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locoholic

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Posts posted by locoholic

  1. On 19/03/2024 at 07:27, Dunsignalling said:

    When new, providing they were evenly loaded, the Palvans shouldn't have been any worse than ordinary vans, with which they shared common underframes.

     

    Had they been restricted to traffic flows with suitable facilities at either end, there should have been no problem but that was, too often, not the case. 

     

    The problem with the design was (quite predictably) that it was not possible to load/unload from both sides at most locations, so they frequently ended up loaded at one end, and empty at the other.

     

    That alone would have led to instability, but it also created uneven wear on the suspension and running gear at either end, which, as they got older, meant they remained unstable even if loaded properly.

     

    Some were eventually employed (presumably after overhaul) as barrier wagons, with the doors secured to prevent loading. I remember seeing them passing through Poole on nuclear flask traffic to/from Winfrith power station. Late 1970s/early 80s, IIRC.

     

    John

     

     

    Am I correct in thinking that for a Palvan to be evenly loaded, it required access from both sides? There must have been plenty of locations where this wasn't possible.

    • Agree 2
  2. 4 hours ago, 21D said:

     

    Saw the palvans on display at Ally Pally and very good they looked.

    Bachmann should have released one of these beasties! The GW Mink A converted into Pallet vans by BR. If the BR version on a 10 foot chassis were unstable then these vans on a 9 foot wheelbase  must have run like a pig on roller-skates!

     They appear to have congregated with the later BR Palvans at Kirkcudbright station loaded with munitions for the nearby military ranges at Dundrennan. The mind fairly boggles at the thought of all these pallet vans loaded with tank shells oscillating between Kineton CAD in Warwickshire and the south of Scotland!

    Prototype photo from my copy of Dave Larkin’s excellent book of ‘Pre-nationalisation freight wagons on BR’, which I hope he won’t mind me reproducing here.

    I built one from a chopped up Keyser/K’s GWR Meat van kit some while ago but never painted it.


    Regards

    Martin

     

     

     

     

    pallet van W116167 Kirkcudbright 1963 240122-0001.jpg

    20240318_171604.jpg

    20240318_171540.jpg

     

    Why do I find it worrying that wagons notorious for derailing were used to carry munitions???

    • Agree 1
  3. I'll be blowed if I'll be running any Palvans on my layout - I have enough derailments already!

     

    Seriously; given the promised variations and the implications for tooling costs, I'll to interested to see how much Bachmann try to charge for these vans. The Vanwides were bad enough.

    • Like 2
    • Funny 1
  4. 1 hour ago, Northmoor said:

    That's the exception that proves the rule.  If you want to encourage freight from road to rail, adding several avoidable hours to the journey isn't the way to go about it.

     

    To get to Skipton, freight from the South will have to go through Leeds station area, probably even harder to negotiate and schedule than through Manchester.

    Daventry to Cardiff via Crewe is very far from being an exception - there are some extremely eccentric routings of freight trains these days.

    • Agree 1
    • Informative/Useful 1
  5. 16 hours ago, Northmoor said:

    That's a very interesting interpretation. 

    Can I recommend reading up a little more on the whys and wherefores of HS2, written by a few people who know rather a lot about how new railways are planned and implemented?  I'm not one of them but if you want to benefit from their expertise, I would recommend starting with the previous three hundred and eighty-seven pages of this thread.

    Their "expertise" is what has led to the monumental cost increases and general impression that the HS2 project is totally out of control and shockingly poor value for money!

    • Like 1
    • Funny 1
  6. 16 hours ago, Northmoor said:

    Are you actually suggesting that intermodal freight from the South should reach Trafford Park by going via Skipton?

    The freight from Daventry to Cardiff goes via Crewe at the moment. Skipton would be no more ridiculous.

    • Like 1
    • Informative/Useful 2
    • Interesting/Thought-provoking 1
  7. 12 minutes ago, melmerby said:

    Because the requirements of different stock varies over time as more/different features are added.

    The UK isn't alone on this.

     

    When we changed from steam to diesel/electric, the different locos/MUs had different coupling requirements.

