Road Vehicles in silly places

[multiprinter]

Didn't Alfas come with a rust guarantee? If it didn't rust within two years they'd replace it with one that did.

[Oldddudders]

You had a Lancia Beta that lasted 5 years!

It gets better (betta?)! Lancia sought to save their UK reputation by making generous valuations if you traded in a rusty Beta. Sure enough, taking my 5-year old potential MOT failure to Autoyachts in Gillingham in 1980 got me going again in a 2-year old version in the same Rosso York - and this one was covered from new by a Ziebart guarantee against rust! Woohoo! Of course within a year or two the rust began to appear, and I trotted off to Ziebart, who prevaricated, then admitted it was rusty - then went into liquidation! We sold it for a song - and bought a Microwave with the proceeds!

[2ManySpams]

Having measured many road widths at accident scenes in my previous life the average width of a single carriageway 2 lane road is 27' then pavements which tend to be at least 5' so you need 37' between walls. When modelled it actually loos rather wide. On Long Preston people sometimes comment on the width of the road on the main overbridge by the station and that is a scale 27' wide.

 

Jamie

 

Jamie I agree it's not just vehicles that are the problem but the roads they sit on too....

 

As someone who has designed new roads in the past I can offer the following 'standard' road widths from the Design Manual for Roads and Bridges (DMRB). Note these all ideal widths for new or updated roads not historical 'been here since the romans' tracks!

 

Each lane on a road is normally 3.65m wide, this can be narrowed to 3m in places such as junctions where a central turn lane can be introduced of around 3.5m.

Single carriageways are therefore 7.3m between kerbs, or around 9.5m if there's a central right turn lane*.

 

There's also the option for a 'wide single' which has lanes 5m wide, equating to 10m between kerbs. The idea here is that extra capacity is created by aiding overtaking, passing bikes and brocken down / stopped vehicles.

 

Not all roads have kerbed edges and in this case a 'hardstrip' of 1m wide is provided beyond the solid edge line. Motorway hardshoulders are 3.3m wide.

 

Motorways are generally modelled way too narrow. Done to scale (including verges, hard shoulders, central reserve and 3 lanes in each direction) a typical motorway will be around 36.1m wide which equates to 473mm at 4mm scale! Interestingly the ideal radius for a motorway curve is around 2.2km too....or 28.852m in 4mm scale.

 

Oh, and regarding the cross fall on a road... that should be 1 in 40 or 2.5% unless the curve is too tight for the design speed in which case 'super elevation' can be applied. On a standard 3.65m wide lane the standard camber raises the lane an one side by 91mm or just under 1.2mm in 4mm scale. That's not much and is often over-done on models.

 

If you're really interested in knowing more then have a read of TD27/05: http://www.standardsforhighways.co.uk/dmrb/vol6/section1/td2705.pdf . Page 25 onwards has some handy dimensioned typical cross-sections of new roads.

(* big simplification)

[wamwig]

Jamie I agree it's not just vehicles that are the problem but the roads they sit on too....

 

As someone who has designed new roads in the past I can offer the following 'standard' road widths from the Design Manual for Roads and Bridges (DMRB). Note these all ideal widths for new or updated roads not historical 'been here since the romans' tracks!

 

Each lane on a road is normally 3.65m wide, this can be narrowed to 3m in places such as junctions where a central turn lane can be introduced of around 3.5m.

Single carriageways are therefore 7.3m between kerbs, or around 9.5m if there's a central right turn lane*.

 

There's also the option for a 'wide single' which has lanes 5m wide, equating to 10m between kerbs. The idea here is that extra capacity is created by aiding overtaking, passing bikes and brocken down / stopped vehicles.

 

Not all roads have kerbed edges and in this case a 'hardstrip' of 1m wide is provided beyond the solid edge line. Motorway hardshoulders are 3.3m wide.

 

Motorways are generally modelled way too narrow. Done to scale (including verges, hard shoulders, central reserve and 3 lanes in each direction) a typical motorway will be around 36.1m wide which equates to 473mm at 4mm scale! Interestingly the ideal radius for a motorway curve is around 2.2km too....or 28.852m in 4mm scale.

 

Oh, and regarding the cross fall on a road... that should be 1 in 40 or 2.5% unless the curve is too tight for the design speed in which case 'super elevation' can be applied. On a standard 3.65m wide lane the standard camber raises the lane an one side by 91mm or just under 1.2mm in 4mm scale. That's not much and is often over-done on models.

 

If you're really interested in knowing more then have a read of TD27/05: http://www.standardsforhighways.co.uk/dmrb/vol6/section1/td2705.pdf . Page 25 onwards has some handy dimensioned typical cross-sections of new roads.

