D841 Roebuck
Established Member
Vienna.
This means nothing to me.
Sorry; someone had to say it, so it might as well be me
As for how fast the year's gone by, the older you get the quicker it goes.
Miss Jones' cat in Rising Damp...
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Tech's Rolling Review 2016
- Thread starter Techniquest
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Techniquest
Veteran Member
November 2016 - Rolling Review
November was always scheduled to be a quiet month for the most part, as it's that wonderful time of year when bank balances drop quickly. Indeed, a planned mini bash was cancelled rapidly when some major dental issues arrived in the early hours of 4th November. I won't go into details, but this had a bright side financially, both in the immediate term and the long term. Let's just say that, if all continues the way I've set targets for, 2018's major trips will be that much more affordable! Yes you read that right, I'm planning that far ahead. When it gets all finalised, I'll announce details and you'll understand why it all got planned 24 months in advance!
14th November saw me back on the rails at last for "Tech's In Vienna" which I had been looking forward to for quite some time. It was my first experience of a refurbished GWR HST set, and I was unimpressed by the tacky looking green and grey inside. The difference between Standard and First is now enormous, and I instead prefer the now-old interior! It was also my first flight with British Airways, and I wasn't blown away by them either. Ryanair remains my favourite airline by some way! Vienna is quite a nice city to explore, don't get me wrong, but their trams are horrible to ride in and I made a resolution to never again moan about UK trams!
Vienna just doesn't compare to New York, which remains my favourite non-UK city. On the plus side, the U-Bahn in Vienna is leaps and bounds ahead of New York's Subway, and like Stockholm and its Metro, I want to go back to clear the U-Bahn. I've been saying that for 2 years with Stockholm, an effort to rectify that is required! Oh, and I love the noise OBB's 1116 Class make, something else I want to go back to Vienna for! The trip did yield 180 new sights (5 of them were in the UK on the way to Gatwick) though, with quite a few planes scored for sight too and 2 A319s scored for flyage. I'm now on well over 15,000 miles in the air, possibly over 16,000, which for a part timer in 3.5 years is not bad. In that time I've only had 1 repeat plane, EI-EKL with Ryanair, which I'm also happy with!
Only 37 new haulages on the Vienna trip, with 2 GWR HST trailers for haulage on top of that. If it hadn't been a trip for the Christmas Markets, I would have scored far more! I did have a mental note of how many shacks I scored as well, but I've forgotten the number however it was quite a few! Not a bad haul for one of 2016's last few trips!
Tech Stops The Cavalry was a fairly short notice bash on 27th and 28th November, following the discovery I had more money than expected. London had been calling for far too long, and it was still only a mini bash with less than 24 hours in the city, but a red pen fest was more than required! In 22 hours in London, I scored 80 winners, 8 winner shacks and 52 required sights (OK one of those was a 168/3 in Birmingham when I got there). I'm now nearly there with Southern served shacks in the zones, and I anticipate that being dealt with in Q1 2017. SWT shacks in the zones I still need a lot of, but again I expect to go all out on those in Q1 2017.
There's only one major trip left for this year, and hopefully I'll squeeze in one more mini bash too. Tech's Anti Frothmas is not far away now, which will see me head to London for some Night Tube action, meeting with Blindtraveller for it. We're also taking in Crewe and probably some stuff in Manchester too. Call me crazy if you will but I need a fix of 142 action. My needs are way too high on that class for my liking!
2017's planning, before you ask, is well underway. UK wise, I have Tech's Big Bang 2017 coming soon in mid January 2017. I will post fuller details in my TPP Discussion thread, but 2017 promises to be quite interesting so far!
EDIT:
November 2016's Scores on the Doors
Winners: 117
New sights: 231
Shack scores: 25
Mileage: 777m72c
Rail fares: £79.80 (plus €24.90)
Hotel ching: £111.70
Air fares: £80.75
Bus fares: £4.10
General expenditure: £75.11 (plus €82.73)
Total: £447.25 (including a total of €107.63. At time of purchase £1 = €1.11. 11% of 107.63 is 11.8398. Following a basic mathematics rule, I round that up to 11.84, so 107.63-11.84 gives us 95.79. Therefore £95.79 of the total is what I would have spent in Euro)
I think I've made some errors in there somewhere, at least with the totting up of Euro spending, but I'm happy enough with the above now. I'm not currently willing to go through that log again!
