Arun Sharma

Tuesday at 14:26

The other way is to forget about additive manufacture and 3D CAD sculpt it from a drawn solid block

April 5

I would have thought that the appropriate Isinglass drawing would have all the structural and historical information that you might want regarding any ex-LNER rolling stock.

March 29

5 minutes ago, russ p said:

Horrible looking things, they don't even look like trains

Fortunately, they don't have to - They only need to work like trains.

March 22

8 hours ago, whart57 said:

As it happened, a combination of British troops and Belgian resistance fighters managed to capture Antwerp and its docks without too much heavy fighting, and it has been suggested that Montgomery should have reacted by cancelling Market Garden, which was just about to go, and refocussing on reopening Antwerp's deep water harbour to ease the Allies' supply problems. Most supplies were still coming in at the Mulberry harbours on the Normandy beaches, and as the saying has it, soldiers win battles, logistics win wars.

I have an idea that although Antwerp and its port had been captured, the estuary of the Sheldt leading [backwards/upstream of course] to the port was still occupied by Germans on both North and South sides. It wouldn't be until rather later [with much thanks to the Canadian Army and the Royal Marines] that the taking of Walcheren and the Scheldt Estuary would allow Antwerp Port to actually be used.

March 18

It might be cheaper in the long run to put some form of 'cow catcher' on underground trains.

March 17

I saw this programme today.

A chunk of the program is taken up by a situation where ein Schäferhund has run into a Northern Line tunnel. The end result being that the dog found its own way out but 200+ pax were stuck in a tunnel on a undrground train in 40degC for over two hours as a result with other services on that line suspended for a couple of hours.

In other words, a large number of travellers [paying customers, if you prefer since that's what the TfL station manager referred to them as] were seriously inconvenienced.

I am curious as to at what point might a line controller say, "stuff it, we cannot inconvenience the paying public any more - go back to full line current and run the trains". After all, there is no shortage of wildlife in TfL's tunnels. Anyone who has been on a central London tube platform late at night will have seen rats, mice and even the occasional fox.

I'm guessing that the dog's owner wasn't sent the bill for the ESU call out.

March 9

3 hours ago, 2750Papyrus said:

Apparently, tracklaying between Bicester and Bletchley has been completed.

https://eastwestrail.co.uk/news/latest-stories/east-meets-west

Sadly, the BBC coverage quickly submerges this achievement in a nimbyfest.

Did they really mean: The Long Welded Rail Train (LWRT) has delivered 427 rails totalling 216 metres in length. That would make the average delivered piece of rail about 50.58 cm long [or 19.9inches in real money].

March 8

44 minutes ago, Bernard Lamb said:

" but I do thinkthat a dual road and rail route would have been a good option."

If DoT are going to pretend that we have any form of joined-up transport system, the idea that when planning land grabs to build [trunk] roads, there should be a capability to build a railway in that land space is a sensible one. Imagine the transport system we would have had if say, the M6[T], M25 and say, A14 roads had been built with an extra lane occupied by a railway carrying probably, mainly freight around [rather than through] London to the South and East coast container terminals.

In reality, local and national politicians have long been opposed to their territory being bypassed. In the not so recent past, I was talking to the [then] Commissioner for Transport [when Ken Livingstone was Mayor]. he told me unequivocally that he [and the Mayor] opposed the creation of a London orbital railway because the London Mayorality wanted people [transiting from West to East etc.,] to have to change trains and use the underground because they would then spend [more] money in London.

With that sort of mindset, it is hardly surprising that there is resistance to building railways.

February 29

5 hours ago, Ben B said:

It's interesting that it's still a bleak (if beautiful) spot now. Impressive remains of the railway visible from the road cut into the hillsides. You could still cross the viaduct by foot a few years back, the approach cutting, being sheltered, was insanely colourful, all heathers and wild flowers. A crazy amount of effort to capture the slate trade which was apparently in decline even as the railway opened. Always thought it interesting that had nature not intervened (flooding closing the Ruabon line) and the resovoir sinking the line above Bala, there were plans to maybe serve Trawsfynned power station this way, if the Conwy Valley line was to instead get the axe.

I'm sure I've seen a layout on RMWeb modelling Cwm Prysor. When I was working on the Ffestiniog [on the rebuild of Welsch Pony] this was the route to Portmadoc and/or Blaenau I used.

Incidently, I noticed the 08 has a couple of cut out holes on the buffer beam - anyone know what those were for?

February 29

As someone with a professional interest in occupational medicine, I've always been curious to know what the death rate from Mesothelioma and other lung diseases was in those who scrapped asbestos-loaded steam engines. As anyone who was employed at say, Drapers or Cashmore [or the scrapping shop at Swindon] and died of an indistrial lung disease would almost certainly have been referred to the Coroner, it ought to be possible to find out.

February 27

Would this help?

February 26

1 hour ago, jamie92208 said:

According to the article in the Economist local councils were required to be consulted over the design and appearance of structures as part of the negotiations to get the bill through parliament. Buckinghamshire are apparently being rather obstructive. Keith Hofmeister,in his latest video mentioned at least two things, a bridge and some spoil disposal, where no work was being done because of planning hold ups.

Jamie

I agree with you but that concession to local government has cost the country phase 2 of HS2. Firstly, I believe that concession was unnecessary and secondly, I am increasingly of the view that the Manchester, Totton and Leeds legs of HS2 should have been started first.

February 26

3 hours ago, ess1uk said:

Depot given go head by Bucks council

This is very strange. The land was presumably acquired by an Act of Parliament for a specific purpose. Why on earth does some local council have any say at all in the process of what form the structure takes. They can surely have nothing to contribute.

