Mike
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mikeyashworth.bsky.social
Mike
@mikeyashworth.bsky.social
770 followers 240 following 1.7K posts
Ex-London Underground and retired back to "The North" - transport, design history, things industrial, architecture & heritage - all tickle my fancy. Postings often link to my Flickr account for more things!
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mikeyashworth.bsky.social
Ipswich's council housing - ahead of the game according to the c.1949 Official Guide with this aerial view of the borough's Racecourse Housing Estate first laid out according to then 1920s contemporary town planning on the site of the Racecourse that closed in 1911. @municipaldreams.bsky.social
From the c.1949 - 1950, Official Handbook of the Ipswich Corporation that contains as is often the case details as to the administration, amenities, trades and industries of the county town of Suffolk. It includes a section on the borough's council or social housing. Like most British municipalities the construction of council housing, to relieve both slum conditions as well as provide new homes for "heroes" and a growing population, began seriously in the post-WW1 years following the adoption of new legislation. This aerial photograph, showing 'how far ahead Ipswich is' shows the very obvious planned nature of the Racecourse Housing Estate so called it is was constructed on the site of the town's Racecourse that had formally closed in 1911 and been sold to the Corporation for housing in the 1920s. This is, I think, looking south west over the estate. A near circle of roads around a central 'circus' is shown with streets, crescents and cul-de-sacs of semi-detached housing is shown. https://flic.kr/p/2rHVP7b
November 29, 2025 at 11:56 AM
mikeyashworth.bsky.social
Ipswich - its municipal administration, amenities, trades & industry described in the County Borough's c.1949 Official Handbook.

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A rather charming cover to this, the c.1949 - 1950, Official Handbook of the Ipswich Corporation that contains as is often the case details as to the administration, amenities, trades and industries of the county town of Suffolk. Its ancoent charms and thriving industries, that included the Port, are seen here and the illustration shows a Corporation Transport 'bus nosing around the corner. I say 'bus' as one of the clues to dating this publication is the note under the heading of the municipal transport undertaking that the Department "are also embarking for the first time upon the operation of oil engined buses". Ipswich was at the time, I think, unique in that it only operated trolleybus services and it was not until 1950 that the first motor bus joined the fleet. Trolleybuses, whose wires are carefully not shown on the image, had first been used in the town to replace tramways in 1923, the entire system had been converted by 1926. The fleet was largely constructed by two local companies both of whom constructed early trolleybus chassis; Ransomes and Garretts. The motor bus soon won out and the town's last trolleybus ran in 1963 when the post-war fleet of Karriers and Sunbeams were withdrawn. The illustration is top half of the cover above shaded capital letters "Ipswich". Below the coat of arms is surmouting scenes of industry, cranes and the docks with a ribbon below reading "Official Handbook" all on shaded green background.
November 29, 2025 at 11:29 AM
mikeyashworth.bsky.social
On 29 Nov 1844 Amiens Street station of the Dublin & Drogheda Railway opened following extension from a temporary terminus at Royal Canal. Renamed after James Connolly in 1966 the striking building, by WD Butler was completed in 1846 & seen here in a c.1845 guide to the railway.