November was always scheduled to be a quiet month for the most part, as it's that wonderful time of year when bank balances drop quickly. Indeed, a planned mini bash was cancelled rapidly when some major dental issues arrived in the early hours of 4th November. I won't go into details, but this had a bright side financially, both in the immediate term and the long term. Let's just say that, if all continues the way I've set targets for, 2018's major trips will be that much more affordable! Yes you read that right, I'm planning that far ahead. When it gets all finalised, I'll announce details and you'll understand why it all got planned 24 months in advance!
14th November saw me back on the rails at last for "Tech's In Vienna" which I had been looking forward to for quite some time. It was my first experience of a refurbished GWR HST set, and I was unimpressed by the tacky looking green and grey inside. The difference between Standard and First is now enormous, and I instead prefer the now-old interior! It was also my first flight with British Airways, and I wasn't blown away by them either. Ryanair remains my favourite airline by some way! Vienna is quite a nice city to explore, don't get me wrong, but their trams are horrible to ride in and I made a resolution to never again moan about UK trams!
Vienna just doesn't compare to New York, which remains my favourite non-UK city. On the plus side, the U-Bahn in Vienna is leaps and bounds ahead of New York's Subway, and like Stockholm and its Metro, I want to go back to clear the U-Bahn. I've been saying that for 2 years with Stockholm, an effort to rectify that is required! Oh, and I love the noise OBB's 1116 Class make, something else I want to go back to Vienna for! The trip did yield 180 new sights (5 of them were in the UK on the way to Gatwick) though, with quite a few planes scored for sight too and 2 A319s scored for flyage. I'm now on well over 15,000 miles in the air, possibly over 16,000, which for a part timer in 3.5 years is not bad. In that time I've only had 1 repeat plane, EI-EKL with Ryanair, which I'm also happy with!
Only 37 new haulages on the Vienna trip, with 2 GWR HST trailers for haulage on top of that. If it hadn't been a trip for the Christmas Markets, I would have scored far more! I did have a mental note of how many shacks I scored as well, but I've forgotten the number however it was quite a few! Not a bad haul for one of 2016's last few trips!
Tech Stops The Cavalry was a fairly short notice bash on 27th and 28th November, following the discovery I had more money than expected. London had been calling for far too long, and it was still only a mini bash with less than 24 hours in the city, but a red pen fest was more than required! In 22 hours in London, I scored 80 winners, 8 winner shacks and 52 required sights (OK one of those was a 168/3 in Birmingham when I got there). I'm now nearly there with Southern served shacks in the zones, and I anticipate that being dealt with in Q1 2017. SWT shacks in the zones I still need a lot of, but again I expect to go all out on those in Q1 2017.
There's only one major trip left for this year, and hopefully I'll squeeze in one more mini bash too. Tech's Anti Frothmas is not far away now, which will see me head to London for some Night Tube action, meeting with Blindtraveller for it. We're also taking in Crewe and probably some stuff in Manchester too. Call me crazy if you will but I need a fix of 142 action. My needs are way too high on that class for my liking!
2017's planning, before you ask, is well underway. UK wise, I have Tech's Big Bang 2017 coming soon in mid January 2017. I will post fuller details in my TPP Discussion thread, but 2017 promises to be quite interesting so far!
EDIT:
November 2016's Scores on the Doors
Winners: 117
New sights: 231
Shack scores: 25
Mileage: 777m72c
Rail fares: £79.80 (plus €24.90)
Hotel ching: £111.70
Air fares: £80.75
Bus fares: £4.10
General expenditure: £75.11 (plus €82.73)
Total: £447.25 (including a total of €107.63. At time of purchase £1 = €1.11. 11% of 107.63 is 11.8398. Following a basic mathematics rule, I round that up to 11.84, so 107.63-11.84 gives us 95.79. Therefore £95.79 of the total is what I would have spent in Euro)
I think I've made some errors in there somewhere, at least with the totting up of Euro spending, but I'm happy enough with the above now. I'm not currently willing to go through that log again!
Last edited:
Techniquest
Veteran Member
I FINALLY got the financial data totted up! The number wasn't as bad as I expected if I'm perfectly honest for the grand total, but some bigger numbers in the different bits than expected. Let's start by discussing December 2016:
Rolling Review 2016's final chapter, December 2016
Well hasn't this year gone fast, it only feels like a couple of months ago since I was rounding up December 2015! As we were in full blown Crazy Season, thankfully the end was finally in sight, bashing trips were not frequent enough. I spent a lot of time finishing off my reviews this month, and of course a megaton of bookwork had been outstanding for quite some time. In a bid to get set up fully for 2017, I sacrificed some bashing time to get through some of it. It came in handy for filling time on commuting too! 4th and 5th December were allocated to a Bookwork Weekend, although due to not feeling the love for it I didn't get it all done. Still, some of it was doable on lengthy festers and mundane moves, although the idea of filling in my Trackmaps Book 4 on a bash was less than desirable...It did eventually get finished on 2nd January 2017!
