The Night Mail

[SM42]

At Miedzyrzecz I wasn't expecting the station to still be in use.

 

The signalbox by the level crossing

 

 

SN82 001 arrives. SN83 007 in the background had just  departed

 

 

The water tower hints at the town's previous German identity ( Meseritz)

 

 

How many insulating rail joints ?

 

 

Andy

Edited August 17, 2022 by SM42

[newbryford]

27 minutes ago, SM42 said:

 

 

How many insulating rail joints ?

 

 

Andy

 

10 for the diamond in the middle and two for every other vee end.

Unless they're insulfrog in which case the answer is 0.

[newbryford]

Meanwhile....

 

She told me she was kinky......

So I left the shed light on.

[Northmoor]

Some of the sort of stories @polybearrecounts are probably true, but bear in mind that before privatisation - when information became only Restricted-Commercial - any similar incidents which occurred (and they did) would have been kept quiet by invoking the Official Secrets Act. 

 

I worked for years at an MoD testing establishment where a colleague recalled how early in his time there, someone had been killed by a mobile crane which ran away down a ramp.  HIs widow probably got his pension and lots of comments about how he'd sacrificed his life in support of Defence of the Realm, but it was never made public and there was only a cursory internal enquiry.  Nowadays the HSE would be straight in there and quite rightly throwing the book at the managers responsible for delivering a safe system of work, but who had failed to do so.

 

The MoD was quite capable of screwing things up on its own; I did hear of the compressor wash fluid purchase which wasn't intercepted fast enough.  A bright young thing in MoD procurement decided to buy a product that was much cheaper than usual, seemingly not realising that meeting the NATO specification wasn't optional.  The high salt content wasn't picked up until the first Pegasus engine had to be sent back through the overhaul cycle for about £1M, which rather cancelled out the estimated purchase saving about 100-fold.

[Dave Hunt]

2 hours ago, New Haven Neil said:

 

Cough

 

 

Donk has a doppelganger?

 

Dave

[SM42]

Today's lesson from Wacky Races, sorry, Poland's highways is

 

If you are in a hurry, follow a 44t truck and keep up with them. 

 

They will find the speed cameras and traps for you and you will make up 14 minutes on the sat nav ETA over the 60 miles home. 

 

Anyone who has driven in Poland will know that there are speed limit reductions for anything, corners, junctions, crossings, trees, cafes and any other excuse you can think of

 

The limit can change from 90kph to 70 to 50 and back to 90 in less than 200yds.

 

There is one  location  near here were it goes from 50 to 70 to 50 so quickly, unless you are driving a formula 1 car there is no point changing the limit from 50. 

 

You may get up to 54 if you are lucky. 

 

The best today was the 40kph limit on a slip road for a 120kph semi motorway. ( droga sprzetkowa. An S road)

 

Add to that the 44 tonner overtaking in the face of oncoming traffic  with a broken down truck at the side of the road in the mix to make it interesting. 

 

Yay! Fun!

 

 

Of course I don't condone any sort of law breaking but,

 

Kiedy w Polsce, Robie jak polacy. 

 

When in Poland, do as the Poles do.

 

And it's no fun when you stick to the limit and all you  can see in your mirror is ERF or Scania etc writ large 

 

 

Andy

With a few more grey hairs than two weeks ago.

[coastalview]

Thought I would wander down to Church Stretton today to watch the Welsh Marches Express from Slough to Shrewsbury go past. I believe it should have had Britannia up front. 

 

Unfortunately it seems to have failed just north of Hereford causing major delays on the line.

 

The poor folk on board reached Shrewsbury over three hours late and then almost immediately turned around and headed back.

 

They would have been on the train for about 16 hours by the time they got back to Slough.

 

Chris

Edited August 17, 2022 by coastalview

[Northmoor]

Just now, coastalview said:

They would have been on the train for about 16 hours by the time they got back to Slough.

Now that's a punishment, a 16-hour journey with a destination of Slough.