I understand that local and County Council arguments have added many millions to the cost of HS2. Many of which have been overturned by courts and only lawyers have got anything out of the process.

As a rather clever journalist has written, 'The tunnels through the Chilterns were extended after a vociferous local campaign. But tunnels cost about ten times as much as normal tracks; cuttings five times. A big part of HS2's budget has gone on making sure a small group of people in the south of England will never have to see or hear it. As a result, many more in the north won't either.'

February 26

Interesting photograph - were those distinctive buffers only ever used on Sharks?

February 19

Good Guy - very helpful. If you ever needed a spare part from/for a JLTRT kit Laurie would always try and help.

RIP

February 18

For those whose stomachs are strong enough to read the full [probably] horror story of what went wrong with HS2, may i suggest reading pages 18 and 19 of this weeks "The Economist".

February 15

57 minutes ago, jamie92208 said:

Where is Harvil Road. Does anybody know.

Jamie

It may be this one [on the Eastern bank of the Colne Valley] with the red outline arrow pointing to it:

What the film does indicate is that to build a mile of railway, it seems that you have to build at least a couple of miles of new road and a few bridges. Perhaps DfT should be taking this into account when muttering about costs.

February 15

10 hours ago, Andy Kirkham said:

MIldmay is a bit awkward to say and people won't know if it's pronounced milled or mylde.

My father worked just by Mildmay Park on the Balls Pond Road [for close on 30 years] in what the local gentry like to call "Upper Islington". He told me that the locals pronounced it, "Mama Park". I suspect now that area has become 'gentrified' there would be few folk around who had ever heard the local pronounciation. But that's how the locals pronounced it in the '50s to '70s.

February 14

4 hours ago, phil-b259 said:

The link was fully funded in the early days of the EWR project - but was one of the things that got dropped / sacrificed as the price to be paid for HM Treasury letting the project itself continue as costs rose.

The pandemic didn’t help matters as the masive decline I ridership was eagerly siezed on by said Whitehall mandarins who insist that a Aylesbury service would never attract decent patronage….

Yet, my understanding is that all the evidence suggests that reopening old railways causes unexpectedly larger passenger numbers than predicted. An example perhaps of, "If you build it, they will come...."

February 13

17 hours ago, Ron Ron Ron said:

I thought that at first glance, but quickly noticed the map is turned on its side.

North is on the left, south on the right.

There are obvious clues from the locations marked on the map, such as the Greatmoor Energy from Waste plant, just to the south of Calvert and the relative positions of Quainton and Calvert villages.

.

What's confusing me is the presence of a chord from the northbound HS2 to the Eastbound EWR suggesting that there will be a link between Aylesbury Vale and Winslow.

February 13

23 minutes ago, Ron Ron Ron said:

Chilterns Tunnels...

Florence has less than 56 metres to go, as of yesterday's report.

Probably, slowly cutting through the heavily reinforced and stabilised ground in the final stages to breakout at the northern portal.

Cecilia now under 465 metres from breakthrough and counting down.

.

A friend of mine who has a passing, albeit somewhat cynical interest in the doings of large bodies, wonders whether the missing tunnelling machines in the Chilterns were in fact diverted to build a bunker at, and a railway connection from, Chequers to join HS2 so that the denizens of that Noble House could make a fast getaway if they ever needed to......

February 12

Looking at the supplied map, it looks like it is actually on the line of E-W Railway rather than HS2. It is well to the East of HS2's maintenance depot.

While I like bats [especially as I have had numerous dollops of Rabies vaccine in the past] I am not sure that this is the best use of taxpayers' money...........

February 11

Leytonstone LT station in the late '50s watching Standard Stock on the Central Line - About 200 yards from my school. On the way home I would walk past the embankment between Leyton Midland and Leytonstone Midland on Hainault Road where, as often as not, there would be a 2-6-4T parked.

Afternote: I have a recollection of one of the F5 2-4-2 tanks passing southbound through Leytonstone presumably en-route Epping to Temple Mills yard.

February 10

31 minutes ago, jamie92208 said:

Handsacre is a b##gers muddle at the moment. As I understand it the original HS2 phase 1 act authorised a high speed flying Junction onto the fast lines. Expensive to build with much moving of existing tracks. Then plans for phase 2a took off much faster tha expected. Some traffic analysis was done and it became apparent that very few trains would use the Handsacre connection. They thus repealed the relevant part of the Phase 1 act and put a simpler design that gave access to the Outer slow lines at Handsacre. Much cheaper and less land take. Then some fool cancelled phase 2a. This means that the use of the existing powers would have two effects.

1. It would tie up the whole WCML north of Handsacre as trains went onto the slows the used slow speed crossovers further north to access the fast lines

2, with non tilting trains, Manchester services would be very little faster than existing Pende. Inos.

The powers that be have also paused all work on the Handsacre connection from some point north of the Delta junction near Water Orton.

I hope I've got this right.

It could be possible to put a connection in at Euston but someone has paused the construction of the tunnels between OOC and Euston.

Jamie

An interesting and succint overview of an essential part of the railway designed to relieve congestion on the WCML. What bothers me is that DfT must have known this would happen yet they still didn't effectively protest to or convince their political masters. It beggers belief.

February 8

I designed 7mm versions of the 10T flatwagon and the associated 10T Brake van [both as preserved at Quainton Road] back in 2014. They were marketed by Phil Radley but I don't recall him ever wanting them in 4mm.

Although the brake van was designed originally to operate with LT's diesel loco DEL120, it was later modified with a somewhat larger cab [as per the current form] which then prohibited it from operating through tube tunnels - This of course applied to both the converted brake vans.

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Posts posted by Arun Sharma