So the first trip of the month was Tech's Anti-Frothmas, 2016 edition. This has become an annual tradition for me and Blindtraveller, as neither of us enjoy this time of year whatsoever. I was feeling Christmasy in Vienna, granted, but that soon changed after going back to work! After work on 10th December, it was back to the rails at last, and in the day prior to the trip a mundane journey on a 170 was actually being looked forward to! It was a most enjoyable time, and although we didn't do the planned Pacer bash out of Crewe after all, I still came away with some ultra rare track in London, 31 winners and 28 new sights!
19th December was an occasion I was dreading, as it was the last bash of 2016. I also looked forward to Tech Rocks Da Party of course, and by 14th December I was already heavily into TPP Mode for 2017! Norway was awaiting a chance to book time off, as was a major trip me and Blindtraveller are looking to do...On Tech Rocks Da Party, I finally met forum member andyb2706 properly and we had a most enjoyable day around Lancashire. I got 6 shack scores, 3 winner 150s and 2 winner trams in, not to mention 2 new sights and some 37 thrash!
And with that, all that was left to do was round up the bookwork, post the Q4 update on Your Haulage Requirements and look forward to #TechsBigBang2017. I'm starting 2017 off in a manner I didn't expect, as on New Year's Day I'm working! Bang goes any plans to do a mini bash to kick things off well, or was that really the case...
December 2016 - Scores on the Doors
Winners: 33
Shack scores: 6
New sights: 33
Mileage: 1,043
Rail fares: £107.60
Hotel ching: £80.95
Bus fares: £8.20
General expenditure: £69.05
Total: £235.80
Q4 Scores on the Doors
Winners: 192
Shack scores: 62
New sights: 314
Mileage: 2,949
Q4 Spendage
Rail fares: £481.41
Bus fares: £20.50
Coach fares: £0
Air fares: £80.75
Hotel ching: £352.15
General expenditure: £247.93
Total: £1,225.27
An expensive final quarter, of that there can be no doubt, but oh so worth it! Finally, the bit that's held up the end of 2016's Rolling Review:
So here we go, the final round up of 2016! This lot took some working out, I can tell you that much. So much so I started typing this all up in late September [and it took me until 3rd January 2017 to finish it! - Ed], one way to kill a boring commute! Let's start with the all-important data:
2016 Scores on the Doors
Winners: 785
Shack scores: 379
New sights: 872
2016 Spendage
Rail fares: £1,785.62
Bus fares: £136.70
Coach fares: £34.10
Air fares: £529.64
Hotel ching: £1,021.44
General expenditure: £1,136.37
Total: £4,680.20
By around £1,300, my most expensive year of bashing ever! What a year it's been though, worth every penny, worth every long fester! Let's continue with the more interesting bits:
Trip of 2016
No prizes for guessing this one, March's trip to New York wins hands down. What an experience, my first ever visit to the USA and I can't wait to go again!
In terms of UK bashing trips, I'd go with Tech's October Fest as the best trip of the year. It was so much fun, with a huge variety of trains and excellent company too.
Move of the Year 2016
Gee whiz, this was a mighty challenging one to work out! So many journeys qualify under different circumstances for this honour! As an example of my choices, do I base it purely on motive power? Do I base it on achieving a particular goal? Has there been an experience of unusual circumstances, unexpected ones perhaps? It's a strange choice, but based on the ultra rare track alone I've settled with 700114 from West Hampstead Thameslink to East Croydon in the early hours of Sunday 11th December 2016. Reason? Covering that ultra rare curve between Loughborough Junction and Canterbury Road Junction!
My other choice was 37403 Ravenglass to Carlisle, finally got it in the book 12 years after first seeing it rotting away on Margam Yard. I never thought in 2004 I'd see it working, which goes to show how surprising the railway can be!
Highlight of 2016
Another area I struggled to make a decision on. There's been lots of highlights over the year, but just for now [I started this on 27th September! - Ed] I'm declaring it to be clearing London Underground for shacks! Actually, yes that will be it for sure when I finally made up my mind on Frothmas Eve!
Lowlight of 2016
Not as easy to figure out as you might think, but I'm declaring it to be failing to clear Metrolink for shacks, despite numerous visits to make it happen. Tied for this title is the 3 nights in a row of fire alarms in easyHotel Croydon in August!
