Castle Aching

[Nearholmer]

The French speed limits I did not know about, so thank you for that.

 

No doubt speed limits were long gone by then, but the ‘steady and heavy’ trains that I would have loved to see were the Mediterranean expresses c1938-9 hauled by the giant double-unit diesels. Each double-diesel is said to have done the work of four steam locos, which I think is because the trains were previously run in two portions, each with an engine change half way. The steam locos were big, and the combined trains were absolutely enormous, the diesels alone being the length of two cricket pitches ....... 4400hp of relatively slow-revving, poorly-silenced, non-emission-controlled magnificence, like a battle-cruiser thundering across the country with the entire fleet in tow.

 

And, sunshine and striped parasols to look forward to.

 

PS: checking the spec, they were rated for only 130kph, so perhaps the speed limit did still apply.

 

 

Edited October 1, 2019 by Nearholmer

[Compound2632]

9 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

No doubt speed limits were long gone by then

 

My source says the limit was raised by just 10 kph to 130 kph in 1930, so I doubt it would have changed again before the war. Things changed after the war with the advance of electrification, French electric locomotives setting new railway speed records in the 1950s. 

[Nearholmer]

Yes, and the oft-forgotten part of all of this French railway engineering prowess either side of WW2 is that it was actually the product of some truly serious international cooperation, with French, German and Swiss engineers all rolling-up their sleeves together. There was a sort of Alsacienne crucible of engineering excellence that had tentacles stretching in all directions (do crucibles have tentacles?), and the engineers were exchanging ideas and plans throughout the war from what I can work out ...... makes sense if you think of northern France as German territory once conquered.

 

PS: this all needs more googling that I’ve got time or inclination for right now, but looking at French sources, it seems that not only was the speed of trains limited, but also the length. It’s bad enough trying to understand British tramway legislation, but railway legislation in a foreign language is almost worse!

 

 

Edited October 1, 2019 by Nearholmer

[Compound2632]

Indeed, Sydenham-raised Alfred de Glehn, son of a Prussian nobleman (von Glehn) and a Scotswoman, working for major builder of locomotives for the French railways based in what was then part of the German empire, had a sister, Louise Creighton, who was the wife of a Bishop of London and a noted suffragist and a brother, Alexander, who dabbled in narrow-gauge railways in France. There's a lot to be said for the free movement of labour.

 

I'm not sure I would agree with Louise Creighton's husband on all points but the following, quoted in the Wikipedia article on him, rather appeals to me, so please excuse me pasting it here:

 

"The tolerant man has decided opinions, but recognises the process by which he reaches them, and keeps before himself the truth that they can only be profitably spread by repeating in the case of others a similar process to that through which he passed himself. He always keeps in view the hope of spreading his own opinions, but he endeavours to do so by producing conviction. He is virtuous, not because he puts his own opinions out of sight, nor because he thinks that other opinions are as good as his own, but because his opinions are so real to him that he would not anyone else hold them with less reality"

 

[Mandell Creighton, Persecution and Tolerance, Hulsean Lectures, University of Cambridge, Winter 1893–94.]

 

@Nearholmer, apologies, cross-posting (or rather editing).

Edited October 1, 2019 by Compound2632

[Edwardian]

Hope all are surviving the weather. I was especially concerned to hear that the west coast of Norfolk was under threat of flooding.

 

Here the beck is up, but is far from the house. 

 

On R3 just now I caught the tail-end of a reference to Granville Bantock composing somewhere overlooking a railway line.  Must go back and listen to the whole segment.  This pleased me inordinately, as anyone who has cared to keep up with the back-story on Achipedia will know,  I had the cheek, as it were, to cause a famous composer, Sir Grenville Buttoch, to the reside at The Grange, Castle Aching.

 

Sir Granville's fictional counter-part was older and rose to prominence earlier than the real Sir Granville.  Sir Grenville is perhaps best known for his Six Norfolk Songs, for mezzo-soprano and orchestra, and his orchestral 'meditation', By the Banks of the Sweet Aching.  It is pleasing to think of him drawing inspiration from the distant chuffing of a Neilson tank or a Sharp Stewart on the West Norfolk Railway.   

 

Anyway, enough of this.

 

I found first one bit of the Bachmann controller, and then another.  I plugged it in and a light came one.  That seemed quite hopeful.

 

 

However, as you will recall, I do not understand electricity, which is magic so far as I am concerned. It soon became apparent that I had no idea how to connect it to the track.  On my trusty Duette, there are two terminals for each controller; one for magic feed and the other for magic return, or something like that.  Anyway, this has always worked for me because there are two rails and two terminals. Even I can grasp what to do here!

