I've finished the second of the Blackpool trams archives which are in our Tickety Boo series taken from HD scanned cine films for a new level of quality archives. Here are the covers and they are already in the PMP shop and list.

The cover photos are all screen shots from the actual film, the large ones an amazing enlargement from the tiny Std8 cine original. Here is a copy of all the shots I considered for the covers.

The illumination shots seem to carry the sentiments of a New Year and wishing for a better 2021 but we won't be holding our breathe. I will resume truck filming as soon as the holiday is over and the lorry get up to speed as it were! I will consider the bus coverage in light of Tier restriction although we are a business and it is allowed as 'work', there is no need to take risks and only locations where I can avoid proximity to others will be considered and then only in the same Tier level as us (Tier 4). More archive films will be prepared over the coming weekend, probably Crich tram museum. More cine scanning has been done also got more salt for the drive, our third day of snow and ice, locals roads remain treacherous.
A big thank you for all you kind wishes for us and PMP and A Very ( hopefully) HAPPY NEW YEAR to all our readers, friends, relations , customers who cover 200 countries world wide.

The first of the promised archives for those locked down in Tier 4, I've finished it this afternoon and will get the cover ready tomorrow morning. I've a second part of this to make as well plus added to the list I've features on the HCVC runs from London to Brighton, if I have enough I can try and split between lorries and buses. The other covering Crick, Carlton Colville etc are all ready to do and editing and retrieving files only takes a day. I will intersperse these with Bus Spot Ultra productions which give me resource to upload on our Youtube channel which regulars will know does not have any cine based archives we have produced.

I had the last straw with the strange chap who runs our local post office, our usual lady who looks after the postal side other than Saturdays was on holiday and Mandy couldn't make it in as they never clear the snow and ice. Really unfriendly for older and disabled people, we don't go in on a Saturday at all to avoid the chap who owns it. He will keep messing about and won't concentrate on what he is doing, he does his utmost to confuse people, I reckon he fancies himself as a comedian. He leapt out on one customer with a weapon and wondered why he got thumped in the face in return! Anyway we'll now avoid the place as much as possible and get the eBay or Amazon postage prepaid slips although our own shop doesn't seem to have anything like that, I'll see if the Royal mail has anything to offer. The small packets of two or three DVDs just need a stamp affixed, perhaps we need a franking machine.

Nothing really juicy to report as nearly all of us got Tier 4 as a New Year present, with 1000 dead yesterday its a wonder we aren't all locked down again, I wish I'd got another hair cut before the shutter went down, I'll have to use the beard trimmer attachment on my shaver! 

For the lorry fans I though I might put out some compilations of old and classic lorries at different shows over the years on the latest widescreen and enhanced quality. Lets have a few old timers tonight, what I'm an old timer too, takes one to know one I suppose.

The main problem today was that yesterdays snow went to ice even on cleared surfaces and by this morning the roads other than motorways and main arteries were very dangerous. I went to the over bridge near our house on the M6 and it was almost normal with little sight of the snow so filming would have been really superfluous, better waiting until finer weather for lorries and for normal services to resume for buses although we could all be locked down tomorrow as Corona stats in UK break daily records for infections, hospital admissions and deaths.

I got a lot of downloaded scenery kits filed away and carried on with some cine scanning. The hope was to get a days on family history catch up but at least I got the afternoon done and added a lot of material from fellow researcher but still have a link missing which we hope to solve when the My Heritage DNA results come through, they are pretty dire in normal records but my friend assures me the DNA is superior and allows more sharing and comparisons.

Tomorrow I'll put all the cine film scanning to good purpose and get cracking with some more archives. There are plenty to go at and I look forward to catching up on the current scene in January if corona regulations permit. It looks pretty bleak at present.

Another look at trams this time at museums.

Although the snow came down heavily last night by morning the snow had turned to sleet and it thawed a bit all day supplemented by salt from Halfords in Northwich the only time we have been out since Christmas Eve. I've downloaded a lot of scenic modelling kits and filed away scanned cine film images. Somehow I never got my day of catching up with family history nor working on the diorama. We are making the hopefully dry path way to next door for an evening with the remainder of our bubble next door, it is really difficult for Mandy to get around these days in ice and snow.

