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Posts Tagged ‘Horwich’

June/July Events in Horwich and Blackrod (2010)

May 15th, 2010 No comments

Horwich Carnival RacesThree dates for your diaries in the next two months if you live in Horwich or Blackrod.

Horwich Carnival Races – 20th June

Horwich Carnival Races will be held this year on Sunday 20th June.
Various running and cycling races for different ages and abilities, both serious and fun are held on the streets of Horwich and this year’s provisional timetable is here. A handful of photos from two years ago are here.

Blackrod Scarecrow Festival – 3rd/4th July

Blackrod Scarecrows - 3 little pigsThis year’s festival promises to be the biggest ever, according to St. Katherine’s Church, the organisers of the festival. At the close of registration 89 scarecrows had been promised. You can pick up a map guide in Blackrod on the day.

Horwich Carnival – 4th July

Horwich Morris MenWhile the Carnival has in previous years been held on the same weekend as the races, this year it is on the same weekend as the scarecrow festival – 4th July.
According to the Bolton News there will also be a record attempt at the largest number of zombies in a parade.

What Price Remembrance?

November 15th, 2009 No comments

Horwich War MemorialJust been reading this article in the Bolton News regarding the war memorial here in Horwich. The names engraved on the side are in danger of becoming illegible due to weather erosion. The cost to fix this could be £9,000.

One thing struck me – the memorial was originally funded by a subscription from employees at the Loco Works and there are currently around 20,000 residents in Horwich. I know many of that number will be children, but even if half the residents gave a pound this could be sorted. I know some will say “We’ve already paid our council tax, let them pay for it” but that’s not the point.

Lest we forget

Horwich RMI Bonfire 2009

October 13th, 2009 No comments

fireworksAfter the rather early date last year, Horwich RMI Bonfire will be held this year on Sunday 8th November.

Duchess of Sutherland – Cumbrian Mountain Express

August 8th, 2009 No comments

6233, Duchess of Sutherland passed by Horwich this morning with the Cumbrian Mountain Express, the first ever Duchess to work north from Bolton to Chorley. The steps to the right of the picture indicate the site of Horwich Fork signal box.

Duchess of Sutherland passes Horwich Fork SB with the Cumbrian Mountain Express (8th August 2009)

It returned later on, passing through Blackrod Station in the evening:

Ironman UK 2009, Bolton

August 2nd, 2009 No comments

Ironman UK 2009 was held in Bolton this year. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get to the swimming or cycing stages, but managed to catch the frontrunners as they made their first pass through Horwich.

Philip Graves

This is Philip Graves running through Horwich with almost a seven minute lead in the first part of the marathon section. He went on to win the event.

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iPlay at Station Park, Horwich

December 24th, 2008 No comments

iPlay frame at HorwichAn iPlay frame has been installed at Old Station Park, Horwich, although it is not yet complete (see pic right).

The system runs a game where players must push, pull and spin parts of the frame in order to score points.
iPlay instructionsYou can even add your score to a national league table by logging on to the iPlay website. This looks like a great idea and there would appear to be more already installed around the country.

The whole thing is powered by solar energy, but the main concern I have is that of vandalism. The manufacturers claim on their website that the unit is ‘vandal resistant’ (note not vandal proof). There do not appear to be any CCTV cameras covering this area and given the proximity of park benches which have already been torched, I wonder what consideration the council has given to protecting their investment.

Update: 1st Feb 2009

Well it’s now over a month later and the iPlay doesn’t look any different – still surrounded by fencing.

iPlay

Update: 28th Feb 2009

As well as installing more equipment (a large bowl swing, a short zip-wire and a see-saw/roundabout) the i-play has finally been switched on.

Unfortunately, it is already broken; the ‘spin’ control is just about audible sounding like water has got into the unit and the ‘press’ control is completely silent, making it impossible to play the game.

Not a good start really.