 

(you'll note, by the way, that, me being me, both wires are the same colour)

 

Anyway, the Bachmann controller has but a single hole, marked "TO TRACK", with a helpful pictogram for those who don't know what track looks like. This rather depressed me, because the implication is that even those too stupid to know what track is know where the wires go.

 

 

To recap; two wires, one hole?

 

Errrr .....

 

????

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

   

Edited October 1, 2019 by Edwardian

[BlueLightning]

Don't worry James, it's not just you! I thought the same thing when I brought my son his Bachmann DCC controller, which has the same output, once I looked though the box more there was a wire that explained it. Bachmann use a 3.5mm jack (the same as used for speakers / headphones / microphones for computers) which has to wires for the track coming off of it, in the case of the DCC controller a red one, I assume your DC one will also be red.

 

 

Gary

[Hroth]

You should be looking for a piece of twin-core cable, with an earphone-like jack plug on one end (that goes into the controller!) and a couple of phosphor-bronze clips on the other that clip onto the Bachmann set-track.

 

On mine, I removed the rather silly clips and soldered some copper wire from a piece of "twin plus earth" mains cable.  This could then be attached to the track via a screw terminal for easy removal.

[Compound2632]

41 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

It is pleasing to think of him drawing inspiration from the distant chuffing of a Neilson tank or a Sharp Stewart on the West Norfolk Railway.   

   

 

I've never really cared for the music of Herbert Howells. He lived in Worcester, backing onto the Midland yard. My impression is that the constant clanking, clanging, whistling and banging made its way into his compositions.

[Edwardian]

28 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

I've never really cared for the music of Herbert Howells. He lived in Worcester, backing onto the Midland yard. My impression is that the constant clanking, clanging, whistling and banging made its way into his compositions.

 

Ah, yes, he was a near contemporary of thrusting young would-be composer and pupil of Sir Grenville, Wilbert Whistles, whose lodgings, most unfortunately for future music lovers, backed on to the West Norfolk's works at Aching Constable.

 

1 hour ago, BlueLightning said:

Don't worry James, it's not just you! I thought the same thing when I brought my son his Bachmann DCC controller, which has the same output, once I looked though the box more there was a wire that explained it. Bachmann use a 3.5mm jack (the same as used for speakers / headphones / microphones for computers) which has to wires for the track coming off of it, in the case of the DCC controller a red one, I assume your DC one will also be red.

 

 

Gary

 

Thanks, Gary, I'd better see if I can find such a thing about the place. 

 

[martinT]

2 hours ago, Edwardian said:

On R3 just now I caught the tail-end of a reference to Granville Bantock composing somewhere overlooking a railway line.  Must go back and listen to the whole segment.  This pleased me inordinately, as anyone who has cared to keep up with the back-story on Achipedia will know,  I had the cheek, as it were, to cause a famous composer, Sir Grenville Buttoch, to the reside at The Grange, Castle Aching.

 

 

He rented Coed y Bleddiau cottage in 1925 overlooking the Festiniog (1 F in those days). It's now in the care of the Landmark Trust - see: https://www.landmarktrust.org.uk/news-and-events/latest-news/coed-y-bleiddiaus-residents/

 

He was succeeded by his friend Jack Philby, father of Kim. Tradition has it that William Joyce also stayed there but the Landmark Trust article refutes this.

 

Coed y Bleddiau: 'Wood of Wolves' - the place of the last sighting of a wolf in Wales, in the C17th

 

Martin

[St Enodoc]

13 hours ago, Hroth said:

 

"But 'tis the Drrring A Drrring A Drrring as catches the Tram Inspectors Ear"

Clang, clang, clang went the trolley
Ding, ding, ding went the bell

 

etc.

[Hroth]

8 minutes ago, St Enodoc said:

Ding, ding, ding went the bell

 

Illustrating what the correct speed sounds like.... 

[Nearholmer]

I’m not at all sure about this “bell to signal speed” business.

 

Electric trams in Britain generally had, I think, a gong, operated by the driver’s foot, and it was a warning to pedestrians, not a speed indicator. That’s the “clang” on a US streetcar. The “ding” or “dring” is the conductor’s signal to the driver, as carried into ‘bus practice. 

 

Citation for audible speed indication?

[Northroader]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2hqgWqk9mw8

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=aAnAWp5EtgQ

 

Edited October 1, 2019 by Northroader

[Hroth]

2 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

I’m not at all sure about this “bell to signal speed” business.

