peach james

I'd understood the Dapol signals had a very good reputation if operated by DC or DCC. Almost 100% of them let the magic smoke out at a most frustrating time I've been moving around the bits of Long Marton, getting them back where they belong. I suspect that I'm going to have to undo it all, as I have finally got around to arranging for quotes on the furnace replacement... James

A brief comment- my family is booked on The Canadian leaving Toronto March 27th, if anyone else is so inclined. I did this because I'd like to have been across in a sleeper in the Budds before they go away... Domes are re-opened at this time (Late November). Hopefully... James

Mike, I'm sorry to hear of your wife's passing. James

The Vapor-Clarkson steam generator (it's not a boiler...go on, say it like "it's only a flesh wound" and have a laugh !) has a steam separator. This is a centrifugal acting thing that separates out the water (about 5%) from the Sat steam that is the primary output. If you don't blow down said separator often enough, you end up with water hammer throughout your system, which tends to end up with pipes that break. There are thermal overtemperature controls on the steam output, so that you are not sending superheated steam downrange into stuff (like rubber hoses) that are not designed for it at all. There is also a high stack cut-out, and a fire detection system (making sure there is a fire, in this case...). We had our original controls until about 2006, when they started monkeying with them and replaced some of the bits with PLC's rather than Relays. Result: One very large fireball in Qingdao, China. One roundsman with an immediate requirement for new pants. What makes it worse is it wasn't the first fireball- that one had me with a CO2 in about .5 seconds when it blasted across the space...

100 lb here :), the returns are about 4/5ths what we send out... Oh, on a railway...well, you push steam (at some moderate, but appropriate pressure) down the lines. You make sure you are sending steam, not water, as alas water is merely steam that has had most of its heat taken away, and that makes the passengers angry. (though not as angry as when the whole lot freezes solid at -40 and they get no heat...). Said steam is then tapped off to feed radiators of various sizes/locations. It can also be used to provide AC in the summer time (no, I'm not joking...). The steam is condensed in the radiators to water, which is then allowed to escape onto the track to create a nice frozen wasteland for the next train to traverse :). (it's not that much water...) Typical steam flows on the ship from Vapor Clarkson boilers was 100 PSI / ~ 1000 lb/hr. We used the same ones on the ship as some DE locos, but in a closed feed system (some returns returned...). The boilers are about 4' square, by 6' high. (sorry, my images got purged in the <1000 Flickr image purge...). Steam pressure could be set by adjusting the butterfly valve (control valve, did air/fuel/water). We used 100 PSI, but had no flex pipes to worry about. Here @ work, I just make the steam. I only know our single radiator in the building is fed at ~10 psi from a reducer, and we use the condensate for filling our chemical tanks with water :). 98% of what I make goes to heat other buildings, and we do get back about 4/5ths of what we send out. James

Step 1: disconnect EZ command Step 2: go to local shop, buy reputable DCC controller. NCE seems to be the flavor of the UK...though other options are certainly available. Step 3: Now you have a command station which isn't a piece of flotsam, you can diagnose the problem. EZ Command and Hornby Select are not really fit for purpose, IMO. Even LDCC has more advanced features. (LegoDCC, run on a RCX brick...). James

I have a mate, who sails on MV Asterix, whose nickname is Pepsi...because he was never to be found without a blue can in his hands. Never Coke, just Pepsi...

