Some photos of GBRf's new 99 around Glasgow yesterday. As is my current fad, and partly because I left my SD card at home, taken on a Canon FTb

This 1952 memo from the Pentagon UFO files is superb There is no point preparing for aliens ‘because no one of consequence is going to take this rubbish seriously unless it happens. At that point, our policy will be determined in the traditional manner of grand panic.’ 🤣 www.war.gov/medialink/uf...

I'm off this week and saw this was running so thought I might as well go and have a look, as it's not a train I've photographed before. Snoop Dogg's least favourite train, 3Q00, the Envu weed killing set, passing Blea Moor this afternoon, with GBRf 66781 & 66792.

being a transit scheduler sometimes im like damn who tf made the schedule for this bus and then I remember it was me

The start of today's rather convoluted and ultimately pointless journey

I can just about remember what a train is

The internet is a dangerous place, I keep finding new music I like, and then I wonder where all my money went after importing said music. (The Helen Love and They Go Boom albums were easier to find over there. Don't take this as an arbitrage opportunity and buy them to go on discogs)

I've just found that this had just had a rerelease, which is it's first time on vinyl. It's been an expensive month for me. stoned-to-death.bandcamp.com/album/swirl

It's not good for my finances having both of these announced at once I'll be at both

Set times for tonight! 8pm The Cords 8.45pm The Orchids 9.45pm Heavenly 🦋💖🦋💖🦋💖🦋💖🦋

First gig of the year I've been to gigs with worse lineups Heavenly, the Orchids, and the Cords at the mono

I don't have that many really, but I've also finally got around to at least partially sorting my singles. At least sorting by incredibly vague genres now is better than everything just being thrown on the shelf as the were before.

The best piece of Austrian music just arrived (Sorry Mozart) Ba Ba Banküberfall by EAV open.spotify.com/track/1LAdc8...

Tonight's listening I'd like to say there's some common thread between these singles, but I can't think of anything, beyond that they're songs I think are alright.

Tonight's listening, 3 pop songs of the Neue Deutsche Welle. One of them is definitely the best song I've heard to use a calculator as instrument (although now I think of it Two Divided by Zero and Pocket Calculator both also use calculators, so I'm not so sure)

Tomix's new containers go quite nicely with my 90s rake The problem with modelling container trains is you either have too many wagons or too many containers. There will never be an equilibrium, there's always something more to buy. They do look nice though. #modeltrains

I'm adding smuggler to my CV, given they won't sell these outside of Japan. Had to use the proxies I usually use to get second hand stuff. (I get why, I suspect licensing the Orient Express name globally is more trouble than it's worth)

The badge still survives on my jacket

Today's listening A Million Zillion Miles by Annie & The Aeroplanes, a lovely janglepop record that got stuck in my head whilst listening to the C88 comp There's a box of news ones of these being sold on Discogs if you want one open.spotify.com/track/5lRR9c...

It'd would be lovely if there were a better way of getting an electric unit from Manchester to Doncaster ROG move next Saturday, I think this'll be a 397, but usual caviat that it might not run. (Also not one I've worked on, beyond platforming Waverley) realtimetrains.co.uk/service/gb-nr:

Thanks Adobe, I've always wanted an AI podcast making from the Scotrail unit diagrams. (I obviously have them from work, but these are publicly available at www.scotrail.co.uk/about-scotra...)

Now I've done the unimportant task of finding somewhere to live, now onto why I'm really here, to look at trains. There's a pair of SX class 320 diagrams that, on an evening, go out to Wemyss Bay and Gourock, usual 380 services. Here they are at the rather lovely Wemyss Bay.

Haven't seen a ticket formatted like this before What an exciting life I lead

I'm meant to be in Glasgow to look for a flat, which is the opposite of fun, but I had to go to monorail whilst I'm here. Somehow I didn't already have this, probably one of my favourite records from last year.

Und da war er wieder. TGV 8377 von Paris nach La Rochelle ist auch heuer wieder der Zug mit den MIT ABSTAND (!!!!) bescheuertsten, unregelmäßigsten und am schwersten (nämlich so gut wie gar nicht) zusammenfassbaren Verkehrszeiten im gesamten TGV-Netz überhaupt. Warum nur???? #LGVKursbuch

Today's listening, Swirl by Hear A great Czech shoegaze album from the 90s I admittedly don't know much Czech music; I found this last time I was over there, listening to one of Radio Prague's podcasts about the Czech shoegaze scene to pass the train on a train. open.spotify.com/album/1NO7zm...

