The Night Mail

[Oldddudders]

ISTR someone about 40 years ago saying the only way up Porlock Hill in his even-then-venerable car was in reverse. And in the last decade, my soldier godson (!) driving up the modest hill in Mamers on a snowy day, when others were despairing of achieving it, simply put his parents' Hyundai people-carrier in reverse and sailed up. He does have an HGV licence, so reversing is something he can do. And there was an imperative - a ferry to catch!

[Northmoor]

24 minutes ago, Oldddudders said:

ISTR someone about 40 years ago saying the only way up Porlock Hill in his even-then-venerable car was in reverse. And in the last decade, my soldier godson (!) driving up the modest hill in Mamers on a snowy day, when others were despairing of achieving it, simply put his parents' Hyundai people-carrier in reverse and sailed up. He does have an HGV licence, so reversing is something he can do. And there was an imperative - a ferry to catch!

I did that up our not very steep street some years ago, after a heavy snowfall and enough passing vehicles to have turned the road to glass.  Even a bus was stood there with its wheels slowly spinning.  I edged my 306 back and forth out of its parking space and slowly reversed up the street, barely above tickover, to the level stretch at the junction at the end.  Most disappointing that there was no-one there to applaud.......

The vast majority of people cannot understand that when your wheels are spinning, applying MORE power won't help.

[polybear]

2 hours ago, Dave Hunt said:

 

Ah, Amsterdam, one of my favourite cities that we used to visit often when we lived in the Netherlands - from the look of the photograph about the same time in the '70s.

 

Dave

 

Bear has never been, but will one day.  I'll not mention it though - ".....single Bear, going to Amsterdam eh? Nudge Nudge, Wink Wink....snigger....."

 

2 hours ago, Dave Hunt said:

 

I once had the brake master cylinder on a Cortina split when descending the Italian side of the Grossglockner pass from Austria in 1971. To say it was bum clenching would be a severe understatement and at a couple of hairpin bends alongside which there was several thousand feet of bu**er all until the floor I thought our time had come but fortunately there appeared a huge mound of grit and gravel into which I steered. Whether it was just for gritting the road in winter or part of the improvements that were being made (as Tony stated, the road on the Austrian side was good, that on the Italian side not so) I don't know but it saved our bacon.

 

Dave

 

Bear drove up to Alagna (Monte Rosa, Italy) several times in the mid 80's whilst working at Augusta Helicopters;  the road was best described as "sh1t scary" - with memorials to Giovanni etc., who didn't make it which driving his GTV.  Looked like the road was built by the Jerries in WW2 (and not maintained since), complete with "token" crash barriers (that wouldn't - and often didn't - stop a pedal kart, let alone a car.  Got to the top one year with no snow chains on - did wonder why I was getting funny looks......

And the Italians were bombing up and down it in Coaches full of skiers.

 

19 minutes ago, Northmoor said:

I did that up our not very steep street some years ago, after a heavy snowfall and enough passing vehicles to have turned the road to glass.  Even a bus was stood there with its wheels slowly spinning.  I edged my 306 back and forth out of its parking space and slowly reversed up the street, barely above tickover, to the level stretch at the junction at the end.  Most disappointing that there was no-one there to applaud.......

The vast majority of people cannot understand that when your wheels are spinning, applying MORE power won't help.

 

Bear applauded you.....

[SM42]

I have only been to Amsterdam once and I was not impressed. 

The city just seemed uncared for wherever you went.

 

In contrast Rotterdam seemed a much nicer, cleaner and vibrant place.

Maybe the model railway swayed my thoughts. 

 

Rotterdam was also the first and only place so far that I have used an elevator whilst sat in the car. 

 

Andy

[PhilJ W]

2 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Back in 2001, I found myself wondering about that sort of thing whilst descending Porlock Hill behind the wheel of a 1 litre Corsa containing four adults, one toddler and, we later discovered, one foetus. I was in first with my foot hard on the brake but still slowly gaining on the petrol tanker in front. I reasoned that any impact would be at sufficiently low relative velocity it would be a soft landing.

 

Needless to say, we left Porlock in the Minehead direction. No way was I going to attempt to drive back up that hill!

My dad was a driver mechanic when he was in the army and passed as a driving instructor. He taught me that you should always use the same gear descending a hill as you would use to get up it so in the case of Porlock Hill that would be second gear. When I visited Tinkers Park last month the car park was a quagmire, even 4X4's were getting stuck and they had a couple of tractors on hand to pull vehicles out. They offered me a tow but I said not to bother and put the car into second gear and with the engine barely above tickover drove out. There is a film on You Tube of cars including 4X4's failing to climb a steep and icy road and a bus sailing past them and up the hill. 

