Wright writes.....

[Clem]

With increasing concern, I've been watching the events in Australia unfold over the last few weeks. Can I inquire of our Australian friends on here, is everyone OK and safe from these terrible fires?

[Chamby]

45 minutes ago, ianathompson said:

 

It is not possible to "scale" time, which leads to problems when trying to operate reasonably realistically....

 

Ian T

 

Some things just don’t change with scale... as any gauge 1 modeller who has burned their fingers using live steam will tell you!

[ianathompson]

7 minutes ago, Chamby said:

Some things just don’t change with scale... as any gauge 1 modeller who has burned their fingers using live steam will tell you!

 

Got that T shirt with my 32mm live steamer!!

 

Re sprags for braking. There are plenty on the main layout because of the severe grades.

As noted, they are easy to arrange with a bellcrank poking up in the four foot (or two and a half foot in my case).

 

Incidentally if yo go to the website here the use of the clocks in complex situations is covered in photo 132 et seq.

 

Ian T

Edited January 3, 2020 by ianathompson
additional info

[jrg1]

36 minutes ago, Clem said:

With increasing concern, I've been watching the events in Australia unfold over the last few weeks. Can I inquire of our Australian friends on here, is everyone OK and safe from these terrible fires?

We are fine in Melbourne-what you are seeing is the result of twenty years of climate denial by our politicians.  The response from Victorian Premier Dan Andrews is a textbook case of how it should be done-since the last serious fires of 11 years ago, Andrews has been quietly preparing for a major fire event.  Streets ahead of Smoko Morrison, he put in place a co-ordinated response plan, reformed the emergency services in the teeth of opposition, and deployed the armed services as necessary, whilst Morrison was nowhere to be seen.  See this footagehttps://www.9news.com.au/national/scott-morrison-cobargo-tour-hastily-moves-on-as-residents-express-anger/98f2b3ff-e648-4e65-a84d-f5273d5e930e.

No amount of spin can excuse sheer political ineptitude.

Unfortunately, we are bracing for an exceptionally hot weekend.

[stewartingram]

https://www.rfs.nsw.gov.au/fire-information/fires-near-me

[MJI]

14 hours ago, Coach bogie said:

At Northenden, the loaded wagons were left on the mainline whilst the empties were extracted, coupled to the loaded, draw all the wagons forward beyond, the entrance points, the reverse back in the loaded and uncouple. Bring the empties forward of the entrance points, reset the ground frame to main, lock it at the frame and in the signal box, then the empties carry on forward . As there are no run around facilities, the train ran round at Skelton Junction, near Altrincham. Now they continue on all the way to Northwich and back to run round, such is progress.

 

The loco is 40126, notorious for involvement in the Great Train Robbery.

 

Mike Wiltshire

 

 

Plenty there for the kit builder, would need around 30-40 Airfix/Dapol cement wagons.

 

 

[t-b-g]

7 hours ago, Tony Wright said:

I thought it was more 'appropriate' than an A4!

 

Can't fault that logic! You did have the little 2-4-0T there though, which would have fitted the bill. They were not all used on push pull services all the time.

 

Operation is one of those areas where accurate reproduction of what happened on the real thing will quickly lead to boredom. The idea of "scale time" is a red herring. A real train doing 60mph does a mile a minute. A model train doing a scale 60mph does a scale mile in a minute.

 

What we need to lose are the long spells that happened on the real railway when nothing is happening. So we don't need to scale time, we just need to change those big gaps into short pauses. On Buckingham, when a loco backs off shed and couples onto a train, the next move is nearly always either something else moving, either a train arriving or departing or a shunting move. The train never departs immediately (unless the operator has made a mess of things and has forgotten to put a loco on until the last second!). Whenever I am shunting, I always pause just for 4 or 5 seconds before changing direction, just to indicate that somebody in the cab is working the reversing gear and to give the imagined shunter time to couple on. If the stock is fitted, the pause is made a few seconds longer to allow for the vacuum brake. You get a feel, when people are watching, as to just how long to hold that move.

 

When you operate like that at exhibitions, it can open a conversation with a viewer as we sometimes get asked why we stopped. It becomes a positive talking point rather than a problem. 

 

I would recommend that anybody interested in how to operate a layout effectively and enjoyably should read the series of articles by Frank Dyer that appeared in the MRJ way back, starting with issue 30.     

Edited January 3, 2020 by t-b-g
to correct silly error

[Clive Mortimore]

Back to coupling up, with my home layout for my own satisfaction I will allow time for the fireman/secondman (I have a few diesels) or shunter to do his work. I know what is going on and there is not an audience to explain things to. I could as no one is looking just slam the loco into the train hope it is coupled up and reverse the controller and off at full speed.

