Ron Ron Ron

Each rail needs insulation from the adjacent rail in the next district, but all rails are powered and it doesn't matter if a loco bridges the gap, provided all power districts are in phase with each other. The first use of Power Districts, was to provide adequate power to different parts of large layouts, using separate Boosters to power each district. In fact, the original (unofficial) definition of as "Power District", was a section of the layout, fed by it's own Booster. With the increased use of Circuit Breakers, that definition has been watered down to also include sections protected by CB's. Those were previously described as "Sub-Districts"; i.e. sub-divisions within a single Power District. Pedant hat on. Sorry Iain, I can't help it !!! 🙄 A Command Station doesn't provide track power. It's the built-in Booster that does that. For example, the Roco Z21 box, or the Lenz LZV200 etc, etc, contain both a Command Station and a Booster (Power Station in original Lenz and NMRA terms). I'll take a lie down now......... .

Mike is absolutely right about the damage the DafT and Treasury did to the franchising system, through excessive meddling and pure greed.. Franchising would have worked very well, without putting the bidding TOC's in a position where they had to bid way over the odds in order to win the contracts. Also more fool the TOC's who ended up committing themselves to those unaffordable premium payments. Those government departments created the environment for failure and the eventual collapse of the franchise system. .

Sorry Phil, you wasted a lot of virtual ink in that post. It's simply not what happens. Those lease deal are not for 5-10 years, in other words, the length of the franchise term. There's no way that any of the trains would be deliverable on that basis. The lease deals are underwritten by rollover terms that ensure that when the TOC is no longer the incumbent (end of franchise and new operator, takeover by OLR, Insolvency etc,), the trains (and the lease) will be passed on to the new operator. This is where the DafT come in, because they have to underwrite the contract. Without that, the ROSCO and the people providing the money, will not do a deal. End of !! It's too high an exposure and risk. Also, in your scenario (1) above, if the DafT leased the trains directly, you've introduced a new level of cost and risk. They are already effectively doing that anyway, by taking out a long term lease indirectly . .

Precisely. All this talk about profits being syphoned off doesn't reflect the reality. Of course there's nothing behind it. We better get used to it, there's a general Election coming. If only there was a way of turning all the B/S into money..... 🤣 .

That's not what happens. No public money is used to purchase rolling stock. The DafT has a sticky hand in approving TOC train orders...in fact sometimes making it a condition of a franchise or management contract let. TOC X places an order for new trains with manufacturer Y. But nobody will supply trains to a a short term tenant without some cast iron guarantee, or the cash up front. The usual type of arrangement is that a ROSCO will be used to take ownership and a financing package (how the trains are paid for) will be negotiated between the manufacturer, the ROSCO and importantly, a lender (the source of the capital). Hence, the manufacturer gets paid for making and supplying the trains. The ROSCO effectively takes a mortgage out on the trains and pays this back from the income it receives from leasing the trains to the TOC. The manufacturer gets paid. The ROSCO has a viable business model, where it makes a profit from lease income, minus finance costs, but takes on all the risk. The TOC gets trains. The government (Treasury, DafT etc) don't have to find the money to buy or lease trains directly. plus it's all off the PSBR spreadsheet. An example when government (DafT) gets more intimately involved than usual in a train order. The Intercity Express Programme (IEP), which resulted in a large order for the initial IET fleets supplied to GWR and LNER. The DafT spend tens of millions in the lengthy and costly procurement process... ...however, the actual supply of the trains comes from Agility Trains, a ROSCO owned by Hitachi and AXA UK (originally the partner was John Laing). The trains were paid for (and are ultimately owned) by an international banking consortium, including huge Japanese merchant banks, all managed by HSBC. They in turn have a 27.5 year guarantee that the TOC's or their successor will lease the trains, securing and guaranteeing the debt. You can easily see that going back to the old way of buying trains (before BR starting leasing themselves), or the DafT /GBR or whoever taking over the ROSCO role, could lead to expensive and sometimes wasteful procurement exercises, no doubt with a lot of costly chopping and changing thrown in. The chances of savings are very slim to highly unlikely. The government would have to go and borrow the money itself or enter into a long term costly PFI (the never never...thank you Gordon Brown !! ), all which will add to the burgeoning government debt. I contend there are far more urgent and important things for HMG to spend their pocket money on. .

Labour's announcement is just a different flavour of the same thing. The Tory idea is to find a new role for private sector involvement, in providing services to or on behalf of GBR, with the hope of installing commercial incentives and retaining access to external channels of capital. Not quite the management contract arrangement, but something similar. The dithering is because (as far as we know) nobody (government, DafT, the Treasury, the TOC's) has come up with a concrete plan. From the scant detail put forward by Labour, it's sounds like they would like GBR to provide the TOC service, but still outsource in some areas. They appear to be putting a lot of emphasis on making big savings and efficiencies, by removing duplication and complicated interfaces. If you really want to achieve those sort of savings it would inevitably lead to lots of job losses. .