[Tony_S]

Some 4x4 have poor off road capability. Some do have good off road behaviour but the driver doesn’t know what to do. My car is easy, you just turn the knob to a picture of the terrain. I once assisted a chap who got a very capable Toyota truck stuck in a snowdrift he had reversed into in a Tesco car park. He had no idea what the gear options were. We went on an off road driving experience when we first bought a Land Rover. Now I know some people can drive them in all sorts of situations but for the rest of us the traction and terrain response controls are very helpful. Aditi was enjoying herself driving through what looked like farm slurry at or about the cars (the centres car not ours!) wading depth when the instructor suggested trying it without the transmission support options. Didn’t go anywhere!

[jamie92208]

Tickover is very helpful.  One snow night in Morley I was trying to get up what's known as Churwell hill, the A643. Everything was slipping, sliding or heading down. I was in a rover 820. I put it in 2nd and left it on tickover, it sailed up.  

 

Jamie

[Compound2632]

2 hours ago, Oldddudders said:

ISTR someone about 40 years ago saying the only way up Porlock Hill in his even-then-venerable car was in reverse. And in the last decade, my soldier godson (!) driving up the modest hill in Mamers on a snowy day, when others were despairing of achieving it, simply put his parents' Hyundai people-carrier in reverse and sailed up. He does have an HGV licence, so reversing is something he can do. And there was an imperative - a ferry to catch!

 

1 hour ago, Northmoor said:

I did that up our not very steep street some years ago, after a heavy snowfall and enough passing vehicles to have turned the road to glass.  Even a bus was stood there with its wheels slowly spinning.  I edged my 306 back and forth out of its parking space and slowly reversed up the street, barely above tickover, to the level stretch at the junction at the end.  Most disappointing that there was no-one there to applaud.......

 

Going up hill in reverse is all very well but does that mean I'd have been better off coming down Porlock Hill in reverse, like my maternal grandmother coming down stairs?

[Florence Locomotive Works]

6 hours ago, Dave Hunt said:

 

"And here at the World's Ugliest Steam Locomotive pageant, we have a clear winner............."

 

Dave

Depends on who you ask and which engine your looking at, those aren’t the nicest of their family.

 

Heres probably the best looking one:

 

 

credit: https://www.railpictures.net/photo/438486/

Edited September 19, 2021 by Florence Locomotive Works

[Tony_S]

28 minutes ago, Florence Locomotive Works said:

Depends on who you ask and which engine your looking at, those aren’t the nicest of their family.

 

Heres probably the best looking one:

 

 

credit: https://www.railpictures.net/photo/438486/

When we visited the museum in Mulhouse it was before the Cité makeover. We had a great day there. 

[AndyID]

3 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

 

Going up hill in reverse is all very well but does that mean I'd have been better off coming down Porlock Hill in reverse, like my maternal grandmother coming down stairs?

 

I don't know about your maternal grannie's case but when a car is on a gradient more weight transfers to the "downhill" end. This gives front-wheel drive cars more traction ascending a gradient in reverse.

 

My rear-wheel drive 124 has no problem climbing our gravel drive into the garage going forwards but I have to be very careful not to spin the wheels when reversing up the drive.

[AndyID]

7 hours ago, Dave Hunt said:

 

Ah, Amsterdam, one of my favourite cities that we used to visit often when we lived in the Netherlands - from the look of the photograph about the same time in the '70s.

 

Dave

 

Yes, '75 I think Dave. We did a three week "grand camping  tour" with Australian friends in my rather dodgy '65 VW 1500 Variant. I remember replacing the oil pump to try to improve the pressure the night before we left.

 

Other than a serious case of brake fade on the descent into Grasse we got away with it!

[Happy Hippo]

38 minutes ago, AndyID said:

 

Yes, '75 I think Dave. We did a three week "grand camping  tour" with Australian friends in my rather dodgy '65 VW 1500 Variant. I remember replacing the oil pump to try to improve the pressure the night before we left.

 

Other than a serious case of brake fade on the descent into Grasse we got away with it!

My father in law had a Variant: Istr it had drum brakes.

 

I suspect that was the reason that drivers in olden days were taught to go down through the gearbox for engine braking assistance.

 

I remember teaching a young lady to drive in an automatic, and teaching her to use the use the manual over ride to keep in low gear when descending hills.

 

Her father was not impressed by this  'As it's an automatic so you don't need to do that.'

 

He was much more convinced after I gave him a demonstration of descending some steep hills.

 

Another thing I used to teach was straight line braking.  That is do not use the brakes to decelerate whilst going around corners.  By all means use them to maintain the speed but not to decrease it.

 

Jamie can probably quote chapter and verse from Roadcraft on keeping the vehicle balanced.

