Today in the workshop .....

[Cato]

Out of interest what is the source of that?

A trade publication or a 'public' source?

Is the data split by geography, marque etc?

I just love data!


EtA: I've had my bus pass for over a decade now. I used the Welsh one twice and the English one once since I moved here. I dropped the car off for its MoT and took a bus into town to mooch around until it was done. The bus stop was c.100m from the garage. I would take a bus into town from home if the nearest bus stop wasn't c.1km away in the opposite direction.
I'm fat and lazy, what's your excuse?

There's a very useful site for the garage industry with all sorts of graphs covering a range of trends and data. Should be right up your street

Garage Industry Trends

 

[droopsnoot]

If the powers that be want folk on public transport it needs to sell itself, by being a better alternative. Parking costs close to the university was a killer to when she used the car. For rural kids scooters etc are freedom.

The trouble is, the "powers that be" tend to be based around London, where the public transport is relatively great - buses and underground every few minutes, from my (limited) experience. I made this point years ago to my MP when there was a rumour of road-pricing to force encourage people to use public transport, while I expect she understood the point I was making, I doubt it would have affected anything. My last bus home from the pub used to be 23:25, which was ideal. Now it's 17:24. I couldn't have got to work (12 miles) in less than 90 minutes on the bus, and one of the connections was very tight, and the first one being late would have added an hour.

 

[Nomad]

I'm in West Midlands this week and traffic is a nightmare.
Lass I'm staying with was driving and we had a trip to IKEA, 15 miles, satnav says at least 40 minutes. Average about 25 mph using the main roads

Public transport in the UK isn't a nice place to be, every time I try I end up near somebody on speakerphone having a long chat about nothing at full volume

I spend a lot of time in Portugal, one place is rural, decent bus service to go to work school in town at 9am, a couple around noon, more 4pm - 7:30pm.
Tough if you want to do anything mid morning, mid afternoon or after 8pm.

The other place has a good regular service to the nearby town but last bus is 8pm - tough if you decide to stay out after that.

 

[Cato]

I'm in West Midlands this week and traffic is a nightmare.
Lass I'm staying with was driving and we had a trip to IKEA, 15 miles, satnav says at least 40 minutes. Average about 25 mph using the main roads

Aside from the fuel consumption this is the reason I use the bike most of the time, you can stick to all the speed limits and still halve the journey times by filtering. That girl who picked up her scooter this morning was saying the same thing.

 

[Rannsachair]

Aside from the fuel consumption this is the reason I use the bike most of the time, you can stick to all the speed limits and still halve the journey times by filtering. That girl who picked up her scooter this morning was saying the same thing.

I find filtering difficult on our single track roads, and sometimes safer to get off the bike to not scare the oncoming traffic

 

[dobbslc]

I thought you said that bike was 50 horse power !!!

 

[Robotstar5]

I thought you said that bike was 50 horse power !!!

It's all bull

 

[Cobbler]

It's all bull

It’s got a good horn though, you have to milk these comments, don’t you!

 

[Farside]

Yep, Holland and Japan are good public transport examples.

Because they treat it as a public good.
We got the shoite because it was privatised.
Ok, in the past many routes made no money or even a loss, but when I was a lad in into my early 20s, public transport was ubiquitous and cheap, and usually convenient. The bus company losses were topped up by central or local goverment as a public good.
That was in suburban Glasgow and semi-rural Lanarkshire.
In rural Ireland it's rubbish, no doubt about it, but it's a hard nut to crack, despite various attempts at it.

 

[Cato]

Because they treat it as a public good.
We got the shoite because it was privatised.
Ok, in the past many routes made no money or even a loss, but when I was a lad in into my early 20s, public transport was ubiquitous and cheap, and usually convenient. The bus company losses were topped up by central or local goverment as a public good.
That was in suburban Glasgow and semi-rural Lanarkshire.
In rural Ireland it's rubbish, no doubt about it, but it's a hard nut to crack, despite various attempts at it.

It was knackered long before privatisation in the Midlands. The core issue for why it's so bad here is common to a lot of issues, and that's sheer incompetence on the behalf of local authorities going back decades. Opportunity after opportunity were wasted due to that incompetence combined with vanity projects, arrogance and the proliferation of brown envelopes. A heady combination indeed.

