Bloodnok

IIRC this rule came about as a result of the Polmont accident in 1984 where a DBSO ran over a cow. Prior to that there doesn't seem to have been an issue with passengers in a leading trailer at speed -- look at the APT-P, for example.

Now I want to set that up articulated on a tri-bo chassis in the way older Italian electrics were set up. Not sure why, but for some reason it appeals...

Your google-fu is obviously better than mine. I couldn't find anything for either of them. The 97080 ran slowly on a single AA battery. By the time I got to three AA batteries, it was running at what I thought was quite some speed. From this I concluded it could well be a 6v motor. The 97080 is now in a Lima 73, using a Scalextric pinion gear, a DCC Concepts 8-pin harness, and a spare blanking plug from another loco. I used the original screws from the CD drive straight into the original Lima plastic. It seems to work fine on DC so far at lower settings. The test track is only 6ft long, so it's not like I'm winding the controller out too far. The eventual plan is to chip it rather than running it on DC.

I've just salvaged a couple of these motors out of an old CD drive. How do I identify what voltage they should run at, and whether or not they are useful for remotoring old locomotives?

Those are actually Mk2 derived, not Mk3 derived.

Unfortunately, you've got one more container to change. That 9ft6 high cube container doesn't work on a standard flat in the 1980s -- it would have needed a special low floor wagon back then. It's not until relatively recently that routes have been cleared for high cube containers on standard height flats.

These coaches are far from perfect, but they are still useful starting points. The tumblehome isn't as good as it could be, either... Will I be replacing the buffers and bufferbeam? Not yet. I'm also not going to re-work the gangways yet, as this forms the stock way of attaching the body to the chassis. When I do work on these aspects I'll want to re-do how that works to something that's easier to work with. Also, modifying something that should be uniform across a rake on a few coaches will make just these coaches stand out from the rest of the rake. I really want to do things like that all at once across the lot, including the otherwise unmodified coaches. I'd rather they all look uniform in the ways they should look uniform -- that way one or two won't stand out from the rest.

And there's a group of people out there mad enough to try to build a new one. https://prrt1steamlocomotivetrust.org/ They are also mad enough to state they want to have a crack at the record ... so one day we might actually know what these machines will do.

You won't see it in the road. You would see it in the angle the bus sits at. I'm sure it could be convincingly faked much more locally to the bus than rebuilding the entire road surface...

There's a marginal benefit in an elongated contact patch -- having larger wheels can result in a slightly more sure-footed loco. It's not a particularly big difference though -- other factors (the weight of the wheels themselves) will be more significant.

That link doesn't seem to work. Did you mean this?

I'm not sure that's the same rail joint in both pictures. Look at the relationship between the joint and the slot cut in the baseboard about six sleepers back between this track and the next one. Now go back and look at the previous photo. The slot isn't six sleepers back -- it's under the tender, about a whole locomotive length further back. It's not the slot that moved, it's the joint. In fact, if you look closely, you can see the perfect joint about level with the front of the tender. Here's a couple of annotated pictures to show what I mean: At least ... I think that's the previous photo you were talking about. I apologise if I've got the wrong "previous photo".

Are MFAs and MHAs not both called 'coalfish'? I've seen references to both being described as such...

It was 6.6kV and 25Hz.

The 211 series I pictured is formed of 20m coaches. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/211_series They are, however, wider than our loading gauge, at 2.95m wide... I'd be interested to see this :-)

It's respectably positive if you can compare 2+2 on each deck to 2+2 on a single deck -- the double deck part is well worth the stairwells. The moment you have to start comparing 2+2 on each deck to 3+2 on a single deck or 2+1 on each deck to 2+2 on a single deck, it starts being marginal on seating capacity. If the width gets restricted to the point you're having to compare 2+1 to 3+2, then it's firmly in the negative. Some of the similar trains I rode on had done just that -- either the budget version, achieved by peeling the stickers off, or in some cases replacing all the compartments with bench seats (same side-corridor pattern, just with no actual corridor walls). I used to like these particular seats, the four-wide seat benches they put there were more comfortable than wedging myself into the 2+3 section. You are absolutely correct for inner suburban service patterns - these should prioritise standing space and loading/unloading speed, which is exactly what TFL does. Outer suburban and intercity services where people expect a seat is where double deck may have a role to play. An interesting case study is Japan. It's not uncommon to see double deck first class coaches in trains where the standard class is more loading speed and standing space optimised: It's worth noting they don't seem to have the issue with centre overhang that we do...

My first model of a double deck train to UK loading gauge was in 2004. I missed the difference between the static and kinematic parts of W6 gauge for quite some time. Yes, they will. The problem with the 11 metre talgo though isn't overthrow -- it's platform access. With the conventional layout, you get easy access to platforms at platform height. On the Talgo, you'll have to create that, likely in the middle of a specific vehicle. That will chew space. Oh, and packaging. Where do you put drivetrain and so on. Talgo's typically have a locomotive at one or both ends, which isn't the desired pattern for a commuter train. These illustrate the point I was making. They are 19.8m long over buffers with a relatively long bogie pivot distance and clear 40ft long well. But they are only ~2.55m wide (8ft ISO standard container width plus the width of the wagon walls -- not much). They give up nearly an entire foot of width over what you can get away with above platform height. And still they run the brake pipes above platform level the full length of the wagon.

