Welcome to the Rudloe and environs website.
Here you will find news, articles and photos of an area that straddles the Cotswold Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty in north-west Wiltshire.
Contributions in the form of articles or photos are welcome. Even those with completely contrary views to mine!
Thanks to the website builder 1&1 and Rob Brown for the original idea.
Rudloescene now, in January 2014, has a sister, academic rather than anarchic, website about Box history here: http://www.boxpeopleandplaces.co.uk/
It contains thoroughly professional, well-researched articles about Box and its people.
Contact rudloescene through the 'Contact' page.
A Steam Dreams special from London Victoria arrives at Bath a good half-hour late on 30th November 2021 with Christmas shoppers looking to explore the delights of Bath. But I think that they will be deeply disappointed by what they find. Having wandered around the city before the train arrived, I found it to be a shadow of its former self. No Christmas market, many shops and restaurants closed, others with restricted opening. I wandered along to Walcot Upholstery where I found the small cafe in front of Neptune closed, the Yellow Shop closed (I think), John's Bikes gone, Aqua restaurant closed, two shops in the Schwarz Burgers block empty, Reboot - the computer repair shop gone. There was a lighting shop (with all light on) which was supposed to be open according to the times on the door but the door was locked with nobody at home. And on the return, still searching for upholstery bits and pieces, I discovered that the Bath butchery institution, Bartlett & Sons in Green Street, has been consigned to history.
Stanier Black 5 no. 44871 arrives at Bath Spa sporting a 65I shed plate. This is Balloch in the Glasgow area but (nerd hat on here), according to my 1961 and 1962 Ian Allen Loco Shed books, 5D (Stoke) was its home.
And here we see she was built at Crewe in 1945. My 1962 Ian Allen Combined Volume shows 842 Black 5s in operation throughout the Midlands, North-West and Scotland. 44871 was one of the engines used on the 15 Guinea Special, the last BR train in 1968.
Polish or Chinese coal no doubt with the clerestory roof of the station buildings on the down platform beyond. 5MT indicates class 5 mixed traffic.
This is a Steam Dreams special in partnership with West Coast Railways
A work of art
A platformfull of nerds at the west end of platform 1
As the train was over half-an-hour late, we had to suffer the usual plethora of inane station announcements redolent of both/either a nanny or police state. "Mind the gap", "Stand back from the edge", "Don't leave your luggage unattended" (or it will be blown up), "the train doors will be closed 40 seconds before departure (to piss you off) and the worst ... "If you see anything that doesn't look right please inform a member of staff or the British Transport Police ... See It, Say It, Sorted" Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh - see it, say it, sorted my backside. I should tell them what doesn't sound right, all these bloody stupid station announcements disturning the peace. If (if!) people hadn't been afraid of being called racist when they saw (but not "saying it") a (how can we put this?) non-white carrying a damned great rucksack at Manchester Arena in 2017 then 22 lives might have been saved. It's incredible that the fear of the 'R' word is greater than the fear of a possible terrorist bomb. And I feel that little has changed; if I saw such a person on Bath Spa Station and reported (said) what I saw, I reckon that it wouldn't be sorted because station staff or the British Transport Police would be afraid of being labelled with the 'R' word and I would be nicked for being racist. We should not live our lives in fear of this word; lives are being lost because of it.
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