An overprint is an additional layer of text or graphics added to the face of a postage stamp, banknote or postal stationery after it has been printed. Post offices most use overprints for internal administrative purposes such as accounting but they are employed in public mail; the most well-recognized varieties are commemorative overprints which are produced for their public appeal and command significant interest in the field of philately. The term "surcharge" in philately describes any type of overprint. Surcharges raise or lower the face value of existing stamps when prices have changed too to produce an appropriate new issue, or to use up surplus stocks. Any overprint which restates a stamp's face value in a new currency is described as a surcharge; some postal systems have resorted to surcharge overprints when converting to a new national monetary system, such as Sierra Leone did when the British Commonwealth converted to decimal currency in the 1960s. Stamps have been overprinted multiple times.
A famous example of repeated surcharging happened during the German hyperinflation of 1921–1923. Prices rose so fast and that postage stamps which cost five or ten pfennigs in 1920 were overprinted for sale in the values of thousands and billions of marks. Overprints have been used as commemoratives, providing a faster and lower-cost alternative to designing and issuing special stamps or postmarks; the United States, which has issued few commemorative overprints, did this in 1928 for issues celebrating Molly Pitcher and the discovery of Hawaii. British stamps heralding the 1966 FIFA World Cup were reissued after England's victory with the overprint "England Winners". Guyana issued a set of 32 stamps showing team pictures of all the participants in the 1998 World Cup – after the tournament eight of these were reissued with an overprint announcing France's win. In some rare cases, commemorative overprints have been applied to souvenir sheets; when these postal commodities are overprinted, they are always carefully positioned for aesthetic appeal on the blank outer border of the paper.
Regular stamps were overprinted to indicate exclusive usage for a special function or combination of functions. The official stamps of some countries like Great Britain had an overprint which defined the specific official usage; the opposite occurs as well, in this case special function stamps are overprinted to serve as regular stamps. Overprints have been used as security measures to deter theft. In the nineteenth century, Mexico was plagued by thefts of stamps on their way to remote post offices. To address this, stamps were shipped from Mexico City to the local districts where they were overprinted with the district name – they were not valid for postage without the overprint. In El Salvador a significant quantity of stamps was stolen from the San Salvador post office in 1874; as a result all remaining stock was overprinted'Contrasello' preventing usage of the non-overprinted stamps. The United States used a similar strategy to deal with thefts in Kansas and Nebraska in 1929, overprinting the current definitive issue with "Kans." and "Nebr." before they were shipped from Washington, to make it more difficult to sell stolen stamps outside the indicated state.
Nations overprinted stamps for use in their colonies for the same reasons as for their domestic use. Due to poor planning, supply problems, faster than anticipated changing postal rates, changes in currency or other reasons they ran out of stamps, demand had to be met; some overprints were used to establish the first stage of postal service in a new territorial possession or colony however. If preparations had not been made, the controlling nation's regular homeland stamps would be overprinted with a local name, local currency or'abroad' indication. In a similar fashion a nation's domestic stamps may be overprinted for use in foreign post offices under that power's control. For example, from 1919-22 the United States overprinted 18 postage stamps at double value and marked for its office in Shanghai, China. Provisional stamps are postage issue made for temporary ad hoc usage to meet demands until regular issues are reintroduced. New states or states in transition have sometimes found it necessary to recirculate stocks of stamps printed by a previous government.
Some historical perspective may be gleaned from the study of such stamps: some transitional government overprints blend neatly with their predecessors' designs, while others attempt to obscure or deface the older markings. In several European nations in 1944-45, Nazi occupational stamps were overprinted for the provisional governments, those which depicted Adolf Hitler were most overprinted, obliterating his face. During times of war, many nations have issued war tax stamps. Before new stamps could be printed, older stamps were overprinted with surcharges or a simple inscription such as "War Tax". In actual combat zones, the replenishment of stamp stocks is low on a military's list of priorities. In contested or occupied areas, captured local stamps are expediently overprinted by the occupying forces. Any stamp, cancelled by postal authorities before it is sold is described as "precancelled": the precancellation mark is an overprint; this is only done when stamps are sold in large bulk quantities to businesses or other large organizations: the postal service will save the labor of cancelling each individual stamp by
The Llanberis Lake Railway is a 1 ft 11 1⁄2 in narrow gauge heritage railway that runs for 2.5 miles along the northern shore of Llyn Padarn in north Wales in the Snowdonia National Park. The starting point is the town of Llanberis at the eastern end of the lake, with the western terminus at Pen Llyn in the Padarn Country Park; the return journey takes around 60 minutes. The Llanberis Lake Railway runs along part of the trackbed of the defunct Padarn Railway, a 4 ft gauge line which connected the quarry with Y Felinheli on the Menai Strait; the Padarn Railway closed in October 1961 and was lifted between 16 May 1962 and February 1963. Following the closure of the Padarn Railway, various plans were made to open a 2 ft gauge tourist railway on the trackbed; the first serious attempt was made by G. Ward a local resident, who proposed a railway that would circle Llyn Padarn using the trackbeds of the British Rail Llanberis branch and the Padarn Railway; this plan would have utilized track and locomotives from the Dinorwic slate quarry, but the company did not pursue the proposal.
