I am having a bit of a break from Pleasurama on this post and will try to catch up on some of the things I have missed, this is intended to be a fairly meandering sort of post so I don’t recommend it if you are in a hurry.I was up fairly early on Sunday morning and had a fairly thoughtful walk to the end of the west pier and back, there is usually no one else taking pictures and I was surprised to find several photographers about with very large cameras and lots of attachments, turns out they were from Deal.
I gather that there was a major cliff collapse in the area of the tunnel entrance in 1957, the info comes from local railway books mostly Terry’s one on the tunnel railway it only says that a cliff collapse at the sands end of the tunnel caused the narrow gauge railway operating there then to close while a strengthening wall was built and this subsequently reduced it from two tracks to one.
Oh and yes and this rather unusual comment “workers were warned of further cliff falls by the use of a bell which they found necessary on several occasions.”
As you can see from the picture the whole area is in a bad old state, click on the link for more pictures of this http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/blogpicts11/id10.htm
Once I arrived at the harbour it became fairly obvious that the Thanet Coast Project was something I would need to investigate later in the day, more pictures at http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/blogpicts11/id11.htm
I then wandered along the cross wall and noticed a plane fly really quite low over the houses on the westcliff, as it was still early on Sunday morning when a lot of people were still asleep it did occur to me how stupid of the airport it is to let planes over fly the town at this sort of time when they don’t need to, it really isn’t doing their cause any good at all.
This next picture is of Antwerp Flyer at full power astern, their helmsman discovered the sand bar in the harbour entrance quite unexpectedly and came to an abrupt halt, I hope there was no damage to the keel, I believe he took my signalling to him to be the actions of some sort of lunatic until he hit the bottom.
As you can see from this picture his next attempt at the harbour entrance was far more cautious, right close to the west wall where the water is deepest, click on the link for more pictures http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/blogpicts11/id12.htmI returned home and did my best to answer various comments on the blog over breakfast but became distracted by various discarded children’s toys, a remote control car and the innards of an animated stuffed animal caught my attention in particular, hence the short video.
Later on I went to investigate Thanet Coast life, a pity it wasn’t more heavily promoted, despite all that was going on I don’t think there were many more people about than one would expect on a fine day at this time of year.
Another really daft thing was that they had sighted the tent with the band in right opposite the tent with all the people trying to convey information about the project so it was difficult to hear what they were saying, click on the link for more photos http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/blogpicts11/id3.htm
Next a rare treat the maritime museum was open with free entry, apparently they now have the ok from the council to open for another 3 months but still no security of tenure so they still can't get their grants and get on with sorting the museum out.
I do wish the council would get on with this one, it doesn’t help them to lose the continuity of opening either, anyway it’s open Wednesdays to Sundays again, click on the link for more pictures http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/blogpicts11/id4.htm
On to this morning, going down Augusta steps this morning I noticed there is rust coming out of the concrete in several places, I believe this should be treated before spalling starts to occur and more expense is incurred, click on the link for more pictures http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/blogpicts11/id5.htm
Walking up the eastern harbour wall I noticed there is some movemnt and cracking to the surface, I am beginning to wonder if the council is really interested in these things though.
There is also some sort of water leak behind the brickwork on the western incline viaduct, what a pity that they weren’t waterproofed properly when the structural repairs were done as it makes many of the arches pretty much unusable.
Later on I went to investigate Thanet Coast life, a pity it wasn’t more heavily promoted, despite all that was going on I don’t think there were many more people about than one would expect on a fine day at this time of year.Another really daft thing was that they had sighted the tent with the band in right opposite the tent with all the people trying to convey information about the project so it was difficult to hear what they were saying, click on the link for more photos http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/blogpicts11/id3.htm
Next a rare treat the maritime museum was open with free entry, apparently they now have the ok from the council to open for another 3 months but still no security of tenure so they still can't get their grants and get on with sorting the museum out.I do wish the council would get on with this one, it doesn’t help them to lose the continuity of opening either, anyway it’s open Wednesdays to Sundays again, click on the link for more pictures http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/blogpicts11/id4.htm
On to this morning, going down Augusta steps this morning I noticed there is rust coming out of the concrete in several places, I believe this should be treated before spalling starts to occur and more expense is incurred, click on the link for more pictures http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/blogpicts11/id5.htm
Walking up the eastern harbour wall I noticed there is some movemnt and cracking to the surface, I am beginning to wonder if the council is really interested in these things though.
There is also some sort of water leak behind the brickwork on the western incline viaduct, what a pity that they weren’t waterproofed properly when the structural repairs were done as it makes many of the arches pretty much unusable. On to the westcliff and another low flying plane (picture at top of post) and several worrying defects to the infrastructure that I won’t bore you with click on the link for the pictures http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/blogpicts11/id7.htm 
I feel I must end on a high note here and point out what a marvellous job the council’s parks and gardens department does on planting in such an attractive way, click on the link for the rest of the pictures http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/blogpicts11/id8.htm
I feel I must end on a high note here and point out what a marvellous job the council’s parks and gardens department does on planting in such an attractive way, click on the link for the rest of the pictures http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/blogpicts11/id8.htm
Nice Piccies Michael I never left the house at all so it is nice to go on someone elses ramble around. The terrace there is as fine as any in the country, I know what everyone will say about being spoilt by the airport etc. But they were there before the train and probably will still be there when we run out of oil to fuel the planes, life's like that we are like flowers of the field etc etc. Nothing is perfect we have to bend with the wind.
ReplyDeleteIt certainly was a beautiful day at the harbour, with a good turnout for the Thanet Coast Project. The day was marred by the training flight of course, which made an appearance every ten minutes or so. I find it difficult to fathom how these flights are considered beneficial to the people of Ramsgate. I dread to think what night flights would do to the town.
ReplyDeleteThe council have killed off Margate, now they seem hellbent on killing off Ramsgate with the night flights and training flights at the weekend. Our only hope is that Infratil cannot continue to sustain losses of £4m a year and pack up and go back to New Zealand.
ReplyDeleteThe photo of the plane looks like a fake to me; did you photoshop it Michael.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't like to get in a plane manned by an untrained pilot!
ReplyDeleteGlad you enjoyed them Don it is really difficult to tell how much of that sort of thing to put up and only really do it because I am able to put a lot of pictures up really quickly. When it comes to web publishing I really am a bit of a slash and burn merchant, some of the professional webwriters would have kittens if they saw me in action.
ReplyDelete17.38 and 10.52 My main concern is the safety issue and I am of the opinion that it really isn’t necessary to have training flights over a town if that is what they were.
11.28 I can assure you that these planes are often very low indeed anyway the dross is still on the camera card so here are the pictures either side of it http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/blogpicts11/id13.htm the first one I much lighter due to where the sun was and show up the crud in the camera if you look carefully you can see it in the others.
11.28 if you lived in Central Harbour Ward in Ramsgate, you would know that the picture of the plane is very real indeed. That is how low they fly over us.
ReplyDeleteA quick on the back of an envelope calculation. If Manston airport is 50 metres above sea level, and Ramsgate library is on the 15 metre contour line, 4000 metres away from the touch down point. Assuming a 3 degree glide path it looks like the aircraft will pass about 245 metres above ground level outside the library entrance.
ReplyDeleteMakes you think when approaching a roundabout, 300 metres, 200 metres, 100 metres, ok lets start breaking.
When and why was the steel bridge that once went between the two brick buttresses at the tunnel entrance removed?
ReplyDelete