The Night Mail

[Tony_S]

My father had a Ford Corsair where the fuel cap was in the middle behind the rear number plate. 

[tetsudofan]

18 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

What car do you have Keith, and I'll not get one.

 

It's one of these Richard....

 

 

All very exciting...... maybe should have left it on the other side of the compound!!

 

Keith

[Northmoor]

1 hour ago, Happy Hippo said:

I was thinking particularly  of where all these caroplanes were going to land and take off.  The BMW/Audi/Mercedes brigade would believe they had priority over, pipe smoking Bob who is out for a Sunday afternoon Flive with dear old Doris, and spends his time loitering just above the stall and, well you get the picture. 

 

Automatic collision avoidance is all very well but if it keeps you in a stack and you get a technical problem or start running low on fuel where do you land?

 

Certainly the London mob would be baying for more access, as the only GA corridor (for  helicopters) is to follow the Thames.  Getting from Sleap in Shropshire to Headcorn in Kent is quite entertaining trying to dodge around all the controlled airspace, and you do end up speaking to controllers en-route.

Nobody is building "flying cars" to be piloted by Joe Public; they are intended to be taxis where you pre-book one to your destination and it navigates you there pilotlessly.  They will also fly along specific corridors (as aircraft do now) to avoid conflicting moves.

 

Still going to be a bl**dy expensive way for a few people to travel a few hundred miles though, when the main requirement of transport is to get hundreds or thousands of people no more than a few miles at a time.

[Northmoor]

1 hour ago, SM42 said:

Hence if in doubt I aim for the left side. If it's not there I would probably style it out by doing a quick tyre check all round before filling up.

I have found the most effective way to infuriate a queue of people who are all trying to get a pump on the same side at a filling station - without you doing anything wrong - is to turn your car round and reverse up to the pump.  So many people (a) can't reverse, (b) can't think their way round a simple problem and (c) are terrified of holding a rubber tube or that if it touches their car it might scratch it.

[Compound2632]

13 minutes ago, Northmoor said:

I have found the most effective way to infuriate a queue of people who are all trying to get a pump on the same side at a filling station - without you doing anything wrong - is to turn your car round and reverse up to the pump.  

 

I've generally found that the hose is long enough to fill up wrong side anyway, so long as you pull up sufficiently far forward that the rear of the car is in line with the pump. 

[Tony_S]

My brother had a schoolfriend (Jack)  who had a job at a petrol station. One evening a customer with a Jag pulled in and said fill it up. Jack noticed it had two filler caps so after filling one moved onto the other. The other one wasn’t actually connected to a tank. The driver was very cross, there was much shouting. 

[Happy Hippo]

43 minutes ago, Northmoor said:

I have found the most effective way to infuriate a queue of people who are all trying to get a pump on the same side at a filling station 

He's a very naughty boy!

[SM42]

31 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

I've generally found that the hose is long enough to fill up wrong side anyway, so long as you pull up sufficiently far forward that the rear of the car is in line with the pump. 

 

I think the thing that makes it awkward is that strange fixed u bend they put in

I find it makes the hose just about and inch too short

If its a hand hold. It's I find it is in just the wrong place too

 

Andy

[Tony_S]

2 minutes ago, SM42 said:

 

I think the thing that makes it awkward is that strange fixed u bend they put in

I find it makes the hose just about and inch too short

If its a hand hold. It's I find it is in just the wrong place too

 

Andy

On our Ford Fiesta you have to insert the nozzle quite precisely to depress the  thing that seals the pipe. There isn’t a petrol cap to remove. 

[New Haven Neil]

aaaannddd it's raining.  Because it is the last day of MER services for the year.  7 cars out, intensive timetable, goods vehicles on many trains etc. Some sunny periods did improve matters, we got soaked at one point but really enjoyed our day despite this.

 

Old number 1 is from 1893, still grinding her way around the rock, 2 was out too.  Sister 3 was lost in a fire in the '30's.  

 

[New Haven Neil]

Busy moment at Laxey.

 

[New Haven Neil]

Scarffy the driver (Andrew Scarff - he's written a lot of books about the island's electric railways) is getting wet - we're cosy inside!

 

[New Haven Neil]

Eeeuww.

 

[Pacific231G]

18 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Undoubtedly. I think you could put the Lynton & Barnstaple reproduction Baldwin as a prime example.

 

 

Certainly not than electric - the efficiency with which a large power station steam turbine can convert the energy content of a given coal into useful work much exceeds that of a reciprocating locomotive. Many early railway engineers recognised that the steam locomotive was a relatively poor solution to the problem of railway locomotion - winding engines were better! Brunel took the logical step but unfortunately electrical engineering was still little more than a twinkle in Michael Faraday's eye at the time and the vacuum tube technology succumbed to the rats.

 

 

Unfortunately the traditional use - for making weed-free paths - has rather gone the way of creosote.

The fundamental laws of thermodynamics make it very diifficult to produce power by boiling water more efficiently than via a very efficient diesel engine. The equation for the theoretical thermal efficiency for a heat engine is (T (source) - T(sink))/T (source)  in absolute degrees (which means that in deep space you could have an incredibly efficient steam engine) 

Diesels operate at a much higher combustion temperature (Tsource) than the hottest steam (and are far more efficient than petrol engines)  though they do waste a lot of energy from their very hot exhaust gases (Tsink)  . Though it might in practice be possible to have a steam engine that's more thermally efficient than a diesel, you need things like triple expansion, feedwater heaters and condensers to stand a chance which you can use with a power station or a large ship but hardly in a locomotive.