As one example of many, Birmingham had a tram network the equal of any major city up until the 1950s. Then it was decommissioned and the tracks ripped up. 40 years later they started spending what is now running into the billions installing a new system that's cr4p by any measure you care to name.

 

[Memmeddu]

Almost done, here's is installed on the replica
Not blued yet, just painted.
Essentially on yesterday I've made the final dimensions adjustments, made the slot where the sight post slides deeper, champhered to allow it to seat a lot deeper so now it completely closes.
Rounded the edges and painted just to see how it would look like on the replica.
Those are pictures from this morning.

And it looks good to me .
I've took it with me at work, disassembled heat treated the hinge moving portion.
Bead blasted everything.
Once home I've watched few Backyard Ballistics videos.
Few others from other YouTubers just to understand the household rust blueing catalyst formula.
Ended up attempting to make this one
8 parts hydrogen peroxide
2 parts white vinegar
1 part salt

I've discovered to have not the right amount of hydrogen peroxide to make the right composition...
So I have a mixture of roughly
18ml of hydrogen peroxide
5ml of white vinegar
Too much salt (5ml in volume)
Despite that I've made an attempt on the hinge portion.
It became straw, but not rusted like I thought it would be, most likely due to the heat treatment or just the formula.
I've then boiled it in water.
Color because kinda brown maybe kinda purple.
Just like if I would have used heat to give it color.
No loose flakes.
But strangely enough shiny .
Tomorrow or even on Saturday I'll attempt again after buffing and degreasing the part again cause I think there was oil in the container I've used to boil the water
Forgot about making pictures

 

[Farside]

As one example of many, Birmingham had a tram network the equal of any major city up until the 1950s. Then it was decommissioned and the tracks ripped up. 40 years later they started spending what is now running into the billions installing a new system that's cr4p by any measure you care to name.

Round about the same time that happened in every major city in these islands with an existing tram network.
Funnily enough, it happened about the same time the Governments of the day were persuaded that the wider rail network needed to be savagely cut back too.
I wonder if there's a connection...

 

[Robotstar5]

As one example of many, Birmingham had a tram network the equal of any major city up until the 1950s. Then it was decommissioned and the tracks ripped up. 40 years later they started spending what is now running into the billions installing a new system that's cr4p by any measure you care to name.

Birmingham's last tram, July 1953

 

[oldbikedavey]

Have to say that TfL do a fine job.
Public transport in London is absolutely stellar, most of the time.
If I need to remind myself of Third World problems, I can just take a train down to Hampshire......

 

[RichardM]

Have to say that TfL do a fine job.
Public transport in London is absolutely stellar, most of the time.
If I need to remind myself of Third World problems, I can just take a train down to Hampshire......

Do you know if it is making a profit or is it subsidised by central government?

 

[oldbikedavey]

Do you know if it is making a profit or is it subsidised by central government?

London very certainly makes a humungous profit.
'If it ain't broke, don't fix it.......'

 

[RichardM]

Are you sure, I read capital expenditure was centrally funded.

 

[Cato]

The girl with the scooter left a nice review on Google. Although "Very fair pricing" sounds like I need to up my rates

Excellent service, had my scooter up and running in no time. Communicative throughout and very transparent about my options and the costs involved. Very fair pricing too. Thank you for your great work Larry, I’m sure I will be back!

 

[dobbslc]

Do you know if it is making a profit or is it subsidised by THE MOTORIST?

FTFY

 

[Cato]

Turning to the subject of pattern carbs, there are a lot out there that are pure garbage, but there are also some excellent carbs too. I tend to buy pattern carbs from L&S Engineers because they deliver almost as quickly as Amazon, have a tech dept you can talk to, and provide warranty/returns.

No doubt due to the warranty they supply carbs that don't give any bother out of the box for Stihl, Honda GX series etc. As an example this is a pattern carb for a GX, £30:00 inc next day delivery, the genuine carb is £188:00 plus delivery. The upshot of that is I can buy a replacement carb cheaper than I can run one through the ultrasonic cleaner.