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    Are there any British settlements that have completely depopulated in modern history?

    Flooding a Welsh village to make way for Liverpool's reservoir is the theme of the film The Last Days of Dolwyn, based on a play by Emlyn Williams and shown on Talking Pictures not long ago. I remember it especially for a remarkably touching performance by Dame Edith Evans.
  2. S

    Are there any British settlements that have completely depopulated in modern history?

    There was a village of Heathrow, Middlesex, which was obliterated to make way for the airport. I recall reading an obituary in the Times of a woman who was one of the last people to be born there.
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    Walking and Rambling discussion

    Last Sunday I went on a 10.5 mile walk from Roddlesworth visitor centre near Darwen Tower to Brinscall. Part of our return route was along the Withnell Nature Trail, part of the old Chorley to Blackburn line, which can be walked as far as Abbey village. it is most attractive. A short less...
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    Places that have changed names

    Marsden near Colne became known as Nelson because of a pub; the original name survives in the Marsden Building Society (which has nothing to do with the other Marsden near Huddersfield).
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    Trivia: railway lines you can see from your home

    Nothing now but back in 1971-72 I rented a room in a house in Orsett Terrace, overlooking the approaches to Paddington, which made for fascinating viewing.
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    How much does the average retired person need to live off.

    The main thing is to start planning early. I took out a long term with-profits life insurance policy when I graduated, and kept it up until maturity 42 years later. I also paid the maximum allowed into self-employed retirement annuities and their successors, personal pensions. I recall that...
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    Jobs you cannot do, although would like?

    I know someone who was paid to test holiday itineraries and hotels before they went in the brochure. He had 27 trips to South America out of this. The lucky man is a member of this forum but I'll spare his blushes and won't name him.
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    Stagecoach Group (Group-wide matters)

    Stagecoach have just taken over the former Holmeswood routes 337/347, Ormskirk and Southport to Chorley. When I travelled yesterday on the 09:58 from Southport to Chorley, the bus carried several drivers learning the route, with a driver under instruction. She did well not to be more than 15...
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    Unbelievably Late Closures

    Not quite on topic for this thread, but I wonder if the station to be reopened at Liverpool Baltic (formerly St James, closed in 1917), will have had the longest interval between closure and reopening.
  10. S

    Tips for a good life when you get old

    This is encouraging to me as I've just this week been diagnosed with localised/ early stage prostate cancer, but with a high Gleason score and grade group (which measure the rate of growth and liability to spread). I only had a PSA test (at age 74) as part of a routine blood test following...
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    Walking and Rambling discussion

    Did a good circular walk from Parkgate (Wirral) on Sunday which included a bit of the old railway, with an early lunch at Hadlow Road station. Dismayed to notice that the length of track in the platform area was flatbottom and not bullhead, which surely would have been in use in 1952, the...
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    Saturdays on the railway in general

    I used to go out almost every Saturday by train to walk in the Hope Valley, Buxton area, South Pennines or Lakes, and occasionally elsewhere, usually leaving here at around 8 a.m., getting somewhere in time for a 4 to 5 hour walk to be completed in daylight, and returning at a reasonable time...
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    How many forum users have travelled over the whole public passenger rail network? And how many lines do you need to complete it?

    He wrote an article in the Railway Magazine called "My Red-Letter Day", which explained how he used the return half of a London to Swansea ticket to travel from Swansea to London via Llandrindod, Shrewsbury, Wellington, Stafford, Uttoxeter, Derby Friargate and Grantham to Kings Cross. I don't...
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    How many forum users have travelled over the whole public passenger rail network? And how many lines do you need to complete it?

    The fascinating thread on closed lines people have travelled on prompts me to ask how many have set themselves the task of doing the whole public network and how near they are to completion. I had managed this at one point, but then there were a few reopenings, three of which (Larkhall, Alloa...
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    second hand bookshops

    Sedbergh attempted to become an English Hay on Wye, but several of the smaller shops have now closed, including a specialist railway bookshop that was run by a retired Shell exec who drove up from Cheshire to Sedbergh every day. However, a couple of shops remain, including Westwoods, which has...
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    Closed lines you have travelled on.

    I've just remembered doing Brixham to Churston in 1959 or 1960, during a Devon General bus strike. And of course the old East Lancs entry to Preston plus Blackpool Central, the direct line from Kirkham and the Fleetwood branch. Plus the Liverpool Overhead and the entry to Liverpool Exchange...
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    Closed lines you have travelled on.

    I recall doing the Alston branch, Bridport, Clayton West and Bolton-Rochdale towards the end of their lives (but never Hayfield for some reason though it lasted until 1970); also Matlock-Manchester Central as a child in the 1950s, Southport-Preston only once on a diverted Ormskirk-Preston train...
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    Could we see dual voltage 777 trains through the unused tunnel spur to run through to the City Line?

    I agree, as per my post above, but I'm not quite sure that it would be possible for a Merseyrail extension through the Wapping Tunnel to call "at Edge Hill", certainly not at the existing platforms. It would seem to need additional platforms at the end of the cutting, with a walkway from them to...
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    second hand bookshops

    C.K. Broadhurst in Market Street Southport is good, and has a reasonable selection of railway and other transport titles; also has recently had quite a lot of Alan Godfrey reprints of OS maps. I have over the years bought many issues of the Illustrated London News from the 1840s to 1860s for...
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    Could we see dual voltage 777 trains through the unused tunnel spur to run through to the City Line?

    Central Low Level to South Parkway via Mossley Hill and West Allerton could be a possibility, if a way could be found to get round the depot at Edge Hill without conflict. Voltage changeover could be at the east end of the tunnel in the Crown Street area, as an extension of third rail through...

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