Another choice was the 09 on the Bluebell Railway. My first one for haulage but it was incredibly dull. That being said, I should have known it would be as the 08 I had on the Weardale Railway years ago was as dull as ditchwater!
Sighting of the Year 2016
This one is relatively easy to decide, and is scoring 466019 for sight in August 2016, finally clearing all of Southeastern for sight after nearly 13 years!
Another choice was 37424, which was previously resident on the Churnet Valley Railway I believe. Still not been over there...I thought a few years ago I'd never see it, but again it's surprising how the railway can, well, surprise you! Still need it for haulage mind, very much looking forward to getting it...
Overall, it's been an excellent year and I have very few regrets whatsoever. When the summaries [still had the figures to complete... - Ed] were finally finished on the commute home on 29th December 2016, I was suffering from Red Pen Fever and felt like a caged lion already. My next move isn't scheduled until 7th January...Thankfully, as those of you following my trip report thread will already know, I managed an ultra-mini-bash on New Year's Day which did help in keeping me going until Tech's Big Bang 2017!
Rolling Review 2016's final chapter, December 2016
Well hasn't this year gone fast, it only feels like a couple of months ago since I was rounding up December 2015! As we were in full blown Crazy Season, thankfully the end was finally in sight, bashing trips were not frequent enough. I spent a lot of time finishing off my reviews this month, and of course a megaton of bookwork had been outstanding for quite some time. In a bid to get set up fully for 2017, I sacrificed some bashing time to get through some of it. It came in handy for filling time on commuting too! 4th and 5th December were allocated to a Bookwork Weekend, although due to not feeling the love for it I didn't get it all done. Still, some of it was doable on lengthy festers and mundane moves, although the idea of filling in my Trackmaps Book 4 on a bash was less than desirable...It did eventually get finished on 2nd January 2017!
So the first trip of the month was Tech's Anti-Frothmas, 2016 edition. This has become an annual tradition for me and Blindtraveller, as neither of us enjoy this time of year whatsoever. I was feeling Christmasy in Vienna, granted, but that soon changed after going back to work! After work on 10th December, it was back to the rails at last, and in the day prior to the trip a mundane journey on a 170 was actually being looked forward to! It was a most enjoyable time, and although we didn't do the planned Pacer bash out of Crewe after all, I still came away with some ultra rare track in London, 31 winners and 28 new sights!
19th December was an occasion I was dreading, as it was the last bash of 2016. I also looked forward to Tech Rocks Da Party of course, and by 14th December I was already heavily into TPP Mode for 2017! Norway was awaiting a chance to book time off, as was a major trip me and Blindtraveller are looking to do...On Tech Rocks Da Party, I finally met forum member andyb2706 properly and we had a most enjoyable day around Lancashire. I got 6 shack scores, 3 winner 150s and 2 winner trams in, not to mention 2 new sights and some 37 thrash!
And with that, all that was left to do was round up the bookwork, post the Q4 update on Your Haulage Requirements and look forward to #TechsBigBang2017. I'm starting 2017 off in a manner I didn't expect, as on New Year's Day I'm working! Bang goes any plans to do a mini bash to kick things off well, or was that really the case...
December 2016 - Scores on the Doors
Winners: 33
Shack scores: 6
New sights: 33
Mileage: 1,043
Rail fares: £107.60
Hotel ching: £80.95
Bus fares: £8.20
General expenditure: £69.05
Total: £235.80
Q4 Scores on the Doors
Winners: 192
Shack scores: 62
New sights: 314
Mileage: 2,949
Q4 Spendage
Rail fares: £481.41
Bus fares: £20.50
Coach fares: £0
Air fares: £80.75
Hotel ching: £352.15
General expenditure: £247.93
Total: £1,225.27
An expensive final quarter, of that there can be no doubt, but oh so worth it! Finally, the bit that's held up the end of 2016's Rolling Review:
So here we go, the final round up of 2016! This lot took some working out, I can tell you that much. So much so I started typing this all up in late September [and it took me until 3rd January 2017 to finish it! - Ed], one way to kill a boring commute! Let's start with the all-important data:
2016 Scores on the Doors
Winners: 785
Shack scores: 379
New sights: 872
2016 Spendage
Rail fares: £1,785.62
Bus fares: £136.70
Coach fares: £34.10
Air fares: £529.64
Hotel ching: £1,021.44
General expenditure: £1,136.37
Total: £4,680.20
By around £1,300, my most expensive year of bashing ever! What a year it's been though, worth every penny, worth every long fester! Let's continue with the more interesting bits:
Trip of 2016
No prizes for guessing this one, March's trip to New York wins hands down. What an experience, my first ever visit to the USA and I can't wait to go again!
