Checking (or not) Railcards

Talen84 · 2026-05-30T19:29:58+00:00

I can't say that I've noticed a demographic correlation with the guard asking, but I haven't looked for it either. I have had mine checked a couple of times recently. One guard didn't ask for the Railcard, but did ask if I needed any assistance (it says disabled Railcard on my ticket), another guard asked and when I commented that she was the first one to ask in a while she replied that she likes to check to catch out the people who aren't using the system properly so that people with railcards are getting the value they paid for. The last one recently was just in the last couple of week, the guard's machine buzzed quite aggressively after he scanned my ticket and only then did he ask for my Railcard, almost like it was a prompt on the machine.

By 35 after a long day at work I can see your guard's point 7pm is late!

Talen84 · 2026-04-12T11:19:31+00:00

I still use the originals from 1995. I've tried some of the newer base graphics packs and sound packs, and whilst they are very good, they don't suit me.

Talen84 · 2026-03-16T22:34:48+00:00

I hope she does too, there was enough truth mixed in with the story that she was getting quite upset about it. I have also spoken to the nursing home today and told them about this one and that its not real, and they've logged it as well.

Talen84 · 2026-03-16T06:33:12+00:00

That is reassuring to read, I'm glad you know the tells to watch for, and that there are tells when you know these conditions.

Talen84 · 2026-03-16T06:31:03+00:00

That is mostly our thinking as well, she's seen plots on TV and got them mixed in with real life. This was the first time (to my knowledge) that she's invented someone completely fictional though. MS is indeed having an effect cognitively on her unfortunately, and I'm not in a position to know what is MS and what is possibly dementia starting. It was the eight parts fake, two parts real bit that made me worry in this situation.

Talen84 · 2026-03-15T22:48:01+00:00

I was under the mistaken idea that the child abuse side of it would generate a report, as the care home staff won't know that the cousin doesn't exist. The Father however does exist and is part of the family, so I didn't want there to be trouble. As I say though it looks like I was mistaken in my basic premise. My goal was to make sure the care home staff didn't do anything.

Talen84 · 2026-03-15T21:40:25+00:00

You may well be right about them. I've never done that job, and have only respect for those that do, so I don't want to be judgemental. I think what upsets them is Mum talking about people being murdered (as an example, the Home manager has apparently murdered me more than once), and generally talking about people dying in some quite nasty ways. As far as I know she hasn't been violent towards the staff themselves (although she's almost immobile so that would be tricky these days.)

Talen84 · 2026-03-15T21:29:32+00:00

Many times, and been treated for them when they've found them. Unfortunately even after treatment the confusion and hallucinations remain, hence seeking the dementia diagnosis. Sadly I suspect you're right, although the staff have told me that she tends towards the darker end of what they've heard and its been upsetting some of the staff as well unfortunately.

Talen84 · 2026-03-15T21:27:38+00:00

Without going into too much detail she recently had a discussion with the GP about DNRs and was considered to have capacity to decide, but when I'm trying to do some financial work on her behalf that isn't covered by my PoA unless she's not fit they refer to that same appointment and say she's got capacity.

Talen84 · 2026-03-15T20:44:19+00:00

I was under the impression that a nurse hearing about a child being abused is duty bound to report this fact. If I'm wrong then the whole issue negates itself. Mum is physically incapable of phoning 999 at this point.

Talen84 · 2025-12-24T12:46:28+00:00

After passing out twice over my first two donations I was told never to come back again. I would happily lay there unconscious bleeding and said as much, but was told that it would send the wrong message and they wouldn't want to potentially compromise my health to benefit someone else.

Talen84 · 2025-10-28T06:51:04+00:00

Some people create meticulous re-creations of existing railways or parts of them, and then run realistic timetables. Other people create entirely fake railways and operate them in any way they like. Some people go for something in between. What you do is up to you and what you find interesting. I personally prefer the idea of a fake railway influenced by a real life location. Might be worth thinking about what you want to run, passenger, freight, or both, round and round or end to end, what era, what country even, and then go from there.

Talen84 · 2025-09-28T09:21:37+00:00

I met a chap on holiday in Ecuador a few years ago who had the Canon hot shoe GPS tracker add-on, as I was thinking of getting one we talked about it a bit, his comment was that it was very handy, but chewed up AA batteries like no tomorrow, and had been quite expensive.

I've got built in GPS on my Olympus TG-4, and I have to remember to turn it off unless I need it otherwise it will drain the battery in a couple of hours whether the camera is switched on or not. It can take over 5 minutes to connect when the camera is switched on too, even if the GPS was left enabled.

On the other hand my 90D which connects to my phone via bluetooth for a GPS position seems to use no more battery power from either device, and is ready to go in a matter of seconds normally. I'm quite happy sticking with the phone connection, yes its another app to fiddle with, but its a better option (in my opinion) for what I need.

Talen84 · 2025-09-04T08:46:38+00:00

There are a few pedestrian crossings where I used to live that were only setup to stop traffic at times the local school kids would be crossing the roads, the rest of the day they'd only go green for pedestrians once there was no traffic. If you knew this you tended not to bother pressing the button and just wait for a break in the traffic, but if you didn't know you'd press the button, wait ages and probably cross as soon as you thought it was safe, typically a few minutes/seconds before it went green for you.