(* big simplification)

 

Having also been a highway designer/transport planner since the mid 70s, and have designed many roads in the UK and elsewhere, I can also confirm that 7.3m (ie two 3.65m lanes) is actually just the metric equivilent of 24ft, which roads were before metrification (see the old publication Roads in Urban Areas/Rural Areas) and parking spaces are 4.8x2.4m or rather 16ft x 8ft and have not changed from the year 'dot' and hence perfectly adequate for the cars of the 40s/50s but not todays much larger vehicles and hence why you get so many little dings in supermarket car parks, I did actually do a research paper which showed the comparable car (I took the Ford Prefect/Anglia/Escort/Focus ranges) has increased in size by 20/25% thats without taking into consideration todays 4x4/SUV's!

[F-UnitMad]

... Of course within a year or two the rust began to appear, ... We sold it for a song - and bought a Microwave with the proceeds!

... and has that gone rusty yet...??? :D

[Pennine MC]

Funnily enough, a previous layout by Mr Taylor, Llanderwen I think it was called, was 'Railway of the Month' in the first Modeller I ever bought, around Oct/Nov 1970.

 

Clynderwen - I remember it too, in one of my early purchases. My mate at school thought it was a fake article of some sort, he didnt believe anyone really had a layout that big

[HerbertHopkins]

Clynderwen - I remember it too, in one of my early purchases. My mate at school thought it was a fake article of some sort, he didnt believe anyone really had a layout that big

 

Funny how some things stick in your mind isn't it, even after forty years? God I feel old!

[Oldddudders]

... and has that gone rusty yet...??? :D

Not sure what happened to it, actually, but within a few years we'd replaced it with a micro-air AKA combi-oven - all the benefits of a traditional oven plus microwave, of course.

 

When we were moving to France, we contacted the manufacturer of the thing and asked if it would work alright in France. Naturally, they said not really, so we gave it away - and bought the exact same thing again with a French plug! A lot of kidology about the effectiveness of UK white goods etc abroad.

[Fat Controller]

Not sure what happened to it, actually, but within a few years we'd replaced it with a micro-air AKA combi-oven - all the benefits of a traditional oven plus microwave, of course.

 

When we were moving to France, we contacted the manufacturer of the thing and asked if it would work alright in France. Naturally, they said not really, so we gave it away - and bought the exact same thing again with a French plug! A lot of kidology about the effectiveness of UK white goods etc abroad.

They probably hadn't heard that the French had upgraded to 220/240V AC; they were also wondering why they didn't export more things to France...

[Penlan]

Having also been a highway designer/transport planner since the mid 70s, ......

When I was in Highway design, back when...(60's early 70's, RCU's) we had overlay transition style curves in perspex or something to the regular scales for use when drawing up road plans which showed the sweep of 40' artics, long wheel base trucks etc. These were different to the actual transition curves also available then.

 

I had loads of these curves and French curves etc., in a drawer, then about six years ago they all started melting, the smell was horendous and I threw the lot out of the window, but not before I got burnt from the melting mass - I never did resolve what triggered the melt!

I still have a couple of boxes of Railway curves though, 1 x metric, 1 x imperial - they were stored in a different area.

 

I suppose it's all CAD now, but I do sometimes wonder what they use to plot some of the road kerbing, islands etc., with these days when I look at the lorries tracking round islands, bends.... and as for some of the kerb alignments, well elbow joints springs to mind at times. No transitions.

[wamwig]

When I was in Highway design, back when...(60's early 70's, RCU's) we had overlay transition style curves in perspex or something to the regular scales for use when drawing up road plans which showed the sweep of 40' artics, long wheel base trucks etc. These were different to the actual transition curves also available then.

 

I had loads of these curves and French curves etc., in a drawer, then about six years ago they all started melting, the smell was horendous and I threw the lot out of the window, but not before I got burnt from the melting mass - I never did resolve what triggered the melt!

I still have a couple of boxes of Railway curves though, 1 x metric, 1 x imperial - they were stored in a different area.

 

I suppose it's all CAD now, but I do sometimes wonder what they use to plot some of the road kerbing, islands etc., with these days when I look at the lorries tracking round islands, bends.... and as for some of the kerb alignments, well elbow joints springs to mind at times. No transitions.

 

Hi Penlan

 

Yep its all CAD these days and 'Autotrack' (a bolt on to Autocad) is used for HGV swept paths rather than those useful overlays from 'Designing for deliveries'! Autotrack is a bit generous though and most truck drivers can better what is shown, sometimes I have had to go out with cones and prove it as well! And of course Autotrack cant model in 3D which believe me can be a problem sometimes!

 

Oh for the days of big sheets of paper, pencils and transition curves, at least these days there is no scraping ink off linen negatives any more! The finished drawing does (or at least should) look a lot clearer! Trouble is CAD will 'snap' to a point and some of todays 'engineers' have no idea of transitions or even looking down the alignment to give it a visual check!