A far greater problem is that any power plant burning coal is way worse in terms of CO2 emissions than one burning hydrocarbons simply because coal is primarily carbon so its exhaust gases are mostly CO2 whereas those from burning hydrocarbons are a mixture of water and CO2- still not good but not as bad as burning coal.

Green Hydrogen (likely made from water using renewably generated electricity) would be an alternative fuel but still probably more efficiently burnt in an internal combustion engine than a steam locomotive's engine and it would be a lot less efficient than simply transmitting the electricity to the train. Of course, if you could ever develop a small (very) safe nuclear or perhaps more likely thermonuclear heat source then a steam locomotive might be the best way to use it on a railway. 

 

Atmospheric propulsion wasn't as daft an idea as  usually portrayed, though it was really overtaken by the development of more powerful steam locomotives. Brunel's  South Devon system had problems, probably from his characteristic over-ambition and from being in close proximity to the sea,  but atmospheric railways did operate succesfully at Dalkey from 1843-1854 and on the final steeply graded (1 in 28) section of the Paris-St. Germain railway from  1847-1860. In both cases on gradients (with a gravity return) and only replaced when more powerful steam loco were built that could satisfactorily haul trains up those gradients.

It may have had advantages over the alternative of cable haulage on modestly steep gradients  if you couldn't balance an ascending train with one descending as in a funicular railway but not over a locomotive powerful enough to tackle such a gradient.   

There are a couple of modern atmospheric railways (actually pressure difference as they use positive pressure as well as vacuum) in operation or construction and, as usual with unconventional guided vehicle systems, they serve airports.  

 

[SM42]

A 20 minute game of football in the street with nephew, BiL and SiL has had the final whistle blown due to fading light. Thankfully as I was getting tired ( I'm not as young as I  used to be)

 

Cake is now on the menu. 

 

Andy

 

[Compound2632]

18 minutes ago, Pacific231G said:

Atmospheric propulsion wasn't as daft an idea as  usually portrayed, though it was really overtaken by the development of more powerful steam locomotives.

 

 

There are a couple of modern atmospheric railways (actually pressure difference as they use positive pressure as well as vacuum) in operation or construction and, as usual with unconventional guided vehicle systems, they serve airports.  

 

Well, that's the thing. The available power is limited by the pressure differential for a given pipe diameter. So it's either a bigger pipe or going to positive pressure rather than vacuum. (Vide vacuum vs air brakes.) No double-heading, either.

[BSW01]

Filler caps. 

 

My car has at least 5

 

1 fuel

2 coolant 

3 oil

4 brake fluid

5 screen washer

 

[Tony_S]

1 hour ago, Pacific231G said:

Atmospheric propulsion wasn't as daft an idea

The Hyperloop train Elon Musk (and Virgin) are talking about seems to remove the atmosphere from the tunnel the train travels in to remove air resistance rather than provide the propulsion. 

[Tony_S]

1 hour ago, BSW01 said:

Filler caps. 

 

My car has at least 5

 

1 fuel

2 coolant 

3 oil

4 brake fluid

5 screen washer

 

When we first had a car, a Vauxhall Chevette, all of the fluids frequently needed filling. Modern cars seem less leaky. 

Edited October 31, 2021 by Tony_S

[Florence Locomotive Works]

1 hour ago, BSW01 said:

Filler caps. 

 

My car has at least 5

 

1 fuel

2 coolant 

3 oil

4 brake fluid

5 screen washer

 

You forgot the doors…..

[AndyID]

6 hours ago, Happy Hippo said:

NO2 was used during WWII to boost the performance of certain Mosquito  night fighter aircraft.  

 

I hope not! 

 

Nitrogen dioxide would be even less use than a chocolate teapot. I think you'd want to use N2O instead.

[AndyID]

9 hours ago, DenysW said:

Liquified air has been suggested as an alternative to battery storage to deal with the fact that solar and wind power don't work reliably around the clock. Not nitrogen: that adds a distillation stage.

 

It was claimed by the people pushing the idea (on Radio 4's Today programme) that it had about the same losses (30-40%) as charging and discharging batteries.

 

Yes, air works for a fixed installation but nitrogen would be much better for a mobile application. Distillation is only one of the ways used to capture liquid nitrogen.

[BSW01]

38 minutes ago, Florence Locomotive Works said:

You forgot the doors…..

Strickly speaking, doors aren't really filler caps! 

[SM42]

Myself and Mrs SM42 have just walked the MiL home and there are a numbers of trick or treaters out. Not the marauding hordes you find in the UK

All very civilised. One group wished us good evening.

 

Mind you it is a little more complicated here as everywhere  you go you need to use the intercom at the gate before you even get near a door. 

Then of course it is all frowned upon by the church.

 

On the way back we popped into the local cemetery. It was very busy as it always is at this time of year and is a sea of flickering candles as far as the eye can see. 

 

Tomorrow is All Saints and people who haven't already will be off to tend the graves of their loved ones and pay their respects. 

 

It is really a quite beautiful if a little sombre sight

 

Andy

[iL Dottore]

36 minutes ago, AndyID said:

I hope not! 

 

Nitrogen dioxide would be even less use than a chocolate teapot. I think you'd want to use N2O instead.

I stand corrected, Andy. I forgot my basic chemistry for a moment there. Of course nitrous oxide is N2O.

 

However, I’m not so sure nitrogen dioxide would only be as useful as a chocolate teapot. Wikipedia has this to say “As suggested by the weakness of the N–O bond, NO2 is a good oxidizer. Consequently, it will combust, sometimes explosively, with many compounds, such as hydrocarbons”

But anyway you slice it, nitrogen compounds can be pretty nasty things that can go “bang”