Some cool Limousine Covers images:

Refinement :

1928 The Charfield railway disaster Mystery

Image by brizzle born and bred
The Charfield railway disaster was a fatal train crash which occurred on 13 October 1928 in the village of Charfield in the English county of Gloucestershire.

The Leeds to Bristol LMS night mail train failed to stop at the signals protecting the sidings at Charfield railway station.

The weather was misty, but there was not a sufficiently thick fog for the signalman at Charfield to employ fog signallers. A freight train was in the process of being shunted from the main line to the sidings, and another train of empty goods waggons was passing through the station from the Bristol direction.

The mail train collided with the freight train and was derailed, coming into collision with the up train underneath the road bridge to the north of the station. Gas used to light the carriages ignited, and four carriages were burnt out. Intense fire made identification of the dead, and even a complete body count, difficult, but it is believed that 15 people died and a further 23 were injured.

(The official report lists 16 deaths and 41 injuries).

The driver of the mail train claimed that he had seen a clear distant signal on approach to the station, and therefore had assumed that the home signals protecting the station were also clear; however, testing of the signals after the accident confirmed that the distant had been correctly in the "danger" position.

The driver was charged with manslaughter, but was subsequently acquitted.

Among the dead were the remains of two small children, who have never been identified. According to local accounts, from 1929 and up until the late 1950s, an unknown woman dressed in black used to regularly visit the memorial to the crash. But she has not been seen for several decades. There is a memorial to remember those who lost their lives at St James Church in Charfield, where the two unknown children are buried.

We delve into a new fictionalised account of a mystery that had never been solved –the identity of two children who died in a horrific rail crash 80 years ago

The tragedy happened one foggy October morning in 1928.

The mail express train from Leeds to Bristol was due to pass through the South Gloucestershire village of Charfield at about 5.30am

On board the steam train – hurtling along at more than 60mph – more than 50 passengers were either dozing or sleeping.

The signalman accepted the train down from Berkeley junction but moved another signal to danger to halt it until a freight train on the same line had reversed into sidings.

But in the thick fog both driver and fireman on the express read the distant signal as clear.

The goods train driver had almost cleared the line when he saw the mail train bearing down on him at full speed.

There was no stopping the tragedy.

The express crashed into a goods tender and then ploughed off the line to hit another empty goods train head on.

In the chaos a coach was thrown over a bridge.

But worse was to follow.

As the engine fell on its side among the splintered wagons, hot ashes spilled from the firebox.

And as pipes fractured in the impact, so the gas which fuelled lights in the old fashioned coaches escaped.

Contact with the hot ashes soon turned the wrecked coaches into an inferno.

Among the chaos, passengers who had scrambled clear made frantic efforts to free those trapped by the fire.

But within 20 minutes flames were leaping up f40ft and the rescuers – many from the village itself – were driven back by the fierce heat.

Despite the heroic efforts of the emergency services, it was many hours before anyone could begin the unenviable task of sifting through the smouldering wreckage.

Many of the victims – 15 people had died – were so badly burned that identification was almost impossible.

In many cases it was only a ring, a watch or an item of clothing that enabled the authorities to put a name to a body.

Despite their best efforts, two small bodies remained unidentified and unclaimed.

"It’s an intriguing tale," says retired Yorkshire teacher Nick Blackstock, the author of Something Hidden, a fictional account of the mystery.

"I first came across it about 20 years ago when I was reading the memoirs of a retired coroner.

"Describing his most intriguing inquest, he then stated that it wasn’t as mysterious as the case of the two unidentified children killed in a Gloucestershire rail crash.

"That was it.

"Casting around for a new topic to write about the Charfield mystery jumped to the forefront of my mind.

"I had always thought that it would make a fascinating basis for a novel.

"As well as using the British Library at Boston Spa, I also visited the region from time to time – including the memorial to the dead in Charfield churchyard.

"I knew that Gloucester public library had quite a bit of original material – newspapers etc – but I decided not to go down that route as I was writing a novel, not an account of the tragedy.