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The descriptive handbook to the Dublin & Drogheda Railway that opened on 24 May 1844 although the striking terminus building we see here was not opened until 1846; the railway had made it to the site at Amiens Street on 29 November 1844 from its temporary terminus at the Royal Canal. Initially known as "Dublin Station" it gained its formal name in some years later and since 1966, to celebrate the heros of the 1916 Rising, it was amongst a number of stations named after the executed patriots becoming Connolly Station. The building's facade survives and was designed by architect William Deane Butler and is constructed of Wicklow granite. This fine engraving is by J. Kirkwood and describes the Terminus as being situated on Talbot Street. John Kirkwood was the Scots born engraver, from a family of the same, who worked in Ireland from 1826 until 1845 when he retired to back to Edinburgh. He was one of the foremost engravers in Ireland of his day and undertook many works for publication.
November 29, 2025 at 5:39 AM
mikeyashworth.bsky.social
"And now its all on the change". Screenshot from a 1960 BBC Archive film on redevelopment of the Elephant & Castle in London @lccmunicipal.bsky.social - an excavator about to trundle past an LCC sign.
Screenshot from a BBC Archive film of 1960 about the Elephant & Castle in London, 1960. an excavator about to trundle past an LCC sign with building work in the background. The area, badly Blitzed, was comprehensively redeveloped in the 1960s.
November 28, 2025 at 8:27 PM
mikeyashworth.bsky.social
From a BBC Archives 1960s film on growing up in Elephant & Castle #London showing the aftermath of WW2 bombing damage at a time the LCC's redevelopment of the area was about to kick off. Far right on edge of Walworth Rd is the original 1890 C&SLR Northern line station building. #history
Brom a BBC Archives 1960s film on growing up in Elephant & Castle, London, showing the aftermath of WW2 bombing damage at a time the LCC's redevelopment of the area was about to lick off. Far right on edge of Walworth Rd is the original 1890 C&SLR Northern line station building. The b/w screenshot looks down SE on the junction, the site of the old Elephant & Castle Hotel now a hoarded traffic island - road vehicles set off from traffic signals heading north, bikes out in front and amongst the lorries and cars two London Transport buses.
November 28, 2025 at 8:11 PM
mikeyashworth.bsky.social
Rodin's "Eve" on the cover of Aug '68 "Essex Countryside"; one of the centrepieces of Harlow New Town's architect Frederick Gibberd's vision of civic landscaping & public sculpture; the Water Gardens. Despite being Listed they have been hideously defaced. #architecture

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Cover to August 1968 Essex Countryside magazine. Beneath the red title banner a colour image of the civic Water Gardens in Harlow New Town - Rodin's Eve is situated at the top of one of the 'canals' that stretch out towards the then Civic centre by Frederock Gibberd, architect to the New Town. They have subsequently been modified almost beyond reconition.
November 28, 2025 at 1:54 PM
mikeyashworth.bsky.social
The way she's waving that frying pan around I'm not sure it's such a care-free holiday. Cover of the London & North Eastern Railway's Camping Coaches leaflet - these were converted carriages parked up stations or on sidings & let out as holiday homes. #railways #holidays

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Camping Coaches for care-free holidays : leaflet 17A : London & North Eastern Railway : 1938 : cover. One feature of British railways were 'camping coaches' that the LNER (and other railways) made available for hire. These were redundant retired carriages that were converted and equipped, almost as static caravans, and then placed on sidings and branch lines to be used as bases for holidays. The locations were often quite remote places that had in some cases even lost their passenger services and so - oddly - one or two places are noted as 'nearest station - and then by bus'! This is the London & North Eastern Railway's folding leaflet, No. 17A, for the 1938 season and that gives details of the coaches as bases for 'care-free holidays. It shows typical accomodation details, lists equipment included and includes a map and list of the sites with a booking form. It also mentions the marvellous "Touring Camping Coach" that was the same idea but still mobile and that appears to have been hitched to scheduled trains and moved around, passengers on board, between various sites in Yorkshire. There are also details of the associated Camping Apartments that were railway accomodation converted for holiday lets. Camping Coaches themselves (of the static variety) survived the war and nationalisation until British Rail finally pulled the plug in c.1971. However, there are still a few wholly private ventures offering such a service. The leaflet, that would have sat alongside the LNER's Camping Holidays booklet No. 17, has very period photographs that are by Alfieri; this could be either Bernard Alfieri (1860–1939) or his son Bernard Jr. both commercial photographers. It shows a highly vanished LNER coach against a platform, a woman with a pan leaning out of a window talking to a well dressed woman on the platfoem. In the background a well dresses chap sits in a deckchair, with a paper, looking over smiling. Camping Coaches for care-free holidays : leaflet 17A : London & North Eastern Railway : 1938 : map showing locations of camping coaches and camping apartments. The outline map shows the lines of the LNER from London to the north of Scotland covering much of central and eastern England and eastern Scotland, The main towns and stations are shown as well as the coach and apartment locations.
November 28, 2025 at 10:11 AM
mikeyashworth.bsky.social
This is I think the now demolished Dorking, Surrey, bus garage of 1932 for Green Line Coaches prior to the formation of London Transport. Prototype of many new '30s LT bus garages that have suffered terrible attrition unlike their more feted Underground cousins. #architecture