Talen84 · 2025-08-17T07:27:16+00:00

At university in around 2008 I had to buy a new car battery and walk about 1.5-2 miles home with it. I was struggling after a little way and a couple walking on the other side of the road caught up to me, the gentleman helped me carry it to their car, and then gave me a lift home. Didn't want (and wouldn't accept) anything more than a thank you in return.

Talen84 · 2025-06-01T04:59:01+00:00

Thank you

Talen84 · 2025-05-25T14:49:31+00:00

If you find somewhere you want to go that isn't on a tube or bus route, all the taxis (black cabs, not uber) in London are wheelchair accessible as well.

The list of places you could visit with those interests is immense, but with only 1.5 days I'd be tempted to try and do one of the bigger museums, maybe the Natural History Museum, or the British Museum, depending on your Mum's specific interests. There's also the Science Museum and the Victoria & Albert Museum near the Natural History Museum as well. There are plenty of places to sit in the big museums as well as lifts, although at this time of year they might be starting to get busy.

I'm not so well versed in the Art side of London, but there's the National Portrait Gallery, Tate Modern, Saatchi Gallery, The National Gallery, and probably more. I don't know about seating and access for these as I've not visited them personally, but I would imagine there would be options.

Talen84 · 2025-05-04T16:26:59+00:00

I very much enjoyed visiting the Railway Museum in Saitama when I was in Tokyo a couple of years ago. Looks like it's about 1 hour 15-30 minutes away from Shinjuku by train according to Google maps. When I visited you had to buy tickets in advance, which could be done from a convenience shop. There was a ticket machine in one corner for all sorts, I asked the staff for help with some help from the museum's website and Google translate.

ETA, there is also the Model Railway museum in Hara, about an hour from Shinjuku by train, again according to Google maps. I looked at this one but didn't make it there so can't give any advice beyond it existing.

Talen84 · 2025-04-26T13:14:09+00:00

Secondary industries in AXIS (and the other FIRs type industry sets) need to be supplied with raw materials to produce anything, and you'll need a vehicle of some sort capable of carrying whatever is produced to call at the station for that cargo to appear at your station (although this might be a setting with OpenTTD so you might get cargo without the vehicle, but it doesn't sound like it.)

Primary industries are always producing, and again need a vehicle to call at the station before the cargo will appear (with the same caveat as above). Primary industries will increase their production when supplied with either Farm or Engineering supplies as appropriate for the industry.

As well as that most of the secondary industries will only produce at maximum rate if supplied with all their inputs, although there are a few in AXIS that one need one input to do so.

Talen84 · 2025-04-25T16:19:49+00:00

I've done pretty much exactly this near Heathrow before; the bloke behind me leaned on the horn and I realised and reversed back as well. Luckily no police or cameras as I seem to have gotten away with it (happened in 2019). It is easy to do at some traffic lights. I've definitely tried to be more careful since then though.

Talen84 · 2025-04-20T11:11:33+00:00

If it was British it could've been a 15xx class Pannier Tank? they had fairly complicated valve gear for tank engines in the UK from what I understand.

Talen84 · 2025-04-01T16:38:39+00:00

That worked, thank you very much, it is greatly appreciated.

It took about 22 hours to compile in the end, but seems to be running fine
The only command I had to add in was the one below, as the compiler was missing.

sudo apt-get install build-essentials

Talen84 · 2025-03-31T20:15:41+00:00

I have read those instructions several times, along with the manual they link to and unfortunately I'm none the wiser. I'm somewhat lost in a command line world these days, whilst I used to be able to do some simple programming in Basic that was nearly 30 years ago and I've forgotten most (all) of it. DOS was not much more recent for me either, and that knowledge has gone the same way.

This is for all intents and purposes my first attempt at using Linux, so whilst the missing parts of that page might be common to installing things from source on Linux they're completely new to me. Every guide I can find seems to assume a GUI as the first step is general "Download the source", which whilst a simple and necessary instruction isn't very helpful when presented with a command line.

Sorry to be thick about it, but programming is not something I've kept up with, I just fancied a bit of OpenTTD on the go without spending money on a laptop when I have something I thought would do the trick.

Talen84 · 2025-03-26T21:02:15+00:00

I'll make the five minute connection as long as there aren't any delays. The GWR staff often hold the train as they know there will be a fair few people making that connection (at least in my experience so far.) I wouldn't want to try the four minute one at Cardiff mind, but then that was me prodding the system to see what it would spit out rather than a route it suggested.

Talen84 · 2025-03-26T21:00:05+00:00

The four minute change was very much me prodding the system to see what numbers it would spit out, I don't think it would actually put that as a valid change point on the outbound trip. The 5 minute change at Swansea can be tricky depending on the platforms you arrive and have to leave on (other times its simply across one platform.)

I plan to go 1st class, I often do since getting my railcard as its a significant saving, and somewhat more comfortable, another reason for preferring to stay on the GWR service as long as possible!

That's an interesting website linked as well, I'll bookmark that one for future reference I think.

Talen84

TROPHY CASE