The Night Mail

[polybear]

4 hours ago, Happy Hippo said:

This is why I want to buy a scroll saw.  not for modelling but to make parts to fix things for other members of the family.

 

And do you honestly think the family will swallow that line.........?

[jamie92208]

Someone I knew made a diorama showing a large TTTEin a scrapyard. Ndarbg is a man with a cutting torch.

Hello I'm Thomas said 

Hello Thomad I'm Gertie the gas axe.

Oh f*ck said Thomas.

1 hour ago, Stubby47 said:

What would be worse would be making accurate faces for each loco, then putting them on the wrong-shaped loco...

Why don't you model various well known GOG members faces.

 

Jamie

[tomparryharry]

3 hours ago, The Johnster said:

Does it really matter, so long as there’s lashings and lashings of strawberry jam and fresh cream for tea...

 

OK,but I thought it was lashings & lashings of ginger beer.....

[Dave Hunt]

8 hours ago, Happy Hippo said:

At the risk of instant excommunication in the nether regions I would suggest this may be that they are rather temperamental, flighty, and can be really stubborn; they require a lot of preparation before they can go out. Much persuading, coaxing and gentle handling is required for maximum performance; plus on occasions they can be downright dirty.

 

And don't forget the fact that females cost a bl**dy fortune!

 

HH, sorry to hear that your acquisitions obtained for purely altruistic reasons have resulted in your stock of modelling tokens being depleted. My hot wire cutter, which was most certainly obtained for purely selfish reasons, has been enthusiastically played with by the household management and since I suggested that it could possibly be utilised for her craft activities has quite amazingly resulted in an increase in the DH brownie point balance. Hardly seems fair does it? I'm now working on ideas for the new static grass applicator and the cobblestones roller that arrived today . Then there's the two Slaters P.O. wagon kits that are on order - maybe pushing it a bit I suppose.

 

Back to more plastering on the layout tomorrow I hope  - with a bit of luck for the last time as it's been taking me longer to clean up afterwards that to do the actual work. Then on to playing with DAS and my new roller from Spain.

 

Have a good weekend people and wear those masks.

 

Dave 

 

PS, I see that someone over on ERs has been slapped on the wrist for posting arsy comments and is apparently being banned. 

 

 

[Erichill16]

More positive about transfers as I’ve just applied some to WHR stock. Did the right thing, gloss varnish, transfer, Matt varnish so let’s hope they stay put. May get round to weathering them tomorrow. I’m expecting a delivery tomorrow so may get distracted...........

Robert

 

 

[Happy Hippo]

23 minutes ago, Dave Hunt said:

 I see that someone over on ERs has been slapped on the wrist for posting arsy comments and is apparently being banned. 

Somebody in the light hearted and caring community of ER's?

 

Wonders will never cease.

 

I suppose the offender will join those who've transgressed in the past and go on to join another forum where they will generally run RMWeb down and  complain about how all the moderating team used to be in the Gestapo.

[bbishop]

I've continued with my "Number Two" article, writing up Robert Urie as works manager at Nine Elms.  Which led onto two distractions. First I found my great grandfather's signature on a document submitted to the Locomotive Committee.  Then you all remember Abermule on the Cambrian Railways in 1922.  Well the LSWR had four potential Abermules in a two year period, two of them at the same station.  Three of them were probably trivial because the driver got a bollocking from Drummond and lost a few days pay.  I imagine in each case he stopped within station limits.  In the fourth case the driver set off without changing the tablet, in this case he was reduced to running shed duties.  I expect the signalman was in the as well.  Bill

[bbishop]

50 minutes ago, Dave Hunt said:

 

 

PS, I see that someone over on ERs has been slapped on the wrist for posting arsy comments and is apparently being banned. 

 

Dave

 

If it is who I think it is, then that is why several people (myself included) have been avoiding ER recently.  I was reported for posting a philosophical statement - comparing the incompetence of Corbyn and May,  Both were fair game in my view, but apparently May was above reproach.  I think he saw off Ian and Sherry as well.  Bill

[The Johnster]

6 hours ago, tomparryharry said:

 

OK,but I thought it was lashings & lashings of ginger beer.....

Possibly.  I know it was lashings and lashings of it, whatever it was.

 

4 hours ago, bbishop said:

I've continued with my "Number Two" article, writing up Robert Urie as works manager at Nine Elms.  Which led onto two distractions. First I found my great grandfather's signature on a document submitted to the Locomotive Committee.  Then you all remember Abermule on the Cambrian Railways in 1922.  Well the LSWR had four potential Abermules in a two year period, two of them at the same station.  Three of them were probably trivial because the driver got a bollocking from Drummond and lost a few days pay.  I imagine in each case he stopped within station limits.  In the fourth case the driver set off without changing the tablet, in this case he was reduced to running shed duties.  I expect the signalman was in the as well.  Bill

This is a little surprising, and worrying.  It has long been my view that the Abermule accident was a one off, a rare example of what is a more or less foolproof system being defeated by fools, the combined negligence of the entire station staff (except perhaps the stationmaster, who was at lunch over the pub, hardly a shining example) and the loco crew of the stopping train.  IIRC this was some half dozen individuals who were required to be negligent at the same time in order to enable the accident to happen, which I thought was more or less impossible and would be unlikely to happen again.  

 

If there were 4 'near misses' on the LSWR in a 2 year period, you can reasonably assume that there was a similar rate of them on other railways that had single track sections.  Perhaps the system wasn't as foolproof as I'd thought, and given the point that this same basic system is still used on most heritage railways and some NR routes, my faith in it is lessened!

[BR60103]

I have a theory that most railway accidents require 3 separate mistakes. Discuss.

 

One of the mistakes is often management skimping on spending for safety features.

 

[TheQ]

8 hours ago, Happy Hippo said:

Somebody in the light hearted and caring community of ER's?

 

Wonders will never cease.

 

I suppose the offender will join those who've transgressed in the past and go on to join another forum where they will generally run RMWeb down and  complain about how all the moderating team used to be in the Gestapo.

I belong to several.forums on another subject,  one character managed to get himself banned from all of them,  making wilder comments each time,  eventually he was traced and had a visit from Mr Plod.. 

[TheQ]

2 hours ago, BR60103 said:

I have a theory that most railway accidents require 3 separate mistakes. Discuss.

 

One of the mistakes is often management skimping on spending for safety features.

 

Trouble these days is they are imported to the company as managers, they have no idea about how the actual business works. No idea that what they are saving money on is safety related. They just get brought in because they have a reputation for saving money.  The directors who import them, also often don't have a clue on how the business works and don't notice the trail of devastation left behind the money savers previous employments. 

[Oldddudders]

9 hours ago, Dave Hunt said:

PS, I see that someone over on ERs has been slapped on the wrist for posting arsy comments and is apparently being banned. 

Sherry and I - we are only very occasional ERs folk these days - guessed his identity. Civilisation is unlikely to collapse as a result of his departure. 

[Northroader]

Certainly with derailments you need three things to come together. One is a track fault, secondly a rolling stock fault, thirdly the speed of the train. If a single fault is very obvious, either everything will derail at that location, or that piece of stock will come off everywhere, but the more subtle faults need to combine, and even then the train won’t come off until the speed is increased sufficiently.

[Happy Hippo]

35 minutes ago, Northroader said:

Certainly with derailments you need three things to come together. One is a track fault, secondly a rolling stock fault, thirdly the speed of the train. If a single fault is very obvious, either everything will derail at that location, or that piece of stock will come off everywhere, but the more subtle faults need to combine, and even then the train won’t come off until the speed is increased sufficiently.

I think you might consider adding human error to that list. 

As an example I'd quote the GCR derailment a few years back.  Nothing wrong with the track/signals; Nothing wrong with the loco, very slow speed, but misunderstanding between driver and signaller resulted in the loco running through the trap and into the ballast.

[Dave Hunt]

As with aviation, railway accidents are sometimes the result of a single mistake or equipment failure and such things can often (sometimes) be prevented from recurring relatively easily by changing a procedure, redesigning something, removing a cause of stress (human or material) etc. More perplexing are those accidents that result from a concatenation of factors, especially when they are seemingly unrelated, and a lot of effort goes into trying to find and then eliminate the root cause. One of the common factors that has always been present, and I suspect always will despite repeated and ongoing attempts to eliminate it, is familiarity leading to relaxation of attentiveness to the rules and procedures. This is generally an unconscious process although there are some individuals who just 'know better' but don't bother to discuss their wisdom (or lack of it) with colleagues. A contributing factor here is the imposition of unnecessary, petty, annoying and sometimes even stupid rules enforced in the name of health and safety that only serve to frustrate those on whom they are imposed and gradually erode respect for rules in general. And then, of course, there is Q's point about management failure, which I think is strongly allied to the 'I know better' type, and the pernicious worship of the profit column of the balance sheet to the detriment of almost everything else. All in all, although things generally improve through experience, as long as human beings are involved in any way there will, sadly, be accidents.

 

Dave

[jamie92208]

I seem to remember that most major incidents have a chain of causation factors, usually 6 or 7 and the chain can be broken at any point if people are willing and able to do that.  This certainly applies in railway and aviation accidents and from my experience in the mojor incidents I dealt with as a police officer.

 

Jamie

[Happy Hippo]

7 minutes ago, Dave Hunt said:

A contributing factor here is the imposition of unnecessary, petty, annoying and sometimes even stupid rules enforced in the name of health and safety that only serve to frustrate those on whom they are imposed and gradually erode respect for rules in general. 

A prime example was the requirement for helicopter crews on the flight line at Aberdeen airport to wear yellow tabards so that they could be seen easily.  Despite wearing bright red  immersion suits and all their associated survival gear, they still have to put on the tabard, which could only be removed once inside the cockpit.

 

The trouble with tabards is when you have a cluster of people they become less obvious to the eye. Probably why all the various flight deck crew on aircraft carriers wear different colour tabards which coincide with their job.  Because then the eye can spot a colour that is out of place.

 

We used to use them sparingly: 'Incident Commander'  which does makes the person stand out and easy to identify.  Too many and they become invisible.

 

However, in a previous job, we got to the stage where we were even stripping rank badges off combat kit so as to blend with the herd! See it as an extension to the decision to discontinue using red jackets.

[Oldddudders]

1 hour ago, Northroader said:

Certainly with derailments you need three things to come together. One is a track fault, secondly a rolling stock fault, thirdly the speed of the train. If a single fault is very obvious, either everything will derail at that location, or that piece of stock will come off everywhere, but the more subtle faults need to combine, and even then the train won’t come off until the speed is increased sufficiently.

That pretty much accords with an accident investigator's remarks to me a couple of decades ago. He was looking at a site where the track was a bit ropey, wheels were a bit worn and who knew what the speed was on many miles of straight track? As he was the former Regional Civil Engineer I felt he knew his onions. 

 

[Happy Hippo]

Mention of the Abermule accident made me go back through some past WRRC newletters.

 

There was also an accident between Abermule and Montgomery in 1907.

 

A livestock train returning from Aberystwyth parted, and then came back together again.

 

A number of people and animals were killed in the resulting collision.

 

Another person was killed when the breakdown crane toppled over whilst removing wreckage from the line.

[Tony_S]

The video circulating on Twitter at the moment of the chap trying to stop the Voyager rolling away has the cameraman commenting that he is wearing hi vis so that will help. 

[Erichill16]

I read a book a couple of years ago by Eric Schlosser titled Command and Control. It was subtitled ‘They history of nuclear weapons and the illusion of safety’. A real eye opener for those not in the business. The main story in the book starts with a technician accidentally dropping a spanner down a nuclear missile silo and ending with the missile silo exploding and depositing the nuclear warhead out in the country. There are other ‘tales’ of minor incidents leading to catastrophic incidents, it surprising a nuclear explosion didn’t  actually occur. 
I can’t find my copy but it does deserve another read. I seem to remember that lawyers got involved in deciding when an incident could be called. A real farce.

Robert

[bbishop]

Two incidents were starting without the tablet, obviously released by the signalman and the signals pulled off, then on the footplate: "Have you the tablet, Cecil?", "No, have you Claude?", "Oh gosh!"  No danger, just delays to traffic, an interview with Dugald Drummond, and in one case a fine.  In one incident at Tipton St Johns, the station master gave the driver the wrong tablet.  Clearly he started off, because there were delays to traffic, but I think he stopped within station limits because Drummond took no further action, any repercussions being on the traffic side.  In the second Tipton St Johns incident, the driver departed without changing the tablet, presumably passing a signal at danger, and was not allowed to take charge of an engine again.  Bill

[PatB]

There's a saying, which I first heard in connection with aviation but which, I suspect, can be applied to most potentially hazardous pursuits. It goes something like "It is rare to get your head bitten off by a tiger which comes out of nowhere. It is far more common to be nibbled to death by ducks, most of which you knew were there all the time." 

[Dave Hunt]

Having spent forty years in aviation, nibbled to death by ducks was a phrase heard almost every day. There was also, of course, the well-known Murphy's law and the less well-known O'Toole's law which says that Murphy was an optimist. Another character that appeared in many a flight safety poster when I joined the RAF was Fred the wheeltapper who had discovered ten times more cracked wheels than anyone else until it was discovered that his hammer was cracked.

 

Dave

 

Jamie, just learned over on ERs of Beth's fall. I hope that she is OK and getting the treatment she needs. Please pass on my best wishes for a speedy recovery.

Edited July 25, 2020 by Dave Hunt