"Since everyone who knows about the incident has a theory, or theories, I had to decide what my solution would be.

"I hope that in the end I got there, but the process involved many false starts and dead ends."

I won’t give Nick’s story away – it involves a reporter from a local Bristol newspaper – but he suggests that the children’s death was part of a high-level cover-up.

Over the years many other theories have been put forward as to the children’s identity.

One was that they had been put aboard the train alone by a governess who had subsequently disappeared.

More bizarre theories include that they were not children at all but ventriloquist’s dummies and another that they were small jockeys.

Despite, or perhaps because of, the passing of the years no one has ever been able to identify the two victims.

A porter added yet more mystery to the story by saying that he had seen two children on the train at Gloucester station.

On checking passengers’ tickets he had found a girl, aged about nine and a boy about 11, travelling alone. He also recalled that each had been wearing a school cap.

Part of a school blazer found after the crash, blue with black ribbon around the pockets, carried a badge – a floral design on a red background – with the motto Luce Magistra (Light being the Test).

Queen Ethelburger’s – a boarding school near Leeds – carries that very motto, but after the school had denied any connection with the children investigations were dropped.

Villagers also reported a frail looking lady in black who would arrive in Charfield on every anniversary of the tragic crash in a chauffeur-driven limousine.

Standing silently by the grave she would lay flowers and pray.

And when, two years later, Bristol’s chief constable was found dead in a London park with his throat cut it was said that he had recently revealed the children’s identity to a solicitor.

The listings of the dead on the village memorial stone end with the poignant wording – "Two Unknown".

It’s unlikely, after all this time, that we will ever know who they were.

Having said that, Nick Blackstock spins a credible yarn – well worth the read.

Something Hidden by Nick Blackstock is published by Picnic and costs £9.99.

MY Book Two Unknown by Alan Hamilton.

My first book, Two Unknown, was published in October 2010. It’s available at present in hardback and e-book formats, including Kindle. The cover photo is a close-up of part of the actual memorial to the victims of the Charfield rail crash in the old church yard there. Copies can be ordered through Amazon and through my publisher’s web site, www.Sparkling Books.com

The Charfield Rail crash near Bristol, England, actually happened in 1928 and spawned the mystery of the identities of two school-age children – ‘The Children of Charfield’. Their charred remains were removed from the wreckage but never claimed or acknowledged and to this day we don’t know who they were.

Nor who was the ‘Lady in Black’, observed visiting the grave site for at least two decades after the accident.

My story did not start from the idea of identifying these unknown children, nor is it a mystery thriller placing them at the heart of some conspiracy with tentacles reaching to the highest in the land. When I conceived it I came from wondering what domestic and believable events could have placed two children ‘of reasonable means’, as they were described by those who said they saw them, unaccompanied by any adult, on an overnight train and enforced a silence about their identity unbroken for over eighty years.

Alan Says: "Almost all the people who died were burnt beyond recognition. But here is a mystery. Among the dead were a school-age girl and boy who were never identified.

"Buried in a common grave with other victims they are described as ‘two unknown’.

"An unidentified woman, invariably dressed in black apparently visited the grave site regularly for more than 20 years."

Around these scant facts Alan has written his book.

www.alanhamilton.info/books.html

See Links Below

www.klbict.co.uk/interactive/english/charfieldrail1.htm

www.railwaysarchive.co.uk/eventsummary.php?eventID=96

Hi,I did the following:,This blog is about- Car Covers .Not’s about duddy dirt bike! . .

Wonderful Limousine Covers:

Blackstone Hotel Omaha, Nebraska

Image by shannonpatrick17
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackstone_Hotel_(Omaha)

The Blackstone Hotel, currently known as the Blackstone Center, is located at 302 South 36th Street in the Gold Coast neighborhood of the Midtown area in Omaha, Nebraska. Built in 1915, it was declared an Omaha Landmark in 1983[1] and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985.