[AndyID]

1 hour ago, Happy Hippo said:

My father in law had a Variant: Istr it had drum brakes.

 

Yes. my Variant had drums and a 6 volt battery. The situation was probably not helped by the luggage and camping gear for four people. Those Variants could hold a lot of stuff. We also had a fully loaded roof-rack on it

 

All the later rear-engined VW's had disks at the front. Probably around '68 in the UK. They also dumped the "automatic roll-over" swing axles around that time in favor of semi-trailing arm rear suspension.

 

I've had eight VW's over the years including a water cooled, rear-engined Vanagon. It was a bit of a disaster because the coolant tended to leak where the cylinders attached to the crankcase.

 

EDIT: That's not quite right. The leak was between the cylinder heads and the cylinders. Iron cylinders and aluminium heads and a rubber gasket. It didn't take long for corrosion to set in.

Edited September 19, 2021 by AndyID
Correction

[Tony_S]

36 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

 

 

He was much more convinced after I gave him a demonstration of descending some steep hills.

I have driven a traditional 1,2,D type automatic down  steep hills (Mount Washington is quite a hill) and followed the advice to use the low gears. It seemed good advice. It doesn’t seem necessary in my auto Evoque. It has a nine speed gearbox. I wonder if the gearbox electronics do the shifting down when he car is going downhill? It is very easy to force a gear change with the steering wheel paddles but I haven’t felt the need to. I have practised using them  just in case. 

[PhilJ W]

It is said that the best anti car theft device you can have fitted to a car in the USA is a manual gearbox.

[AndyID]

4 minutes ago, Tony_S said:

I wonder if the gearbox electronics do the shifting down when he car is going downhill?

 

Hi Tony,

 

Yes, modern automatics change down on a descent to prevent increasing speed.

 

I always think it's a pity they don't display what gear it is in. Mine does, but only when I put it manual-mode (which is nothing like a conventional manual transmission )

 

Andy

[AndyID]

4 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

It is said that the best anti car theft device you can have fitted to a car in the USA is a manual gearbox.

 

Yes, and there is no restriction on your driving license if you passed your test in an automatic. Is there still a restriction in the UK? Come to think of it I've only had one driving test in the US. It was in Arizona and the guy made me drive because "you lot drive on the wrong side of the road" or words to that effect . I think MrsID only had to do the written test.

[Tony_S]

12 minutes ago, AndyID said:

Is there still a restriction in the UK?

Yes. 

[Tony_S]

I had never driven an automatic until I collected our hire car from the top floor of a multi storey car park in Boston. I don’t  seem to have any problem swapping between a manual and an automatic now. Aditi prefers the Evoque automatic to the Freelander automatic as there isn’t anything that looks like a gear stick in the Evoque. It is a rotary knob. 

Edited September 19, 2021 by Tony_S

[Tony_S]

27 minutes ago, AndyID said:

always think it's a pity they don't display what gear it is in. Mine does, but only when I put it manual-mode (which is nothing like a conventional manual transmission )

Mine is the same. I did give myself a slight surprise recently. I had parked outside our local pharmacy and was pulling out from the parking. I must have knocked the paddle locking it in second as I accelerated somewhat faster than I expected. 
Tony

[PhilJ W]

24 minutes ago, AndyID said:

 

Yes, and there is no restriction on your driving license if you passed your test in an automatic. Is there still a restriction in the UK? 

As I understand it they are changing the law so that if you pass your test on a manual you can no longer drive an automatic without another test. Fortunately if you passed your test on a manual before the law was changed you can still drive an automatic ('grandfather' rules).

[Happy Hippo]

41 minutes ago, AndyID said:

 

Hi Tony,

 

Yes, modern automatics change down on a descent to prevent increasing speed.

 

I always think it's a pity they don't display what gear it is in. Mine does, but only when I put it manual-mode (which is nothing like a conventional manual transmission )

 

Andy

Our SEAT does, showing the gear and driving mode D1-D7 or S1-S6 The sports mode doesn't go to 7th gear

 

THE BMW shows either D, or if you switch it to Sport Mode an S.

 

However, if you manually up or down shift when in S mode, the gearbox then switched to 'manual mode' and shows M1-M6.

 

 

 

 

[pH]

56 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

It is said that the best anti car theft device you can have fitted to a car in the USA is a manual gearbox.

I bought tee shirts online for grandkids. I still get adverts from that site. This one seems relevant to this discussion:

 

https://www.lovessales.com/products/womens-yes-i-can-drive-a-stick-sweatshirt

[Tony_S]

35 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

THE BMW shows either D, or if you switch it to Sport Mode an S.

 

I don't think i have put the Evoque in S mode . It doesn't seem necessary. It was useful with the Freelanders at certain local road junctions.