Nick C

21 hours ago, BlueLightning said:

The layout has been fully wired for powered, the signalling has been planned, servos have been purchased for point and signal movement, and I am slowly building a number of Scale4 Society lever frames to operate them, there will be 30 levers on the layout in total, including one to switch between DC and DCC operating modes, and several isolating sections.

 

 

I currently have enough kits for 20 levers, so by bypassing the DC sections I can get the layout wired up and working. Providing I can work out how to program the servos, they look easy enough.

You can reduce the number of levers by at least two - 8&9 and 4&10 can both be worked as crossovers, off one lever. If the Brighton were as stingy as the SW there would probably be only one signal for leaving the yard too, applying to both loop and yard (remembering that 11, 15-17, 19 and 20 would in reality all be hand-points)

On 11/05/2024 at 07:43, Enterprisingwestern said:

 

I'm an advocate of roadside signage for lanes for your very reason, but, as always there will be drivers who will ignore whatever they are advised.

 

Mike.

They're not always much use either - Take this one for example:

This caused a lot of confusion when it first opened, as did another nearby one, as they seem to have done all the signage as if each set of lights on the roundabout was a separate junction - note that the sign clearly visible applies to the next set of lights, not the ones the camera is about to pass. and that lane 2 here is left-turn-only - needless to say when going straight on from lane 3, you always keep half an eye on your left mirror for anyone trying to go straight from 2, especially when it's busy...

After nothing all winter, I've finally got back out to the shed more recently.  I've installed a pair of megapoints controllers for the servos, and thought I'd got all the points working - until testing this evening when one of the servos on the double slip decided to go the opposite way - rather awkward as it's one end of a crossover, so having one end normal and the other reverse doesn't work! I'll have to investigate later...

Also found the 82xxx derailed a couple of times on the slip, possibly the same servo not going fully across.

I've also been making a start on the scenic side, trying out a few techniques for ballasting (and mostly failing, the ballast keeps moving when I apply the glue, whichever glue I use...), and making the bank along the back.

We planted a bunch of veg and flowers in the garden last weekend - the whole lot have now been eaten by slugs...

19 hours ago, 30368 said:

 

Thanks John, much appreciated. Yes I have an image of an H2 on Basingstoke shed on a Farnborough Air Show Excursion - I guess 70D was the closest shed for loco servicing.

I seem to remember reading somewhere about a number of GE coach sets being borrowed for a Farnborough Air Show - which then needed Brighton locos to work the air brakes.

There's a photo here (Mike Morant's site) of a B4X on one: 

There's quite a good Wikipedia article on pub names and where many of them actually come from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pub_names

9 hours ago, lezz01 said:

Err vacuuming flock for reuse 101.

First steal a stocking from Mrs Philou, second roll it up so you have around half a foot left unrolled stick this in the vacuum and fix it to the nozzle with an elastic band. Turn on vac and suck up the flock into the stocking. Turn of vac and remove the stocking from the nozzle and empty the stocking into a receptacle ready for reuse. Wash stocking and replace it in the appropriate draw, with luck and a following wind she'll never know.

Simples.

Here endeth the lesson....no charge.

Regards Lez.

Much safer to take one that's already been discarded due to holes - just make sure the holes aren't in the bit that's over the end of the nozzle...

4 minutes ago, black and decker boy said:

touchscreen is fine and simple to use once you get used to it.

Simple enough that you can use it without looking at it?

(even if you can, I suspect a large proportion of drivers can't...)

1 hour ago, nigb55009 said:

My Wife has a Fiat 500X. It`s smart enough to tell you if there`s a problem with tyre pressures, but not which tyre is faulty.

 

My Astra has that, and does know which tyre - except when they were last changed they got them all mixed up...

2 hours ago, Michael Hodgson said:

Zebedee takes a bath every year, whether he needs one or not ....

 

And I'll repeat what I said last time - What did the poor thing do to deserve that? You can see how distressed he is.

There's absolutely no need to bathe a cat unless they're too old to be able to do it themselves, or they've managed to get something nasty on their fur (oil, paint etc)

Just a brushing to help him with the loose fur would have been much better.

https://www.cats.org.uk/cats-blog/should-i-bathe-my-cat

On 20/04/2024 at 11:30, Grovenor said:

Exactly, for the inbound move with the loco pushing the consist should stop just before the points then the signaller replace the entry signal and release the ground frame to the shunter

This might be a "depends on the company" one, but I'd have thought it could be locked such that a shunt signal could be cleared into the platform - that only allows the driver to proceed as far as the line is clear, which would be to the toe of the points.

