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Things you dont see anymore

Grecian2K

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Mar 9, 2004
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Very true mate.
My last summer before retirement was spent mostly working in and around the South Wales valleys - a region that I had previously rarely visit - and the extent that the industrial heritage (not just the mines but the surrounding industries - Ebbw Vale steelworks and the Hoover factory at Merthyr to name but two) were not merely closed but completely obliterated and grassed or built over in the 80s and 90s was shocking.
I know there is a fellow exewebber with a particular interest and expertise in the old mining industries (Under EW roolz I daren't name names but perhaps he might pm you?)
I suppose "progress is progress" but it is sad to see once proud communities turned into deprived ghettos and pockets of poverty for the quick enrichment of the privileged few.
 

Hants_red

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Make Coal your Goal was on the advertising hoardings at all grounds in the 1970s.

How times change !!
There are concerns about the use of coal for heritage steam trains. At the moment some of them import from Poland, but may be banned from burning from coal. 😳
 

Oldsmobile-88

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In RaWZ we trust....Amen.
There are concerns about the use of coal for heritage steam trains. At the moment some of them import from Poland, but may be banned from burning from coal. 😳
That would be daft especially as pollution from wood burners puts 100s of thousands more pollution into the air...I think the problem is low grade coal imported..The stuff mined in the UK years ago was very high quality
 

Grecian2K

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In the very first years of steam locomotion coke (coal that had been processed from bituminous coals to remove the oily volatiles and sulphurs - NOT the stuff that seems trendy amongst bankers and trendy types etc nowadays) was the only fuel used.

This was partly due to technological reasons but also because a very early (and prescient) bit of environmental legislation that required that "locomotives had to be capable of consuming their own smoke". It was only the later perfection of the "brick firebox arch" that allowed unprocessed coal to be used.
 

Oldsmobile-88

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In RaWZ we trust....Amen.
Interesting G2K..There would have been a good supply of Coke from the gasworks of that time.
Coke another thing you do not see anymore(I think !) was a big selling commodity in the 1950s & 1960s with the advent of the Clean Air Act.
The Nationalised Gas Industry during Town Gas days was a huge supplier of Coke around the country.
 

Grecian2K

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Mm yes. One of the byproducts of the process was "Coal tar". Used for road surfacing in the not-quite-too-distant past - in my very early days in the industry (late 80s) there was still one local authority highways engineer - in North Wales - still insisting in its use. Horrible stuff - probably more carcinogenic than a strong tobacco roll-up wrapped in asbestos paper!

Oh and I think you do still see "coke" - marketed nowadays as 'smokeless fuel briquettes"
 

Swanaldo

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May 3, 2005
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Paper tax discs in windscreens. There were a few defunct ones still hanging on in recent years, but I haven't spotted one in the wild for months now.

See also: National Trust membership stickers in windscreens. It must all be done online these days.
 

iscalad

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Aug 22, 2007
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Far away across the field
Bury in the EFL
 

Swanaldo

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Bury in the EFL
Always upsetting when the shit hits the fan for any football club... I hope their fans can find a way to build something from the ashes.
 

GJW

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Apr 2, 2004
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Devon
Fidget spinners. At one point, a couple years ago, all kids had them,2 or 3 each. They were everywhere, breeding, going to take over the earth. Now where are they? Stuck in the bottom of drawers or burrowed into the earths core to regroup and come back in a couple of decades just like the Rubik’s cube
 
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