 

Just like all the locos that have bought a train in and then go on to the appropriate loco yard have, steam first, their ash pan raked, coal and water topped up, then turned before being placed on the storage lines ready for their next duty. The diesels go through a similar procedure where they have their fuel tanks refilled, and train heater boiler topped up, some may even have an A exam while on the fuel point. Even many (most) model depots do not follow the simple rule of replenishing the loco first and often just shunt them back and forth without basic servicing. There was a steam depot layout at a show I visited that had no coaling facilities .

Edited January 3, 2020 by Clive Mortimore

[woodenhead]

17 hours ago, Coach bogie said:

At Northenden, the loaded wagons were left on the mainline whilst the empties were extracted, coupled to the loaded, draw all the wagons forward beyond, the entrance points, the reverse back in the loaded and uncouple. Bring the empties forward of the entrance points, reset the ground frame to main, lock it at the frame and in the signal box, then the empties carry on forward . As there are no run around facilities, the train ran round at Skelton Junction, near Altrincham. Now they continue on all the way to Northwich and back to run round, such is progress.

 

The loco is 40126, notorious for involvement in the Great Train Robbery.

 

Mike Wiltshire

 

Do they still have trains serving there, I thought they had ceased.

 

Also this line before 1981 was also the line which the Fiddlers Ferry MGRs used after having left the Woodhead route at Godley and Peak District limestone trains to Northwich, so it was a nice place to park up and watch freights 

[Hollar]

On 31/12/2019 at 10:23, LNER4479 said:

Wasn't it bumblebees, John?

It may work very well in practice, but how does it work in theory is often thought to be Garret FitzGerald's reaction (when he was Ireland's Taoiseach) to a cunning plan  from his finance minister which would cure the Irish balance of payments deficit.  There are other claimants.  FitzGerald was an intellectual first, politician second.

 

Tone

 

 

Edited January 3, 2020 by Hollar
original quote lost in the top thread

[DougN]

As JRG mentioned most Rmweber's in Victoria are safe. Personally, we as the  family and I, are in New Zealand. Which is bring affected by the smoke at times. 

[Erichill16]

Good evening chaps, 

This is my first post so I’m a little nervous!

Members have recently been showing what they’ve been up to this year so I thought I’d share what I’ve been doing.

It’s a tram loco for my model railway club’s layout though it’s not quite finished.

There is an additional reason for my posting. I’m wanting to tone down the wheels and seek advice from the members. Ideally I would just like to prime the wheels and then top coat them with ‘under frame dirt’ but not sure what primer to use. The chassis is a Tenshodo and the wheels appear to be ‘chrome plated’
Regards EricD

 

[Tony Wright]

15 minutes ago, Erichill16 said:

Good evening chaps, 

This is my first post so I’m a little nervous!

Members have recently been showing what they’ve been up to this year so I thought I’d share what I’ve been doing.

It’s a tram loco for my model railway club’s layout though it’s not quite finished.

There is an additional reason for my posting. I’m wanting to tone down the wheels and seek advice from the members. Ideally I would just like to prime the wheels and then top coat them with ‘under frame dirt’ but not sure what primer to use. The chassis is a Tenshodo and the wheels appear to be ‘chrome plated’
Regards EricD

 

Welcome aboard, Eric,

 

What a lovely little model. Thanks for showing us. 

 

I'd be tempted to just paint the centres of the wheels matt black, obviously leaving the tyres untouched. They could be weathered afterwards.

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

[Tony Wright]

Just received from Hornby for photography and review (among many other items) are examples of the firm's latest OO brake vans.......................

 

 

This is the ex-LMS 20T brake van, complete with extra ballast underneath. 

 

Did Airfix (or another manufacturer) make a similar model? This one is excellent. 

 

 

And an ex-L&SWR 20T brake van, in Southern Railway guise. As far as I know, nobody has ever made this type RTR. 

 

 

[DougN]

Just to put the Aussie fires in to perspective.

 

The entire world needs action on climate change. The lumbering dinosaur that is the aussie governments may actually do something now.  

[Erichill16]

Thanks for your prompt reply. A little job for the weekend. I was wondering if that would be sufficient as the wheels are well ‘tucked in’ so when it’s picked up the body (more likely the footplate crew) will take the brunt of any damage.

If anyone is interested, the loco is wired to live overhead and returns via the rails. It therefore can’t be run on a convention two rail layout. Additionally the loco is chipped for DCC. I don’t want to open up the DC/DCC debate again but for the the club’s tramway system it does work well, allowing trams to follow each other very closely.

