gcirc

I just imported this but cant get it dynamically updated, and it now turns up on search engines.

The real blog is here http://gcirc.wordpress.com

Firstly and foremostly, a massive round of applause, for he’s a jolly good fellow, hugs and handshakes and all that kind of stuff for the outstanding series of contributions we’ve been getting. Don’t worry folks, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity, I just thought I ought to do something memorable, who the hell wants to run round southwark docks for money anyway ?. You’ve raised 700 quid in barely a week, and there’s plenty of people out there who are pretending that they don’t have their facebook email switched on who I’ll be making direct and personal contact with over the next few weeks.. Now I know why I paid a subscription fee to join Linkedin.

As part of the game of dare that’s developing, we have been investigating the subliminally insane idea of doing the Kasmir Railway. This would have the advantage that I might be be able to bump into these guys again and ask them how their mate Mullah Ohmar is gettting on (I just knew I’d heard that name before). Don’t worry folks, the news varies from bad to appalling, just going up to Jammu is going to be scary enough. But it gave me an excuse to make a militant photo post.

The really sensational news for those of you who have shelled out so royally for the cause so far, is that yours truly has managed to corner himself into doing the entire run in 2nd class sleeper, subject to my challenge being met. We’ve been having discussions about what class we should be doing this in, should we be all in the same class, shouldn’t we make sure that ordinary Indians themselves can join in, etc. Now truth be told , 2nd class non AC is really the only place to be. But usually you get off after 24, at most 36 hours, stagger like an extra from Shawn of the Dead to the nearest hotel, and are not seen again for 12 hours. Well, it’s just not going to be like that this time.
I am still operating a broad ship. If you fancy doing any part of this there will be people who aren’t obliged to prove themselves on this (cos it wasn’t their dumb idea in the first place) who will be traveling in the best seats the train has on offer.
Our female membership has now expanded to 25% of the party (OK, we went from 7 to 8), but it’s still a very encouraging trend. There are also several potential part timers from the girls. We should be on the Railway Children Events page shortly also, from where I expect to get a few candidates, and I know there’s quite a few more still on IndiaMike who are keeping their powder dry, but will throw their hat in if it all starts to shape up next year.

I seem to get most of my hits from mail servers btw, so well done everyone whose been mail bombing me. I changed my twitter ID to gcirc, and I now cant reinstate the automagical update onto twitter and inturn onto facebook, so I’ll be handcranking this. But if you tweeted me, please do so again as I get more takers now I’m not called mr_stretch, funny that.

I just imported this but cant get it dynamically updated, and it now turns up on search engines.

The real blog is here http://gcirc.wordpress.com

So, after some typical dithering from yours truly about where we are going to start this from, I’ve ended up back at Mumbai. Everything is still work in progress, but I need an excuse to make a second post and my first proper facebook spam, so here goes.

Photo by Nimboo

We have our first candidate from the superior sex to have put themselves up for the entire route!. The full circle gang is now up to 7, I think it’s going to end up several times bigger than that at this rate.

We have a start date of the evening of Saturday February 19th, 2011 at Mumbai Central Station. We ‘ll end up back at the famous VT, pictured above, 2 weeks and a couple of hours later, “round about midnight”. Well , of course, that’s what the plan says.

There are several reasons for including Delhi, even though it’s not on the edge of the network as Kolkata, Chennai and Mumbai obviously all are being ports. There’s a major Railway Children project there, the routes going through it are several orders of magnitude more reliable than the more northerly ones direct to Mordadbad from Jammu, and I’m hoping we can get a large posse to join us in Delhi to do the Assam section.

We’ve also factored in a contingency day at New Jalpaiguri, so despite my previous stance that we wouldnt be doing any toy trains other than at Tipong, we might get the chance to do a wee bit as this is the start of the Darjeeling Railway. But there’s absolutely no way we’ll be going all the way up to Darjeeling and back on the train, it would take 2 valuable days. But we may get to do it one way, or at least a section, during the contingency day (if we’re not spending it catching up) and provided there are enough of us as we’re going to have to charter a train. The Darjeeling Himalayan Railway Society do this kind of thing in the early months of the year.
My “CTO” is currently enjoying the delights of moving house, so I can’t get the new route signed off as yet. There’s a bone of contention regarding going via Delhi we need to resolve, and we are just having to come to terms with the concept that some of us will be insisting on 1st class if and when it’s available.

I just imported this but cant get it dynamically updated, and it now turns up on search engines.

The real blog is here http://gcirc.wordpress.com

Well, it’s more a can of Hobgoblin and sitting down to gloat over last nights match, again. But I have to say, this interweb stuff is pretty cool these days. Even a short tempered so and so like me managed to knock this up, and cook the tea, and perform various taxi and child pacification duties, inside half an evening.

Only 16 months of pre-amble to go, but at least we’re all stubbed up and ready to rock

Photo by Richard Arden