Thursday, May 15, 2025

poster for a steamship service between Lübeck, Germany and Abo Finland, circa 1900

"Every second Saturday in summer, every 14 days in winter." It shows the SS Poseidon completed in December 1898 at Grangemouth, Grangemouth Dockyard Co. in Scotland. 745 dwt, 650 IHP, 57.01 x 8.77 x 4.88 meters; 24 passenger berths. Sistership Virgo > Mira.

In 1898 Poseidon's first homeport became Turku (Åbo) in Finland. The company went bankrupt in 1905: in 1917 the Russian Government requisitioned it and in 1918 the Finnish Government used the ship on voyage from Danzig to Vaasa arriving on 18 February carrying arms, ammunition and Finnish Jaegers. In June 1918 it was returned to its owners. On 25 September 1939 en route from Helsinki to Lübeck, the Germans captured it to Swinemünde but on 4 October it was returned to owners in Lübeck. It 1944 it was back to Finland.

In 1954 it was sold to Nasem A. Gandour of Tripoli. Pilgrim service began in 1957 with a diesel engine conversion to a motorship. In 1960 to Jeddah. Mohamed Aly Ben Laden. In 1968 to Aden, Slave Island, scuttled as a breakwater for small ships.

Monday, May 12, 2025

Sunday, May 11, 2025

NZR Ec electric locomotive at Heathcote

The length says this is a suburban train from Lyttelton to Christchurch and not a boat train from a ferry,  One notes the runaway track on the left to protect the single track in the tunnel.  The era of electric trains ended in 1970, see the book Railway Electrification in Australia and New Zealand.

Friday, May 9, 2025

1980 Mercury Marquis


'I hope these good real books give you pleasure'


the car chase in the movie 'The Seven Ups' (1973)


As in the movie Bullitt (1968) the late great stunt driver Bill Hickman in a 1973 Pontiac Grand Ville portrays one of the bad guys in the chased car and does his own driving.

Roy Scheider, playing the cop chaser, drives a 1973 Pontiac Ventura Sprint coupe. Scheider is heavily doubled by Hickman's good friend and fellow stuntman, Jerry Summers.

According to the movie producers the chase wasn't rehearsed as the producers thought permission for it would never have been granted if the authorities knew what was planned.

a charming old tram plus bridge approach scene at the Rheinbrücke, Ludwigshafen, Germany, circa 1910

This was built in the 1860s and spanned the 274 meters between Ludwigshafen and Mannheim.  Unsurprisingly it didn't survive WW2 and was destroyed in March 1945.

The replacement bridge from the 1950s was named the Konrad-Adenauer-Brücke in 1967.

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