Shortly after nationalisation in 1948, the then newly formed British Railways Board (BRB) undertook a comprehensive review of the locomotive stock it had just inherited from the ‘Big Four’ independent railway companies. It was quickly realised that the whole stable of steam locomotives comprised of a huge variety of different class types, large numbers of which were nearing retirement or in some cases, were already life-expired. Immediately after starting the government-owned organisation had to reduce costs as quickly and as practical as possible. Not an easy task with a war-battered railway. However, efforts began in earnest almost immediately and in its first 12 months, the BRB had recruited the renowned locomotive engineer Robert A Riddles, formerly of the LMS, to take responsibility for the Mechanical & Electrical Engineering department. Riddles was given the task of developing a new small range of new steam locomotive designs, which would eventually replace the older pre-nationalised classes.

Riddles’ opted for a plan of action which was to use the best pre-nationalisation designs and incorporate the finest qualities of each into his standardised locomotives, thus amalgamating the greatest engineering feats from all of the former railway companies. His first move towards producing new designs were the ‘Locomotive Exchange Trials’. Riddles started his quest by selecting a number of express type locomotives from each of the newly-formed Regions and using them on ‘foreign’ territory. For example, LMS locomotives operated over the Southern Region where there were no water troughs. These were thus married together with four-axled ex-War Department tenders with larger water tanks. These were given LMS lettering especially for the occasion. Similarly, ex-Southern Region types used elsewhere were paired with ex-LMS tenders with water scoops. This yielded some important information for the design team on how suitable certain locomotive classes were to certain stretches of line.

On completion of the Locomotive Exchange Trials, Riddles’ Chief Draftsmen went back to the drawing board and began to formulate the first of the then new ’standardised’ steam locomotives. Officially, these comparisons were intended to establish the best qualities of the four varying approaches to locomotive design in order to incorporate them in the new BR standard designs. However, the testing lacked any real scientific value, and taking his background into consideration and other political influences, it meant that LMS practice was largely followed by the new standard designs regardless, and it is not really surprising that nearly all of Riddles’ final products would bear much resemblance to the designs pioneered by the LMS, particularly those locomotives which were designes of Stanier and Ivatt.

However, the trials served as a useful publicity stunt for BR to show the unity of the new British Railways. By 1950 the first express passenger locomotive design had been finalised at Derby and in the same year, the British Transport Commission placed an order with Crewe Works for the building of twenty-four of the type. What came forth from Crewe on 2nd January 1951 was a 4-6-2 Pacific locomotive looking bearing a significant resemblance to the Coronation class of locomotives designed by William Stanier, also formerly of the LMS. The imposing engine, finished in a plain black scheme with no lining, was scheduled for a test run between its birthplace and Carlisle on 11th January 1951, a dynamometer carriage being one of the consists of the train it was to haul. After the run, which proved to be a promising start for the class, the locomotive, numbered 70000, was repainted into the much more familiar lined BR Brunswick Green and delivered to Marylebone station on the penultimate day of January to be named. No. 70000 was appropriately called ‘Britannia’, after the female personification of the British Empire, and it marked a very promising step forward for BR.

To mark the Sixtieth Anniversary of the 1948 Locomotive Exchange Trials, in 2008 Hornby Railways produced a Limited Edition Model of a 4-6-2 West Country Class Locomotive ‘Bude’ No 34006. This model, represents the classic pairing of a Southern Region Bulleid Pacific with a Stanier Tender. For the collectors out there, the Hornby R2685 West Country Class ‘Bude’ with Stanier Tender was only produced in a limited run of 2008 and each of the model trains came with a numbered Certificate of Authentication.

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Quality repair work has been the number one focus of City Body Shop since 1958. The owner, Bill Wishard, insists on sending his collision experts to new vehicle classes twice a year. These classes are hosted by ATEG (Automotive Technical Education Group) and keep City Body Shop up to date with the newest vehicles and the better methods of repairing collisions. We are also a member of the Better Business Bureau because we strive to have the highest standards for our workmanship.

In addition, City Body Shop is Dupont Painter’s Certified. This is a certification that City Body Shop has earned because of their quality workmanship and their commitment to customer satisfaction.

In fact, City Body Shop warranties all collision repair work that is done by their staff for the remainder of the customer’s ownership. If a customer ever has a problem with craftsmanship that was completed by City Body Shop, then measures will taken to rectify the problem. This applies to you no matter if you still live in Rockford or if you have moved out of state. This warranty expires once the customer sells the vehicle.

City Body Shop warranties all collision repair work that is done by their staff for the remainder of the customer’s ownership. Even if you move out of state, City Body Shop will stand behind their guarantee!

