Churches (221) : St Mary, Sandbach

The parish church of St Mary in Sandbach, Cheshire was originally built in the early 16th century on the site of an earlier Saxon church, though by the mid-19th century it was in a poor condition. The church was completely rebuilt in the late 1840s, much of the original church being replaced or re-used encased in new material. The rebuilt church was extended though the rebuilt west tower was faithful to the original.

The church has a nave with clerestories, aisles and a side chapel. The architectural style is Perpendicular. An usual feature of the tower is that a footpath passes through it's open base. The church is built from red sandstone.

Model week : Electrical test

The track layout for my new ..er.. layout has been finalised. I ran my Class 33 over all the lines to make sure everything worked out. Next up will be to lift the track, ballast where necessary then re-lay the track. This is a different method to orthodox (and what i have used before), i always like to innovate. Lets just hope its a good innovation!

Passing Theale

GWR action.

Calculators (16) : Litton Imperial 1260

This is an impressive looking mains powered desk calculation machine from the first half of the 1970s (or perhaps 1976 as there is a sticker underneath it which says "July 1976", maybe when it was purchased?) The calculator has the standard four arithmetric functions plus percentages and a memory. It also has a slider switch to set the number of digital places. What RM and RV do i am unsure but perhaps something to do with the memory. Numbers are shown using a nice looking VFD display.

Although my calculator does switch on (or rather powers on - the switch on the side doesn't do anything) some of the calculations can go wrong indicating some bit rot but considering the age of this machine it works pretty well.

Wootton Wawen

Wootton Wawen is one of my favourite places, maybe even my favourite of all. So, i like to go at least once a year. I went yesterday to update my railway station photographs there though not a huge amount has changed since i was here last. Illness meant my stay was shorter than intended but i did get some nice photos, which you can see here.