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A found photo that is, I am sure, an 'official' London Transport image and shows, I suspect, the then Green Line Coaches offices and garage at Dorking in Surrey but I am open to corrections! The site at Dorking was opened in 1932, the year before the Underground Group controlled bus and coach operations of Country Bus Services and Green Line Coaches became, along with the rest of the Group, part of the new London Passenger Transport Board, best recalled as London Transport. The Board is internationally known for its Underground architecture of the period; the new and reconstructed bus garages, both Central and Country Areas, to help modernise and support growing road services are less well know. In addition they have no been recognised for their own architectural importance and few, if any, of merit were heritage 'protected' and almost all have now been demolished. Whereas Adams, Holden & Pearson are connected with the Underground the equally influential partnership of Wallis, Gilbert & Partners were to undertake much work for LT. This is not, I'm sure, by them but it can be seen as a prototype of the streamlined 'thirties style that was adopted for many LT bus garages with extensive use of carefully chosen and bonded brick. This was a move away from a more 'monumental' style of semi-Georgian brick facades with stone or reconstitued stone details that the LGOC and its associated bus companies, such as Green Line, had largely adopted in the 1920s. To the side of a curved single story brick building with steel windows and three small canopies can be seen a glimpse of what looks to be very much like a Green Line AEC coach of some type with side mounted running boards. The garage and offices closed in 1990, twenty years after Green Line and Country Area operations passed to the new National Bus Company, and have been demolished replaced, I think, by housing at the corner of Horsham Road and South Street.
November 27, 2025 at 3:34 PM
mikeyashworth.bsky.social
A reminder of the close economic & cultural ties between the UK & Germany before WW1; the 1910 guide book for London based General Steam Navigation Co. printed by the noted Hannover colour printers König & Ebhardt with artwork by famous German marine artist Willy Stöwer.

