Harper Staff Profile

Not posted anything on here for some time due to spending too much time writing stuff for lots of other places! With Christmas now rapidly approaching, I've found myself with a few spare moments to have an e-blether about what I'm up to.

I have just updated my Harper Adams staff profile to include some more information about what I'm up to at the moment, including links to some of my writing work in the OpenFields online library.

I started doing some lecturing at the end of September for the Harper Engineering Department. I'm teaching electronics and control systems to final year engineering students. Although electronics isn't my core engineering discipline, I've really enjoyed doing it.

My second feature article of the year in RAIL Magazine was published back in October, looking at Arriva Trains Wales innovative daily express working between Holyhead and Cardiff. I will have a couple of short articles published in Narrow Gauge World Magazine in the new year and am about to start work on an exclusive feature for the legendary Railway Magazine, which should be on newsagents shelves some time in the first quarter of 2010.

All this along with lots of stuff going on in the 16mm Association and the Llangollen Diesel Group means boredom is not a word I've been familiar with this Autumn.

Dubshire: VW Shropshire Owners Club

A chance meeting on the road on Thursday with a MK1 Golf led me to finding out about http://www.dubshire.co.uk/ and their evening get together of classic VW's at my local boozer. It was a no brainer not to take my old VW Corrado down for the bash.



There was a good turnout, everything from originak Mk1 Golfs through to Mk5's and even another VR6 Corrado....

I look forward to the next one and as a result of seeing the other motors am now eying up a coilover suspension kit. Oh dear..........

A day at the 100th Newport Show

A visit to the 100th Newport Show last Saturday saw a superb display of vintage and modern farm machinery and some nutters on bikes....

I was using my old EOS300D as my 20 is poorly, but with a new lens. Using a newer lens, I reckon there isn't much between them!

Back with batts refreshed....

I have just returned from a superb holiday on the Ionian island of Kefalonia and am looking forward to getting back to writing some engineering-related technical notes for Harper Adams University College. Outside of Harper, I am looking forward to seeing two articles get published in RAIL magazine.

The photo shows the view from one of the many super Tavernas we ate in. This particular one was in Sami on the Western side of the island and served a darn fine Kefalonian meat pie!

My first naming ceremony!

I was very pleased to be welcomed by Telford and Wrekin Council for the opening of the Telford International Rail Freight Park (TIRFP) at Donnington on Wednesday. After photographing and the site when it was still bare earth, it was fantastic to be stood at the smart new facility watching DRS Class 57/0 No 57008 by named by Theresa Villiers MP in the sunshine.

The loco was named after the terminal and the loco was a credit to the DRS staff who had prepared her. DBS also operated a container train into the site during the ceremony, which was hauled by a smart Class 66 No 66152 in its red DB Schenker livery.

I hope the terminal will go from strength to strength now it's formally open.

Tractors everywhere...

There may only be two DBS ones left in traffic, but they're getting out and about...here's 401 at Cosford on Tuesday evening. 670 visited Telford the day afterwards.

All being well, both will be taking me to Cornwall on Saturday.

It's been a while....

Only taken me two months to get round to writing this, think I need to pull my finger out. Been a busy few weeks all in all, work, trains and play all keeping me off the keyboard.



My article in Rail Issue 611 on the Telford International Railfreight Park (http://www.tirfp.co.uk/) was great to see and at this very moment I am working on the second part to coincide with the formal opening of the terminal on June 10th.


Following a recent trip to Cardiff on the ATW 'Gerald' North-South express, I will also be producing a feature on this innovative and professional service for publication in RAIL in a few weeks.















Away from writing, I recently became a director of the Association of 16mm Narrow Gauge Modellers, having been Publicity Officer for the last year. The associtaion has nearly 3000 members who all model narrow gauge railways in 16mm to the foot scale, one which is ideal for use in the garden. (htttp://www.16mm.org.uk).

Finally, I've recently been pulling bits of Class 25, 37 and 47 at Llangollen (http://www.llangollendiesels.co.uk/), where the struggle of 'modern traction' (they're over 50 years old now after all) preservation blunders on against the harsh adversaries of the metal worm and the grumpy old sorts who detest anything invented after 1968. It's tough, oily and smelly, but somebodies gotta do it....