 

Sometimes though I still like to work it out long hand without the computer program, and I still remember BIPS and all those punchcards and having to run it overnight!!

 

And I am also ex RCU!

[rob D2]

I think the pendon 'blooper' is explained in the caption, the driver is having a chat with some chap buy the road.

I generally agree with the OP - although everything on my layouts is an after thought other than the trains !

[mwrosebury2000]

Does CAD used to design road take into account of truck drivers from europ who don't seam to be able to drive as well as uk drivers. (maybe this is something to do with the drivers seat on the wrong side, not the driver).

[2ManySpams]

Hi Penlan

 

Yep its all CAD these days and 'Autotrack' (a bolt on to Autocad) is used for HGV swept paths rather than those useful overlays from 'Designing for deliveries'! Autotrack is a bit generous though and most truck drivers can better what is shown, sometimes I have had to go out with cones and prove it as well! And of course Autotrack cant model in 3D which believe me can be a problem sometimes!

 

Oh for the days of big sheets of paper, pencils and transition curves, at least these days there is no scraping ink off linen negatives any more! The finished drawing does (or at least should) look a lot clearer! Trouble is CAD will 'snap' to a point and some of todays 'engineers' have no idea of transitions or even looking down the alignment to give it a visual check!

 

Sometimes though I still like to work it out long hand without the computer program, and I still remember BIPS and all those punchcards and having to run it overnight!!

 

And I am also ex RCU!

I agree.

 

I cut my teeth in a design office that employed 'tracers' who worked in ink on transparencies and have also seen the transition to CAD design. There does seem to be less thought put into alignments these days, and I think this is very much the case of things being designed on screen using 'snapping' and other cold tools rather than the human eye. With the introduction of CAD we saw on site many more errors. Kerblines not running sweetly (or joining up!), pavements laid in mid air, carriageways ponding (gully pots at high points) and drainage runs either ridiculously deep or again in mid air. All a case of people believing the computer output - 'computer says yes!' I'm not convinced either that there's the degree of checking that used to go on in the old County days - is there still a sense of pride in design? There certainly isn't the local ownership you used to find when the County Surveyor ruled to roost.

 

Mind you there was a lot of waste in the old days - schemes took eons to design with annual revisits just in case they got funding. Oh and those Friday afternoon 'site visits' which followed long liquid lunch breaks are a thing of the past now.

[wamwig]

I agree.

 

I cut my teeth in a design office that employed 'tracers' who worked in ink on transparencies and have also seen the transition to CAD design. There does seem to be less thought put into alignments these days, and I think this is very much the case of things being designed on screen using 'snapping' and other cold tools rather than the human eye. With the introduction of CAD we saw on site many more errors. Kerblines not running sweetly (or joining up!), pavements laid in mid air, carriageways ponding (gully pots at high points) and drainage runs either ridiculously deep or again in mid air. All a case of people believing the computer output - 'computer says yes!' I'm not convinced either that there's the degree of checking that used to go on in the old County days - is there still a sense of pride in design? There certainly isn't the local ownership you used to find when the County Surveyor ruled to roost.

 

Mind you there was a lot of waste in the old days - schemes took eons to design with annual revisits just in case they got funding. Oh and those Friday afternoon 'site visits' which followed long liquid lunch breaks are a thing of the past now.

 

Cor scratching out alignments on old linen negs with a scalpel, those were the days especially if the original was in 1/2500 as the 'order' plans (line/side road and cpo) were!!! Mind you been gone from the RCU since 1980 now but I still have a good stock of scalpel blades and HMSO sable paintbrushes!

 

Ah Friday afternoons at the RCU or County I remember them well!!!

 

Even now though I will print an alignment out and 'eye' it to make sure it hasnt any glaringly obvious errors in, it can usually spot the 'snap to' ones! and a contour plan will ensure you dont have the gullies in the wrong place! Believe me when I check a layout it gets a proper check!

[br2975]

Mind you there was a lot of waste in the old days - schemes took eons to design with annual revisits just in case they got funding. Oh and those Friday afternoon 'site visits' which followed long liquid lunch breaks are a thing of the past now.

 

Did we work together in a former life ?

 

During the mid-70s I worked for what was then South Glamorgan County Council (Highways & General Engineering)- For three consecutive summers I surveyed the course of the proposed extension to Dock View Road in Barry, in the hope that funding would become available in the next financial year !

 

Brian R

[Glorious NSE]

Jamie I agree it's not just vehicles that are the problem but the roads they sit on too....

 

As someone who has designed new roads in the past I can offer the following 'standard' road widths from the Design Manual for Roads and Bridges (DMRB). Note these all ideal widths for new or updated roads not historical 'been here since the romans' tracks!

