Jump to content
 

Artless Bodger

Members
  • Posts

    741
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by Artless Bodger

  1. Basingstoke, junction and 2 diverging roads - squalid, pigeon poo ridden last time I walked under there.
  2. Something speed related? The black cab taxis round here seem to have a passenger door lock initiated once the cab starts to move, it routinely unlocks anytime the cab stops, at traffic lights for example.
  3. Wasn't there an issue with commutator glazing (or something) when unpowered power car motors were run for long distances at high speed too, better to power the motors to prevent this?
  4. The overbridge looks as though it was made from whatever was in the bits box. Was the stone section original for a narrow station site and the station widened later, requiring the metal extension?
  5. OT, the first reasonably complete iguanadon skeleton was found in Benstead's quarry in Maidstone. Consequently, Maidstone is unique in having a dinosaur in its coat of arms. https://museum.maidstone.gov.uk/explore/collections/geology/maidstone-and-the-iguanodon/ From this website I find that there is now a sculpture of an iguanadon outside the refurbished Maidstone East station (I haven't been back to Maidstone for a few years now, but we used to walk past the quarry some Sunday afternoons in my childhood).
  6. Did the higher speed of the engines enable a direct coupling to the generator? I think the Sulzer and EE engines had step up gears between crankshaft and generator. Another benefit of the smaller engines was supposed to be that all parts could be handled within the loco, smaller pistons, cylinder heads etc, so you did not need to have an overhead crane and take the roof off for most maintenance. If you did take the roof off, you could swap lightweight engines out as a single unit quickly as in aeroplanes (power eggs), not surprisingly considering the Germans' aeronautical background, e.g. Maybach engines in airships etc. Iirc Deltics and Westerns were known for quick engine swaps, repair by replacement, Laira was good at this, less time out of traffic. EMD E series diesels used double engines and generators, they were pretty succesful for their time.
  7. Today was a day of highs and lows. I've lost interest in my original conceit.
  8. I think the GWR railcar was delivered by rail via Robertsbridge because I remember reading that it was loaded on one side with scrap brake blocks to tilt it enough to fit through one of the narrow tunnels. I'm sure it was at Rolvenden when I first went there which was probably 1967 or 1968.
  9. A school trip to Switzerland at Easter 1970, staying in Fiesch. We travelled by coach but had a couple of short trips on the FO and BVZ and saw the one FO diesel loco. A day trip to Stresa over the Simplon Pass, saw the FO shunting tractor in Brig, a sort of red milk float, outside cranks and with a pantograph on the roof. One steam loco at t alevel crossing in Italy - from later investigation I think it was an inside cylinder 2-6-0 with outside valve gear. Angular brown articulated electric loco on a freight at Stresa station (the others went on a boat round the Boromean Islands). The old tram terminus beside the FS station.
  10. Quite possibly. The few I've seen (in more recent years), of the reinforced rubber type, are just rolled up and strapped onto pallets, much easier to handle with a fork or pallet truck than on a drum. These belt sections had a comb type interlocking connector at each end, secured with a long rod or pin.
  11. I recall something similar said about the pulverised coal N class experiment, leading to the contents of the storage bin at Eastbourne being burned off, with deleterious effects on the local air quality.
  12. That begs the question of what to use to glue it and colour it? I've sometimes thought while making a cup of coffee that the instant granules would make good ironstone loads for 2mm but again how to prevent it absorbing moisture but retain the matt appearance. I did raid Head Gardener's grit sand for ballast once (with permission), sieved to remove the grit. Would represent beach as used by the SER.
  13. Though from Kent, I found the diesel mechanicals had their advantages (if a bit lacking in acceleration), when the driver left the blinds up - Ipswich to Lowestoft and Lowestoft to Norwich and Ely were fun trips, Newcastle to Carlisle also. After a geology field course in Cornwall I managed Penzance to Plymouth with a front view, quite enlightening. The heating, when it worked, was good too if a bit fuggy sometimes. After waiting in a cold wind on Maidenhead station in winter evenings, the DMU back to Reading was always cozy. As to knowing the classes, well there were so many reformings - always a surprise that the Paddington suburban units were not fixed rakes like the EPB/HAP/CEPs of my home area, when a student in the mid 70s I saw blue / blue and grey and white vehicles in the same train sometimes. SR codes tripped off the tongue but the class numbers for DMUs were hard to remember. As the Pressed Steel units were withdrawn for asbestos in the late '80s we got some oddities to my eyes, 101s I could identify, but some others appeared a few times, and I never did pin down what they were (had end windows in the guard's compartment). Then Networkers supplanted my favourite DEMUs (3H, 3R, 3D), but I did get to travel on the 210 4 car a few times, decent engine sound, not the straining burbles of bus engines! Ultimately though, favourites or not, any train is better than no train.
  14. That's a useful hint thank you - I have left over N ballast now I've returned to OO, so not wasted. My old OO ballast can be stone loads for wagons.
  15. That is good news that even an M7 will run on the unifrog points. While I admire the skill and the patience of Job that the fine scale modellers put into their layouts, I remind myself it is a hobby, not a penance.
  16. Great layout, you have really captured the look of a scrap pile there, best I've seen. With the pile of cars, I can see one of my old workmates searching for bits for his car there. Reminds me of this photo in Dewsbury by Humphrey Bolton on wikimedia and geograph.
  17. The sort of scene that would make a good micro layout theme, but would need a much larger area to be able to capture the atmosphere of the surrounding dereliction.
  18. They might last longer if the holes were filled with bundles of plastic banknotes - they're supposed to have good durability compared to the paper ones.
  19. Ah someone who spells it like me! It was the most dingy, unkempt looking terminal in London that I visited with my school friend Mac in the early 70s, we didn't stay long, Kings Cross was far more attractive (and he was an LNER fan and modeller). My one abiding memory of St Pancreas was hearing a loud splat, looking around we could see an object - we assumed a railman had chucked something across the track onto the platform, but on closer inspection it was a dead pigeon which had just plummeted from the roof girders.
  20. Looking at the previous photo on flickr, a contributor states it's a side tip. Looking at the lever close up I think it's just a link on the end of the safety chain, with an L shaped pin you draw to release the end of the chain prior to tipping. The L shaped pin is on a light keeper chain. There is also a loop handle (pull out?) to the left and further left a catch of some sort. Would be interesting to know how the whole lot worked. There is a photo on Paul Bartlett's site in the internal user private section showing a similar wagon. Also some photos on web of similar wagons at Esholt sewage works, though they are captioned hopper.
  21. Hmm, bogie? Hopper? Looks more like a side tip wagon, a large version of the Rugga tipper skip? The curved segments at the end look a giveaway, and to tip it you'd put a crane hook in that handle like fitting on the side and lift. The safety chain looks a bit delicat though. There's a photo of several somewhere else on RMWeb - in the industrial steam topics perhaps, used for coal mine waste iirc - one has odd wheels too - maybe prototype for anything?
×
×
  • Create New...