Jan Ford's World

In February 2007 I visited the Rail Transport Museum in Bassendean, Perth, Western Australia. It's run by the Australian Railway Histori...

When the plumber came to alter some pipework in the central heating, I had anticipated that the whole system would need to be drained, which...

In 1962, I had some signalman friends who were kind enough to let me work signal boxes unofficially. I wrote the following report at the tim...

In 1962, the former L.M.S. lines in the West Midlands were being electrified and re-signalled. I wrote the following report at the time (in...

In an earlier post , I described a period when I carried out some consultancy for Philips in Holland. During this period, there was a majo...

I've not had much to do with the Oil & Gas Industry but, some years ago, I did have one interesting consultancy job with the majo...

The Boilermakers' Shop at Yarloop in its heyday In February 2007 I visited Yarloop Workshops in Western Australia with my friend Ke...

I've been familiar with images of the Empire State Building since I was a child. When I visited New York in February 2007 and made th...

'813' outside the shed at Shackerstone In 1901, Hudswell Clark supplied a number of six-coupled saddle tanks to the Port Talbot Ra...

In the 1950s, British Railways introduced a range of lightweight diesel multiple units to handle suburban and secondary line services. Bi...

'Planet' on a non-rainy day The 'Planet' class was used on the Liverpool & Manchester Railway in 1830 and represent...

One of the images I had of New York was steam rising from manhole covers in the streets. Well, yes, it still happens. Birdsill Holly (182...

South African railways operates an extensive network of mainly 3 foot 6 inch gauge track. Some of the main lines and the commuter network...

Of course, on my first visit to New York, the challenge was to find out a little about the Subway and how it works. The initial settlement...

Peak Rail inaugurated two-train working on Saturday, 3-Mar-2007 during their Mixed Traffic Weekend. Jan was the driver of the steam-haule...

Wednesday, 28-Feb-2007: Up at 5.00 am, check out of the Cape Grace, picked up by the young lady from CC Africa at 5.45 am, an easy journey t...

27-Feb-2007: After I left you at 6.20 this morning, I sampled the Cape Grace's continental breakfast before setting out, armed with a ho...

Tuesday, 27-Feb-2007: The last posting was done on a rather cranky computer at the British Airways Terrace Lounge at Johannesburg. No two co...

Monday, 26-Feb-2007: This morning, I visit TSI Communications in Aeroton for a business meeting. Paul and Andre make me most welcome and I a...

Saturday, 24-Feb-2007: The flight from Perth is another 'Code Share'. I booked with Quantas and get to use the Quantas lounge, but t...