Early Risers.

[jamie92208]

3 hours ago, AndyID said:

 

I don't think any of the Midland Compounds were ever configured as simple expansion locomotives with the same displacement but I suspect if they had been Deeley and Fowler would have come to the same conclusion as Churchward.

 

 

That's exactly what Deeley, IIRC did, by building 10 locos of the 990 class, same boiler and similar running gear, though a very odd valve gear. They spent their rather short lives on the Settle and Carlisle but were withdrawn as non standard in 1928. I presume that somewhere there was some comparative testing but I've never seen the evidence.  Mr Hunt may know better. 

 

Jamie

Edited July 1, 2020 by jamie92208

[Ozexpatriate]

6 hours ago, Gwiwer said:

As some of you with whom I keep in contact via other channels will know I have been taking a short break from ERs.  I felt my comments were becoming a little repetitive and were not offering empathy and support to others.  I shall probably continue with the break for a few more days.

Rick, I for one of our little community, look forward to your missives. Much here is the humdrum of our daily lives, and some is just silly. I look forward to your future posts when you feel so inclined.

 

6 hours ago, Gwiwer said:

There has been increasing strain evident within the Hill of Strawberries as SWMBO endures her anxiety-driven self-imposed exile within these four walls.  Working from home is one thing but she is increasingly fearful of catching something outside even without returning to work.  She does perhaps over-study the science but she is a scientist and analyses figures, trends and data in a way only she seems to understand.  

I too am experiencing an increased anxiety over the pandemic related to an underlying condition with bad CoViD-19 prognoses. Data and trends here are in completely the wrong direction. Diagnoses here have been up and to the right ever since the Memorial Day weekend (at the end of June) when reopening began. I am happy to leave the house to run errands, suitably masked, but it is (past) time for me to be focused on finding a job. The pandemic has had a stifling effect on my recruiting mojo.

 

This morning the governor was back on television begging people not to congregate this weekend for the 4th of July and to limit themselves to their immediate household. My oldest is planning a small family get-together. The weather should be nice and we should be able to distance outside. I now find myself conflicted about this event.

 

6 hours ago, Gwiwer said:

Early this morning she received the email she had been waiting for following eight years of PhD research and writing.  The assessment is complete. ...

Congratulations Dr. Sharon. It is a genuine accomplishment.

[AndyID]

Probably feeling slightly guilty after imposing their expansionist policies that resulted in the conversion of my former office into the swearing sewing room les autorités domestique have authorized the acquisition of additional computation equipment (aka a PC). I've been displaced to my shed where I'm using the laptop (with a decent monitor) but it's not the best thing for some of the software I use.

 

I use CAD and 3D printing programs that are computation intensive. They are mainly single threaded and not well suited to multi-core, parallel computing. The graphics are not that important. I don't do a lot of clever 3D rendering. I'll probably go for some SSD to speed up file access and program starting.

 

Any suggestions?

[Tony_S]

I shall find some of my trains to post images of. I quite like the idea of giving a home to teddy bears. 
 

[Ozexpatriate]

2 minutes ago, AndyID said:

I use CAD and 3D printing programs that are computation intensive. They are mainly single threaded and not well suited to multi-core, parallel computing.

Some CAD applications are very suitable for multi-threading, but of course is up to the developers to 'make it so'. Efficient multi-threaded application development is a particular skill.

[Coombe Barton]

... and an aging hippy.

 

https://johncolby.wordpress.com/2020/07/01/political-statistics/

[Compound2632]

I should like to point out that in none of my recent posts on this thread have I made any mention of model trains or model railways.

[Coombe Barton]

Mechanical engineers build weapons

 

Civil engineers build targets

 

Model engineers mention and image things that become targets for the multi-awl flinging machine.

 

It gives us something to do and provides humour for those so inclined.

[AndyID]

7 minutes ago, jamie92208 said:

That's exactly what Deeley, IIRC did, by building 10 locos of thec990 class, same boiler and similar running gear, though a very odd valve gear. They spent their rather short lives on the Settle and Carlisle but Stanier were withdrawn as non standard un 1928. I presume that somewhere there was some comparative testing but I've never seen the evidence.  Mr Hunt may know better. 

 

Jamie

 

Thanks for that Jamie. As Poirot probably never said "Ze plot thickens."

 

What I do know is that you can only get a certain amount of work from a hot gas as it expands and cools. (Any more than that is against the law.) That's not to say you can't do a lot of clever things that minimize the parasitic losses during the process. That is mainly what compounding does.