Saw this on discogs and had to buy it. Space Manatee, one of my favourite Heavenly songs (and I'm only being slightly sarcastic.) I was quite happy this was on the setlist for their last Islington gig, it's just a really fun song.

The usual habitat. Unusually I'm seeing a band that aren't quite old enough to be my parents this time.

Went to see The Primitives in London today, 40 years (almost to the day) since their first gig. There's worse ways of spending an evening. (Also, the Bush Hall is a really lovely venue. Probably a bit wasted on us in the dark)

[November 14th, 1985] The Primitives performed their first concert with lead singer Tracy Tracy. The show took place at The Hope & Anchor pub in Coventry, England.

Tonight's listening I'm not sure I quite get the transitions between the songs, but the songs themselves are great. You can guess some of the inspirations for this band by the title, which fits quite well with what I like.

Today's orange arrival. REM's newish release, containing quite a few new versions of Radio Free Europe on a rather orange 10 inch record. Great song, and some nice new mixes on here. (I do now need to get some 10” inner sleeves though - I've only got one other 10")

Tonight's listening, some lovely Swedish indiepop in the form of Hari & Aino's A Considerate Kind Of Home. I do like the insert - a few things about the industry might have changed since then

Today's arrivals - the internet is a dangerous place where it is very easy to spend all your money. I've got four great songs out of it though. Talulah Gosh / Don't Go Away by Talulah Gosh, and Sad / E102 by the BMX Bandits

Been having fun with the KiwiSDRs recently. I do quite like that there's still a broadcast of the news via HF Fax. Weatherfax is mostly used for meteorological charts, & I think this is the only news station left. I do hope there ships out there still using these. (16971 kHz, English at 1200z 1-5)

Heavenly are going on tour next year!

huge notice that pops up if you try to edit the cat article

Oh no, I appear to have fallen down a Twitter rabbit hole again, and now I've found another way to spend all my money on postage. Shonen B's Totteoki No Ichinichi. Quite like this - really good indie pop / rock - the first and last tracks especially are great.

Tonight's listening - La-Di-Da's 1990 Borobudur comp. I admittedly bought this for the Heavenly song, but some great indiepop on here (almost all of which is by decent people)

Don't think I've ever seen overhead lines this shiny before, although I don't know why I'm surprised by copper wire displaying the properties of copper. (This is the new railway station at Praha-Bubny - I think it's only been open for a week so no time for it to get grubby yet)

Some trains from my week in Prague. The Czech railways are definitely modernising, and there's plenty of change every time I come over, but there's still proper trains with spoked wheels around (just a lot more Vectrons around)

Net MD on a phone. Not sure why I'm so amused by this, it just seems slightly wrong. It logically should work, web.minidisc.wiki just runs in chrome, but I wasn't expecting it to. (I'm amazed there's any demand for USB C to Micro B cables)

New(ish) record today. Kiwi Jr's Chopper, quite a good indie rock album. When I did student radio a few years ago I basically only played about 4 songs, one of which was Cooler Returns from their previous album. Downtown Area Blues probably my favourite song on this one.

This place is not a place of honor. No highly esteemed deed is commemorated here. Nothing valued is here. What is here was dangerous and repulsive to us. This message is a warning about danger. The danger is still present, in your time, as it was in ours.

Forgot I had these - the minidisc wiki got some discs printed for the 30th anniversary a few years back, and I've now finally put some audio on them. (All the cool kids have a MZ-E610, truly the coolest of whatever the plural form of MD Walkman is)

At the Heavenly gig tonight - my quest to be the least cool person imaginable continues. Lovely building, haven't been here before

I've been seeing more and more of these Stadler Euroduals around Germany. Impressive locos, and at least for me they haven't yet become ubiquitous enough to lose interest.

A trip down to Blankenese to see the semaphore signals.

I've stayed at hotels with worse views, or maybe I've got a really good model railway. phnx Harburg, which backs onto Hamburg Harburg Railway Station, which has a few trains

I thought I'd take a different route to Germany this time. Three trains a day run directly from Liverpool Street to Harwich, with the evening trains connecting onto the ferry to the Hoek van Holland. It's not exactly the Golden Arrow, but it's nice to see a boat train left.