PhilH

It doesn't really matter for the purposes of this thread. Facts and knowledge in a lot of cases seem to take second place to the I presume, I think that, maybe, it could be ,should have and would have type of posts that abound. I'm no apologist for West Coast, but having worked with them in the past I'm not a hater either. I just think that a fair few of the posts on here go way past objectivity. One thought did occur to me.... for all of those who worry about falling out of slam door stock I would assume you don't drive a car or cross the road where you are thousands of times more likely to be injured or killed. As I say just a thought...

The thing is on a boiler you have a hot end and the other end. The hot end is the firebox end which must be kept covered with water, so running uphill chimney first not a problem, water will run toward the firebox (back) end naturally, basically the crown of the box will be covered. Going uphill tender first it’s the reverse, water will run away from the firebox end leading to low water level over the firebox if not managed properly. This can cause serious damage, dropping plugs etc. (think boiling a saucepan of water at home, all is well when there is water in it, not so good if you let it boil dry and keep on heating it) As regards splitting tenders from engines this can be a right pain in the backside to do on a full size engine. Pins get stuck, very often you have to get a shunt engine or some such to squeeze the engine and tender together so the pin can be withdrawn, the safety chains get stuck, pipes between loco and tender to disconnect etc. You will also need another loco of some sort to move the engine and tender around once disconnected. Not always a straightforward task by any means.

I believe there is a working turntable at Fort William.

I've driven 45231 and our own 45379 on numerous occasions on the MHR which involved, depending on which way the things came back from hire on other railways, travelling 3 1/2 miles tender first up the 1in60 bank from Alton to Medstead. Care had to be taken when doing this especially during damp conditions with, say, six well filled coaches on. luckily there are no sharp curves on this bank to further compound the drag of the train. Stalling on restart has always been a factor with steam locomotives, sometimes the bl**dy things just do not want to go no matter how skilled the crew.

As far as I am aware there is no turntable or triangle at Mallaig. If a steam engine works chimney first there how can it work back to Fort William any other way than tender first. Water level is a matter of boiler management by the crew. Sanding is a available when working tender first on a Black 5, although only 50% of what’s available when working chimney first.

Why?

I form my own opinions from observation and experience. I have long ago discounted most forms of media as a valid vehicle of information.

Indeed. I think it's amazing that we have bred a generation of people who are so perfect all they seem to do is to look outside themselves to find fault with others. It often makes me wonder if it is to divert attention away from their own shortcomings / imperfections/ peccadilloes or dark sides. For instance, it happens all the time in so called parliamentary debate! John 8:7

To look at it from another angle I wouldn’t be surprised if any bored individual these days with time on their hands and access to the internet can find skeletons in the cupboard of any individual or organisation locomotives are named after. Just a shame that all their latent intellect isn’t put to better use. So when you see ‘Crewe Signal Box 1938-2016’ or whatever on the side of some dirty diesel somewhere you can bet there were some nefarious goings on in that establishment….

My ignorance about the weird and wonderful scales used by narrow gauge modellers would have probably been made clearer if you had gone on to quote my next sentence immediately after the sentence you quoted.

Surely you just move the Z measurement a few mil off the plate before rotating the print to the optimum angle. I print nothing on the plate on my resin printers, 1 usually raise by 8 mm, rotate then support. I also invariably use a raft under the supports,

I've made a start on what is possibly going to be my next rabbit hole, a WW1 diorama depicting some sort of WDLR scene. the first two prints are of the C and D type wagons utilising free Thingiverse files. As these can be scaled up or down in the slicer and the files are either as assembled bodies and bogies or the parts to make these I would imagine they can easily be made into working examples for a model railway. I printed them in 1/35 scale, they are quite large so I can imagine they would look good in O/16.5 or some such. OnThingiverse are also files for A,B and E types of wagon so will have a go at those soon. Of course the other good thing about these is they cost pennies to produce as opposed to seemingly exorbitant prices charged elsewhere. Probably my next attempt will be to see what they look like scaled down to 1/72 as a diorama in 1/35 with these would be huge. Finally of course one bonus with 3-D printing is why print only one when you can load the build plate with lots!

https://news.sky.com/story/human-waste-could-soon-be-used-to-fuel-air-travel-13112895 I wonder if they'll ever be able to cut out the middleman...

This. Good job Greta Thunberg doesn't know about it.

Further to this I had the pleasure of driving 850/30850 on the Mid Hants numerous times (and the associated not so pleasurable oiling the thing up). It certainly was a test of a fireman’s art, that change in grate gradient catching many out. Some struggled to get enough down the front (the soft blast from the Lemaitre blast pipe was not their friend here) but the biggest culprit was not getting enough on where the gradient actually changed. This was evidenced every now and then by weeping stays above this point indicating cold spots in the fire.