For one, we don't live in a totalitarian communist state. Two; why would any government body need too get involved in running commercial transport services (outside of wartime or national emergency). Do you expect them to control delivery of your groceries or your toy train purchases? A return to British Road Services? No thank you. We may think that public operated passenger bus services are the best way to provide local public transport, but it doesn't follow that other road traffic, such as trucks and taxis, or whatever, have to be publicly operated. Rail freight is a purely commercial business and we no longer depend on it for vital national supply lines, such as supplying coal. The sector is doing reasonable well, considering the commercial ups and downs over the last dozen or more years and the loss of several major customers (coal, oil and steel etc,). Labour recognise this, hence leaving it well alone, despite factions within the party wanting to nationalise all sorts of things or purely ideological reasons. Anyway, it's not on the table from either so called "main party", so not worth considering. . .

There was an issue back in the past, when the early ROSCO's took over the former BR stock, but most of that has gone. The old BR stock was largely written down, but the leasing costs didn't reflect that. However, the majority of passenger rail stock running today, has been provided by private sector finance over the last (now more than) quarter of a century. The ROSCO's may own the rail stock, but they owe the purchase costs to a large number of banking and finance consortia. Without those investors, there couldn't have been the mass re-equipment of passenger stock we've witnessed, over the 28 years post BR. To "nationalise" the ROSCO's would mean having to purchase all the rolling stock, which belongs to them and having to find a huge amount of money to pay back the lenders. There's no way the treasury would allow that. The sums involved would require serious major cuts elsewhere in public spending. As for the Freight operating companies (FOC's), where is the need too nationalise them? There is none whatsoever. Also you can kiss goodbye to any notion of political policies to encourage more freight onto rail. Nationalised rail freight would be a monopoly and therefore any actions that would penalise competing modes (basically road), would be anti-competitive, illegal and open to challenge. Attempting to nationalise rail freight would be an ideological fools errand, which is why it's been left out of both Labour and Conservative proposals. .

First completed sections of HS2’s Curzon Street Station viaduct, revealed. .

Another infrastructure tunnel at Old Oak Common has been completed. This is a 120 metre long, small bore tunnel under the Grand Union canal, designed to carry electrical power services to the eastern end of the OOC station box,. Initially this tunnel will carry the power supply for the 2 TBM's, ordered for the construction of the Euston tunnels. Once tunnelling to Euston is completed, this tunnel will then provide the power supply for the Euston tunnels from OOC to Euston. https://barhale.co.uk/news/uk-power-networks-and-barhale-build-tunnel-to-power-hs2-construction-to-euston/ .

"HS2 moves 1,100 tonne viaduct in weekend operation" https://mediacentre.hs2.org.uk/news/in-pictures-and-video-hs2-moves-1-100-tonne-viaduct-in-weekend-operation .

An article explaining some of the ground condition difficulties encountered by TBM's "Sushila" and "Caroline", while tunnelling under the Ruislip area. (remember the incidents with sludge bubbling up through boreholes, last year?) https://www.geplus.co.uk/news/hs2-tbm-quartet-tackles-differing-geology-on-twin-bore-tunnel-under-london-22-04-2024/ .

In normal operation, Concorde reached its maximum altitude at the end of its Atlantic crossing (see my post above about the “cruise climb”), before starting its descent and deceleration to subsonic flight. Eastbound, it rarely ever reached FL600 and would normally start its descent from somewhere between FL570 and FL590 at the end of the cruise phase, before descending to subsonic flight at FL290 as it approached landfall. .

I think you've answered your own question. Just buy (or use) a decoder with the correct type of connector for the model. Next18 decoders exist and are designed to fit a specific, clearly defined space to be provided within smaller locos. This is to facilitate fitting in N, TT and very small H0/00 models. The power rating on these decoders tends to be at the lower end of the scale and therefore they will not be suitable for H0/00 or larger scale models with more power hungry motors (e.g. many Heljan models). .

