Edwin_m

March 2

Yes I now tend to agree. The horizontal bar on the fence in front of the train confuses things.

March 2

12 hours ago, beast66606 said:

Very convinced it's single track - zoom in on the loco wheels

March 1

2 hours ago, Buhar said:

I think it's double. There appears to be a peg off for the opposite line in the background.

Alan

I think there's a speck of dust just under the signal which makes it look to be lowered, but it's actually at danger. However, the visible track looks to be passing in front of the train, so it may be on another track that is a bit lower and hidden from view.

February 23

6 hours ago, 30801 said:

TBH, with the sketchy oversight Amazon applies to things sold on their site you could just order a live bomb and add No 10 as a delivery address.

Then we'll hear on the news about a deadly attack on the dustbin at No 15.

February 20

West Midlands has a statutory enhanced bus partnership. This offers funding to operators in return for taking agreed measures, but differs from franchising in that it requires the agreement of the operators in question.

Quote

The LTA has formal responsibility for making the scheme, but at set points in the process they can only proceed with their proposals if they have the support of a defined proportion of local bus operators.

Enhanced partnership guidance

February 19

3 hours ago, melmerby said:

However in Metro areas the bus services are regulated, whoever operates it.

Currently only in London, which was exempted from deregulation in 1986, and a franchise system just starting up in Manchester under recent devolved powers. Several other cities are looking seriously at doing the same, but haven't done yet.

February 19

2 hours ago, JimC said:

I've seen ropes and/or horses mentioned to handle points on atmospheric lines. I should have thought the inconvenience and delays would have been rather significant.

Indeed. I guess the pipe would have to be gapped, so the train would have to detach from the piston and connect to a new one on the other side of the gap. Someone would then have to remove the piston from the dead end of the pipe and re-position it for the next train. If it failed to detach then the piston would slam into the end of the pipe and almost certainly break something.

February 19

Gizmo seems quite happy to go out in the rain, possibly because his hair's so long that the water probably doesn't get to his skin very much. He's has recently taken to asking to be dried when he comes back in. He might not mind a bath but we've never tried.

February 19

How did single track sections work when this line first opened as an atmospheric railway? A socking great pipe between the rails would make points rather difficult...

February 18

2 hours ago, BluenGreyAnorak said:

It looks like the rear incorporates a large door. Wheelchair access, maybe?

What does seem odd is that it has what appear to be regular road vehicle lights - side and indicators on the front and stop/tail, etc on the rear. Could it only work in one direction? Do trams that run over roads have to indicate in the same way road vehicles do?

Yes they do. Modern street-running trams have to be fitted with head lights, tail lights, indicators and brake lights. They normally also have to have reflectors, though I don't see any on the Parry vehicle. The end reflectors are yellow on a bi-directional tram, because the normal red and white ones would be wrong half the time.

The various photos indicate this vehicle only has a door on one side. I speculate that it was built as uni-directional but probably had a second set of controls added because the various demonstrations it ran would have been much more difficult to do if they'd needed loops to turn the vehicle. This might also explain the difference in end window arrangements.

February 15

1 hour ago, iands said:

When I started on the railway in 1973, we were 'instructed' when on or about the line to observe any passing train to see if it was 'carrying' a tail lamp (couldn't always tell if it was 'lit'). If not, then you had to contact the nearest signal box and advise the signalman. I personally did this for the next 46 years of my railway career. I only ever observed 'no tail lamp' on two occasions in all that time, although on one of the occasions, as I had an NRN mobile radio with me, I contacted Route Control instead - it was quicker!

Same for me in 1987 - in the first section of the Rule Book that applied to all staff. As I was mainly office-based but with a view of the railway, it sounded like an excellent justification for staring out of the window all day.

1 hour ago, Michael Hodgson said:

I agree but there's relatively little Absolute Block left, most of the network nowadays is Track Circuit Block, especially the main long-distance passenger routes. The train may travel a very long way before any signalman will see it pass and actively look for a tail lamp.

The risk from divided trains is nowhere near as big as it once was. The main type type of train which did split was the unfitted loose-coupled goods with a manned brake van on the rear, but they're history. A fully fitted train should stop automatically in the event of a coupling failure, although that too can fail in freak circumstances. A train that does divide in TCB territory will show up as the block remaining occupied after the front of the train has vacated it, as the track circuit will still be shunted by the remaining vehicles, or where axle counters are used, the counts won't match. So it's only really in AB territory that you still need to have a signalman looking for tail lamps, and even there a divided train should just stop as the brake pipe severs.

It is indeed very unlikely to cause an accident, but so many railway accidents have been caused by a combination of unlikely circumstances. An intermediate tail lamp lit might suggest that whoever was doing the coupling hadn't finished the job, for example not connecting and testing the brake pipes would be extremely dangerous.

A split train can still become dangerous if not dealt with quickly, because the air brakes will leak off after time, and it could be minutes rather than hours. This driver had a very lucky escape and appears to have been a victim of confirmation bias, ignoring several things that suggested his train had been divided rather than just suffered from vandalism.

https://www.gov.uk/raib-reports/runaway-of-two-wagons-from-camden-road-tunnel

February 14

I recall oil lamps on DMUs up until around 1980. I don't know if they got brighter bulbs at that time - there didn't seem to be any sort of lens to concentrate the light (which makes sense as the signalman would be observing it at an angle). The original tail lamps on diesel locomotives must have been even harder to see, and when running light they tended to carry oil lamps even after DMUs no longer had them.