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A very lavish front cover to this, the c.1910 guide book to the London based General Steam Navigation Co. Ltd.'s steamer and ferry services. By the mid-Twentieth Century, the company was then better known as the "Eagle & Queen Steamers Line" whose sailings were largely confined to day pelasure sailings from London to resorts on the banks of the Thames Estuary, with residual sailings and freight shipping to more distant Continental ports. However, at the time of publication the Company, that claimed to be the world's oldest steamship line, also shows sailings to many Continental destinations including France, Spain, North Africa, Belgium, Germany and Scotland along with tours inland to such locations as the Pyrenees. This cover is a fine example of Edwardian design and printing and has notable German connections. It was printed by J.C. König & Ebhardt, a Hannover based printing house formed in 1845, orginally to print labels for the mustard factory owned by König. The concern developed to become amongst Germany's most important specialist printers of colour work, including share certificates and banknotes, as well as working alongside several important artists for illustrative works such as prints. Indeed, the Hannover works produced the "Oilette" postcard series for British publishers Raphael Tuck. The guide is seen here as originating from their London offices. The other German link is the artist whose illustration of the SS Woodcock adorns the cover; Willy Stöwer (1864 - 1931) who was, at the time, one of the most noted marine and maritime artists in Germany and whose one time patron was no less than Kaiser Wilhelm II. The artwork is in a rope border frame, the title on a banner all on a gold background with the Union flag & GSNC flag crossed at the base under the crown & "Royal Mail".
November 27, 2025 at 2:28 PM
mikeyashworth.bsky.social
Today, in 1927, a Mr Atlee MP asked in Parliament & got the reply that the monumental concrete 'pylons' tmarking the entrance to the new Lea/Lee Valley Viaducts cost £6000. This part of the 'new' North Circular has been rebuilt & the pylons long demolished.
@roads.org.uk @c20society.bsky.social
Two photos, the upper showing the flanking pylons either side of the still unopened road, the lower showing the low concrete viaducts across the marshy ground. What is now the North Circular Road - the A406 - that cuts across north London was developed from some sections of existing roads but much new construction that was carried out in the late 1920s and early '30s as part of the suburban development of London. The Lea Valley (or Lee Valley) has long formed a boundary - the difficult river and marsh lands prone to flooding made for difficult transport links - and so the section of new road between Edmonton and Chingford took the form of an elevated viaduct that was one of the earlier uses of reinforced concrete construction and architecture. This page from a brochure shows the original road as built with features that many have now forgotten - the massive 'gateway' pylons built to impress the modernity of the construction. They must have been quite a sight - but I don't know when they vanished as although some elements of the concrete railings seen here survived until the motorway construction of the 1990s the pylons, and natty concrete street lamps (rather American in style) had long gone. The structure was designed by architect engineers Sir Owen Williams and Maxwell Ayrton. Interestingly I've found a question in Hansard when, on 27 November 1927, a Mr Atlee MP asked how much had the concrete pylons on the Lea Valley Viaduct cost and the answer from Colonel Ashley was 'about £6000'. Mr Atlee MP went on to lead the Labour Party and was Prime Minister in the 1945 Government.
November 27, 2025 at 1:00 PM
mikeyashworth.bsky.social
It's 1965 & the 'Swinging Sixties' have caught up with the Urban District Council of Haltemprice in the East Riding of Yorkshire whose official guide promises endless bountiful sun over the suburbs to the west of Hull. #yorkshire #1960s #graphicdesign #trendy

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It appears that by 1965 the so called "swinging '60s" had even reached as far as the East Riding of Yorkshire and the cover to the Official Guide to the Urban District of Haltemprice who appear to have opted for something quite graphically giddy. It certainly makes for a change from the usual solid stodge of the borough coat of arms that are normally found to adorn the cover of such publications. The small UDC included several small suburbs that ringed around the western boundary of Kingston-Upon-Hull and that included Hessle, Cottingham, Anlaby, Willerby, Kirk Ella and West Ella. The borough had been formed in 1935 and was abolished as part of the 1974 local government reorganisation that saw it become a part of a then larger Beverley council, subsequently to form part of a new East Riding of Yorkshire council in 1996. Anyhow, under a beaming sun, you can go about your work and leisure in Haltemprice. The cover is dominated by a smiling sun motif, top right, that beams down on the colourful illustration on the lower half of the cover. This, dominated by a church weathevane with a multi-coloured cockerel, is above scenes of fields, lesiure activities, farming, a church and a hint of industry; shipbuilding on the easatern boundaries of the borough along the River Hull.
November 26, 2025 at 12:09 PM
mikeyashworth.bsky.social
Leeds in the '60s & a City Transport bus, 850 a 1957 AEC, is busy on route 62 as it prepares to pull away from traffic signals. The bus would have been in two-tone green livery with a Leeds oddity - the plain aluminium bonnet cover as why paint something that's going to get scratched? (BBC Archive)
Screenshot from a 1960s BBC Archive film on 'A weekend in Leeds' looking at shopping & entertainment. B/W showing the Headrow, bustling with vehicles and pedestrians at traffic signals, as Leeds City Transport bus 850, XUM 850, a 1957 AEC Regent with Leeds built Roe double deck bodywork, and on route 62, Circular, prepares to pull away from the signals.
November 26, 2025 at 11:47 AM
mikeyashworth.bsky.social
A cold, frosty dawn over the River Wharfe in Otley, West Yorkshire - good morning to you all. #weather #Yorkshire #sunrise #dawn #cold #photography #landscape
View from the window at c0700 on a cold, still and frsoty morning across the River Wharfe. The water reflects the growing light and silhouettes the now bare trees - above, the clear sky shows the first golden glow of the rising sun.
November 26, 2025 at 8:16 AM
mikeyashworth.bsky.social
English Electric's Stafford Works by Night; marvellous colour plate by Fred B Kerr from the town's 1932 Industrial Survey, that sold the manufacturing opportunities of the town. The neon symbol is quite German in style - I wonder it such a thing existed here or is it license