15 hours ago, 30801 said:

 

Thing is the products are really good even though the bloke's a massive nobber.

Except they're not. Plenty of articles out there about how poor the Tesla build quality is compared with other cars of a similar price range. I remember a few years ago they were showing off one in our local shopping centre, so I wandered over to have a look - the panel gaps were worse than anything BL ever managed!

Plus as has been mentioned earlier, having all the controls on a single touchscreen is not in any way safe - goodness knows how they managed to get that through type approval.

15 hours ago, rodent279 said:

So, to be used to using slam door stock on your own, not as a child with an adult opening the doors for you, you'd have to be say about 10-12 in about 2005, which would put you early 30's now. To be used to using non-CDL fitted slam doors on the mainline,  you'd have to be about the same age in about 1992, so 44-ish now.

So there will be plenty of parents of say 7-15 year old now who will have little if any experience of slam door stock, and possibly a few grand parents as well. That's exactly what one of the prime markets of the Jacobite will be-parents of kids who are HP fans.

My point exactly - I'm just under 40 now, and grew up with CIGs and VEPs on the central division in the 90s/early 2000s, but for anyone in much of the rest of the country they'd already gone by then - plus I'm from a railway family and so would have used the trains a lot more as a kid than most people my age.

12 hours ago, adb968008 said:

VEPs ran until 2010.

Last VEP was withdrawn in 2005 - there were two CIGs lasted to 2010, but they were confined to the Lymington branch.

On 23/04/2024 at 09:49, Reorte said:

Being uninformed means it's far more likely that someone will misjudge the level of risk (and it could be judging it higher or lower than it really is), but that's not the same issue as deciding at what point do we find living with it preferable to the mitigation, and as I mentioned earlier we've all got a point where we do. And you can't say anyone's point is objectively right or wrong. That's why the only reasonable approach is to aim for the majority's, leaving it to the experts to work out how to apply that to their area. Otherwise you've gone down the path of telling people what they should think and feel.

That doesn't always work though - you can easily end up in "Think of the children" situations (especially when the more excitable media get involved) - just look at the various attempts on a regular basis to regulate the internet - It's easy for a paper or politician to say "let's ban the kind of encryption the bad guys are using", but you first need to listen to the experts when they point out that what's being demanded is impossible...

5 hours ago, ruggedpeak said:

I think it somewhat unfair to criticise people for not being able to open a door that has a handle system outside the normal types of handles and buttons used on transport systems is 'mollycoddling'.

Exactly - the last slam-door stock in regular mainline use was withdrawn 20 years ago - a very large proportion of the population will never have come across them...

2 hours ago, Reorte said:

On the first one I don't fear an incident enough to feel a need for one. There's always the chance of course, the risk isn't zero, but I hate the idea of going through life with a "but what if? Better protect myself!" attitude. There's a time and a place for that but the concern has to be rather higher.

I fitted a dashcam after one of my wife's colleagues got caught up by a 'cash for crash' scam - they didn't have one, so had no evidence to dispute the lies told by the scammer...

6 hours ago, StuAllen said:

for some people following me I’m not sure they like going so slow (these are the same people that then stick to 45mph when you hit a national speed limit sign)

Getting back to driving standards -  I had three of those yesterday, tailgating me through 30 or 40 limits (in which I was driving at the posted limit) - all younger people in small hatchbacks...

41 minutes ago, John Besley said:

Advisable to read LTC Rolt Red for Danger to get a background of how the railways evolved from tragedies... I have always said that it should be required reading for anyone contemplating working on the footplate, in particular Abermule... There is a YouTube video of a Footplate crew on a preserved railway (I wont say where) where the fireman doesn't check the staff / token and promptly hangs it up without referring to the driver as far as I can tell.

Required reading anywhere on the railway in my opinion - and was on the reading list I was given before starting training as a signalman. First thing the district inspector said when he handed me my rulebook (the current one, not the 1933 edition! ) was "just remember, every rule in that book was written in blood"

7 hours ago, Fishplate said:

Very nice @KNP.