I hope to be starting work on the next round of archive DVD productions with Bus Spot Ultra on Accrington and a look at various museums and Blackpool trams. With that in mind how about a look back at days past at Blackpool etc from our archive of still images all available to purchase as downloads or prints follow the links to our Smugmug site. Remember all the PMP shops are bang up to date now.

I suppose we get a bit more like new normal tomorrow but with added snow. The white stuff is probably the only thing which would draw me out to film!

New DVDs are on all the PMP Shops

We had a lovely Christmas, holding ourselves back on Xmas day and then sharing Christmas meal etc with best friend Sue who being our only bubble partner throughout the pandemic stayed over with us. We had some rather splendid Margaux and a fruity Booths brut champagne. The meat was a rolled venison, pheasant and sausage meat stuffing followed by Christmas pudding. The service on Christmas eve at St Oswalds was lovely with a choir and soloist and we all joined in outside as we left the building.

I've done quite a lot of work on the diorama which hopefully will be photogenic in the next couple of days. I've also updated all the PMP shops the main one on this site plus the Amazon and EBay but please use our shop before anything else, it is the only one with a complete stock. I want to download the recent cine scans and get them listed and hopefully produce another short series of films this time on Blackpool trams, Crich and other museums.

We hope you have all enjoyed the festivities whatever the circumstance with the pandemic. We have had a wind down on food tonight with beans on toast!

For Christmas Eve my traditional Christmas truck outing, often at Lymm Poplar services but this time we are over in Liverpool docks, last time I tried at Seaforth they were putting out cones everywhere so I moved on, its hard to see what on earth they were doing other than spoiling my shoot. This time it was just bit of wind noise later in the morning but my powers don't extend to calming the breeze. Anyway the clips are on Youtube this evening and the slide show features a selection of still shots. Meanwhile more work has gone on with the layout/diorama which is progressing nicely but a lot of work still to be done.

I did promise that I would be preparing a digital version of our 1990 trip to Bulgaria with the full content not edited down to exclude scenics etc. I am about to start this, I'm also still scanning old cine film and will be getting the covers done for Cannock bus DVD and the two Liverpool truck volumes. Not bad for Christmas but we are having our main xmas meal tomorrow, Boxing day.

I took Linda our new neighbour along to midnight mass at St Oswalds, our new incumbent had produced a wonderful service which a first this year with choir , socially spaced and we went out at the end and sang a carol under a crisp starlit Cheshire night. Keith was showing me the fun they had with using incense suffice it to say that despite that and a hundred tea lights the church is still standing. I'm now enjoying a pint of Weetwood amber beer while Mandy is trying a Weetwood gin, both made just down the road at Kelsall which you may recall is normally the location of the countries biggest vintage and classic lorry event.

Mandy and myself send our best wishes to our regular readers and viewers both DVD, downloads and trailers on Youtube.

We are now moving on to the lest side of the layout and the bus garage where I've found that the London buses are on strike, well set in the 1950-70s it will be an everyday story they were always on strike. The little banners etc are going to be produced as accurately as I can from contemporary illustrations. Life on the little layout goes on though and here is the fallow land in the west awaiting contruction and detailing, I have already progressed beyond this shot

A chance to show off the Rapido West Midlands Guy models on the nearly finished bus station on the diorama layout, I'm now turning me attention to the bus garage area which will show off London and London Country buses. The tram section now is populated with London Transport trams which marks the boundary between London and the Midlands. The right hand side of the layout will depict other regions. I've left everything a bit unmarked so it can be used for any regions vehicles.  As you can see I've now got the destination lists up at the stops still based on the practice at Wrexham. It looks quite effective, well I thought so.

There are a lot more buses and other vehicles which will be housed in this section of the layout and the parameters are from 1940s - 70's, wide I know but then the more modern section will still have a long span from the 1980s through to present day and so much has happened in that time. It was really messy getting the tram overhead installed, the pick up wire is very fine but the span wires really heavy, I just needed the strength to take the weight and allow some tensioning. Lots of araldite, superglue and bostick, and messy hands, curses and frustration. The depot end should be a breeze although it going to be off a curve in the road which will need a bit of thinking about, plus kerb side parking and the bus stops for out of town country services.