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One of the most striking adverts in the survey is this splendid fold out colour plate showing the works of the English Electric Co. Ltd. at night that appears to be by one Fred (Frederick?) B. Kerr. The plate is very much in a German industrial art style, even to the representation of the neon "EE" symbol or logo above the roof of the busy, illuminated night time factory at work. I know in Germany such signage existed; I am more reticent about the existance of such a sign in real life in Stafford at the time but ... The plate that covers the top half of the page is dominated by the tall illuminated windows of the main plant buildings - three smoking chimneys behind. English Electric was formed by merger in 1918 and only really prospered after a restructuring, backed by the US Westinghouse Company, in 1930. They went on to be a major UK company with works in Rugby, Bradford, Preston and elsewhere, in electrical equipment, domestic appliances, railway equipment, computing and, famously, aircraft construction. They merged into GEC in 1968.
November 25, 2025 at 4:39 PM
mikeyashworth.bsky.social
Modern Art in Your Life : exhibition catalog - catalogue cover from the Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA, designed by Paul Rand, the well known American art director & graphic designer. #graphicdesign #art #modernart #1950s

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Modern Art in Your Life : exhibition catalogue : Robert Goldwater and René d'Harnoncourt : Museum of Modern Art, New York : 1953 : cover by Paul Rand. The cover to an exhibition catalogue/catalog produced by the Museum of Modern Art, New York, in conjunction with an exhibition that looked at the influence of modern art on the shape and appearance of 'countless objects of our every day environment'. This exhibition built on the 1949 twentieth anniversary of the Museum when two exhibitions, "Timeless Aspects of Modern Art" and Modern Art in Your Life" that had been celebrated in the 1950 publication "Modern Art Old and New". The stylish cover, showing a dining fork, an artist's palette board as a plate and a paint brush as a knife, is by noted American designer and art director Paul Rand (1894 - 1996) whose work included several iconic logotypes and symbols for companies including IBM and Westinghouse. The cover uses simple 'swiped' blocks of red and black, using the white card background of the cover as the contrast with red to the left and black to the right bifurcating the palette board. The title panel in red, is top side and to the right.
November 24, 2025 at 7:37 PM
mikeyashworth.bsky.social
What a once typical British streetscene; not just the pub but an open reflector street lamp (with not much of an output!) and a fingerpost. From the interesting Swindon Local Studies Collection.

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1961-1971?: The Red Lion, 1 The Street, Moredon, Swindon
Source: Scan of original photograph. Album: ARKELLS. Date: 1961-1971 (using car registration). Photographer: L. Maylott. Repository: From the collection of Arkell's Brewery, Kingsdown. Used here by th...
flic.kr
November 24, 2025 at 7:12 PM
mikeyashworth.bsky.social
Camping Grounds in Scotland : a 1951 British Railways listing of campsites, costs & amenities; and an expectation that Campers would travel to & from their expedition by train! Uncredited, the scraperboard/Windsor Board illustration was then common in commercial art & advertising.