 

I think the signalman has taken the impending blackout regulations a bit too literally though. Might be why those trains always have to wait at that pesky signal on the viaduct? 🤔

 

Writing that has prompted recollection of a BR rule about footplate staff having to walk to the box if they were held unduly long at a signal ? Others on here might be able to confirm whether I am remembering correctly. And whether that rule existed on the GWR in 1938.

As @John Besley says, rule 55 - which runs to 10 pages in my 1933 SR rule book - including variations for all four companies...

9 hours ago, PeterStiles said:

Although I do have a fondness for Old English where word order was relatively unimportant thanks to the way word-endings differentiate between Object and Subject, so that no matter how you organised the three words "king, kill & queen" you'd know whodunnit.

 

Still the case with many European languages...

She looks just like our Benji!

7 hours ago, DavidB-AU said:

 

This was one reason I think it was sheer genius that Richard Branson gave Diana an unlimited supply of Virgin Atlantic sweatshirts she wore every time she went to the gym. It gave the commentators conniptions and played the paparazzi who had a hard time proving a photo was new.

Apparently the actor Daniel Radcliffe wore the same black Leather jacket every time he went out for six months, just to frustrate the paparazzi...

26 minutes ago, DaveF said:

Changing the subject a bit to speed limits I wonder how many people follow the signs displayed on car screens picked up by the car's built in camera.  

 

Near home mine always displays 20 on one piece of road actually limited to 30 as going round a sharp bend the camera picks up the 20 sign from a side road.

 

Then on a stretch of road recently changed from 40 to 30 it displays 40 as it picks up a sign on the exit before mine as I drive round a roundabout.

 

I wonder how many people have been caught speeding as a result of that.  I simply don't believe what I see on the in car display most of the time.

 

David

Like this?

The 40 signs applying to the slip, the main road being 70...

1 hour ago, hayfield said:

 

 

Round here most EV are either SUV' s or similar size

But that's not the fault of their power train, it's down to the marketing machine conning people into thinking they need a humongous fancy car to show off to their neighbours - and for those who can afford it, buying an electric version means they can show off even more, by pretending to be green...

(That's not to dig at the people who actually need a larger vehicle due to off-road capability, high entry, large load capability etc - but we all know the majority of them are only used for the school run and supermarket...)

1 hour ago, Coldgunner said:

I'd be interested to know how kerbweight affects wear on the road. Obviously there's variations based on load, specs etc but google gives weight ranges

 

A quick google suggests:

Tesla Model 3 weighs 1,611–1,836kg

Model Y weighs 2,352 - 2,455 kg

A 2024 Golf weighs 1,317 - 1,630 kg (Comparable to a model 3 in class?)

The Crapqai (sorry I hate these) is one of the most popular cars weighing 1,300 - 1,670 kg

 

Googlefu brings up https://www.rac.co.uk/drive/advice/buying-and-selling-guides/the-top-10-most-popular-cars-in-the-uk/ which gives a list of the UK's most popular cars

 

I think Tesla's weigh significantly more in general compared to similar classed ICE cars, which isn't surprising really. But I wonder what difference it does make, not only in weight but the difference in power application. Does the high torque of an electric motor cause more potential damage? Does an ICE have a hammerblow effect?

For a more direct comparison - comparing identical spec Vauxhall Corsas (SE Nav)

Electric - 1455Kg

Petrol - 1165Kg

That's a 290Kg or 25% difference in otherwise identical cars - but the EV is still less than most SUVs...

14 minutes ago, hayfield said:

 

 

I was referring to pot holes within the first few lines 

 

"The Asphalt Industry Alliance has claimed that smaller roads could be vulnerable to increased pothole formation, "

 

Within a few paragraphs

 

"Heavier vehicles mean there is more friction between tyres and road, and more stress on whatever is below the car. That means roads deteriorate quicker. Academics at the University of Edinburgh in 2022 calculated that there could be between 20% and 40% additional road wear – think potholes, the driver’s bane – associated with battery vehicles compared with internal combustion engines."

 

Hardly a myth

 

As for carbon emissions, I would like to see the difference between buying a nearly new small petrol car verses a brand new average size EV, as far as total affect to global warming.

I have to say I wouldn't put too much faith in a study that didn't actually carry out any real-world tests (see the next paragraph after the one you quoted...)

I agree with your last comment - all the studies I've seen so far are only comparing new-with-new, and usually make so many assumptions or omissions as to be utterly useless...

The problem with that is that there's no checking on caller ID - so they can spoof any number they like - which could be a perfectly valid number belonging to an innocent bystander...