It's Tetley, it goes in the teapot, the milk goes in the mug (about 1/6th, 2% milk, for me. More like 1/4th for the little lad). Wait 3-5 min, and pour tea into mug & enjoy brew up. _must_ be real milk, not fake stuff. Evaporated if not real milk, and most definitely NOT UHT milk or Dubai milk. (bleh !) Bush Tea is 1 part Tang (orange juice crystals) and 3 parts (sweet) Iced Tea mix. No milk that way :), but sugar which tends to help 'cause you are forever doing _something_ if you are in the bush. James

I understand he was on the isle of Wight, but its all a bit 3rd hand to me. I know there was a 5" railway, that ended in a pond (literally...), there was a K-38 ish loco, the D class, a Wren and a Shay. The K38, Wren and D class share cylinders- they are 2 5/16 by 3" on the D class. We assume based on workmanship that the dentist did a small amount of work, and most of it was done by someone else- there are definitely 2 hands which worked on the engines. Dad (on the left) has the Wren in Ontario, I got the D because the boiler is quite a bit over the Ontario model maximum size. (but under for BC...). He sold the Shay and the K38 which was a monster of a 5" loco. (though the D will be heavier, it will be easier to sectionalize to move...) )

A couple of images of my D class (the Garret) are up on my flickr: in 5" gauge (so 3 3/4" scale...). It has lots of work to be done- I have a fair amount of plumbing bits to add, in the form of injectors (x3) & most of the rest of the valves/fittings. (but no pipework yet...) The track won't be as extreme as the test track- I've got 30' radius curves (the real one did 60' !) and 2% grades. If anyone has any more history on this model, I'd love to hear it. The model dates to the late 70's, was built for a dentist along with 3 other engines. I'd say it was semi professionally built- he didn't build it. I'd love to know where the drawings were sourced. I have the book on it, which includes a fair amount on the B class which the D was supposed to replace 2:1 James

No. They are a Chrysler/Dodge/AMC/Jeep product, not GM in any way. Is not the acronym of the maker... Tis like saying that a LNER pacific was made by the GWR...

David, that being said, the Wye is very important beyond Lower Bay's use as a platform. (PS: I was in the Star Labour day 1982, on the platform...page A3) It's also been used more recently- perhaps 5 years ago? I'm less certain as to why it isn't used now to help with the Bloor/Young overcrowding. James

Why to stick with 2:1 vs a 3rd set of valve gear? Not sure... There are some interesting assumptions here- I'd always thought that you didn't want 180% apart con rods,because effectively at top and bottom DC's, you have no angle to start the wheels moving. Setting valve gear- the "best" way is to do it with indicators. But, as railway engines are hard to indicate, it becomes an issue. Not like on a ship, or stationary plant, where you can adjust the valve settings to allow for the difference in cylinder area to equalize the work done top and bottom of the stroke. Because there is limited ability to adjust the valve gear on a railway engine, it becomes a set of compromise and as the engine wears out, it becomes more problematic. That's why some engines of a class would be a dog, and some a racehorse- because the valve event changes would affect performance that much... Basically, you take your best guess on the final setpoints of the engine. It's the same sort of thing on a traction engine, where the boiler expansion of 1/16" or more can be quite problematic. We're in an area where thou matter, and it all moves by more than 0.032"... Oh, and they WILL run with horrible valve events. This engine- (it's 2 cylinder...) had at least .100" of valve error (the valves were too long, piston valves), but it did run to some way or another. Scale it up, and the valve error would be 1.6" or more ! James

Yes, sorry, thought it was Hunslet rather thank Kitson. A remarkably questionable piece of engineering, at any rate !

What else are you going to get? GMDD as it was, is going to want to sell the traction motor/generator/diesel engine & control package, and probably the trucks as well. As has been pointed out up thread, that's about 2/3rds the price of the loco. I'm unsure if GMDD would have established a shadow factory in the UK to assemble the bits in the UK, similar to GMD (London, Canada), but had fair sized contracts (like the ~850 or so 47's) been in the offering, I suspect they would have. That being said, if you look at how a GMD diesel is built, the value added was not by GMDD but by the sub contractors who actually made things for GMDD. Saying that GMDD was uninterested in local partners is clearly not true. Equally, saying that the Exchequer would not allow the purchase in of 2/3rds the value of locomotives is true- there wasn't the currency or gold to allow for it. So, it is a moot point- GMDD could not supply because they weren't going to build the complete supply chain within the UK to duplicate what existed in the USA. Instead BR got the pilot scheme diesels, then the pilot scheme was thrown out just like it had thrown out the modernization plan, and large amounts of labour were used to build DE's and DH's that were unfit for the task, and/or had the task disappear as they were being built. Some of this is hindsight being 20/20, but a lot of this is easy to predict at the time. What we really needed was a mass production of Fells (or perhaps Hunslet Steam/Diesel engines...) James