[Dave Hunt]

58 minutes ago, polybear said:

 

There was the Airwork(?) fiasco regarding maintenance of Tornado aircraft.  IIRC (it was a long time ago) the MoD approached various companies regarding a deep maintenance/inspection activity; BAe (who made the things in the first place) put in a bluddy great quote (hey, what a surprise.....) but have all the necessary to be able to do the job.

The MoD awarded the contract to Airwork instead, who were far cheaper.....

Fast Forward to an aircraft that had undergone the maintenance activity and had been returned to the RAF.  The story I heard was that a RAF Airframe Technician was inspecting the aircraft and thought "f.hell, this doesn't look right..." so he flagged it up the chain.  As I heard it it seems that Airwork had been ripping rivets out of wing panels etc. using the wrong tooling and had done no end of damage.  So they went and checked other aircraft that had gone thru' the same process - and all were damaged as well.  It must've been 20+ years ago now, and the repair cost then was well into the £M.

Of course a certain Bear may be talkin' complete bollards and Dave will come along shortly to put him straight....

🤣

 

Close, Bear, but not quite 100%

 

The contract was in 1987 (IIRC) to convert the handful of Tornado F2s  into F3s, which among other things involved removing and modifying the central wing mounting box that contained all the wing pivots and the clever gubbins in the HLWSCU (High Lift and Wing Sweep Control Unit). Once the box was demounted from the airframe the top plate had to be removed and the BAe engineering instructions stated that the rivets had to be drilled out using a defined diameter drill. One of Airwork's bright lads, however, reckoned it would be quicker and easier just to knock the rivet heads off with a cold chisel and proceeded to do so. Unfortunately his actions led to cracking of the boxes and since they were the main structural heart of the aircraft the potential repercussions were quite dramatic.  Fortunately the damage was apparent to the RAF engineers who examined the work done by Airwork before the aircraft were returned resulting in a sh1t/ fan interface situation. I believe that the cost was getting on for £2M per aircraft but I can't put an accurate figure on it. It was also rumoured (although I never heard it confirmed) that the MoD set out to sue Airwork for damages but since they were 51% owned by the Swedish government it was deemed impossible to do so successfully.

 

Dave

[SM42]

Didn't one of the Apollo crew members when asked what they thought about just before launch reply along the lines of they were sitting on top of a very large hydrogen/ oxygen powered rocket  built by the cheapest contractor. 

 

It sometimes is best not to overthink things

 

Andy

[Winslow Boy]

2 minutes ago, SM42 said:

Didn't one of the Apollo crew members when asked what they thought about just before launch reply along the lines of they were sitting on top of a very large hydrogen/ oxygen powered rocket  built by the cheapest contractor. 

 

It sometimes is best not to overthink things

 

Andy

 

More along the lines of I'm sitting atop of a rocket that's consists of a million parts all of which have obtained by choosing the lowest price. Or something like that.

[Happy Hippo]

56 minutes ago, coastalview said:

Thought I would wander down to Church Stretton today to watch the Welsh Marches Express from Slough to Shrewsbury go past. I believe it should have had Britannia up front. 

 

Unfortunately it seems to have failed just north of Hereford causing major delays on the line.

 

The poor folk on board reached Shrewsbury over three hours late and then almost immediately turned around and headed back.

 

They would have been on the train for about 16 hours by the time they got back to Slough.

 

Chris

The Brit was only in light steam due to the fire risk so D6817 (EE type 3/Class 37) was the main traction.  The train was stopped at Leominster with a coach that had a brake issue and had to be removed from the train. (Info from the RiSW forum on Facebook)

 

Of course back in the good old days, that would have been a 30 minute job and the train would have been on it's way.

Edited August 17, 2022 by Happy Hippo

[newbryford]

None of this fire risk stuff oop North...

34067 Tangmere passing my local station with the Northern Belle in tow today.

(pic from my mate as I didn't get home from work in time)

 

 

[AndyID]

3 hours ago, SM42 said:

 

How many insulating rail joints ?

 

 

Common-return? DCC? Battery R/C? Clockwork? 😀

 

 

 

 

Edited August 18, 2022 by AndyID
typhoo

[iL Dottore]

6 hours ago, SM42 said:

Today's lesson from Wacky Races, sorry, Poland's highways is

 

If you are in a hurry, follow a 44t truck and keep up with them. 