About
The Blackstone was built by the Bankers Realty Investment Company as a residential hotel in 1915. Residents generally rented by the year rather than the day and received hotel services. Although there were single room units, most were suites with six to eight rooms. Each floor had four glass sunrooms and ornate furnishings throughout.[2]

In 1920, the building was purchased by Charles Schimmel, an immigrant from Vienna. After converting the Blackstone to a regular hotel, it soon became a "symbol of elegance" and gained a high stature nationwide as the premier hotel between Chicago and San Francisco along the Lincoln Highway. Among its amenities the hotel kept a small fleet of Pierce-Arrow limousines for visiting dignitaries who arrived in Omaha by train and its own magazine, The Blackstonian; there were also a ballroom, rooftop gardens and award-winning restaurants. A restaurant called the Orleans Room was the Blackstone’s most famous, and received Holiday Magazine’s "Award for Excellence" for 16 straight years.[3] Through the 1970s the building was one of the most successful elegant small hotels in the country.[4][5]

In 1968, the Radisson Hotel Corporation bought the hotel and operated it until 1976.[6] The Blackstone was renovated for use as offices in 1984 and renamed the Blackstone Center.[7]

In September 2007, Peter Kiewit Sons, one of five Fortune 500 companies based in Omaha, announced it would buy the Blackstone. It was expected that the company will eventually utilize the entire building.[8]

Construction
Built on a steel frame, the building is covered in brick with terra cotta detailing.[9]

Legacy
The Reuben sandwich was likely invented in Omaha by Reuben Kulakofsky. According to one version of the sandwich’s disputed history, it was first introduced to the world in 1925 on a menu in one of the Blackstone’s restaurants.[10] Butter brickle ice cream was also first introduced to the world at the Blackstone.[11]

Thank you for reading,News post: Car Covers .Not’s about normal polymer . .

Refinement :

Blackstone Hotel Omaha, Nebraska rear view

Image by shannonpatrick17
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackstone_Hotel_(Omaha)

The Blackstone Hotel, currently known as the Blackstone Center, is located at 302 South 36th Street in the Gold Coast neighborhood of the Midtown area in Omaha, Nebraska. Built in 1915, it was declared an Omaha Landmark in 1983[1] and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985.

About
The Blackstone was built by the Bankers Realty Investment Company as a residential hotel in 1915. Residents generally rented by the year rather than the day and received hotel services. Although there were single room units, most were suites with six to eight rooms. Each floor had four glass sunrooms and ornate furnishings throughout.[2]

In 1920, the building was purchased by Charles Schimmel, an immigrant from Vienna. After converting the Blackstone to a regular hotel, it soon became a "symbol of elegance" and gained a high stature nationwide as the premier hotel between Chicago and San Francisco along the Lincoln Highway. Among its amenities the hotel kept a small fleet of Pierce-Arrow limousines for visiting dignitaries who arrived in Omaha by train and its own magazine, The Blackstonian; there were also a ballroom, rooftop gardens and award-winning restaurants. A restaurant called the Orleans Room was the Blackstone’s most famous, and received Holiday Magazine’s "Award for Excellence" for 16 straight years.[3] Through the 1970s the building was one of the most successful elegant small hotels in the country.[4][5]

In 1968, the Radisson Hotel Corporation bought the hotel and operated it until 1976.[6] The Blackstone was renovated for use as offices in 1984 and renamed the Blackstone Center.[7]

In September 2007, Peter Kiewit Sons, one of five Fortune 500 companies based in Omaha, announced it would buy the Blackstone. It was expected that the company will eventually utilize the entire building.[8]

Construction
Built on a steel frame, the building is covered in brick with terra cotta detailing.[9]

Legacy
The Reuben sandwich was likely invented in Omaha by Reuben Kulakofsky. According to one version of the sandwich’s disputed history, it was first introduced to the world in 1925 on a menu in one of the Blackstone’s restaurants.[10] Butter brickle ice cream was also first introduced to the world at the Blackstone.[11]