When choosing a body shop, another specific aspect that should be evaluated by the customer is the experience of the painter employed by the body shop. If the painter is inexperienced, then the repair work could have a significantly decreased lifespan. The painter employed by City Body Shop has over 21 years of experience in the collision repair industry. He is dedicated to his repair work and has knowledge of the latest and most up to date methods of repainting your vehicle should you be involved in a collision.

www.articledigest.co.uk

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“Voice over Internet Protocol” or VoIP is technology that lets you make and receive phone calls over the Internet through an online VOIP service. VoIP is often used abstractly to refer to the actual transmission of voice (rather than the protocol implementing it). VoIP is clearly identified as a Least Cost Routing (LCR) voice routing system, which is based on checking the destination of each telephone call as it is made, and then sending the call via the network that will cost the customer the least.

VoIP is widely employed by carriers, especially for international telephone calls. VoIP is a core technology that drives everything from voice-chat software loaded on a desktop PC to Mac full-blown IP-based telecommunications networks in large corporations. VoIP is gaining popularity among small business owners for good reasons: It costs less than conventional business phone service — often a lot less.

VOIP is now a mature proven technology that until now had only been implemented in large corporations and businesses where it has been deployed on their internal Networks. VOIP is presently the state of the art in business communications. VoIP is benefiting from consumer interest in bundled services from their cable companies as well.

VoIP is techspeak for “voice over Internet protocol,” but it could spell “saving big bucks” for your business. VoIP is especially popular with long-distance calls. Voip is significantly less expensive than typical telephone long distance packages, plus one high speed Internet connection can serve for multiple phone lines with no loss in functionality, reliability, or voice quality and VoIP is great for travelers.

The Best VOIP service for you really does depend on your needs and how you will use the telephone service. VoIP is no longer a technical novelty, but a real business for a growing number of for-profit organizations that sell and service and VoIP connectivity. VoIP is a revolutionary technology that has the potential to completely rework the world’s phone systems.

VOIP is less expensive because it unregulated and uses low-cost commodity networking, and the infrastructure is subsidized by cable TV and POTS subscribers who are paying too much. The primary reason for migrating to VoIP is cost, as it equalizes the costs of long distance calls, local calls, and e-mails to fractions of a penny per use. A key point to remember is that VoIP is built on already established equipment and applications. As an added bonus, it’s also cheaper, because VoIP is free of the endless government regulations and tariffs imposed upon phone companies.

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Many self-employed professionals know the following situation: They sent reminders to a person, and a few days later the mail is returned to sender because the addressee has disappeared. Now the trouble begins. You want to find the right address quickly and cheaply. Fortunately there are suppliers which are specialized in finding the new address: Personensuche in Leverkusen

A very good company for finding the new address in Germany and Europe is Supercheck in Cologne. They offer finding the new address online with very high success rates and at low prices. Here are some benefits which are offered by this succesful company:

The research results are delivered online and can easily be checked by the customer. And only the real researches have to be paid. There is no membership fee and no minimum quantity of researches. Address research is very cheap with this system. Customers like attorneys could not do the research on their own at lower costs. When the address is found the client is notified via email. They are able to look for addresses virtually anywhere in Germany and Europe - for example here: Personensuche in Bremerhaven. Supercheck customers order more than 2.5 million address investigations per year. There are already more than 13,000 clients using this system. So they are one of the leading players in this market.

Supercheck does not only do address research in Germany. They also offer their service for finding disappeared people in most other European countries. Clients do not have to pay a membership fee. They only charge every single research at a very reasonable price. If they have to do official research at the authority databases they do a new inquiry each time so that the client does not get outdated search results. Supercheck has a very high success rate because of their sophisticated 3-level-research system. They double check each address by sending a real paper mail to them before the customer gets the result.

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They have been around since the dawn of time. There’s not much you can do to stop them showing and it’s only in the past few years, that anything could be done to fight against them. Stretch marks, acne scars and wrinkles take hold as we become older leaving behind the look of flawless youth.

Now though we can do something in response. It is a countermeasure we always had – the skins natural defences!

The reason why all of the above show, is because of a lack of collagen in the surface of the skin. Our bodies do produce collagen, but usually it is not produced quickly enough to avoid these blemishes.By stimulating this collagen creation process, we can effectively fade acne scars and tackle all of the other collagen related issues and concerns at the same time.

Skin Needling works well in encouraging the dermis layer of skin into the production of collagen and elastin fibres without causing damage to the top epidermis layer. This means that without having to work too hard, you can encourage your body to fight back against skin blemishes with less expense, with no visits to salons and no need for complicated procedures.

Dermarollers take the form of 192 precision needles laid out on a roller head which gently travels across the skins surface making tiny holes across the upper layers. What this does, in simple terms, is stimulate the natural production of collagen as would be experienced should you cut or graze your skin. All the new cells can be used to thickien the skins surface, making it look and act as if it did in its prime. This results in the scar, stretch mark wrinkle or other, looking and feeling faded or completely removed.