The trolley pole wasn’t made by myself but another member of the club. The layout features automatic pole reverses. That means at the end of the line, as the trams reverse (slowly) the pole in effect goes around a triangle and then faces the other direction. All very clever but not my work!

 

[Anglian]

1 hour ago, Tony Wright said:

Just received from Hornby for photography and review (among many other items) are examples of the firm's latest OO brake vans.......................

 

 

And an ex-L&SWR 20T brake van, in Southern Railway guise. As far as I know, nobody has ever made this type RTR. 

 

 

 

 

It's a lovely model but it's shame they got the colour so wrong. I understand from the dedicated thread about this model that some folks are sending them back. In my view exactly the right thing to do so Hornby become aware of just how wrong they've got it. I'll order a LSWR one once they release it in the correct livery.

 

 

[31A]

1 hour ago, Tony Wright said:

Just received from Hornby for photography and review (among many other items) are examples of the firm's latest OO brake vans.......................

 

 

This is the ex-LMS 20T brake van, complete with extra ballast underneath. 

 

Did Airfix (or another manufacturer) make a similar model? This one is excellent. 

 

 

And an ex-L&SWR 20T brake van, in Southern Railway guise. As far as I know, nobody has ever made this type RTR. 

 

 

 

Yes, Airfix did the LMS van and the tooling for that was subsequently used by Dapol and then Hornby.  It was pretty good for its day; perhaps a bit dated in a few respects now.

 

I bought one of the new ex LMS vans myself today, and so far very impressed.

 

The handrails seem to be all wire, rather than the plastic mouldings of the recent LNER vans, very fine though they were.  However they seem to be 'pushing the boundaries' a bit with the long lower horizontal one which is inclined to flex as per you photo.  Possible fixes could include adding functional 'handrail knobs' from twists of thin wire, passed through holes drilled where brackets would be on the real one, to hold it in line.  Or alternatively perhaps pinging the long handrail out and re-bending it very slightly shorter so that it is in tension when re-inserted in the holes.

 

The model includes optional high and low vacuum pipes for the ends.  As far as I can see from the number series this would have been a van built 'unfitted' and presumably from the brown livery subsequently 'piped' (not 'fitted') by BR, so I think the 'low' pipes would be appropriate for this van, unless others know otherwise.

 

Glazing very good; a bit of a shame perhaps that they couldn't make a better job of the door safety bars which are moulded similarly to the other recent vans, although I'm not sure quite what they would do differently within the bounds of mass production and durability.

 

 

 

 

[St Enodoc]

14 hours ago, Clem said:

With increasing concern, I've been watching the events in Australia unfold over the last few weeks. Can I inquire of our Australian friends on here, is everyone OK and safe from these terrible fires?

Speaking for myself, we are fine at the moment although living near the bush we are keeping a closer look on the situation than we would normally do.

 

I know some other RMwebbers are much closer to some of the fire grounds but as far as I know they are all safe so far.

[Woodcock29]

We're safe here in Adelaide, but have had quite a bit of smoke haze at times, particularly from the two main fires nearest to us. One in the Adelaide Hills is about 50km away and has burnt close to where a couple of our British Railway Modellers of Australia members live but I understand they haven't been affected, other than being evacuated at times. The other is still burning out of control on Kangaroo Island about 100 + km to the southwest and has burnt about 25% of the island.

 

Fortunately today we've had a cool change come through but with no rain.

 

Sounds like we'll have months of this as the longer range forecast is for hotter than average January and February.

 

Andrew 

[Lecorbusier]

9 hours ago, DougN said:

Just to put the Aussie fires in to perspective.

 

The entire world needs action on climate change. The lumbering dinosaur that is the aussie governments may actually do something now.  

It is a sad fact that currently everything seems to be being done to either play down, ignore or deflect from climate change by the mainstream.

 

Figures on American reporting on Australia ...

 

.... it seems pretty similar in the UK. 

 

Less important things occupy centre stage - often manufactured or presented polemically to divide opinion and create division ... think Trump in Iran, Brexit in the UK.... and whenever any serious proposals are put forward to try and tackle the problem they are attacked as being either unaffordable (whatever the economic underpinnings) or politically dangerous.

 

I will watch with interest the Sanders campaign in the US, which is proposing a 'Green New Deal' based upon the same underpinnings as the Roosevelt new deal with similar economic rational - it is bold and arguably could also address the economic stagnation in the US (outside of the financialised sector). It has been backed by some pretty serious  academics, but is currently being attacked as dangerously leftwing - an odd critique of American history - particularly as many of the major financial institutions are now calling for governments to seriously invest as a way of breaking the long term low/negative interest rate cycle.