Concorde crossed the Atlantic in what is known as a “cruise climb”. A gradual increase in cruising level through the duration of the cruise phase of the flight. After departure from London or Paris and being threaded through the regular traffic, it climbed out to an initial subsonic cruising level (FL280), following special designated routes, to reach the start of the dedicated Concorde oceanic tracks. Because of the supersonic “bang”, it wasn’t allowed to fly at supersonic speeds, until over the sea. On reaching the “acceleration point” beyond the coastline, they hit the reheat and began climbing rapidly and accelerating past Mach 1 towards supersonic cruising speed. IIRC, they levelled off and began the gradual cruise climb somewhere between FL470 and FL500, reaching between FL580 and FL600, by the end of the supersonic part of the flight, on the other side of the ocean. Unlike the normal Oceanic tracks, which change on a twice daily basis, to take into account the jet stream and other significant weather, the Concorde tracks were fixed. They were obviously operating much higher and separated from all the other ocean air traffic. There were 3 parallel tracks, SM, SN and SO. Normally Westbound, Eastbound and an alternative overflow track, respectively; although the routes were bi-directional if needed. BA and AF Concorde departures were timed so they would follow one another, but if the minimum separation at the track entry point was being eroded once they became airborne, the following aircraft would be re-cleared to the overflow track. Coming off the oceanic Concorde tracks, they would request descent from the top of the cruise climb (whatever they had reached by the end of the cruise) and then carried out quite a speedy decent passing through a transonic phase, before achieving stable subsonic flight and eventually levelling off at (IIRC) FL290, as they arrived over land. The inbound routing fed them into the regular airway system. Some of you might remember stories about Concorde supersonic booms being heard in the West Country (Devon and Somerset) and the Channel Islands. The supersonic shock wave would travel ahead of the aircraft and if the atmospheric conditions were right (or wrong, depending how you look at it), Concorde’s boom would continue forward towards landfall in the Bristol Channel (for London), or the Channel Islands and northern Brittany (for Paris ), even after the aircraft had decelerated through subsonic transition long before crossing the coast. The Paris outbound route crossed the French coast near Le Havre, where they would begin supersonic acceleration and a rapid climb. The route took them to the north of the Cherbourg peninsula in UK airspace, before turning SW down the middle of the English Channel, until passing abeam Lands End, where they would turn westwards towards the entry point of their cleared oceanic Concorde track. Paris inbounds normally hit landfall as they passed directly over Jersey eastbound, crossing over the French coast just east of there. However, there was an alternative, extended route that followed the track of the outbound route, eastbound up the Channel towards Dieppe. This allowed the AF Concorde to stay supersonic for a bit longer, but it was only used occasionally. London outbounds passed over the Bristol area before crossing the coast near Weston-super-Mare, prior to reaching the acceleration point out over the Bristol Channel, heading towards the Oceanic track entry. Inbounds followed a similar route after leaving the eastbound track and descending to the subsonic flight level before crossing the coast and merging into the regular route structure. .

I bought a 737 MAX mug, on my visit to the Everett visitor centre a few years ago. The handle fell off in the dishwasher ! .

Aircraft don't cruise at Altitudes, but at Flight Levels, based on the standard altimeter pressure setting. Flight levels remain constant, but vary in altitude (both geographically and with time), depending on the local atmospheric pressure setting at any one particular position. Assuming the A350 could find conditions to get up that high, the nearest cruising levels available are FL490 and FL510, which approximate to (+ or -) 49,000 and 51,000 ft. There is no cruising level analogous with 50,000ft. Normally, you would expect to see long haul flight A350's cruising between FL350 and FL430. Above that, the only civil aircraft will (normally) be high performance business jets. If you're interested, Mickey Mouse FR24 has a filtering option that allows you to filter out aircraft above (and/or below) a selectable altitude. Set it to show only aircraft above 43,500ft and see if you can spot any civil airliners. .

Engineers ave been dismantling and removing TBM "Lydia", that was used to bore the Old Oak Common to Atlas Road logistics tunnel. "Lydia" is a smaller TBM than those being used to bore the railway tunnels. Note the size of the workers, next to this "smaller" TBM.....

Kibri and Walthers also do similar, but in 1:83 H0 scale.

They can still lower the pantograph and overtake. The overhead is providing motive power and recharging the truck’s batteries. IIRC, if the driver indicates to leave the lane under the wires (e.g. overtaking or turning off the road), the panto lowers automatically. .

BA377 is a full size model Spitfire IX .

Thanks Steve. Finger trouble ! Now edited. .

B-32FZ A321-200F First Delivered to Air Macau in Feb 2003 Retired Sept 2021 Converted to a freighter in 2023. Entered service with Sichuan Airlines Dec 2023 .

ScrewFix is your friend.... https://www.screwfix.com/p/apollo-2-ply-steel-barbed-wire-50m/38515?tc=YB3&gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjwz42xBhB9EiwA48pT7zu92rhNkTCtyuZuygAbm2HQzipmwh5Mj_gl0MFI-svwLFDMIeEb6hoCuFUQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds https://www.screwfix.com/p/stockshop-bx100-electric-fence-energiser-battery-powered/4858f .

I've seen reports of the Radio Icon disappearing after updates. Apparently it can be easily restored to the screen. Try a reboot of the central screen. I must be covered in the handbook. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it's just a matter of pressing down both scroll wheels (on the steering wheel) together, for a several seconds. The central screen should go blank and then re-boot. If that doesn't bring back the Icon, then there are various Tesla forums that will be able to help. .