The key thing people (including for some time ... myself) missed when designing imaginary UK double deck stock, is that below the platform level, the entire W gauge series is dynamic -- meaning as drawn it does not take into consideration any curve overhang. This is fine if what you are checking for gauging is suspension, bogies, etc -- things that typically move with the wheels and don't overhang by a significant margin. But once you want to put a wide well in that space, you need to take into consideration the centre overhang. On the typical bogie pivots taken from a 20m or 23m coach on a relatively sharp corner, you lose a significant amount of width below platform level which will result in a very odd shape train, and further restrict your seating pattern on the lower deck. Exactly how much you lose depends on what the tightest curve radius is that you'll have a platform on... This is why there's that concave crease in the side of the train I linked to. I thought it was ugly, and started designing my own to avoid it, but I think it's unavoidable -- you need your lower deck to be this much narrower but have flat sides, and your upper deck to be this much wider. Change either and you are giving up significant space on one or other deck for appearance reasons... It's also interesting they've gone for upmarket travel in their example, the obviousness of the width restrictions is somewhat minimised with 2+1 seating on both decks.

Yes. Someone put all these pesky wires up, for a start. Design loading gauge for vehicles is 3.965m high now, and while there's lots of potential to make it more square because of work done for container trains (which will likely be very useful for imaginary double deck trains), it is highly unlikely to go up in the middle without a LOT of work. (3.965m is 13' and a tenth of an inch for those who are metrically challenged).

There's a slight turkey-shed detecting problem to solve first

What you could fit on a turntable seemed to be a key factor...

A few years before the NSW variant certainly, but the South Australian order seems to have been pretty early in the production run...

Now that one is interesting -- the design has an obvious "front" and "back" to it and visually (if nothing else) has a clear direction of travel. That's not quite the same case as a loco with two identical cabs that is equally at home running in either direction. (The AGEIR boxcab of 1925 that I posted about does have two cabs the same though, so the point that they were common on full width locos is valid). But nevertheless, the challenge is set ... find the first example of a hood pattern diesel loco with a cab at each end. What's interesting is that there were two standard patterns well established by circa 1930. A 'large' loco with a full cab at each end, or a 'small' loco with a single, centrally located cab looking out over the top of the loco in both directions. When ALCO came out with what I think is the first hood pattern diesel in 1931 and put a single cab at one end with the view to the other end down the side of the (admittedly short) loco, that would have been a significant innovation at the time. This appears to have been driven by cost savings -- the hood pattern is about easy maintenance, so a single cab is thematic for cost saving reasons. Then you've got all the passenger streamlined locos appearing throughout the mid '30s, and aside from the very first EMC pair (which was two dressed-up boxcabs semi-permanently coupled), all of those were also single cab designs, albeit this time done for appearance. These two locomotive patterns seems to have set the expectation (in the US, and then exported around the world) that diesel locos need only one cab, which has continued in much of the world to this day. Two end cabs specifically on a hood pattern loco appears to have only occurred once a) locos were powerful enough for solo use, b) a requirement to turn the loco was considered a problem, and c) forward visibility expectations of drivers had risen beyond the typical steam locomotive. This puts us well into the 1960s in most places. The wikipedia page mentions the Irish drivers (by then used to 001 and 201 class locos) refusing to drive the then-new GM 121s 'long hood forward' due to visibility concerns. I would not be surprised if the Irish 141 is actually the first such example. Remember that in some places at about that time, 'long hood forward' was still being insisted on due to perceived safety benefits in the event of a collision...

These were also delivered to NZ in 1955 as the Da class I believe. Also worth looking at for this purpose is the GE sourced QR 1150s (first delivered in 1952), and to see how a British manufacturer would approach the same challenge, the EE sourced QR 1200s (1953) and QR 1250s (1959). As far as early double cabbed mainline diesel locos, look at the Victorian B class, first delivered in 1952. A slightly shrunk EMD F7 with two full cabs and running on proper Co-Co bogies to boot as well. But two cabs on a diesel does date back much further than that. The original example surely has to be the AGEIR boxcabs of the mid 1920s. Sure, they mostly saw service in shunting and transfer work, but bigger versions for mainline work were built. So having two cabs on a diesel loco isn't something that didn't occur to manufacturers until much later. I guess with turntables everywhere and lots of other mainline engines with poor forward visibility anyway, two cabs wasn't a key selling feature until much, much later on.

Now you're just being ridiculous! Just how far out of gauge is this thing: I wonder what would it look like with the corners rounded off to fit within UK loading gauge. Looks like most of the issue areas aren't structural or mechanical, although space in the cab would be severely limited afterwards... Other starting points are available: