Nick C

As @Compound2632 says, this changes things significantly. Most, if not all, heritgage railways don't run demonstration goods trains as traditional pick-up goods - there simply isn't enough time between the revenue-earning passenger services, which, by their nature, are much more frequent than in BR days. Generally a demonstration freight will run in a 'spare' passenger path - for example, if the railway runs a 'Sunday Lunch' train, the freight might use the same path on a Saturday. It'll often be run with a brake van on both ends (to avoid having to shunt at each end), and may well be fully-fitted, or at least through piped - indeed it will have to be if any passengers are carried (i.e. offering brake van rides, usualy for a small donation to help the wagon group funds) I've been involved in a couple of pick-up goods at the MHR, which were done for photographic charters, on days when the normal public service wasn't running. Even with radios and a dedicated shunter, they take a long time - pretty much all day to do a full round trip, although that does include doing many of the moves several times for the benefit of the photographers. Also, most heritage railway stations won't have a goods yard, or if they do it will be much smaller than original - generally, at many stations, yards will have been converted to loco and carriage works (e.g. Sheffield Park, Ropley, Havenstreet), or appropriated by the various other departments that need space - PW, S&T etc - at others the yards may well have been lost, sold off before preservation for industry/housing/car parks etc (e.g. Swanage). You tend to have to make do with whatever sidings you do have, and working around whatever is in them already!

Simple but effective!

I think it was very much something that depended on the location - often on a branch stations would only be shunted in one direction (whichever was more convenient for the layout), with wagons being tripped via the terminus. I believe they would also try to marshal the train appropriately, so that all the wagons for a given station were together. It's worth looking at the signalling diagrams on the SRS site for the company you're modelling (e.g. https://www.s-r-s.org.uk/html/srdiagrams.htm), as they can often give insights, and of course photos. I'll use the example of Alresford, on the LSWR Alton-Winchester line, now the Watercress line (https://www.s-r-s.org.uk/html/srn/R9.htm) simply because I've recently seen a photo of it being shunted. In the photo (top of https://watercressline.co.uk/our-history/), you can see a down train sat in the up platform, which doesn't appear to be a signalled move from the single line at the time. The points are set, and the shunt dummy cleared, for the loco to draw forwards (presumably with some of the wagons) into the headshunt, leaving the brake in the platform. It'd then shunt the sidings, which all kick back off the headshunt, before returning to the train and continuing towards Winchester.

Ah, therein may lie the difference. Ours refers not to the single line, but to the block section.

Halfway up the previous page...

Good point! Perhaps, then, a preservation-era filler that has been added to replace the original that ran up the column? Maybe to feed from a water-treatment facility rather than direct?

The NEM pocket under the headstock is very visible there...

Must be an overflow, it looks far too small to be a filler. Maybe the others didn't have one, and just overflowed over the top if there was any problem with the inlet valve...

No, it's based on when you passed your test - on the back of the card should be a table with which categories you're allowed to drive, and the dates from and to - you're looking for B+E (car + trailer) in this case.

Which is why specific offences exist for such scenarios - such as "causing death by dangerous driving"

Wasn't that because they had automatic points on the loops, and so it's difficult to set back over them into a trailing siding?

Thanks! As discussed earleir in the thread, putting the two heel-to-heel gives a wider gap between the lines, but as this is a loco-release, I figured it'd probably be a 10ft way rather than 6ft anyway. As they're both slightly curved, I followed the advice from @martin_wynne and added a slight set in the curved stock rail, which definitely makes the switches sit better in the closed position. The throat at other end is more complex, with 4 points and the single slip...

Looking good! I'm guessing it'll be a fair while before the single slip appears though? (he says, hoping the answer is 'soon'...) I built and laid my first two of Wayne's kits (in OO-SF) over the weekend, and I have to say it was a very easy process:

Some low bridges already have such a device - certainly the one next to Swaythling station does, sensing overheight loads and displaying a warning - you can just about see it in this view warning the bus to turn (which it will, to go past the University halls by the station)

However in the examples quoted it's generally not just for acceptance purposes, but also to enable more flexible working - at Ropley there is several coach-lengths between inner home and advanced starter, to allow most shunting without having to get a token, plus the clearance distance from there to the outer home. Toddington appears to be the same - measuring on Google maps gives 770m in a straigth line from the end of the platform to the outer home.

I don't get how the position of the exit points makes a difference to the likelyhood of a train passing the starter at danger? Would running through the points do anything much to retard the progress of the train? Plus if the arriving train did SPAD the starter, the opposing train is some 900-odd yards away, sitting at the outer home, rather than <200 yards away at the inner home...

I'm not sure whether it was an official thing, or just a guidance/recommendation - just an impression I got from chatting to some of the S&T types at Ropley was that it was the preferred way of doing it. Alresford is the same, though obviously not a passing place, but both ends of the loop have to be set the same for any incoming move. Edit - it might have been an RSSB thing rather than ORR - I've not got access to their interlocking principles documents though

From what I understand, this largely depends on when they were resignalled - the concept of having both ends of the loop in correspondence is a more recent ORR requirement, as you say to prevent run-through in the event of a SPAD - but obviously isn't possible without an outer home as you'd then not have a clearing point.

The person who told me the above was a professor of Electrical Engineering who had been working for the CEGB/National Grid research lab before returning to academia, so 'both'. He was somewhat adament that the grid would need a lot of investment, not just becuase of EVs, but even to keep going with the status quo.

Yes and No. Of course it's not an excuse to rubbish EVs etc, but it is certainly something that needs to be thought about - our national grid was designed based on usage patterns in the 1960s - and much of it, particularly the 'last mile', is, I'm told, somewhat creaking at the seams -Usage patterns have changed significiantly since then, and we're using a lot more power than we did, plus a lot of the kit is aging. It's therefore likely that a lot of the street-corner substations will need to be upgraded or replaced to cope with everyone all wanting to charge at once - and there's a risk that will turn into a political football, with everyone involved wanting someone else to pay for it...

Not just common, but standard. I've not seen any UIC vehicles with dedicated guard's accommodation - I believe every vehicle has a handbrake (tucked away in a cabinet in the end vestibule), and the guard just roams, and dispatches the train from any convenient doorway.

I imagine there would have been different size tanks depending on how much water they'd expect to need- so maybe a small terminus like Warren would have had a smaller tank than a big junction? (In other words, allowing you to have whichever size looks best!) Height of the arm is probably more important, to reach the tanks on your biggest loco...

Suzuki actually have a list on their website: https://cars.suzuki.co.uk/contact-us/ Which is useful as we've got an '04 Ignis, which according to it's handbook only supports up to 5% ethanol, but that list says it is compatible with E10.

We went up to London a couple of weeks ago, and the touristy areas were very quiet compared to normal - as of course there are no foreign tourists. It was quite a revalation being able to walk over Hungerford bridge in a straight line instead of having to constanly avoid groups of selfie-takers...

Yep, that looks right to me - I've just sketched out the whole junction to check it in context...