Railway General Knowledge.

[kevconnor]

It had a massive stash of drugs in it, which after they'd taken evidence photos of they then burned and stood slightly closer to the bonfire than they should've?

Right idea but not drugs.

 

[TheEdge]

Stolen cash? Or stolen goods.

 

[kevconnor]

Stolen cash? Or stolen goods.

Nope.

 

[DaleCooper]

Body parts?

 

[kevconnor]

Body parts?

Afraid not.

 

[Cowley]

I'm thinking a gun, or plans for some kind of heist. I'll go plans for something.

 

[BurtonM]

The only other thing I can think of is a bomb.

 

[TheEdge]

The bag contained Lord Lucan

 

[DaleCooper]

Plutonium?

 

[kevconnor]

The only other thing I can think of is a bomb.

This is close enough, it contained material to make a viable bomb, thought to be from the IRA targeting the Tory Party Conference in Bournemouth.

Man who stole bomb kit fears retaliation by IRA
Sunday 24 July 1994



THE MAN who unwittingly took a bomb-making kit from a train said yesterday he was scared stiff of what might happen if the IRA 'gets him'.
Jeff Baker, an unemployed father-of-two, fears the terrorists - who police believe had planned to plant the device at the Conservative Party conference at Bournemouth in October - may punish him for stealing it.

'We're talking about people who don't stop at anything to make their point - they could do anything to get me back,' Mr Baker, 31, said. 'These are terrorists who blow up people or take their kneecaps off.'

Anti-terrorist officers released Mr Baker without charge after questioning him about the seven kilograms of Semtex he found in a holdall he stole from a train at Reading station on Thursday.

Mr Baker told Scotland Yard's anti-terrorist detectives that he took the holdall from the Manchester-to- Bournemouth train because he thought it belonged to a 'little old lady I was helping off the train'.

He said: 'I helped her out of the carriage and offered it to her. She had several bags and was struggling a bit. I said, 'There you go madam' and offered her the holdall. But she said, 'Oh no young man. That's not mine'.

'She then disappeared down the platform, quite fast. I thought, 'Oh well, I'll keep it' and walked off towards my sister's house.' He was arrested after dialling 999 to admit that he had stolen the bomb. Earlier, in his panic, he dropped the holdall three times as he walked from the station to his sister Jeanette King's home.

Police have issued pictures of two men who may have shared a train compartment with terrorists carrying the explosives. One was aged about 42 with brown, greying hair and wore brown-rimmed spectacles, a brown leather jacket, blue jeans and white canvas trainers.

The other was about 30, 6ft 2ins tall and thin, with shoulder-length mousy-coloured hair. 'Police are keen to speak to them as they may have further information about the holdall,' Scotland Yard said, making it clear they were not suspects.

Officers were disappointed with the response to appeals for witnesses. Only a handful of the 260 passengers on the train had come forward. Mr Baker, who boarded the train at Oxford at 11.24am, took the holdall before getting off at Reading half an hour later.

Source: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/man-who-stole-bomb-kit-fears-retaliation-by-ira-1416060.html
The floor is yours.

 

[BurtonM]

...oh! Didn't expect that. (Said event was a year before I was born - a bomb was just a logical answer).
Nothing prepared and nothing springs to mind that wouldn't be stupidly easy so I'll declare open floor.

 

[HMS Ark Royal]

How curious... BBC archive's twitter page posted a news clip of this very event just a day ago

 

[TheEdge]

Its been a while, I'll take the floor then.

What makes what we call a boxpok wheel in the UK different from the true boxpok wheel in the US?

 

[theageofthetra]

I seem to recall that ours were made more traditionally as one big casting whilst the US ones were built up of bits- there was a cross section of one at a railroad museum I visited once in the US.

 

[TheEdge]

Is correct. The true boxpok as patented by the General Steel Castings Corporation in the US is made of several fastened parts. What we call a boxpok but is more correctly a Bulleid Firth Brown wheel is indeed, a single casting.

 

[theageofthetra]

Keeping the Bulleid theme what specifically connects him and Tom Rolt?

 

[Calthrop]

A somewhat "out there" suggestion, I suspect: but -- post-World War II, they both spent time in the Irish Republic, engaging in transport-related things. Bulleid was CME of Coras Iompair Eireann from 1950 on. Rolt made a waterborne tour of Irish inland waterways in 1946, recounted in his book Green and (?on?) Silver (in the course of which he also managed to visit the Cavan & Leitrim, and West Clare, n/g lines).

 

[theageofthetra]

More specific than that but you are on the right track.

 

[Calthrop]

To do with Talyllyn Railway's loco No. 7 Tom Rolt, rebuilt from a Bord na Mona 3ft gauge loco of 1949? Was Bulleid involved with designing these B na M machines?

 

[theageofthetra]

Very close...

 

[Calthrop]

I'm afraid I can get no further, here.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
Unless -- thought just occurred -- turf is the connection: with CIE, Bulleid worked on a couple of (unsuccessful) experimental turf-burning steam locos; but that feels very "strained and tortured".

 

[theageofthetra]

Correct- . Your turf.

 

[Calthrop]

Thanks; but without the much kind leading from you, I'd have got nowhere. Please, open floor.

 

[backontrack]

Where in Britain was the most northerly passenger railway in the UK?

 

[Cowley]

Well, just to eliminate the obvious. Georgemas junction to Thurso? There was probably some waggonway on Orkney that I've never heard of though!

 

[TheEdge]

Was there a light railway in Scapa Flow that was used to carry high ranking officers to distant quays?

 

[DasLunatic]

I think at one point the Weydale Quarries Tramway carried passengers. Its terminus is ever so slightly further North than Thurso station.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Was there a light railway in Scapa Flow that was used to carry high ranking officers to distant quays?

Are you referring to the Hagdale Chromate Railway, perchance...?

 

[backontrack]

None of these are correct.

DL, Scapa Flow isn't in Shetland, but Orkney.

 

[DasLunatic]

Muckle Flugga Lighthouse Railway...?

 

[backontrack]

Not so.