    Yes you could use the good ol' hook & chain but what about other requirements, such as electrical supply & brakes?

     

     

     

    Requirements of different stock? What about the requirements of the rail network, and the passengers? Seems that the tail is well and truly wagging the dog these days!

    • Agree 2
  8. 1 hour ago, melmerby said:

    I'm not so sure that even 30 yrears ago there would've been suitable resources for diversions onto a non electric route.

     

    Maybe there should be a fleet of Black 5s and Mk1 stock on stand by?😄

    All that's needed are trains that have compatible couplings - something else that today's rail network can't deliver.

    • Like 1
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  9. 46 minutes ago, melmerby said:

    How?

    Fairly intensive all electric operation. Where are all the suitable diesel helpers going to come from?

    If it was a planned stoppage alternative arrangements could be made but this happend Sunday PM with little time to organise any replacements.

    Your comment merely highlights the fact that the fragmented structure of the rail industry has resulted in a complete lack of resilience. Alternative arrangements are rarely made, even when there are planned engineering works. As I said earlier, rail is now regarded as expensive and unreliable - the transport choice of last resort.

    • Agree 2
  10. On 13/02/2024 at 09:18, 62613 said:

    Except that the hypothetical worst case scenario happened. You don't think it a good idea to investigate why, so that prventive measures can be taken to prevent a re - occurrence? Speaking as a non - railway person.

    No, the worst case scenario didn't happen. This is a small slope failure in an area of flat terrain - talk of Glen Ogle etc is ludicrous. By your logic the whole rail network should be closed down whilst every cutting and embankment is inspected not for actual slippage, but for the potential for slippage. Rail formations have had 150 years of weathering, so the potential for slope failure is significant.

    Just as bad as the over-reaction to this minor event is the failure to divert trains via Nuneaton, as would have happened thirty years ago. Now such measures, designed to minimise disruption to passengers, are judged too difficult and expensive, and the passengers can just get lost. Not a great incentive for people to use rail.

    • Like 1
  11. 7 hours ago, Flying Pig said:

     

    From the linked article:

     

     

    The problem is not the current obstruction,  it's whether the slip could repeat, or continue to develop under the formation. 

    As with so many other things these days, those in charge aren't reacting to what's actually happened, but are instead over-reacting because of some hypothetical worst-case scenario. Rail travel in the UK is getting so unreliable that it's now the last resort, only to be attempted if going by road isn't an option.

    • Agree 1
  12. So that's what a "blocked railway" looks like, is it? A broom was all that was required to clear the rail head!

     

    Mind you, it's the same on the roads. The eastbound A40 near Monmouth has been closed for days by about eight barrowloads of soil and a couple of rocks, which impinged upon the carriageway by at least a metre. Meanwhile in Iceland they have excavator drivers who will work within a few metres of molten lava...

     

     

    • Like 2
  13. Andy Burnham has, quite understandably, been complaining that the HS2 Manchester trains will now have fewer seats than the current WCML service and be slower, because the HS2 trains won't be able to tilt north of Handsacre Junction. Is there any reason why tilting HS2 trains can't be ordered for destinations north of Handsacre, perhaps running on HS2 itself with the tilt mechanism switched off?

    • Interesting/Thought-provoking 1
  14. Looks like some market research has indicated that Classes 31, 37 and 47 are the "centre ground" of British railway modelling, and no manufacturer will achieve supremacy unless they win that ground. That approach is working well in other spheres, after all!

    • Like 2
    • Interesting/Thought-provoking 1
  15. 3 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

    But it's no more useful that a chocolate teapot if it's a bald statement that 'it struggled on whatever radius curve'.  What I would like to know as a potential purchaser is why it was struggling.   And indeed what is the reviewer's definition of 'struggled'.

     

    If for example it struggled because the wheels were slipping that is very different from saying that it was overpowered by the load behind it or it was found that pick ups weren't working properly on a curve of thnat radius.

    Doesn't matter - if it's advertised as being usable on radius 2 curves, but isn't, the cause is immaterial. For £200 any model should be as advertised.

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