In terms of UK bashing trips, I'd go with Tech's October Fest as the best trip of the year. It was so much fun, with a huge variety of trains and excellent company too.
Move of the Year 2016
Gee whiz, this was a mighty challenging one to work out! So many journeys qualify under different circumstances for this honour! As an example of my choices, do I base it purely on motive power? Do I base it on achieving a particular goal? Has there been an experience of unusual circumstances, unexpected ones perhaps? It's a strange choice, but based on the ultra rare track alone I've settled with 700114 from West Hampstead Thameslink to East Croydon in the early hours of Sunday 11th December 2016. Reason? Covering that ultra rare curve between Loughborough Junction and Canterbury Road Junction!
My other choice was 37403 Ravenglass to Carlisle, finally got it in the book 12 years after first seeing it rotting away on Margam Yard. I never thought in 2004 I'd see it working, which goes to show how surprising the railway can be!
Highlight of 2016
Another area I struggled to make a decision on. There's been lots of highlights over the year, but just for now [I started this on 27th September! - Ed] I'm declaring it to be clearing London Underground for shacks! Actually, yes that will be it for sure when I finally made up my mind on Frothmas Eve!
Lowlight of 2016
Not as easy to figure out as you might think, but I'm declaring it to be failing to clear Metrolink for shacks, despite numerous visits to make it happen. Tied for this title is the 3 nights in a row of fire alarms in easyHotel Croydon in August!
Another choice was the 09 on the Bluebell Railway. My first one for haulage but it was incredibly dull. That being said, I should have known it would be as the 08 I had on the Weardale Railway years ago was as dull as ditchwater!
Sighting of the Year 2016
This one is relatively easy to decide, and is scoring 466019 for sight in August 2016, finally clearing all of Southeastern for sight after nearly 13 years!
Another choice was 37424, which was previously resident on the Churnet Valley Railway I believe. Still not been over there...I thought a few years ago I'd never see it, but again it's surprising how the railway can, well, surprise you! Still need it for haulage mind, very much looking forward to getting it...
Overall, it's been an excellent year and I have very few regrets whatsoever. When the summaries [still had the figures to complete... - Ed] were finally finished on the commute home on 29th December 2016, I was suffering from Red Pen Fever and felt like a caged lion already. My next move isn't scheduled until 7th January...Thankfully, as those of you following my trip report thread will already know, I managed an ultra-mini-bash on New Year's Day which did help in keeping me going until Tech's Big Bang 2017!
You don't like Gronk Thrash then!If I go to a gala and one is due to be used, I plan my day around that, especially if its a winner!
I regret that I've not really recorded them until recently, taking a bit more of an interest now though.
It's always surprised me how quiet 08s/09s etc are compared to pretty much anything else with English Electric stamped on it. They must be pretty much the only locos that they fitted an effective silencer to...
Enjoying your 2016 review by the way Tech, as you said a couple of times the railway always surprises us.
Last edited:
Kite159
Veteran Member
A good review of Von year
Techniquest
Veteran Member
Certainly more positive than any review of the year that's been on telly
To be fair, and I only watched bits of it, the BBC News Review 2016 was interesting when it covered things like NASA's mission to Jupiter!
All those people who did miserable reviews of 2016 clearly didn't have any 37s or 68s for haulage
As for the gronk thing, they're the only EE loco type I don't enjoy. Just so insanely dull...
Kite159
Veteran Member
To be fair, and I only watched bits of it, the BBC News Review 2016 was interesting when it covered things like NASA's mission to Jupiter!
All those people who did miserable reviews of 2016 clearly didn't have any 37s or 68s for haulage
As for the gronk thing, they're the only EE loco type I don't enjoy. Just so insanely dull...
I had both today on decent length runs if that counts
I think my longest journey with a 68 last year was Marylebone to Beaconsfield with the Banbury commuter set, my other leaps have been bus stop hops between Haymarket & Edinburgh or within the Midlands 'core'
Blindtraveler
Established Member
- Joined
- 28 Feb 2011
- Messages
- 10,544
I considder it a great onner to have been with you on both your top moves of they year tech, the 37 for me personally stands out more as you were so happy to get it and she sang beutifully for an hour and a half along the coast with us in some of the best seats in the house.
Heres to another years bashing!
Heres to another years bashing!
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