 

Definately worth emphasising that last line, plenty of roads down here, including some important and/or well used ones, are well outside those criteria.

 

They've also not done particularly well on planning for large vehicle sweeps in some places, even on fairly new construction on an industrial estate that you can predict will be used regularly by large vehicles - or even coming up with schemes that are logical and understandable to the users...we've a lovely one locally where a combined foot/cyclepath crosses a side road, the road has give way lines except with no triangle, there is no road sign at all in one direction, there's a road sign warning of bikes in the other direction, albeit not in advance but actually at the "crossing" - cyclists and pedestrians get a blue circle to say they are on a cycle and footway - but who has priority?

 

And as for two pavements each at least 5' wide? Luxury.

[2ManySpams]

Did we work together in a former life ?

 

During the mid-70s I worked for what was then South Glamorgan County Council (Highways & General Engineering)- For three consecutive summers I surveyed the course of the proposed extension to Dock View Road in Barry, in the hope that funding would become available in the next financial year !

 

Brian R

 

No, I don't think so - I was at Staffordshire CC. In the 80s and 90s they had drawers full of bypass and junction inprovement flights of fancy. Mind you some, like Rugeley, have eventually been built!

[F-UnitMad]

Does CAD used to design road take into account of truck drivers from Europe who don't seem to be able to drive as well as UK drivers. (maybe this is something to do with the drivers seat on the wrong side, not the driver).

Time was, not so many years back, that 'International' Truck Drivers (both UK & EU) were the most experienced HGV Drivers on the road. Since the EU opened up to include Eastern Europe, standards have declined rapidly for many reasons, not least the lower-standard HGV test Eastern EU has.

Suffice to say that it is reckoned that whereas maybe a decade ago 75% of trucks crossing the Channel were UK-registered, now it is down to about 25% or less. So more EU drivers are coming over here and they aren't as experienced as they used to be. The Company I work for receives many EU trucks a week, and if the yard is blocked up for 15mins or so, you can guarantee it's an EU Driver who can't reverse onto a loading bay...

[m0rris]

It still lasted longer than:-

An AlfaSud- a friend bought one in 1976, which had rotted through within a year.

Italsider, the steelworks outside Naples which was built to provide steel for the Alfasud plant- this closed within a few years of opening, owing the bit of British Steel I worked for a lot of money.

 

Apologies for going back on a older topic, is this the infamous works that was said to have provided steel to the factory already prerusted ?

 

On another note... my pet hate on railways is the "craned in truck" which obviously could not have negotiated the sharp corners into the area it is parked. Picking up on a point made earlier, and I am guilty of this as well, quite often it is the results of trains first (which is understandable in railway modelling!) that leads to these obvious errors.

 

m0rris

[HerbertHopkins]

On another note... my pet hate on railways is the "craned in truck" which obviously could not have negotiated the sharp corners into the area it is parked. Picking up on a point made earlier, and I am guilty of this as well, quite often it is the results of trains first (which is understandable in railway modelling!) that leads to these obvious errors.

 

m0rris

mOrris, we're both on the same wavelength here. I've worked in the transport industry, on and off, for over thirty years and lorries in places that they couldn't possibly fit into stick out like a sore thumb to me. My other pet hate, as has been mentioned already, is roads that are far too narrow. Given that most of us live on or near a road, is it that difficult to go out with a tape measure (when it's quiet of course) and measure the damn thing?

[M.I.B]

I do also have Gene Hunt's cortina, but even that has an incorrect numberplate for its front grill style.

 

 

 

Gene Hunt's Cortina isn't the real deal anyway. Don't "rivet count me on this" but IIRC it is something like an L with a few GXL parts and a respray for TV.

[Steven B]

Given that most of us live on or near a road, is it that difficult to go out with a tape measure (when it's quiet of course) and measure the damn thing?

 

Go outside and get cold and wet measuring a road?? Much easier, and accurate enough for most modellers is to use the measuring tool in Google Earth (also easier if you're modelling a location which you live miles from!).

 

Happy modelling,

 

Steven B.

[Pennine MC]

Gene Hunt's Cortina isn't the real deal anyway. Don't "rivet count me on this" but IIRC it is something like an L with a few GXL parts and a respray for TV.

 

Already covered, top of page 2:

 

Possibly some confusion here. Unless I'm mistaken the Oxford model has the KJM212K plate that it wore in the series, so they do match. The actual car is really an N-plate 2000E, but with the earlier GXL front put on

It's fairly easy to find stuff on Google about it

[Barry Ten]

All this highway design stuff is fascinating. My late father worked in design - he was based in Truro in the late 60s/early 70s and then latterly in Swansea - he did bits of the A465 up from Neath. There was always a lot of tracing material around our home - big drawing tables, sheets of clear film, Rotring pens, French curves and so on.