The only Tiger I can think I'd want to see on KL2 is perhaps an Esso tank wagon ! (put a tiger in your tank, put a tiger in your tank...). I mean, I don't even want to see the mankini reappear (and heaven help us if the other kind of 1940's Tiger appeared on the fell...) James

How then do you explain the 'stralian diesels? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victorian_Railways_B_class_(diesel) as a start... GMD was not just interested in supplying CKD loco kits BUT, they still wanted $ not PS... James

Try first with tossing them into water? I'd think they will be RC paper, in which case washing them isn't going to hurt them, and may remove enough mouse pee to allow them to unstick. If you KNOW what paper they are on (for example, Kodak C41 paper), then you can look on the 'net and find out what "additives" you might also add- photo-flow being the common one, or for those of us who are cheap, a touch of sunlight dish detergent. It may also be possible to use alcohol instead of water- it's not something I've ever had to do to that extent. Most photo media is not affected much by water, except that you may need to dry the paper after. James

Was it Cross Town Traffic? Inquiring minds, and all that... (Coat and hat already got...) James

They forgot about ours...we were in the drydock, and someone asked when they were going to weld the hole up....consternation, it was growth work ! No-one had spec'd that the hole needed a proper weld job on it. My last day before the fire onboard (well, op tow-ex) was trying to get the anchor unstuck-some numpty boz'n (bos'n) had pulled it into the hawse pipe, solid like. The dockyard had about 90 tons hanging off it trying to drag it downwards, including one of the big cranes through a tackle. I was all kinds of busy trying to get paperwork sorted to go to school in the US, couldn't afford to waste that much time watching the dockyard maties play at how to get it unstuck. I had advised that they didn't have enough weight because that wasn't the first time it had gotten stuck. We'd already had one go to the bitter end, and what a "Bang" that made ! I'm sure you've seen the Youtube videos of the foc'sle team making a rather rapid departure, with new underwear on order? Yep...it turns out that if you are sitting over 600' of water, and let out say, 3 shackles, with a brake rated for 3 shackles, that it may pay out all 6 shackles, and the bitter end. That one ended up with the cheekplate bent like a prezel in the hawse pipe, a rather thin Hull Tech climbing in from underneath with a cutting torch to remove said plate once anchor was on the blake & brake, and several embarrassed individuals. Worst was, we as engineers knew the limits of the gear better than the bosn's who are responsible for operating it, and had words with them & then were overruled. Idiots everywhere ! James

We hear the "Boom" as they do explosive welding of Aluminum to Steel over across the water on Thursday Mornings :). (it's about 12 nm away...) Aluminum on a ship- well, given that once on a time, we were paid in days off for removing top weight, I'm all for things that reduce it. (HMCS Algonquin, where it was 100 lb of topweight= a day off). There was a LOT of unused structure above 1 deck !, things like pipe hangers & similar that didn't connect to anything). She rolled- the 280's were infamous for it, even with the Water Displaced Fuel System. I saw 42-3%, but I've heard tell of 45% plus. "lively" doesn't quite describe it, when you are out doing rounds in that. James