Power Cuts and Reduced Voltage

December 6th, 2008 No comments

If you live in Horwich or Blackrod, no doubt you know that we had a power cut on Thursday at 6:25. Although the power came back on half an hour later (with another outage five minutes later and one more at 14:251), one of my neighbours called round in the evening to ask if we were having trouble with our boiler as his (and another neighbour’s) was not lighting. The low pressure sodium (SOX) street lights were also struggling to strike up. I checked the voltage and found it was only 190V.

Although most people will refer to UK mains voltage as 240V, the voltage that your local supply company must supply has a tolerance band. This used to be 240V +/- 6% (226-254V2) but following European harmonisation in 1995, this changed to 230V +10% -6% (216-253V2) until 2008 when it became 230V +/- 10% (207-253V). This meant that nothing really changed as the voltage you were supplied before more than likely fell within the new range. Continental Europe changed too as their nominal voltage moved up from 220V to 230V. In reality, these changes had little effect on supply companies but it meant that manufacturers had to ensure that domestic appliances would work within the revised tolerances.

Most appliances will work quite happily above 200V but not when it drops below 200V, as was clearly indicated by the problems with boilers and street lights, so if you were wondering why some of your appliances were behaving oddly or not working at all, this is the most likely problem. Apart from the lights being dimmer, other appliances which appear to have been affected:

  • Microwave. The microwave didn’t sound quite right (it normally makes a ‘thump’ when it kicks in). This was confirmed by the fact that it took longer to heat milk than normal. Since the effective wattage was reduced, the microwave times for a given wattage will have been short;
  • BT Vision. A neighbour complained that his BT Vision box was acting strangely and refusing to record programmes;
  • Compact Fluorescents. In this age of energy conservation, it is interesting to note that fluorescent lamps are more sensitive to reduced voltage. Whereas a conventional lamp will simply get dimmer as the voltage drops, we had a couple of CFLs that simply refused to work at all when the voltage was low.

Late on Friday afternoon, our boiler also failed to light up, showing a fault lamp. The voltage at this time had dropped to 183V (over 20% below nominal).

The fault was apparently on the HV network, so United Utilities will no doubt have back-fed affected properties via another circuit, however I would not have expected such a large variation in voltage over short periods and such low voltages on the LV network as a result. It would appear that United Utilities found it necessary to bring in large portable generators to supply customers while the fault was isolated and repaired. This would explain the large variation in voltages and the reduced voltages experienced as the load increases and the generator struggles to maintain voltage.

As of Saturday afternoon, we have returned to a healthy and stable 242V.

United Utilities have recently been spending a lot of time (and money) upgrading the local HV network in Horwich, however although the cabling has been laid, the final connections are not yet complete. Hopefully these upgrades will mean any future faults can be handled without the need for generators.

1 – My ISP sends a text when my broadband line goes offline
2 – rounded figures, actually 225.6-254.4V and 216.2-253V

Early Bonfire at the RMI

October 27th, 2008 2 comments

fireworksIf you’re wondering when the Horwich RMI bonfire is this year, forget it, you’ve missed it.

I just found out today that it was held last night (Sunday 26th October), very early for Bonfire Night. Last Year’s was on 4th November.

The person who told us said that there weren’t many people there, not surprising when most people will only now be wondering whether it will be the weekend before or after 5th November.

No Dog Fouling

September 7th, 2008 No comments

There is a local street that is regularly used by dog walkers as a toilet for their dogs. Now before any dog owners get wound up, I know that most owners are responsible, but for some reason this particular street has a problem. The council have painted ‘no fouling’ signs on the pavements but, as you can see, some people just don’t seem to care, or maybe they have completely misunderstood the sign and think it means a designated spot for this purpose.

No Dog Fouling Sign
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Late Post in Horwich

September 5th, 2008 No comments

We’ve just had our post delivered today at ten to five! It does not appear to be a one-off either as I remember seeing the postman at a similar time earlier this week.

This is simply not acceptable. How is it possible to act on and reply to items of post that have only been delivered at the ond of the day?

Royal Mail seem to be doing everything possible to ensure that they lose their monopoly on postal deliveries