories.
The 15 inch railway was established in 1965 and expanded in 1976. The track has changed over the years, but currently skirts the lake before heading back to the station through the trees. There is a tunnel and a halt which is used at Christmas.
My first visit to Longleat was in the early 1970s, of which I don’t remember much, and I am not even sure if we went there. What I do remember was going to sleep, having an amazing dream about going to a Safari Park and getting a safari themed Land Rover in the shop.
When I woke up in the morning, I was astounded to find the Land Rover in my room.
It looked a lot like this one.
Was it a dream, was it reality? No idea if I travelled on the railway, it was just a dream…
Myself and my wife visited in 2002, but I don’t think we travelled on the train, as we only did the safari park. Back then the train was an extra cost, as were most of the other non-park attractions.
As a family we took my son to Longleat in 2005 and as well as going around the Safari Park, we also travelled the railway. He was really into trains.
We were pulled by the Ceawlin, locomotive number five.
In this photograph you can see the Lenka Railcar, the only engine built at Longleat. It was sold to private owner in 2017.
We went again in 2008, but I have no photographs of the train, but I am pretty sure we must have had a ride on the train back then.
Between 2011 and 2017 the railway was known as the Jungle Express, with the station and carriages given additional theming.
We visited in 2012 and travelled on the Jungle Express.
This time the train was pulled by the Flynn Locomotive.
I do remember that the station had a model railway shop, but by our visit in 2012, it had stopped selling model trains and now sold toy trains, wooden trains and stuff.
On our most recent visit the Jungle Express theming had gone, as had the shop.
The railway has fifteen carriages, all built at Longleat between 1976 and 2013 and are now wearing mock British Railways crimson and cream livery The railway also has several permanent way wagons.
This time our train was pulled by the huge John Thynn.
We enjoyed our most recent visit and I expect we might go again some time in the future.
War of the Worlds on the BBC
The BBC have released a trailer for their “proper” version of The War of the Worlds.
This is the original alien invasion story. Staring Eleanor Tomlinson, Rafe Spall and Robert Caryle, this tense and thrilling drama follows a young couple’s race for survival against escalating terror of an alien enemy beyond their comprehension.
Diagon Alley at Bristol Temple Meads
I’ve always liked the look of the Bonapart’s Cafe at Bristol Temple Meads.
As I said at the time it reminded me of the magical Diagon Alley from the Harry Potter series of films.
Airport photographs
I started to realise that this week that when I fly I usually post a photograph to instagram of the plane I flew on. But not any old photo, usually I have taken it from a process using the Snapseed app.
This was the photo I took this week in Edinburgh.
Looking from my archives I found these other photographs on my Instagram feed. Continue reading “Airport photographs”
Some things change, some things don’t…
I spent five days at Butlins in Minehead in 2016 I was curious then about the history of some of the rides and attractions. One of them was the electric railway in the kiddies fairground. Over the years my children had ridden on the ride, when they were younger even I was “forced” to ride it. It looked like it had been there a while and was consistently revamped as and when required. It had been a Noddy toytown train at one point and then part of Bob the Builder land. In 2016 it was just part of the fairground.
I knew that at one point there had been two full size steam engines at the resort, as Billy Butlin purchased redundant steam engines as a on static display at the camps to provide a novel and relatively cheap attraction.
Butlins in Minehead had the LMS Duchess of Hamilton arrived in 1964 and left in 1975. It is now on display at the National Railway Museum in York where the streamlining has been added back.
cooldudeandy01 [CC BY 2.0]
As well as the big steam engines, Butlins also had a Peter Pan Railway ride Peter Pan Railways were once a common sight at seaside resorts, travelling fairs, holiday camps and amusement parks around the UK. It was this ride that I was curious about. I was quite surprised to find that the electric train ride was over sixty years old.
They first appeared in the 1950s and were built by the Warwickshire company of Supercar Company Ltd and utilised regular railway technology with 2ft gauge track, 12lb rails and normal flanged wheels. The center rail was energised at 110 volts DC. The trains had a fixed back axle (chain driven) and a short-wheelbase bogie in front and could negotiate some pretty sharp and exciting curves. In later years some of the trains were fitted with new fibreglass bodywork of various different styles.
Though using a much smaller track (and some minor cosmetic changes) they are still running at Minhead Butlins in 2016 and is still there today.
It’s nice to see that though some things change, some things stay the same.
A vision of the future
I really like this video clip from the BBC Archive on a 1963 view of what 1988 would look like.
#OnThisDay 1963: Time on Our Hands looked back on the events that had shaped idyllic 1988, like the Russian moon landing, the rise of the mega cities of Milford Haven and Holyhead, the great tea shortage and the coming of the machines. pic.twitter.com/fRWyxVWLWC
— BBC Archive (@BBCArchive) September 14, 2019
It really demonstrates how difficult it is to predict the future. Some stuff you get right, most things you get wrong, and timeframes are really hard to judge.
The Rise of Skywalker
Finally got round to watching this.
I remember watching that first film in 1977… looking forward to seeing how the story ends.
Look what we found!
Close to my house, on an old piece of land, a new petrol station, 24hour supermarket (and not quite yet) Starbucks has been built. No I am not blogging that there’s going to be a new coffee shop…
During clearance work, two Type 22 Pillbox bunkers were uncovered.
I know the area quite well, and have seen a few pillboxes in the area, but having passed this way many times I wasn’t aware that they were even there.
Looking at this old Google Street View image you can see why, this is how it looked before the construction started.
Here is how it looks now. Part of the planning permission was that these should be retained and protected.
So what we have is a World War Two pillbox defending a Shell petrol station!
The pillboxes were constructed to protect the airfield, RAF Weston-super-Mare, which was a Royal Air Force station on a civilian airfield in Weston-super-Mare. The civilian airfield was taken over by the RAF on the 1st May 1940 and would remain there until 1993.