It is worth learning more about this fantastically simple devices to see what you’re missing out on. You should always consult a doctor or dermatologist before undergoing any procedure.

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Dyslexia is a neurological condition that keeps the signals sent by the eyes from being clearly interpreted by the brain. One of the results is that dyslexics “see” things differently. Dyslexics require special training to be able to interpret what they see in the same ways as non-dyslexics would.

Often the first indication of dyslexia shows up as problems with reading. In reading you need to see the letters clearly and then interpret these letters into words and the words into sounds things or actions. Different types of dyslexia make this process of seeing and interpreting difficult.

The word “dyslexia” consists of “dys” - not working, as in “dysfunctional” and “lexia” - as in “lexicon” a dictionary of words or terms. This origin comes from the often observed problem that those with dyslexia have with reading.

Approximately 1 person in every 10 has some type of dyslexia, to some degree.

There are symptoms of dyslexia that one can look for, such as difficulty with reading for understanding, or with reading aloud. But there is really only one way to know for sure whether a person has dyslexia or not and to what degree.

That is by way of professional testing for dyslexia.

Fortunately, in the last year or so, there is now an excellent accredited dyslexia test online.

You can get an online dyslexia test that you can take at home, on your computer, over the Internet.

The entire test takes a little over half an hour. Also, it’s very economical; costs less than a visit to your Doctor!

There is highly effective treatment for dyslexia, but it cannot be started and properly done without that simple test to start. That test could get them started to achieving their full potential and leading a better life! Click on any link above to get full details…

Disclaimer: This posting is based on information freely available in the popular press and medical journals that deal with dyslexia. Nothing herein is intended to be or should be construed to be medical advice. For medical advice the reader should consult with his or her physician or other medical specialist.

By- Ahab Carruthers

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Aspen Colorado offers visitors and tourist a lot of exciting places to visit. The landscape around Aspen is dotted with carved valleys and beautiful crystal clear streams. Nature photographers will find these pristine areas very appealing so make sure to bring your digital camera with you. You may also want to photograph the high mountain meadows filled with delicate wildflowers. Garden buffs will have a lot to brag about when they get back home. If you want to be close to this magnificient scenery you might not want to stay in the heart of Aspen. It would probably be best if you stayed in hotels in Aspen Colorado which are located around the countryside where it would be a lot easier for you to explore the outdoors without dealing with the traffic in the city. Most Aspen Hotels located away from the busy commercial areas have a more relaxing atmosphere that is good for the soul. No need to strictly plan your activities around traffic since you can do some exploring at a moments notice.

Aspen is also a good place for golfers to visit. If you want to play a round of golf in Aspen, you can choose among many fine public golf courses in Aspen. Each of these golf courses have unique services, facilities and amenities to offer discriminating golfers. There are also hotels close to the fairways of many of the golf courses. You can easily find these hotels in Aspen by researching and booking your hotel reservations online well in advance to ensure you get the accommodations you want.

www.weblog-master.com

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The new millennium marks a significant change in the way people think because of the growing concern to preserve the precious environment and hybrid cars are the perfect solution for this purpose. Hybrid cars help to save on fuel consumption and environmental degradation through pollution because they depend on electricity and not on fuel for their functioning. Hybrid cars were actually conceptualized to save the environment by depending less on conventional fuels and they were meant to be friendlier to the environment.

The design of a hybrid car combines a normal gasoline engine with an electric motor. This allows the car to minimize fuel usage and thus emit less harmful fumes. When you compare hybrid cars with gas engine cars, you find that they are more efficient for fuel and when you compare them with electric cars, you find that they are more practical. Combining the two sources of power a vehicle has been created that is relatively non-polluting and will lead to less fuel usage. This means they possess enough power to cruise at freeway speeds but do not need too much fuel. They are also great for the stop and go driving in traffic laden areas.

To be able to recharge, plugging the hybrid into an electric outlet is not necessary. They charge themselves by means of power usually lost during coasting and braking and can also be charged by the car’s gasoline engine. The following are the reasons why the hybrid cars are believed to be more beneficial than the conventional gasoline powered cars.

The environment is crowded with carbon dioxide from the cars, which leads to the greenhouse effect and it is believed that this greenhouse effect is the caused for the hole in the ozone layer. Any vehicle utilizing more fuel carbon dioxide will be capable of producing more carbon dioxide. Hybrid cars use as little fuel as possible and use more of electricity, a resource that is not known to have any detrimental repercussions on the environment.

Hybrid car purchases have tax deductions associated with them so, you stand to make some real money benefits. Hybrid cars are very good for their resale value and if you are selling your hybrid car after keeping it with you for sometime, do not be shocked to find that you are making better money than what you bought it for. The engines of the hybrid cars are smaller than those of the gas powered cars because they depend on an alternative source of energy. The small size of the engine does not come in the way of its performance because, after all, the engine is coupled with an electric power source.

