Yes whem Rhodesia was the breadbasket of Africa. It was a beautiful country.

From a very early age of being pushed in a pram down alongside the embankment in New Barnet / Hadley Wood in the mid 50s, I was just captivated by the sights of the Gresley Pacific’s and rhubarb/custard coaches flying along. The magic of the rails, bridges and signals only added to the allure! Mum must have quickly found it the best way to settle us down. The interest very much still with me today.

hello everyone! i am new

Hello Samuel, and welcome to our forum.

Cheers, John

Hello Samuel, and welcome to the Railway Forum.

Hi there!

I am looking to purchase a handheld ticket machine that would have been used in the UK in the 90's to the early 2000's.
I have been advised that PORTIS/SPORTIS machines were used at this time.
Would anyone happen to know where I could find one?

Please feel free to drop me an email if you cannot respond to this post - kchrysafi@gmail.com

Many thanks :)

Hi kmc28

This may be tricky. AFAIK rail TOCs didn't let conductors keep them (for obvious reasons) so I don't know how they were disposed of after ~2006. The only answer that Googling gave me were a few museums, so if you wanted to borrow/hire one for a film it might be possible.

I've never seen one for sale ...but you never know.

Cheers, John

I have always been interested in mechanical items, and have ridden on quite a large number of steam trains. Several years ago I visited 'Cite Du Train' in Mulhouse in France, also visiting the Schlumpf collection (car museum mainly Bugatti's) in the same town in the Alsace.

I worked with steam all my life, but in a totally different industry - Dry Cleaning and Laundry - and had my own engineering business, carrying out everything from basic fault-finding, servicing, repairs, to installations of complete shops and factories, including steam raising equipment - mainly horizontal and vertical steam boilers.

When I retired I had lots of equipment left over, pipe threading machinery, tools, pipework and fittings etc., which I tried to sell - probably retailing at around £10k+ However, the only offers I got were from other pipefitters who wished to profiteer from this, by offering around £250 for the lot.

I ended up donating it instead, to the Urie Locomotive Society at Ropley Hampshire, and now I occasionally help out in the works, with rebuilding Urie S15 no. 409 - which has increased my interest in steam engines no end.

I also run a classic sports car - a Triumph TR5 which I enjoy tinkering with - anything mechanical (or electrics)

Going on trains in the uk and waching tv shows on trains too.

When I was a child, my parents used to sometimes leave me spend the day with a neighbor, an old lady, in her 70's, who had no children. She loved me as if I were her grandson and she was the kindest figure of my childhood. One day, when I was about five years old, I went with her to the market and she bought a watermelon. We then went to a train depot, we sat in a compartment of a train there and we ate that melon. It was the best melon I ever had.
I guess that's when a switch was made.
When I was ten years old, I decided to run away from home. My destination ? The train station, to take a train and go travel. That's when I found out you needed tickets to get on trains and tickets required money. So I went back home. :D
Later on, in my teenager years, I always found comfort in going to train stations. Sometimes, I would go into dingy pubs in the main train station, have a beer and listen to people around me talking about all sorts of things. I loved hearing other people's bits of conversations.
Later on, I started traveling a lot by trains, both nationally and internationally.
Now, having passed forty, I'm still as enthusiastic about trains as possible.

But, shortly put, a wonderful old woman and a great watermelon first sparked my interest into trains. :)