In July 1966, A. Lowry Porter of Southend-on-Sea proposed a shorter railway running from the quarry company's workshops at Gilfach Ddu near Llanberis to Penllyn, along the eastern-most three miles of Padarn Railway trackbed. Negotiations were progressing with the company; the quarry's workshops at Gilfach Ddu were purchased by the Gwynedd County Council with the intention of creating a Country Park. The quarry's land and equipment were put up for auction, Lowry Porter's fledgling railway company purchased three steam locomotives and one diesel locomotive for use on the planned lake railway. In June 1970 the County Council purchased the trackbed of the Padarn Railway and agreed to allow its use for the lake railway; the Ruston diesel locomotive was put into service laying track. Meanwhile, the first steam locomotive, was restored to working order; the new railway was built to 1 ft 11 1⁄2 in narrow gauge instead of the more unusual 1 ft 10 3⁄4 in narrow gauge used in the quarries. This required all the rolling stock to be regauged, including the locomotives.
Tracklaying progressed during 1970 using track recovered from several sources, including some used on the Lynton and Barnstaple Railway. New carriages were built using the chasses of bogie wagons; these initial efforts at creating passenger stock proved unsatisfactory — they had a tendency to derail due to their rigid construction. This caused a delay in opening, a subsequent rapid redesign of the carriages; the railway opened on 28 May 1971 but because of the need to redesign the carriage stock, the first public trains did not run until 19 July 1971. By the end of the first season, more than 30,000 passengers had been carried. In the winter of 1971 the railway was extended to its current terminus at Penllyn. For the beginning of the 1972 season, a second steam locomotive Red Damsel was returned to service with a new name: Elidir; the locomotive roster was expanded that year to include Maid Marian and an 0-4-0 tank locomotive built by Jung in Germany. In June 2003 the railway was extended to the town of Llanberis, with a new station close to the start of the Snowdon Mountain Railway.
The original terminus at Gilfach Ddu is now a through station serving both the National Slate Museum and the nearby Dolbadarn Castle. On the return journey from Pen Llyn, passengers may alight at Cei Llydan station, where a picnic site is available with views of the Snowdonian mountains above Llanberis Pass; the railway uses three steam locomotives all of which ran on the internal 1 ft 10 3⁄4 in gauge lines of the Dinorwic Quarry. There are several diesel locomotives which are used for works trains and when the steam locomotives are unavailable for passenger trains; when the Quarry closed down in 1969 the lakeside section of the trackbed was utilised for the current Llanberis Lake Railway running from the National Slate Museum at Gilfach Ddu to Pen Llyn. Gilfach Ddu was the main engineering workshop of the Dinorwic Quarry and provided repair facilities for all of the steam locomotives of the quarry system; these are locomotives that ran on the Llanberis Lake Railway in the past, but have now moved to other locations.
These are locomotives that were stored at the Llanberis Lake Railway in the past, that have now moved to other locations. They did not run on the LLR during their stay. British narrow gauge railways "Llanberis Lake Railway under construction 1". DigiDo. "Llanberis Lake Railway under construction 2". DigiDo. "Gilfach Ddu and early Llanberis Lake Rly". DigiDo. "Llanberis Lake Railway". DigiDo. Thomas, Cliff; the Narrow Gauge in Britain & Ireland. Atlantic Publishers. ISBN 1-902827-05-8. Yonge, John. Gerald Jacobs. British Rail Track Diagrams - Book 4: London Midland Region. Bradford on Avon: Trackmaps. ISBN 978-0-9549866-7-4. OCLC 880581044. Official website
Pascal Cygan is a French retired footballer. His favoured position was central defender, but he could play as a left back. After starting out at Lille in his country, Cygan would play four years in the Premier League with Arsenal and three in La Liga with Villarreal, in a 17-year professional career. Born in Lens, Pas-de-Calais, Cygan started his senior career in the ranks of lowly ES Wasquehal, before going professional with Lille OSC in 1995, making his Division 1 debut that year but going on to spend three seasons in Division 2: in 1999–2000 he was an instrumental defensive element for the champions and, in the subsequent top flight campaign, helped them achieve a third-place finish, with qualification to the UEFA Champions League. In this time, Cygan was promoted to captaincy, seen as a role model to help develop the younger players, he was winner of the Etoile d'Or, in his last year in France. Cygan joined Arsenal in July 2002 for £2 million, making his debut in a 1–1 draw against Chelsea on 1 September after coming on as a late substitute for Nwankwo Kanu.
While he featured notably in some of the team's more important fixtures, he was considered only a fringe player, but did pick up a Premier League winners' medal in 2004 after contributing with 18 appearances. Cygan scored three goals for Arsenal in league action, including an unlikely brace in his first game of 2005–06 against Fulham; until he had only netted once, against Everton in March 2003. That season, following injuries to both Ashley Cole and Gaël Clichy, Cygan was drafted in as an emergency left back, was named in the Opta team of the week on 9 January 2006. Overall, his team won 12 of the 20 matches he kept 11 clean sheets in the process, he suffered a hamstring injury in January against Middlesbrough and was unable to play again that season as he was fourth-choice behind Sol Campbell, Philippe Senderos and Kolo Touré, with young Johan Djourou competing for a place. In August 2006, he completed a transfer to Villarreal CF for a £2 million transfer fee, joining former Arsenal teammate and countryman Robert Pires at the club.
On 6 June 2008, after having been used in his first two years due to consecutive serious injuries to Gonzalo Rodríguez, Cygan signed a new one-year deal. However, following a lack of first-team opportunities in 2008–09, with Villarreal unwilling to extend his contract for a further campaign, he left in July 2009. In August 2009, Cygan joined FC Cartagena, freshly promoted to Segunda División, on a one-year deal. Aged 37, he was retired from professional football. Lille Ligue 2: 1999–2000Arsenal Premier League: 2003–04 FA Community Shield: 2002, 2004Individual Etoile d'Or: 2001–02 Pascal Cygan at L'Équipe Football Pascal Cygan at Soccerbase Pascal Cygan at BDFutbol Pascal Cygan at Soccerway