Since the problem of pollution due to traffic is only increasing, the hybrid car is a technology everybody will accept. Using less fuel, these hybrid cars are providing a great amount of relief to the depletion of the environment due to fuel driven cars. For all these benefits, hybrid cars are really expensive and therefore most people cannot afford them but experts suggest that buying a hybrid car is an investment everyone should consider.

Source: Blogging Hybrid Cars.. Visit our site for more information at: http://blogginghybirdcars.com

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Here’s a few tips for making your home more secure.

1) Lighting is your best and cheapest defence against burglaries. If a burglar can be seen it’s much more risky for them to target your house. Neighbours and passerbys could potentially see them and notify the police. Use an energy efficient compact fluorescent bulb in your front and rear porch light and leave them on all nite. You can automate this by connecting them to a timer or photocell.

2) Make sure your house is not hidden from view. At least make sure that your front door can be seen from the street. Clear away overgrown shrubbery from the front of your house. Don’t give potential burglars anything that they can use to conceal their activities.

3) Install motion sensors to light up the dark areas of your property. There’s nothing more startling to someone approaching your home to be suddenly bathed in light. Motion sensors are very cheap and can be installed easily in existing or new light outlets. They can be set to stay on for a set period of time when triggered by motion.

4) When you go on vacation, connect some lamps in your home to plugin timers. Some timers allow you to set multiple on/off events every 24 hours. Do this with 2 or 3 lamps to give the impression that someone is home in the evenings. This is especially important if someone is watching your house to determine if anybody is home. Ask your neighbour to pickup mail and newspapers every day. There’s nothing like a pile of newspapers on your front porch to tip off a burglar that you’re away.

5) Install dead bolt locks on all your doors. This is a fairly inexpensive way to secure your home. Deadbolts cannot be picked as easily as regular door locks. This is something the average homeowner can install with a minimum of tools.

Your best defence is to make sure that it appears that someone is always home, even when you’re not. For even more security consider installing a burglar alarm in your home.

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They know who you are, whether you smoke and how fast you drive. If you’re applying for medical insurance, you need to know what the MIB knows.

What does medical insurance have in common with the CIA, Freemasons and the Skull and Bones society? Your eligibility for affordable medical insurance or major medical insurance plans just may be shrouded in the mysterious folds of an organization the general public knows little about. There are no secret handshakes or enigmatic symbols, but it does have a coding system known only by its employees and members.

What is this ominous-sounding organization? It’s the MIB Group, formerly known as the Medical Information Bureau, and it provides information to insurance companies that can make or break a consumer’s medical insurance application. Though the MIB has been in existence since 1902, most consumers have not heard of it.

The MIB is described as a “membership corporation,” and is owned by approximately 470 insurance companies who make up the MIB’s membership. The MIB’s stated mission is to detect and deter fraud that may occur during the course of a person obtaining medical insurance, life insurance, disability income and other types of healthcare insurance. It protects insurance companies from being defrauded by an applicant who knowingly or unknowingly omits critical information or lies.

The MIB is a lot like a credit reporting agency. It provides information to insurance companies to help them decide whether or not to provide medical insurance to an applicant. The information also helps the insurance company determine the patient’s premiums.

Not everyone has a report on file with the MIB. If you have not applied for medical insurance or an individual life insurance policy within the last 7 years, then you do not have an MIB report. According to figures reported by the MIB, the organization collects information on around 15% to 20% of people who have applied for either medical insurance or life insurance policies.

The MIB’s similarity to credit reporting agencies isn’t a superficial one. The U.S. government classifies the MIB as a consumer reporting agency, which means it must comply with both the US Fair Credit Reporting Act and the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act. That means consumers have the right to a copy of the information reported by the MIB to insurance companies. In fact, you have access to one free MIB report each year.

Some of the information collected and reported by the MIB includes:

• Medical conditions
• Medical test results
• Negative habits such as drugs, alcohol abuse, smoking and overeating
• Hazardous occupations and/or hobbies
• Poor driving history

Information collected about the MIB stays in a consumer’s files for seven years. Also, a consumer’s record will indicate which, if any, members have requested their information within the previous 12 months.

Because this information can affect a person’s ability to obtain medical insurance, consumers are encouraged to check with the MIB and to request their report if one exists. That way the consumer can check the report for accuracy and will be aware of any issues which may negatively impact their ability to qualify for medical insurance. Consumers have the ability to dispute any of the information on their report through the MIB’s dispute process.

To request your file, phone the MIB by calling their toll-free number: 866-692-6901. You will be asked to provide certain personal identifying information, and only you can request your file. A consumer’s guide to the MIB is available on the group’s website at mib.com.

www.lampsforthehome.com

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