 

I am however pretty pessimistic ... In the Uk very similar 'Green New Deal' proposals got next to no traction at all in the recent election with almost zero serious discussion or critique within the mainstream - this all but prevents the majority from being able to make an informed judgement either way.

 

Given the circumstances, perhaps Australia as a major nation will now provide a lead ... 

Edited January 4, 2020 by Lecorbusier

[DougN]

Unfortunately Tim, the government  is so focused on economic issues rather than governing. We have too many levels of government in local, state and federal. There is too much finger pointing of it's another level of government's issue. Interestingly the bush fires are a state issue. 

 

Another issue has been the flammable cladding which has had the state federal governments pointing fingers at each other. The professional bodies are fed up with it whether the specifiers, the certificators, or the installers. Being the architects, the building surveyors and the builders. (RAIA, AIBS, and AIB) only with the 3 bodies working together has there been any movement in the NCC and the Australian Standards! 

 

Saying all this the above shows the current situation however the last time we had a major issue, Port Arthur maassacre. The Prime minister and government put in place some of the toughest gun laws to remove the chance of it happening again. New Zealand moved in the same direction after the nutter last year, and the US keeps using the Australian solution as a suggestion of what could be achieved with their gun problems. (This is not to say they already have a difficult gun culture and extremely powerful lobbyists) 

 

My hope is the government uses the crisis  to mandate energy efficiency in power generation, encourage tree planting, re forrestation of great areas of the country. Mandate solar cell generation on all new buildings, phase out coal fired power stations faster. 

 

Personally I am looking at putting solar cells on the roof to reduce my load on the planet! 

 

Sorry very off off topic but to quote the election slogan of Gough Whitlam "it's time"

 

 

Edited January 4, 2020 by DougN

[Lecorbusier]

My hope is that if a major player starts to invest seriously in green technology, it could create a paradigm shift from a technological and therefore an economic standpoint .... The fear that it would be problematic to be left behind as the economic focus shifts - industries of the future and all that.

 

Its coming anyway ... just not quickly enough. I find it fascinating that investors are pulling the plug on traditional power generation in favour of renewables because the payback periods are no longer workable due to the continuing tumbling of renewable prices. The problem of course with renewables is that the scope for money making is more limited as the generation of the power requires zero natural resource provision ... and so it becomes an infrastructure and maintenance model - with the infrastructure being much smaller and maintenance  being far easier. It should create a situation of plenty, so I suspect it will be monopolised in some way.

 

Hopefully all of this will lead to smaller and more powerful batteries for our model trains at dirt cheap prices 

 

for anyone interested ... this is an interesting web site

 

https://www.carboncommentary.com

 

and his last book .... the switch was fascinating.

Edited January 4, 2020 by Lecorbusier

[jrg1]

27 minutes ago, DougN said:

Unfortunately Tim, the government  is so focused on economic issues rather than governing. We have too many levels of government in local, state and federal. There is too much finger pointing of it's another level of government's issue. Interestingly the bush fires are a state issue. 

 

Another issue has been the flammable cladding which has had the state federal governments pointing fingers at each other. The professional bodies are fed up with it whether the specifiers, the certificators, or the installers. Being the architects, the building surveyors and the builders. (RAIA, AIBS, and AIB) only with the 3 bodies working together has there been any movement in the NCC and the Australian Standards! 

 

Saying all this the above shows the current situation however the last time we had a major issue, Port Arthur maassacre. The Prime minister and government put in place some of the toughest gun laws to remove the chance of it happening again. New Zealand moved in the same direction after the nutter last year, and the US keeps using the Australian solution as a suggestion of what could be achieved with their gun problems. (This is not to say they already have a difficult gun culture and extremely powerful lobbyists) 

 

My hope is the government uses the crisis  to mandate energy efficiency in power generation, encourage tree planting, re forrestation of great areas of the country. Mandate solar cell generation on all new buildings, phase out coal fired power stations faster. 

 

Personally I am looking at putting solar cells on the roof to reduce my load on the planet! 

 

Sorry very off off topic but to quote the election slogan of Gough Whitlam "it's time"

 

 

I attach the image of PM Morrison asleep at the wheel, and only now realising what should be done, months too late.  Even now, we have senior politicians denying climate change, as we see on the news, evacuees being landed at Hastings by the RAN-the first climate refugees in history, and the largest evacuation ever in Australia.  

[St Enodoc]

May I, respectfully, suggest that those who wish to discuss Australian and other politics should start a separate topic in the Wheeltappers section.