 

They will find the speed cameras and traps for you and you will make up 14 minutes on the sat nav ETA over the 60 miles home….

…….Of course I don't condone any sort of law breaking but,

 

Kiedy w Polsce, Robie jak polacy. 

Challenging driving indeed, Andy.

But I can do you one better:

• Driving in Cairo
• At night
• Down a one-way street (the right way)
• Only to meet a car coming the other way
• Without lights!

Surprisingly, Egypt only manages to rack up a modest 12.8 road deaths/100’000 people a year [slightly more than the US at 12.4/100’00!]. For real carnage you need to drive in Liberia, The Congo, The Central African Republic, Tanzania or Thailand. Britain comes in at a very modest 2.9 road deaths/100’000 people year - slightly ahead of Switzerland at 2.4 road deaths/100’000.

Gven the frequent reports on TNM, ER and other RMWeb threads about the epidemic of cockwombles and cockwomblettes on British roads, I’m wondering if the UK stats above aren’t a bit suss.

[iL Dottore]

6 hours ago, Winslow Boy said:

 

More along the lines of I'm sitting atop of a rocket that's consists of a million parts all of which have obtained by choosing the lowest price. Or something like that.

I read, somewhere, of an interview with a Russian cosmonaut who was asked his opinion on the American efforts in the space race. He reportedly said “Americans build down to a price, the Russians build up to a specification“

 

A accurate quote? An apocryphal tale? Who knows, but it rings true!

[iL Dottore]

Regarding the MoD and how they manage to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory on many occasions, I’m wondering if we could not help the Ukrainians better by shipping the MOD to Russia?

[AndyID]

Not so much a model railway, more small boy's Tri-ang fantasy 😀

 

 

The white bit is elevated over the tracks beneath. There are six quite long storage loops at the top with room for another two trains in the feed and exit tracks. Not sure what's going on in the lower right area. Another station or a goods yard?

 

Basically it's an "out and back" with a reversing loop that has storage loops. Also allows continuous running and reversal in either direction.

 

(Designed in Templot. Mostly showing the track center lines only but the design actually includes all the rails, sleepers and lots of other details. The points will be 3-D printed.)

[AndyID]

Which famous physicist said,

 

"The crepe expands to fill the available space?"

 

[polybear]

8 hours ago, Dave Hunt said:

One of Airwork's bright lads, however, reckoned it would be quicker and easier just to knock the rivet heads off with a cold chisel and proceeded to do so.

 

Sounds like he should've been working in a Blacksmith's, not an Aerospace Company.

Either that or a Ford Garage.

 

8 hours ago, Dave Hunt said:

It was also rumoured (although I never heard it confirmed) that the MoD set out to sue Airwork for damages but since they were 51% owned by the Swedish government it was deemed impossible to do so successfully.

 

 

Perhaps question one that the MoD should ask themselves whenever considering the suitability of a supplier should be:

"If they screw up can we sue them - and can they pay?"

 

Thanks Dave - I'm amazed I got even remotely close after 35 years....

 

1 hour ago, iL Dottore said:

Surprisingly, Egypt only manages to rack up a modest 12.8 road deaths/100’000 people a year [slightly more than the US at 12.4/100’00!]. For real carnage you need to drive in Liberia, The Congo, The Central African Republic, Tanzania or Thailand. Britain comes in at a very modest 2.9 road deaths/100’000 people year - slightly ahead of Switzerland at 2.4 road deaths/100’000.

 

 

I believe that at one time** the road deaths in Saudi exceeded the birth rate - 28.8 per 100,000 in 2016 apparently, which is the highest of any high income country.  When you hear stories of little kids driving trucks cos' (being a boy) they are now the head of the family as the father has died; the version I heard is that the boy sat on the mother's lap and she'd work the pedals whilst he steered.

I've not been to Saudi, but have been to Kuwait a few times and that was bad enough (and a workmate says they've really cleaned up their act in recent years...).  There was one roundabout I nicknamed the "Who Dares Wins" Roundabout - and Bear was very grateful I was driving hire cars.