February 14

1 hour ago, Pete the Elaner said:

DCC users have had the ability to turn off tail lights on the latest D&E models for 4-5 years now, so the model world is getting there.

And even for older models that don't have this, it's easy enough to disconnect the tail lights and connect to spare function outputs, or just leave them disconnected if the locomotive spends all its time hauling a train. Combined with the over-bright nature of model tail lights, this grates with me when an exhibition layout is otherwise to a high standard.

February 14

1 hour ago, Pete the Elaner said:

I made that observation at the club a while back when somebody brought it a model with a flashing tail lamp. Its flash was more reminiscent of the way a cursor flashes than the very quick 'on pulse' of a tail lamp.

Making a circuit board small enough is beyond my capabilities & resources but I am sure a manufacturer will oblige before long.

The real crime to me is seeing a model locomotive with tail lamps lit when hauling a train. Any rail staff seeing this should report it immediately*, because if the train should become divided behind the loco in an Absolute Block area, the next signaller will consider the line as clear on seeing the tail lamp lit.

*I once did so by shouting across to the driver on the avoiding lines at Derby. He replied that it must have been like that all the way from St Pancras. Oh well...

February 10

This video summarises the cast's wartime experience.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsVNA36SSb4

Other videos by the same author include an analysis of Jones's medals to work out what campaigns he was involved in.

February 8

At a guess, the retaining wall above the "blind" arch was there before they built it, but they needed to undercut it to get the track alignment they needed. The "blind" arch is to stop the rest of the cliff falling on the railway. They couldn't extend the retaining wall to track level because the track would be in the way, and making the tunnel a bit longer would have been more costly.

The apparent asymmetry of the arch in the second picture is at least partly because it's skewed, again because of the shape of what is has to support above. Hence the right hand side is nearer the camera and appears lower than the left. You may be able to zoom the photos and count the bricks on the vertical part each side to see if they are actually at different heights above the track.

February 6

Universal do at least recognise the existence of railways on the map on this very basic project website: https://universalukproject.co.uk/

There might be some potential for visitors to arrive by train - lots do at Bicester Village. But it most likely needs a frequent London service without a change, so I'd expect Universal to focus on the proposed Wixams station on Thameslink, slightly further away on the east side of the site.

January 31

1 hour ago, MartinRS said:

Sighting of the signal could always be improved by mounting it on an existing post or gantry. I have found this photo of a shunting signal mounted on its own post at Hem Heath Colliery. I'm not sure what the other post mounted lights on the other side of the track are. At first glance I thought the foreground one was some sort of a solitary searchlight signal, but then I noticed there was a line of them. When I zoomed into the high-res version of the picture I saw it had a single central lens surrounded by eight other lenses. The working instruction for this area might give a clue as to how these unusual 'searchlight' signals work and if they act as some sort of repeater.

I think it's the one on this page (scroll down to 10.13) or a variation thereon. It's stated to be at a colliery so probably controlling the speed of the train through the loading hopper.

January 29

Just now, LMS2968 said:

So unless I'm missing something, the only direction available is back the way the train came?

Yes, unless there's a subsidiary aspect for moving forward into sidings.

January 29

1 hour ago, LMS2968 said:

That by definition would have to be a distant signal, otherwise it's a stop block, and the tern is Fixed Distant. There are some in preservation; there are or possibly were one or two on the Severn Valley Railway

In modern practice there are also stop signals that only show red aspects, either with or without a subsidiary. These mark the end of a route which is signalled by a single yellow (so can be used by passenger-carrying trains) but where there is no main route onwards, for example when reversing in a platform primarily used in the opposite direction.

January 29

1 hour ago, Michael Hodgson said:

No idea where Dummy comes from.

That's a particularly confusing one, as the term "dummy" suggests that it doesn't change its aspect. In the topsy-turvy world of signalling jargon that would be a Fixed signal.

January 27

I seem to recall a stencil indicator south of on the old aggregate sidings at Draycott (between Long Eaton and Spondon), but they were long disused when I moved into the area so I can't say for sure. An overbridge blocked the line of sight between the driver and the shunter working the frame.

I've also seen in a couple of places normal bulkhead-type lamps on poles with signal numbers and R suffixes. But I can't immediately recall where.

January 23

1 hour ago, ess1uk said:

Like the one at Radley?

Not aware of this one - I assume it was built for the Oxford electrification but never actually used. So an electric EWR without Oxford electrification would have had to bear the cost of, at minimum, a 25kV trackside feeder from Radley to Oxford. And even that might not have provided enough redundancy in case of outages.

January 23

1 hour ago, Covkid said:

Technically, it doesn't have to. Although the 25kV installation at Oxford might be better in one hit, AFAIK the MKC trains would / could be terminating in the bay platforms. So had Oxford-Bletchley been equipped for electric trains, the service would have been much "cleaner". Not only that a fleet of 12 years old, 100 mph capable EMUs suitable for operating the service are currently sat in Worksop yard growing mushrooms.

The lack of keenness to make the EWR a showcase new service, particular from the "city of learning" is a big disappointment

If an electrified EWR couldn't be fed from the Bletchley end (both normally and under alternative arrangements when a feeder is offline for some reason) then the scheme might need a new feeder of its own in the Oxford area, which could have been fed from the Didcot end had that electrification gone ahead. That's potentially quite a big extra cost.

January 19

He does remind me of the Mogg that got the cream.

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