[AndyID]

25 minutes ago, Ozexpatriate said:

Some CAD applications are very suitable for multi-threading, but of course is up to the developers to 'make it so'. Efficient multi-threaded application development is a particular skill.

 

Not the ones I use

[Ozexpatriate]

15 hours ago, chrisf said:

I am conscious of becoming more irritable with the passage of time.  If only there were a cure for that. 

I suspect that the 'better living through chemistry' people at Big Pharma offer something they would consider a 'cure'. Like me, I suspect you would not be interested in such a 'cure'.

 

I found myself quite irritable this morning. My doorbell rang (an unusual event, with the exception of delivery people). Answering the door and brusquely asking what he needed, I found a suitably distanced, young affiliate of a pest control company trying to convince me that my neighbours (by their first names) needed his services to deter sugar ants and would I? With an equally brusque 'good bye' I closed the door on him*.

 

* Later I was reminded of:

Quote

 ... I should have lived to be good-morninged by Belladonna Took’s son, as if I was selling buttons at the door!

 

All this follows a telephone call yesterday from a roofer suggesting that they were in the area (the same house, I suspect from the anti-moss treatment on the roof) and wouldn't I need their services?  I let her know that my roof is not yet four years old.

 

The house on the corner with the moss treatment might be close to twenty years old. It was recently purchased and there has been an onslaught of improvements including a classic "keep up with the Joneses" fountain to match the new one next door to them. These fountains are in fact about ten feet apart across the property line.

[brianusa]

34 minutes ago, Ozexpatriate said:

his morning the governor was back on television begging people not to congregate this weekend for the 4th of July and to limit themselves to their immediate household. My oldest is planning a small family get-together. The weather should be nice and we should be able to distance outside. I now find myself conflicted about this event

 

The gov tries but its an uphill battle especially this weekend, Fourth of July, Saturday night, don't have to get up next morning, schools out, no civic shows; its going to be a 4th to remember sadly.  Already boxes from Indian reservations are waiting to be opened, some are already judging by the local bangs, so prepare for Saturday.  Beer will be drunk, rockets launched, animals scared.  Fingers missing, eyes blinded or worse; will they ever learn?

All this and Covid too!

     Brian.

[Ozexpatriate]

56 minutes ago, Coombe Barton said:

... and an aging hippy. (CoViD-19 graphs)

Despite not having a haircut in more than four months, I am not close to approximating a pony tail. My hair gets thicker more than it gets longer.

 

US graph data is much scarier.

 

State by state Rt. 

 

Google: covid-19 cases in us

 

Daily new CoViD-19 diagnoses are now far higher than the initial peak in early April. Deaths have declined but are still in the range of 100s per day.

 

Unlike most places the 'first wave' did not bottom out anywhere near zero, rather the first wave has morphed into a bimodal shape where we haven't yet reached the second peak.

 

Edited July 1, 2020 by Ozexpatriate

[Erichill16]

Evening Everyone,

Good to hear Mrs Gwiwer is now Dr Gwiwer and lets hope things become less intense. I’m always happy to read people’s rambling especially if it helps the rambler let off steam. If others don’t wish to read the entry so be it but I say if it helps post, post post! 
im not sure my posts are relevant, sympathetic, informative or humorous but it’s a way of unwinding. 
im also beginning to get tense when I go shopping, it’s all the dodging other people that gets me down. I can’t think what I want because I’m always on the lookout for others who don’t respect the situation. My balance problem is exacerbated by anxiety and then my balance problem makes me more anxious. I’ll shut up now,  this is a model railway forum not a medical one. Oh no sorry I’m mistaken, model railways and railways ARE excluded. I will go on about my ailments! 

Didnt get to Skipton, SWMBO didn’t feel too good this morning and my get up and go decided to have a lie in. The gluten free chippy in town opened yesterday so I did make  my way there for our tea. 
Most of the day was spent pottering around the garden and I managed a bit of, erm well, modelling, but no pictures.
Goodnight,

Robert

Edited July 1, 2020 by Erichill16
Typo

[J. S. Bach]

20 minutes ago, Ozexpatriate said:

 ...snip... All this follows a telephone call yesterday from a roofer suggesting that they were in the area (the same house, I suspect from the anti-moss treatment on the roof) and wouldn't I need their services?  I let her know that my roof is not yet four years old. ...snip...

