home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
- Xref: sparky rec.railroad:11035 uk.misc:3268
- Path: sparky!uunet!charon.amdahl.com!pacbell.com!decwrl!concert!gatech!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!agate!doc.ic.ac.uk!pipex!bnr.co.uk!stc!nnsgs52!ianking
- From: ianking@nnsgs52 (Ian King)
- Newsgroups: rec.railroad,uk.misc
- Subject: Re: Small Gods Annotations
- Followup-To: rec.railroad,uk.misc
- Date: 28 Jan 1993 08:40:21 GMT
- Organization: Northern Telecom Europe Ltd
- Lines: 37
- Message-ID: <1k865lINN2s6@bnsgd245.bnr.co.uk>
- References: <1993Jan26.144244.10642@bradford.ac.uk>
- Reply-To: ianking@lon40.nt.com
- NNTP-Posting-Host: nnsgs52.lon40.nt.com
- X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL8]
-
- Pete Foulkes (P.A.Foulkes@bradford.ac.uk) wrote:
- : In article <728033204snx@warren.demon.co.uk> leveret@warren.demon.co.uk writes:
- : >Daniel@scs.leeds.ac.uk (where *has* he been?) writes:
- : >>|>
- : >>|> British Rail (last winter I think) were having difficulty getting
- : >>|> trains to run on time and they blamed it on the snow. They
- : >>|> were then quizzed as to why their snow-ploughs couldn't deal with it.
- : >>|> They replied that it was "the wrong sort of snow". (perhaps this story
- : >>|> was leaves first, I can't remember). Again "the wrong sort of X" is
- : >>|> now part of the idiom.
- : >>
- : >
- : >And I have *never*, *ever* heard of your "wrong kind of leaves" story.
- : >Please suppy a reference for it.
- : >
-
- : My recollection is that it wasn't the "wrong kind of leaves" it
- : was just "leaves on the track".
-
- : Of course you don't expect a shock fall of leaves on the track
- : in Autumn. :-)
-
- I really get fed up with this in the press. It isn't the actual leaves that
- cause the problem but leaf mulch. And that happens everywhere not just on the
- railways. Walk along a path that hasnt been cleared (in late Autumn/early Winter)
- and they are often slippy... caused by rotting leaves. This is a fact of life in the
- Countryside. But people just dont take notice of that though.
-
- On the railways the leaves get compacted into the mulch by the steel tyres. The
- old clasp brakes clean this off. The newer disc brakes dont.
-
-
- --
- ADVANCE MICRO COMPUTERS LTD & Wolverton Rail | EMAIL: ianking@amicro.demon.co.uk
- PO Box 362, Olney, Nr. Milton Keynes, | or ianking@lon40.nt.com
- Bucks, MK46 5ES, ENGLAND, UK. | ^^^^^^^^^^^^ UK not USA
- TEL: +44 (0)234-711615 FAX: +44 (0)234-240976 MOBILE: +44 (0)831-535618
-