We've had the "pleasure" of dealing with a relative who conveniently decided to put off getting a will done. Bloke had been in a wheelchair for >10 years, I had a serious conversation with him in 2010, he died in 2017...and of course, then you are left with a bit of a guessing game. I know, it's not a fun thing to do, but getting a will done isn't very costly in comparison to the mess left without one. Try to cover the sensible things based on the age of who you intend on getting what. Make sure there is a reasonable hope they can sort the stuff out particularly if you are leaving a substantial model collection. A _lot_ of what we have/do doesn't have a lot of $$$ resale value, but it has a very high purchase value. (Porscap motors...) and if you leave it to your kids, unless they KNOW what they are looking at, they are going to throw away stuff that should get passed to "Joe" or "Bill", because it doesn't seem to have value to them. Better to designate someone to look after the hobby area and make sure they know in advance ! (and an alternate, if they too are senior...) (It's even worse in the model engineering world...) I've not yet made changes to our wills, (we have them, they are moderately generic "30 year old with kids" type wills) they require a specialist (in one particular form of Canadian Will- Henson Trusts) to do them given our two munchkin's status. I'm not worried about the Lego (they can sit on the floor: 1 for you, 1 for me...they'll be there for about 225 000 times) but the models & even more the !@#$@!# of stuff that eventually will come from grand-dad is going to be a problem. _I_ don't know what all engineering stuff my dad has at any point, but it's fairly substantial. He mentioned a Maisy on a thread yesterday, and I thought he sold the one he had...I mean, its only a 150 lb loco, what would I know ? James

I'm a youngster to this retirement gig, at 44 (45 in a couple weeks), with 5 years out the door from the mob (Royal Canadian Navy). I've fallen back into a full time job, which I didn't really want, but the $ doesn't quite add up for me to actually be retired. I've got 2 Autistic kids, one in high school and one in middle school, so...there's always what _they_ want to do :). And there is a few projects on the go- the various railways, lego shows, fire department (volunteer) & fire Commission (almost political...). I'd agree with those who say find a couple of hobbies that are active, and take part in them. Be it sailing, running, walking, biking, hill climbing, hiking...there is likely something with some group of people you can get into to stay physically active. Modeling- I've seen all sorts- from the bloke who went into his basement at 0800 on every working day & came up at 1600, through those like me who do it when/as we feel like. Your kids- I'm guessing they are older than my pair (an 11 and 15 year old). If they've made it through teenage hood (you know, they know _everything !_) then I'd suggest asking them and putting aside _time_ to help them. If they are much older (mid 20's) and have schmoe's of their own, (and are finding out that the line "children are your parents best revenge !") then even better- because you are old enough to be granddad, and young enough to take the little ones off to do "adventures" which mom & dad don't have the time for. Living 5000 km away from grandmum, and 5500 from granddad, my two have missed that. I'd stay away from "work", unless there is somewhere engineering wise which YOU are interested in doing, and then make sure that it is somewhat fun. If you don't need the $$$, why go to the headache of work for "works" sake? James

Loco's like the CP 173 (the Walt Disney design) make for beautiful looking locos, that are also quite functional for their size. There are some most artful constructors of larger (live steam sized) older locomotives about- the one I follow is Jack Bodenmann https://www.jbodenmann.com James

I brought the 3 finished 30' radius/ 10' long (outside rail) sections home today, and screwed on ties to one of the 10' sections that has been there for a while. I still have to shorten up the fishplates to make the connections to the driveway, and I can't do any welding at work until they finish doing some asbestos abatement (they are washing walls & window cills...) Current progress at home: You can see the 3 curved panels on the grass. That's going to require burning off, to see what actually is under the grass, then landscape cloth adding, and a figuring as to where the curve actually is going to start. I left an opening because the trick-or-treating kids often come down the stairs in the center, then up to our front door. I'd rather not be trip and treating them There are 3 shortish panels of welded 7.5" track to the right, they are going to be taken to my local blacksmith and handed in for him to do something awesome with them- they're not much use to me. By the time I'd done anything to them, I might as well have started fresh. We're late enough I can burn off whenever I want to, so I will have to put the big propane torch back together & have at it. Looking at this, I have to make a 2nd 5' panel of curved track...there's no other way. Ah well... James