 

I was just riffing off RaRs suggestion that a mechanically excited bell would indicate the sort of speed the vehicle was moving at.  As you note, bzzz-bzzz/ding-ding is the archtypal conductors signal while the foot gong was an alternative to a horn, and not just to warn pedestrians!

 

The Americans just seem to go in for doleful continuous tolling, an audible red flag, I suppose.

[Northroader]

You mean “going like the clappers”?

[Hroth]

That too.....

 

[runs as required]

Funny how memory can play tricks. I thought I could remember MD&HB locos wandering along under the LOR 'dockers umbrella' beside the Dock Road sounding a bell linked to the valve gear.

Perhaps I'm remembering Ghana instead, with my kids riding on a 0-8-0T shunting bogie logging waggons through a crowded market, with bell sounding.  

Small boys were employed by the stall-holder business women to move their bolts of textiles piled up high on folding stall tables and re-erect them all as the last waggon passed.Then we'd have to pass back through 5 minutes later to access another siding.

These were wonderful ways of spending an afternoon - all we were asked for in exchange were 'lucky' suggestions for winning Lotto numbers.

dh

[brack]

7 hours ago, Edwardian said:

Thanks, Gary, I'd better see if I can find such a thing about the place. 

If not, for testing purposes, an old pair of headphones/ earphones, snip the 'phones off the end of the wires, strip the cables and solder to the track will do the trick.

 

On the topic of last wolves, the last wolf killed in the wilds of england was the hexham wolf, killed by a train in the winter of 1904, but I suspect we mightve covered that ground before on this thread.

[Compound2632]

2 hours ago, brack said:

On the topic of last wolves, the last wolf killed in the wilds of england was the hexham wolf, killed by a train in the winter of 1904, but I suspect we mightve covered that ground before on this thread.

 

The Allendale Wolf - 'twas a Midland engine that did the deed. 

 

But not a wild wolf, an escapee from a private zoo.

[Edwardian]

I have one length of track still to adjust - I really need to locate the odd remaining copper-clad sleepers and solder the track joins to them - but I found the missing wire, once Gary and Hroth had alerted me to its existence. 

 

As a result, I can now send Dodo back and forth along the top of my desk. 

 

To celebrate, I've built the controller a little house in the embankment. 

 

[Hroth]

Sweet!

 

(Dodo, that is...  The controller holder is more Utilitarian)

 

How about one of those shuttle modules, to send the hapless locomotive backwards and forwards along the track, automatically.  Ad infinitum too.

 

Edited October 1, 2019 by Hroth

[Edwardian]

2 minutes ago, Hroth said:

Sweet!

 

(Dodo, that is...  The controller holder is more Utilitarian)

 

Well, the idea is that the recess in the embankment, placed as it is in the angle of the two boards, will not be visible from most of the intended viewing angles. 

[Edwardian]

Sometimes it's hard to be an Anglican, as Dolly Parton never once observed.

 

A stream of infantile offence this morning on R4 by a witless fundamentalist.  While waiting for my boiling blood to return to a more placid temperature, I will allow myself an observation.  The law, more or less, reflects the predominant mores of a society.  This society has, not before time, decided that people with certain characteristics should not only be tolerated and protected but should be seen positively and regarded as the equals of others.  Our statute book and the decisions of our judges are broadly reflective of this. Further, it is a fundamental Enlightenment tenant that people are free to exercise their rights save where that impinges upon the rights of others. So, for instance, our law balances free speech against the rights of those with certain protected characteristics. Personally, I doubt that it should be possible to leap-frog that legal protection by invoking Divine revelation through scripture, but, hey, that's just my fuddy-duddy pre-occupation with old-school liberal and lax C of E values, and out-dated belief in the rule of law. Sooo out of fashion these days! 

 

I have often reflected how unfortunate it is that few in the theatrical world seem sufficiently intellectually equipped to be as vocal on issues as they are.  For every George Clooney, sadly there are a good ten vapid virtue-signalling empty vessels.  It makes an unpleasant change, however, to hear one of our Luvvies giving us a crude blast of persecution straight from the Middle Ages. I shall watch the legal case pending within theatrical circles with concerned interest.  I hope and expect that the case will fail. 

 

When I have a moment, I might list notable crass religious outpourings, under the title How to cause pain and suffering to others and bring Christianity into disrepute,

 

I seem to recall that the idea of bringing sinners to God's love and saving their souls has always had its darker side .... 

 

 

One Man of Faith's rack is another's gay conversion therapy.  The methods change, I find, but the attitudes not so much.

 

 

 

 

Edited October 2, 2019 by Edwardian
grammar

[Nearholmer]

Overall, I’m probably glad that I didn’t have time to listen to the wireless for long this morning, then!