I have this picture of the train station in York......

[Fred in Skirts]

Hi Dennis,
How close to the York train station do you live. Here is the picture I have of the station taken at
9:19 PM today the 9th of Feb 2021 your time. As you can see the weather is typical of the area, very wet!! I can never seem to find a day when the camera is not covered with rain drops.

york eng r2.jpg

And here is the camera at Crewe...... Taken at about the same time but with out the rain...

crewe england r2.jpg

I try to follow the railroads every where and enjoy watching the trains while skirted. I guess that makes me a Skirted Train Spotter....

[geron]

My youngest lives ten minutes walk from York Station, and only a few minutes more from the National Railway Museum (very much worth a visit). But, please, it's a railway station, not a train station

[Sinned]

Fred, I live about a 40 minute walk from the York station. It's the one that appeared in the Harry Potter films. The Railway Museum would be on the route to the station for me. I do pop into the Museum occasionally as it's free to enter. The station is only a short walk from the city centre ( we could also call it the town centre even though York is a city, colloquial speak ).

BTW I agree with geron, it's a railway station.

[Kirbstone]

Re> York Rly. Station : Look at the top left of the picture. York Minster. Unmistakeable. From the top of that you can clearly see the entire Australian Continent and NZ too!

Dennis by his own admission hasn't yet been up to the top to verify what I've just said.

Crewe by contrast has a whole lot of intersecting tracks going nowhere.....Not far from there (in 1959) I poked my head out the stationary carriage window and asked a porter where we were?.......'Justay, maite' said he. This was later translated for us as 'Chester'.

Tom

[Fred in Skirts]

Trains, railways whats the difference???
Underground, subway again whats the difference????
Trolleys, trams again whats the difference????
The terms mean the same thing we do live in a world that speaks the same language but we don't understand each other.
I have watched repair crews working on the tracks at crew for several days in a row. They were working on the same tracks every night after last train. Are the tracks that bad?? Of course the poor souls are working at 4 AM your time so it is dark but they bring lights.

[Sinned]

Fred, a railway is the parallel ( we hope ) set of steel rails that an engine and its associated train of carriages ride on. It is technically a railway station as it will be that whether or not there is a train in it or not. If it was a train station it would cease to be that once the train has left the station. Huh, you've got to teach these fuddy-duddies sometimes.

The tracks are fine it's just a video on loop so the track maintenance workers can justify their overtime. Interesting fact. My wife has a great-great-great grandfather who worked on track maintenance. He was a Supervisor, was mainly deaf and as he was supervising some repairs got knocked over and killed by a steam engine that he didn't hear coming. To not hear a steam engine ....

Tom is right in identifying The Minister with its two towers shining bright. He's also right in that I I haven't been to the top because:
a) it's local and therefore is completely ignored by virtue of being local and thus in the category of "Yeah, I'll get there and do it sometime when I have a free day, sometime."
b) There will undoubtedly be a charge for going up there, extra over the admittance fee. Naturally this is contrary to the character of any Yorkie who normally has short arms and deep pockets so can't reach the resident coinage residing there.
c) The air is rather thin up there so need oxygen, it's cold, being subject to the Jet Stream or the icy arctic blasts as at the moment when the air freezes as it exits one's mouth or nose. And besides I haven't got the necessary arctic gear one needs.
d) Whilst I am not afraid of heights the sway of the building up there is a bit disconcerting. And I do suffer awfully of sea sickness.
e) I will meet my Maker far too soon for me whenever it happens and having an intimate conversation with Him ( as opposed to Trump who is also a He but not the same person ) is not what I really need want at the moment.
f) I need to get fit to negotiate the 40,000 steps up to the top of the tower. There's no lift ( elevator to some ) so you need a certificate validating that you are able to do a mile ( running ) in under 15 minutes and I'm not capable of that at the moment although Tom should be since he often rows his yacht across the Irish Sea for practice. Note that it's called the Irish Sea since we already have the English Channel so we thought that we'd let them have something since the Atlantic was already taken.

{I hope the cold weather doesn't kill off the satsuma trees in Lord Mayor's Walk.}

[pelmut]

... I haven't been to the top because:
a) it's local and therefore is completely ignored by virtue of being local and thus in the category of "Yeah, I'll get there and do it sometime when I have a free day, sometime."

I had never climbed to the top of Bath Abbey for that same reason.  Then one day I was showing a friend around Bath and we decided to take the tour of the Abbey roof.  She came from ...York!