 

**Not any more

 

 

[polybear]

9 hours ago, Northmoor said:

The MoD was quite capable of screwing things up on its own; I did hear of the compressor wash fluid purchase which wasn't intercepted fast enough.  A bright young thing in MoD procurement decided to buy a product that was much cheaper than usual, seemingly not realising that meeting the NATO specification wasn't optional.  The high salt content wasn't picked up until the first Pegasus engine had to be sent back through the overhaul cycle for about £1M, which rather cancelled out the estimated purchase saving about 100-fold.

 

Ah yes, some of the Purchase Dept**. Oiks at Bear's Fun Factory were rather good at that.  Trying to explain to them that a Draper 10mm ring spanner wasn't an acceptable substitute for a Snap-On or Facom spanner was like trying to push gravy uphill with your nose.

 

**Which was re-named in later years to some bullsh1t bingo word that no-one understood - and Bear can't remember.  Puppers?

Edited August 18, 2022 by polybear

[New Haven Neil]

9 hours ago, Dave Hunt said:

 

Donk has a doppelganger?

 

Dave

 

That's Dink, his sister - lives with the nephew in Swansea. We had met up for a camping holiday, involving chuffy green things.

 

As for airyplanes - a mate, who had better remain nameless, had a nice blue uniform (not that they are any more)  and used to go to fix planes that had 'become unserviceable' after attention by Dave's mates, and recover them or repair to allow to be flown home.  One job was something to do with the damaged skin of the vertical stabiliser aka tail fin on a certain type of very fast aircraft.  Upon stripping the panel off, the back of the high tech specialised material had an image and wording - 'wear ear defenders'.  The nuggets had used an old safety sign.....he was 'not impressed'.  Some sh!t did indeed hit the fan!

[Northmoor]

33 minutes ago, polybear said:

Perhaps question one that the MoD should ask themselves whenever considering the suitability of a supplier should be:

"If they screw up can we sue them - and can they pay?"

It's not true that the cheapest supplier always wins, the selection criteria are (or at least supposed to be) applied so that a supplier cannot win on price alone, they still have to meet the technical criteria as well.  Being able to sue them is a false benefit; you'll have your money back but doesn't stop you being be several years down the line and still not have what you wanted.

 

More recently I've worked for a company which fined a supplier £25M for non-performance against a contract (thoroughly deserved IMO) and then awarded them another contract of a similar value six months later.  None of my colleagues could understand how they weren't disqualified from bidding for further contracts on grounds of track record.

[AndyID]

23 minutes ago, Northmoor said:

More recently I've worked for a company which fined a supplier £25M for non-performance against a contract (thoroughly deserved IMO) and then awarded them another contract of a similar value six months later.  None of my colleagues could understand how they weren't disqualified from bidding for further contracts on grounds of track record.

 

You'd think, but unless there was some serious hanky-panky going on, they were likely better qualified than any other bidders. That's pretty much the way things have to work unless you have the State control everything, but that doesn't work too well either 😀

[PhilJ W]

4 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

Challenging driving indeed, Andy.

But I can do you one better:

• Driving in Cairo
• At night
• Down a one-way street (the right way)
• Only to meet a car coming the other way
• Without lights!

Surprisingly, Egypt only manages to rack up a modest 12.8 road deaths/100’000 people a year [slightly more than the US at 12.4/100’00!]. For real carnage you need to drive in Liberia, The Congo, The Central African Republic, Tanzania or Thailand. Britain comes in at a very modest 2.9 road deaths/100’000 people year - slightly ahead of Switzerland at 2.4 road deaths/100’000.

Gven the frequent reports on TNM, ER and other RMWeb threads about the epidemic of cockwombles and cockwomblettes on British roads, I’m wondering if the UK stats above aren’t a bit suss.

Despite what some people think British drivers are expected to reach a higher standard before they get their licences. Also roadworthiness, in many places cars are not required even to be tested.

3 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

Regarding the MoD and how they manage to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory on many occasions, I’m wondering if we could not help the Ukrainians better by shipping the MOD to Russia?

I thought that happened in the late 40's/early 50's (George Blake etc.)