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Camping Grounds in Scotland : Season 1951 : pamphlet : British Railways : 1951. Issued in April 1951 this British Railways pamphlet gives a list of camping sites served by rail; some are 'at hand' such as the Station Knoll at Grandtully whilst others give a more strenuous hike such as the thirteen miles from Newton Stewart to Glentrool National Forest Park. The list also shows owners and costs. There is also an indication of camping requirements, a camping 'code' and the reminder that British Railways, aka the Railway Executive, expected intended campers to travel to and from their destination by train. As can be imagined many, if not a majority, of stations listed have long gone following the ruthless closure programme in Scotland during the '50s and 1960s. The cover, uncredited, shows various happy campers on the lochside, one with an obligatory manly pipe, hailing fisherfolk in a boat on the water in a brown/sepia colour on white paper background.
November 24, 2025 at 9:36 AM
mikeyashworth.bsky.social
You were chatting about 'the winter of 1963 on the show the other day @tommckinney.bsky.social & I can just about recall it as a child in Rochdale - the Guardian even did a booklet. My 93 yr old mother can recall the shocker of 1947. Puts me in mind of V Williams Folk Songs of the Four Seasons...
Cover to a Guardian newspaper pamphlet issued to recall the harsh winter of 1963 - a b/w image on a green tinge. showing a bulldozer clearing the road between Danby and Castleton on the moors above Whitby, Yorkshire, on 10 February 1963.
November 23, 2025 at 8:36 PM
mikeyashworth.bsky.social
For for @lccmunicipal.bsky.social - screenshot from a mid-60s BBC Archive film on Cockney accents and a view of a housing estate 'over the border' in Chigwell, Essex. @municipaldreams.bsky.social
screenshot from a mid-60s BBC Archive film on Cockney accents and a view of a housing estate 'over the border' in Chigwell, Essex. In colour a view of an estate of two story modernist maisonettes in a bleak grass courtyard dominated by a painted sign "GLC Housing Dept> Ball Games Prohibited".
November 23, 2025 at 1:58 PM
mikeyashworth.bsky.social
Seawards! The 1949/50 cover to the official guide to services & destinations of the then immensely popular Thames sailings from London of the Eagle & Queen Line steamers who for decades ferried generations of Londoners to Essex & Kent seaside resorts. @seasideferry.bsky.social

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Seawards : official souvenir handbook of the Eagle & Queen Line Steamers : The General Steam Navigation Co. Ltd. : London : nd [1949/50] : cover. The cheery front cover, a happy passenger waving from onboard the Royal Daffodil, to the General Steam Navigation Co. Ltd.'s regular publication, the guide book to their steamer services from Tower Pier in London, down the Thames to various resorts and destinations in Essex and Kent. Undated this is datable by notes as to a photographic competition for 1949 - 1950 run by the company As well as details as to sailings and services descriptions of the various towns visited are given along with adverts for local companies and services. Although the company's earlier extensive sailings to the Continent had been cut back, some cross-Channel day trips were still operated as were a wider range of freight destinations. The General Steam Navigation Co. Ltd. had its origins in 1824 and was for decades one of the major players in services from the Thames both to home and Continental destinations. They were effectively acquired by P&O in 1920, acquiring competitors the New Medway Steam Packet Co. & their 'Queen Line' in 1937, and survived until changes in travel and trade patterns saw the company cease to exist in 1971. The cover uses some marvellous rope 'lettering' for the main title. This runs across the sky below which we see passing a company vessel in its white and green livery. The cheery young lady is fashionably dresses in an autumn leaf pattern dress as she holds the handrail looking out over the waves.
November 23, 2025 at 10:49 AM
mikeyashworth.bsky.social
Oh dear. It being a Saturday - but in November the Two-Course meal won't be available in certain British Railways Refreshment Cars. A menu card beautifully printed by the Curwen Press using the British Transport Commission's Monotype house style. #typography #design #railways

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A beautifully produced and printed, simple item of ephemera issued to advertise catering facilities on certain trains to the West Country on Saturdays. These appear to include certain services departing London Paddington as well as the summer through services from Yorkshire and Lancashire via Bristol towards Weston-super-Mare and Plymouth. From 23 June to 8 September a two-course meal was available in 'certain' refreshment cars for 8/-. (Eight shillings/40p). Cold Meat and Salad Potatoes and Sweet or Cheese. the leaflet is printed at the Curwen Press and shows the 'house style' using Monotype types and decorations (a border in pink) that the British Transport Commission was using at the time. For something so straightforward and ephemeral it is a delight. The reverse. A beautifully produced and printed, simple item of ephemera issued to advertise catering facilities on certain trains to the West Country on Saturdays. These appear to include certain services departing London Paddington as well as the summer through services from Yorkshire and Lancashire via Bristol towards Weston-super-Mare and Plymouth.
November 22, 2025 at 2:34 PM
mikeyashworth.bsky.social
"Dear Mr. Ashworth". I was infamous, as a child and teenager, for cheerfully writing to all sorts of places, companies and people asking for information or how to 'get things'. Anyhow, I spent my pocket money, 50p, & got my Guy Motors casting from the front of a #Birmingham bus.