[geron]

Dennis, when I went up aloft in the Minster -- a few years ago, admittedly -- I believe it was the case that York residents didn't have to pay. It's definitely worth the effort, though, free or not.

[Sinned]

The rules have been changed since then. You can get in free to certain of the central attractions provided that you have a York card which used to be free but now there is a charge for it. I believe that the charge to get into the Minister is voluntary and a suggested payment is displayed. Having seen most of the attractions at least once during our 39 year residence we very rarely go into the centre of York so are not 100% sure of the rules anymore, nor are that bothered really. Even the Art Gallery which used to be free now has an entrance fee. It used to be sparesly attended before so what the attendance is now there's a fee I don't know.

[geron]

Even the Art Gallery which used to be free now has an entrance fee. It used to be sparesly attended before so what the attendance is now there's a fee I don't know.

Fret not, Dennis. I happened to catch a glimpse of the York Art Gallery earlier this week in BBC TV's Britain's Lost Masterpieces (an occasional, fascinating series on BBC Four, in which forgotten or misattributed paintings are rediscovered, cleaned up, displayed afresh and reassigned to some great master). Outside it was a prominent banner saying that the gallery is not only open but free.

vlcsnap-2021-02-11-18h33m05s985b.jpg

[Kirbstone]

Ah Dennis! It's a tad nippy out, so I'd suggest you get down to the Lord Mayor's Walk sharpish with a step-ladder and bag some of those Satsumas before the Beast from the East sweeps them all away. Atop that aforementioned stepladder you shouldn't really experience oxygen depravation, vertigo, seasickness or hypothermia, so all should be well.

Alas our lockdowns have put paid to any aquatic activity here, so to keep up 'fitness' (a relative term!) levels I attack my Concept 2 Ergo rowing machine in my garage loft a few times a week, with the exciting scenery on the sloping Kingspan roof to dispel the tedium.

As there is no 'French Sea' anywhere they were doubtless peeved when the name 'English Channel' stuck. The deeper Irish Sea flooded much earlier after the last Ice Age and blocked the Northwards migration of sundry snakes, moles, newts & other nasties, so we don't have any of those in the Wild here.
And the only reason there isn't a bridge across the Atlantical Sea from Ballinskelligs to Newfoundland is that the investors just couldn't agree on who would supply the extra 4" per year that the Techtonic plates add in the middle.!

Another right daft observation: Your (hopefully) parallel steel rails are all laid exactly 4 foot 8 and a half inches apart. National gauge. Here on this Sainted Isle they settled on 5 foot 3 inches, and it shows!

Tom

[Sinned]

Tom, it's not the season for satsumas at the moment. The trees are dormant but that doesn't mean that they can't be killed off by the extreme cold weather. Maybe we need to inject them with antifreeze?

The idea of a bridge between England/Scotland/Wales keeps being mooted. Even BoJo addressed the issue at one point. If one was built the EU would be "having kittens" thinking about the trillions being smuggled over the bridge when the customs officials went home each night. Maybe that's the best argument for building it.

As for the change in rail gauge - well they were probably using an Irish ruler with each inch being 1.12 longer.

geron, probably the lack of footfall and the tumbleweed whistling down the corridors. I must get down there after the lockdown. It may be open but I don't think that visiting an art gallery counts as a good excuse for leaving the house.

[geron]

The idea of a bridge between England/Scotland/Wales keeps being mooted. Even BoJo addressed the issue at one point.

That, too, was explored in a recent BBC TV documentary series -- Soft Border Patrol, an insightful look at the brave boys and girls whose job it is to keep things running as they should between Northern Ireland and the Republic. Can it possibly have been a spoof?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p085w2gx
Mysteriously, the series was broadcast in Northern Ireland and Scotland but not in England.

[Kirbstone]

Further to my last post, I'm devastated to learn at last that the York City satsumas don't fruit all the year round. That was my impression, given the benign microclimate that pervades within those City walls.

While dining in the basement of Warwick Castle in the Year of Our Lord 1471 on the eve of the Battle of Barnet, our eldest, dressed the part mounted the table, goblet of mead in hand and encouraged all males there present to ride with the Duke (of Lancaster) on the Morrow. He then eyed every one individually and asked if there were 'any Yorkies' in our midst? As everyone except the 'Past Pleasures' musicians was seated, we couldn't see whether their arms reached down into their pocket bottoms......which would have identified them immediately, of course!

Anyway, a lot of fun was had that evening.

Tom

[Sinned]

Tom, here's a recent photo of Lord Mayor's Walk showing the satsuma trees in dormancy:

lord mayors walk.jpg