I would have told her something like "I like the moss on my roof, it is plugging the leaks." and then hung up.

[laurenceb]

Keep posting Rick, I for one was missing you

Night awl

[tigerburnie]

G'night all

[PhilJ W]

Evening all from Estuary-Land. Arthur Itis is insistent that it is going to rain in the wee small hours so a brace of co-codamols is keeping him quiet. My friends lad is back at school, three days a week. Being special education needs he needs the tuition. He was doing very well since he's been attending the special school but the school being locked down hasn't helped.

[Ozexpatriate]

30 minutes ago, J. S. Bach said:

I would have told her something like "I like the moss on my roof, it is plugging the leaks."

She seemed to be hoping I was ready for a new roof. Perhaps in a dozen years or so.

 

Meanwhile the local public television station has switched back to their pre-pandemic programming - cooking and travel shows at lunchtime, and kiddies' shows in the mid-afternoon. This might be a good thing. Perhaps I will use the time for something worthwhile.

 

Daytime television on the corporate networks is unwatchable. There are of course many alternatives, but I've avoided the deliberate focused watching of shows during what are notionally 'working hours' as a monumental time-sink. I have this notion that I will use the time to do job-hunting or some other useful activity that won't happen if I start consciously watching anything. 

 

It's about time for a constitutional.

Edited July 1, 2020 by Ozexpatriate

[AndyID]

29 minutes ago, J. S. Bach said:

I would have told her something like "I like the moss on my roof, it is plugging the leaks." and then hung up.

 

You may laugh, but in my case that's quite possible true. It's been there for 25 years and rapidly approaching the "sell by" date.

[The Stationmaster]

Morning all,

 

A little bit drizzly out there and still pleasantly cool.  Two of the bins have been emptied but the other lot of binmen haven't bin yet so the recycling bins still awaits their indulgence and attention.  The younger of the young ladies next door has borrowed n my concrete mixer in order to hopefully ease the hard work of mixing building sand with clay in order to finish off her pizza over.  Said oven does look most impressive but I'm far from sure how much use the mixer will be in produced puddled clay and have warned her not to use too much water and to add both clay and sand gradually and in an alternating manner.  Maybe when she gets back to her engineering training course with that nice(?) Mr Dyson she could knock up a clay puddling machine?  I've already suggested she might get an opportunity to make teh necessary tool for putting the pizza in the oven and extracting it but also suggested it might not be a goodo idea to 3-D print it - apparently the Dyson development facility has a printer which can produce some very large 3-D prints.

 

And back to Pre-Group comparisons.  A group from teh LSE undertook an in depth research into railway financial, and other, efficiencies back in 2007 with some interesting results.  Although arrived at in some respects by calculation rather than using raw data (wg hich didn't exist) they concluded that the GWR, LNWR, and MR ran almost the same number of train miles as each other as an annual average between 1893 and 1912 at 646.2 - 46.4 million miles per annum.  Total receipts were respectively £11.3 million, £13.6million, and £11 million.  the division of receipts showed some interesting contrasts - the GWR was 49% passenger, 25% merchandise, & 26% minerals;  the LNWR figures were 44%, 34%, & 22% respectively; the MR's were 33%, 34%, & 33% respectively - a very similar split to the NER as it happened and ona slightly larger route mileage than the MR.

 

Percentage rate of return on capital employed was measured at three years - 1892, 1900, & 1910 and showed some interesting divergences,  For example the NER went  4.92, 4.75, 5.21; the LNWR was 5.17, 5.06, 5.11; the GWR was 4.64, 4.44, 4.73; the MR was 5.03, 4.78, 4.69.  In comparison the best of the bunch was the TVR which was 5.93, 5.57, 6.24.  Most companies they looked at, except the NBR and GER showed a decline from1892 to 1900 but only the TVR, NER, GWR, NBR, and GER (just) showed an improvement between 1892 and 1910.  Note that the MR did not recover between 1900 and 1910 although they were far from alone in that.

 

Most companies suffered deterioration in overall cost efficiency between the first two dates but then made b very considerable improvements by 1910 although ofddly the NER's cost inefficiency slightly worsened.  The GWR and LNWR made significant and finished up virtually on a par with each other and the MR although starting from a much poorer position.  The GWR and LNWR made similar gains in annual productivity improvement measured in terms of the cost of moving their traffic but from 1900 =1912 the MR went in the opposite direction and completely at odds with what the other large companies were achieving.  

