Trains on boats....

[Murflynn]

Off topic, but I recall travelling from N Ireland to England when we were advised to depart the province because Bank Holiday demonstrations and marches were predicted to result in serious trouble.

 

The car ferries were booked up so I travelled Belfast/Heysham on the truck ferry.   The ferry didn't take foot passengers, and feeling a bit out of place I asked a steward where the saloon was.  He told me that I was welcome to sit in the drivers' dining room where they had silver service 4-course dinner on offer - included in the fare!  How the other half live!   

[Ray T]

1 hour ago, nbfiresprite said:

I visited her sister ship the MF Ammonia in1985. The ship was the one used in the flim.  I wish I took more pictures at the time as the line to Tinnoset closed to passengers that year. But then 35mm film was not cheap in Norway.

 

 

From Wiki:

 

Also: SF Ammonia - Wikipedia

Edited March 17, 2021 by Ray T

[droshky]

59 minutes ago, Murflynn said:

Off topic, but I recall travelling from N Ireland to England when we were advised to depart the province because Bank Holiday demonstrations and marches were predicted to result in serious trouble.

 

The car ferries were booked up so I travelled Belfast/Heysham on the truck ferry.   The ferry didn't take foot passengers, and feeling a bit out of place I asked a steward where the saloon was.  He told me that I was welcome to sit in the drivers' dining room where they had silver service 4-course dinner on offer - included in the fare!  How the other half live!   

Following a fire on the Menai Straits bridge in the 1970s, rail/ foot passenger services to Dublin were (mercifully briefly) rerouted via the nightmarishly distant port of Heysham, somewhere near Scotland. Even compared to the cattle class transport in Holyhead, this wasn’t luxury foreign travel. I may exaggerate.

 

Anyway, I wish we’d known about this luxury service....probably only available on the Belfast ferry! Of all the often stressful trips I made back home, usually at Christmas, that one took the biscuit. It’s taken me a long time to get back on boats!

[Murflynn]

A colleague who worked with me in N Ireland had been a foreman with Cleveland Bridge, removing the damaged bridge sections with the benefit of Stephenson's original drawings. 

The drawings showed the many cast-in holding down bolts that secured the bridge beams to the concrete foundation blocks at the landfalls at either end of the bridge.  As you can imagine, these were beautifully drawn, showing the top of the bolts precisely 4" above the flange of the beams.  

When the dismantling team came to undo the nuts they discovered that most of the bolts were short dummies that had been dropped in place at each location where the cast-in bolts were too short or incorrectly positioned and cut off below the beam.   It was clear that the remaining sound bolts had been quite capable of holding everything together for more than a century.

 

Judicious over-design anticipating poor site supervision?

[Mike Todd]

16 hours ago, ditchcrawler said:

My travel was the same

Many organisations had a 'standard expenses' policy and you were paid accordingly regardless. Sometimes you won and sometimes you lost.

[Mike Todd]

13 hours ago, droshky said:

Following a fire on the Menai Straits bridge in the 1970s, rail/ foot passenger services to Dublin were (mercifully briefly) rerouted via the nightmarishly distant port of Heysham, somewhere near Scotland. Even compared to the cattle class transport in Holyhead, this wasn’t luxury foreign travel. I may exaggerate.

 

Anyway, I wish we’d known about this luxury service....probably only available on the Belfast ferry! Of all the often stressful trips I made back home, usually at Christmas, that one took the biscuit. It’s taken me a long time to get back on boats!

On what was I think the last 'family holiday' (way way back!) we crossed over by ferry to Ireland (then generally known as Southern Ireland or Eire depending on politics). The crossing was at night and most passengers travelled on deck (cabins were for the select few). It was a rough sea and nearly everyone was violently sick, even if most were sufficiently expert in disposing overboard. My family were pretty badly affected except for me. I had already travelled some time from another place back home (from another holiday activity) in London before we set off together. As as result I was dog tried by the time we embarked, found one of the benches to stretch out on and missed all of the 'fun'. I was not popular - or at least the object of much envy. The experience coloured the whole holiday although I do remember some bits quite positively. I also learned quickly that 'mna' was not a mis-spelled sign for 'men' on a public convenience . . . 

[Murflynn]

My best crossing was Belfast/Liverpool on a very stormy night. 

The company paid for a cabin so I went straight to bed and drank a huge whisky. 

My sleep was disturbed in the middle of the night by a huge crash which sounded like falling crockery. 

Next thing I knew the steward was knocking on the door with a breakfast tray, announcing that we were docking, and confirming it was one of the worst crossings he had ever known and my breakfast crockery had been salvaged from the broken stuff on the floor.