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I was infamous, as a child and teenager, for cheerfully writing to all sorts of places, companies and people asking for information or how to 'get things'. 'Things' like redundant street lamps or signs and in this case, one of the Guy Arab chieftain's heads that adorned so many of Birmingham's buses at the time. To be honest I know there were times when my long suffering parents wondered what I'd get up to next - Pa in particular was very good at driving me to council depots or locations to pick things up and 'cough up' on my behalf! This little gem however was manageable by hand and although 50p doe not sound much now, it was a goodly chunk of my pocket money at the time! Anyhow, thanks to Eric Jenkins, the Chief Engineer of the West Midlands PTE and his staff, I did indeed obtain my chieftain's head and I've always been very grateful. This aluminium casting, Birmingham cream still visible on the reverse, sits in happy company with the slightly different version that I obtained at Cleveland Rd depot in Wolverhampton off one of their buses as they went for scrap. But I did not think I still had this letter until a few days ago when sifting through a long packed box. The cast aluminium chieftain's head (often known as an Indian's head after the native American headress it purports to show) with the motto 'Feathers in our cap' was Guy Motors of Wolverhampton motto for many years and post-war buses, such as Birmingham's 'New Look' or 'Standards' delivered in their hundreds in the 1950s, carried this version as part of the radiator and front construction. Birmingham, of course, had many such badges at one time, as the Guy Arab chassis proved to be a firm favourite with BCT and many survived into the formation of WMPTE in 1969. They were however gradually whittled away as OPO buses took over service after service. However, they remain a real icon of 1960s Birmingham to me so I'm happy to have this little reminder of them!
November 22, 2025 at 10:51 AM
mikeyashworth.bsky.social
21 November 1948 saw long planned & war delayed extensions to London Underground's Central line services both west to West Ruislip & east as far as Loughton. This is the cover to the publicity leaflet designed by Tom Eckersley. #London #transport #graphicdesign

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The covers to the London Transport publicity leaflet issued for the extension of Central line services both west to West Ruislip and east to Loughton on 21 November 1948. These long planned works were delayed by WW2. The leaflet, using red and white, reversed out, use a weather vane surmounted by a crowing cockerel with W - E highlighted to emphasise the directions and is by Tom Eckersley. At the flaired base of the weathervane are the LT roundel symbols and the 'new' British Railways totem (BR formed in 1948 as LT was nationalused) as the lines both west and east used main line railway infrastructure.
November 21, 2025 at 7:54 AM
mikeyashworth.bsky.social
A cold clear dawn over Otley, West Yorkshire, at 0700 this morning. #yorkshire #sunrise #photography
View across parkland and the River Wharfe at Otley, West Yorkshire, from the window this morning at 0700. The first glow of the rising sun illuminates an almost clear sky and silhouetting the now bare trees on the far river bank. Lights reflected in the still water.
November 21, 2025 at 7:15 AM
mikeyashworth.bsky.social
I'm interested to see that the plans for part of the 'final link' in the TransPennine Upgrade railway plans - Stalybridge to Diggle - are out inc. work to electrify the line across the Uppermill Viaduct. Even the lovely vegitation growing off the structure is retained! #sarcastic
Image of Uppermill railway viaduct now - including vegitation growing out from the stone work. Image of Uppermill railway viaduct with overhead electrification gantries added - and the vegitation still growing out from the structure. This sort of invasive growth if left unchecked often leads to major structural damage and therefore major structural intervention.
November 20, 2025 at 8:41 PM