 

Improvements in the speed of the longer distance/more important passenger trains between 1887 and 1910  (using Bradshaw as the base for data) and excluding services operated by more than one company, e.g. the WCML Anglo-Scottish trains are also interesting.  the LNWR speed rose from 52 to 57.5 kph, the GWR from 45.6 to 53.3 kph, and the MR from 53.9 to 56.6kph.  Probably a better indicator would be the one that took all passenger trains where the LNWR rose from 42 to 45.3kph, the GWR from 37.9 to 43.4kph,  and the MR from 40.9 to 46.4 kph.  I suspect that the speeds for longer distance trains include journeys completed by connecting services as the GWR very obviously didn't have the number of such routes claimed by the authors hence the average figure is perhaps a better guide.

 

Best bets for a 1910 shareholder, in descending order  - 1st Taff Vale; 2nd NER; 3rd LNWR; =4th GWR L&SWR, LB&SCR;  7th MR; 8th GNR

 

So in many respects the NER comes out on top followed by the LNWR then the GWR with the MR trailing some way behind.  It would seem that there is something to be said for painting engines green or black. (but somewhere I have a picture of a very grubby Midland single working a freight train which could count as 'almost black  ).

[AndyID]

Behold the cheery glow of the Yuletide Log, except this is July 1 and I just lit the wood stove cos it's too cold in my shed.

 

[Florence Locomotive Works]

Evening all,

 

Hot dry and green in Northeast Oklahoma today. Cooked an almost perfect grilled cheese for lunch, but was threatened by uneven heating of the sides. I spent most of the day busying myself with scratchbuilding a broad gauge disk & bar signal, and it’s accompanying cable a-frame, if you fancy a mildly boring read you can do so Here. 
 

I’ve had the Boeing 777 fan running all day in my room, and it’s not that bad with Airpods in my ears with music playing. I discovered this morning I had it on the intermediate setting last night, instead of the quiet setting, usual incompetence to be excepted from me. Currently it feels like 109 degrees out, but the actual temperature is more like 104, or 42-43 for the rest of you. Moan finished.
 

The one good thing about this heat is it makes the trees exceptionally green, which doesn’t really amount fully to reparations for my lack of sleep but I suppose it’s something. And congratulations to Mrs. Gwiwer as well.

 

as always, stay healthy,

 

Douglas

Edited July 1, 2020 by Florence Locomotive Works
incorrect name

[tetsudofan]

After my telephone call to 111 a couple of weekends ago and a meeting with the Out-of-Hours Doctor a couple of hours later I had some discussions with my GP regarding urine and blood tests during the following week after which she said that I'll be fast -tracked to the Urology Department to ensure that there are no nasties hiding about.

 

Last week received a phone call followed by an appointment letter for a flexible cystoscopy at the local clinic on July 7th and today received a phone call asking if I could get to the William Harvey Hospital at Ashford for a CT scan tomorrow reporting at 8:20am. They certainly are fast-tracking things!!

 

To get to the hospital by 8:20am means using the car, it will be the longest run its had since lockdown started. Think the car will be happy to get the chance to exceed 40mph, maybe take the scenic route along the A20 rather than using the M20. 

 

Time for bed now, up early tomorrow!

 

Keith

[The Stationmaster]

Dunno what went on there - this mornings post appareently didn't (post) so is now above.  i blame the mangement (well why not?)

 

Congratulations to Dr Mrs Gwiwer - well done througha lot of hard work and good that Rick has been able to support the achievement.  And if she's in the extra vulnerable category I don't blame her for worrying but what it comes down to is I suspect not her but probably a concern about the actions of  others and while we can all take care of ourselves to try to stay safe and stick to guifdelines there are an ever increasing number of the braiun dead out there who very obviously can't.

 

Talking about real railways - if still allowed there were some comparative trials of various classes carried out in early LMS days and the results of those trials were used to justify the continued building of various MR designs instead of any from other constituents,  as for compounds versus simples Churchward carried out extensive comparative testing and while teh French engines lived out their natural lives he settled on simple expansion engines as offering similar levels of economy for lower constructional costs.  SNCF went on very much for compounding right through to their final large passenger designs but French operating conditions were quite different from British and the bureaucracy that effectively encouraged maximum fuel economy to be got from compounds by paying Drivers bonuses based on coal savings was very different from the practice elsewhere in Europe.  french running conditions were also very different, and remain so, from practice in many other European countries anf d taht affected loco handling and economy.