Titan

By using that logic you could also call it one of the lightest. Class 56, 58 and 60 are also heavier. I don't think the class 13 even makes the top 5, so including it as 'one of the heaviest' is misleading.

Going to have a way out of left field guess - did Stratford have a weighbridge? Could it be used for calibrating that by adding known weights to it?

Whilst I might not always agree with Reortes opinion, (Although these days I find myself agreeing with him more than I used to!) I very much respect it due to the way it is presented.

Indeed, and Mk2/3 would undoubtably been better. However that does not mean that Mk1s are made out of tissue paper as some seem to think. You only have to read the Harrow and Wealdstone accident report when the then new Mk1's were praised for their crashworthiness compared to the older carriages, and it was considered regrettable that the trains were not formed entirely of Mk1 stock as many lives would have been saved due to the strength of the new carriages...

Indeed. However I prefer to believe the photographs, of which there are also interior shots showing minor damage rather than "mangling". Exterior, First toilet compartment damaged, Some window breakage along train where wagon landed on roof: http://www.nigeltout.com/assets/images/autogen/618_01_OldDalby_198408_s.jpg Interior shot of where wagon landed on roof: http://www.nigeltout.com/assets/images/autogen/619_03A_OldDalby_198408_s.jpg When I think of "pretty mangled" these are not the kind of images I would associate with that phrase. The security of the seats was somewhat less than I would have expected, so there would admittedly be injuries or worse from that, but mangled the bodyshells were not.

Eh? on the CEGB crash the passenger accommodation remained entirely intact apart from about two broken windows and crush damage to the leading toilet where it over rode the loco as it did not have the benefit of the buck eye couplings that the rest of the train did. Pretty far from being pretty mangled...

The propellor effect is down to the interaction of the prop wash with its surroundings. On the top side of the propellor the wash interacts with the hull, and in shallow water like this on the bottom side of the propellor it interacts with the river bed. This creates all sorts of funny pressure differentials and eddies that tend to push on the stern. This means that the torque of the propellor has little effect, it is other forces at play. As noted above, this can be particularly noticeable on narrow boats as the bottom of the canal is often only a little bit deeper than the draft of the boat! So it is no surprise that the Dali, a long ship with a flat bottom in (relatively) shallow water behaves like a scaled up narrow boat!

It would seem that there were many effects that contributed. There was a slight wind pushing it towards the bridge too. Really not much, but with something as tall and flat sided as a container ship it does not take much to have an effect. The ship was probably being steered into the wind slightly to compensate, so when steerage was lost due to crash reversing the engine, the wind added to the propellor effect to turn the ship further towards the bridge.

Pull my finger...

That could mean that the bogie frame is worn around the axles. When sufficiently worn they end up with the worm taking the weight, with the axle rocking on it. This causes the coffee grinder noise as the gears don't mesh as they should, and a wobbly body as the axles rock. Of course being Triang they still run, but in an unworn state the motors are an awful lot quieter and smoother. It also means that in a worn state they ride lower than they should which does not help your case either!

Must have been the holy hand grenade in that case.

Oh no, not again...

I believe it was Rev. Green.

The Oxford canal has also suffered a landslip, fortunately in a cutting so the canal is blocked rather than breached as some have reported. Unfortunately it is in remote section so getting in heavy machinery to dig it out is problematic.

It was done on purpose, dual sourcing I think it was called and it proved it's worth on several occasions, as in the early days serious faults were sometimes discovered which meant only half the fleet needed to be grounded rather than the whole lot!

I was involved with this! Taking the 465's to Vienna for climatic testing. Some time was spent adapting the Translator vehicles so that they could be hauled by continental locomotives. Previously they had needed a blue star or ETH fitted loco to provide the electricity required to operate the EP brakes on the Networkers. Yes Networkers - I will come to that later - A small generator was fitted to the translators to provide the electrical supply needed instead. However the French turned their noses up at it so the Networkers had to be run with inoperative brakes, and a long train pipe tied to them with extra vehicles added to the rear for brake force, rendering all the effort we had put in wasted! Now to the "Networkers" bit. Rather than a single 4 car unit as it appears, they were in fact two halves, one GEC/Alstholm the other BREL/ABB. This was because only two cars would fit in the chamber at once, and we weren't going to drag 8 cars all the way to Vienna just so we could test 4 of them. But things were not straightforward. Although the two builds may have looked the same with a superficial glance, there was hardly a single thing that was the same on either of them. This included the intermediate couplings. One was Dellner, the other was BSI - not the ones you see on the outer ends of units, but a bolt together bar coupler type, which of course were incompatible. So two adaptors (might have been three to have one as spare) were made and tested at the RTC Derby. One for the trip, and one so the other 4 cars remaining in the UK could be coupled up and shunted around more easily, and I think a spare just in case. Similarly the electrical cables needed some adaptors, and some creative ordering from LPA procured parts that could be bolted together to form adaptors. Plenty of other spare parts were loaded in to the Translator vehicles in anticipation of what we might need for the long journey e.g. a full set of brake blocks for the translator vehicles themselves, or anything that we thought we might manage to break during testing e.g. Windscreen wiper arms, motors and blades. The Translator vehicles were quite well filled! I spent a week in Vienna Arsenal with them which was pretty epic, including walking past 18000 every day on my way to work!

If Camembert is the answer what is the question? (just thought I would find a Mock the week way to tell the joke that is appearing more often than a repeat on Dave...)

One freight I would include is a speedlink service. Often a wide variety of wagons in one train, could even be electrically hauled by something like a class 85. Would be ideal for your smaller mixed freight - in the real world could be as short as one wagon!

All axle drive? The gear on the centre axle will have to have a different ratio if they are using the correct size wheels. Would have thought having the centre axle non-driven would be acceptable in this case...

Class 25 traction motors had a habit of catching fire too.

Oh I dunno, plenty of shenanigans in the 1990's, including shoe paddle cricket... Think it all seemed to die out when BR was privatised.

Reminds me of my time changing brake blocks on 309's at Clacton. You never let two units out together that had just had their blocks changed, as it took a little while for the new blocks to bed in. So a freshly changed unit always went out with a part worn so the reduction in brake power on the first couple of applications was not too significant. Wonder if the drivers ever noticed that the brakes could often be a bit less strong until you got past Thorpe-le-Soken? There was mind you an incentive to do it right as often my train home was the one I had just re-blocked!

Carrbridge being another one.

There have been a number of accidents in the UK due to inadequate brake power that would have been discovered if the driver had carried out a running brake test properly, but the brakes passed a stationary continuity test, and indeed would have passed a stationary continuity test after the accident if the train had not been spread all over the tracks...

Possibly, but have noted similar effect when marker lights have been cleaned with a mop and bucket and the ample fluid used washes everything below it too. Looks like someone washed the whole glass rather than just the dots on this occasion.