I back scanning cine film and as well as the next Bus Spot Ultra Accrington I'm doing features on Blackpool trams, Crich tram museum, Seaton trams and others to be announced. We are going into tier 3 on Boxing day, last meal tomorrow at The Crown before Janet locks it all up, I'll help by clearing a steak and ale pie! Still plenty of tier 3 locations left plus a couple of tier 2 and we can get to all of these at present without entering tier 4. Strange how prophet my words were of the self satisfaction of people in the south perhaps now they will social distance and use masks.

I'm hoping to film at Liverpool docks tomorrow, sunshine is the supposed outlook but as we know can be wide of the mark.

We record the early rush hours services through to around 10am with this longer running coverage which has useful lingering shots at the bus station so you can remember the vehicles and drivers although the staff will be transferred to D&G and we shall be there to record the early days of Chaserider revisited remember it was used for the run up to privatisation after the NBC MAP exercise. It was promised on the weather see BBC to be light cloud in fact it was sunny but I manage to get some good shots on auto settings.

Today while out we received the replacement tree plantation for the diorama which means the Chinese jobs can fill a corner in the rubbish bin, so much utter trash comes from there its just like when Hong Kong started to export in their boom years a generation back then it all went expensive, don't believe me look at the prices of model buses in HK now.

I'm just about to download the footage from todays outing and I still hope to do a truck shoot on Thursday morning. Then we have a meal in The Crown our local, yes the very much refurbished local from which I was banned from for many decades after the encumbance of a harridan whose dog growled and worse - it has been so refreshing to have good beer, nice food and a friendly local back again for locals and visitors alike.

Our own Christmas plans have taken a dive as our long time friend Sue won't be stopping over anywhere just a day trip out to visit her relations, we are thinking of hacking our Christmas meat in half and freezing it at least it won't be wasted. This just reflects the situation for millions of families but still I see the youngsters haven't got their head around it merely getting a £10k fine, hundreds in a single house in Leicester, I think it should be a custodial sentence as the resulting infections could kill people and Leicester has already suffered from restrictions more than most UK cities. The queues at Dover docks are now over three thousand lorries and growing, that probably beats the departure from Truckfest!

Shots from Cannock this morning.

New releases on the PMP shop and work is underway on several new archive features. Tomorrow I'm hoping to cover the last of Arriva at Cannock which goes to D&G early in the New Year. There is panic buying of food and petrol as hysteria looks set to take over the country with the poorly managed Corona strategy which seems in tatters with the stock market crashing and the value of the pond plummeting- I bet there are few people  who got what they thought when they voted for Boris. How will it all play out, well I don't think things are going to settle for a long while yet so let us take the plunge and keep our English bus coverage up to date whatever happens.

I am busy trying to populate the layout and get street furniture in and recycling as much as I can from my old model railway. I've ordered up brass to make tram and trolley overhead standards as the lamps I was thinking of using are far too low. The trees have been discarded other than space fillers, typical Chinese rubbish, ditto the old gas lamps, not one being used from two packets vastly over size might for O gauge layout though.

On the layout the actual vehicles to be sited are not in place I just used anything II had to hand to test for size. I'm working my way along the scenes next I'll start with the bus garage end. Roughly it starts in the 40/50s on the left side then through 1960's to 70's as you go right. I'll have London transport on the older bit, Midland operators in the middle which gives a chance to show off the new Rapidos. The right side with the postal sorting office and fire station needs a decision on what to include.

One of my aims is to make sure the majority of the layout population are shown with some sort of context. Being the baby boom era I had already made a lots of mums with prams which are now being utilised. The stand letters on the Chinese dice are in place on the shelters in the bus station, I do want to add some boards which had destinations at the end of the platforms as shown in one of the Wrexham shots I've used as inspiration, a look at such a picture should give a good idea how far I've gone even to show the cobbles showing through the broken tarmac or concrete at the edges.

Frustrating the further restrictions which have come in, thankfully I did some South East shots before the latest extreme tier 4 rules came in to play. Stay safe and I'll get cracking with more archives, the next Bus Spot Ultra will be Accrington.