martin_wynne

I have just looked on the weather radar site to if it's raining, instead of getting up from the computer and looking out of the window. How sad have I become? Apparently, it is. Raining I mean. Martin.

Border formalities completed, 18:40 departure, on time, Sunday evening.

Railway sleeper, with cows and Wales.

A glorious day today. Wall to wall sunshine and clear visibility for miles. I've been walking along Offa's Dyke: Martin.

View from Nordy Bank last evening. Nordy Bank is an Iron Age hill fort on Brown Clee hill in South Shropshire. The golf ball in the distance is the Air Traffic Control radar station on Titterstone Clee. Martin.

Linked from: http://www.kidderminstershuttle.co.uk/news/12894093.Lorry_strikes_bridge_near_Kidderminster/ Laugh or cry?

A glorious Spring day today. This was the view looking west from Old Hills, Worcestershire. Looking all the better for the presence of a cheese & pickle sandwich. Martin.

They're not giving up on this. Just received again:

In that case, how are we to know that it's not in use?

Lincomb Lock on the River Severn this evening: And the same location 47 years ago in 1968: I wish I'd had a digital camera in those days -- don't we all? I did however process the colour negative film myself. edit -- I have only just noticed that the black and white sections on the gate beams have swapped over. Does anyone have a date for that? Off to check some canal pics. Martin.

A walk along the River Severn at Holt Fleet today. Telford's bridge at Holt Fleet was completed in 1826 and strengthened several times since. With good reason -- there was non-stop heavy traffic over it this afternoon. I had to wait quite a while to get a pic without traffic. No doubt Thomas Telford would have been amazed to see a stream of 40-ton artics crossing it at 40 miles per hour. Martin.

Hi Dave, Marcway offer this on their web site: Layout Planner Full Size Rail Prints Of The Range £ 4.50 Matching non-prototypical pointwork in Templot can be hard work. Knowing the radius means very little. In addition to the length you need to know the crossing angle, exit angle, intended double-track spacing, etc. Templot may not be the best program to use for a range of fixed pointwork sizes. It is intended for flowing handbuilt track where the size and curving is infinitely variable and often no two templates are the same. The easiest solution would be to scan the Marcway templates and then have them in Templot as picture shapes, so that you can use them simply as a background guide while creating a Templot track plan over them. It may be better to use other software such as AnyRail or XTrackCad. I don't believe AnyRail includes a Marcway library at present, but I'm sure David would be pleased to add one if he had the relevant information. XtrackCad includes a turnout designer function which allows you to enter basic dimensions. regards, Martin.

Certainly you should. Do you believe everything you are told? Expect an election candidate at your door shortly.

Do you have any evidence that this cup ever contained coffee? It may have contained tea, hot chocolate, cup-a-soup (with croutons), 6 spare fixing screws for the battery box cover, or the driver's false teeth.

That's been posted all over the web (several times on RMweb, once by me!). It was eventually discovered that it was done as a joke by one of the fire crew, just for the picture.

If we could snap our fingers and undo all the closures since the 60s, would HS2 still be needed? In other words, did this nation once have all the railway capacity it needed, and throw it away?

It will even out when the population of the planet equals the food supply, with a war or two to decide who gets what. Are you any good at stopping wars? Nor me. In the meantime, we need to spread them out a bit more. More here means less somewhere else, and while they are here they can build HS2, and pay our pensions. And be young and cheerful, full of hopes and dreams. Instead of grumpy about everything, like so many of us -- and your post.

So how do you think we got here? Invented the wheel? Built the railways which we are now modelling? Decoded the DNA helix? Any volunteers to crawl back into the primordial soup?

We are all pensioners now. Without more young people who is actually going to build HS2?

There was a detailed article on drawing-board methods in MRN for January 1965: There is a copy on eBay (not mine): http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Model-Railway-News-Jan-1965-scale-drawings-for-an-engine-shed-/201237041475 That was before the days of personal computers. I remember doing several photos that way -- it worked ok. But using GIMP is a lot easier. Martin.

Here's the link: http://www.templot.com/martweb/info_files/gimp_example.htm An example of using the GIMP image editing program. The GIMP is a free image editing package which includes perspective correction tools. This makes it possible to take measurements and make drawings from photographs, even typical corner views such as this. It is necessary to know one dimension in each direction of course, usually the overall length and height. This is a photograph of a GNR(I) 8 ton covered van. After scanning it I opened it in the GIMP, and selected the Perspective tool. An adjustable grid appears which I have dragged at the corners until it aligns with the edges of the body framing. You can zoom in close to do this accurately if necessary. At the top it was difficult to see the top edge of the frame, so I have aligned the second grid line with the lower edge of the top frame member instead. Note that everything which you align over must be in the same plane on the original - in this case the outer face of the framing. I then selected the Backward (corrective) mode and clicked the Transform button. After trimming the top a little this is the result. The perspective distortion has been removed but the image now has the wrong aspect ratio of width to height. So the next task will be to correct that. You might find The GIMP a strange program to use. It scatters itself across the screen in several separate windows which have an annoying habit of hiding themselves behind each other while you are working. I find that I am constantly having to click them back from the task bar. If you are looking at the image window, first click the Dialogues > Tool Options menu item. On that dialog window click the Perspective tool icon: Now click on the image. The grid should appear, and also the Perspective dialog window containing the Transform button. (There is a lot of additional functionality available by right-clicking on the image.) These GNR(I) vans are 16ft long and the bodyside height is 7ft (unless you know different - it doesn't affect the principles involved), so knowing this it was an easy matter to set the height to 7/16th of the width using the GIMP's Scale function, and the result is as above. This can now be saved, and then opened in a CAD program to have the dimensions picked off or a drawing made over the top. Or you could print it out directly from the GIMP and measure it. There are also measuring tools in the GIMP. In most CAD programs (and Templot) background images can be scaled and re-sized, so this process can be left until then if preferred. Note that only the outer face of the framing and other features in the same plane (the doors and strapping) can be accurately measured. To measure the recessed planking detail accurately it is necessary to repeat the exercise for the plane of the planking, aligning the grid with the planking grooves and the inner face of the framing. If you don't have a CAD program you can take measurements in Templot. Working in 4mm scale I created a picture shape 64mm x 28mm (16ft x 7ft scale) and loaded the bitmap image into it. Templot will re-size it to fit, so there is no need to do this in the GIMP. (control > background shapes menu item in Templot, and then click the ? help button.) Here's the result. Notice how accurately the GIMP has corrected the perspective from the original photograph - the 32mm grid line is running exactly down the centre of the doors. Notice also that the left-hand end of the image is much more sharply defined than the right-hand end. It was nearer the camera and in better focus on the original. So obviously we take as many dimensions as possible from that end. We can see immediately, for example, that the 12mm grid line is running down the centre of the first upright framing member, so we now know that this is a scale 3ft-0in from the end (4mm/ft scale). Next I wanted to know the width of the door openings. It's easy to take measurements using the X,Y read-outs on the jotter (tools > jotter menu item or CTRL-J). After zooming in I first changed the mouse pointer to cross-hairs (pad > mouse options > cross hairs pointer menu item or CTRL-FULLSTOP). I positioned the mouse over the inner edge of the left-hand door framing, held down the ALT key and clicked the left mouse button. This set the dX = read-out to 0.00. I then moved the mouse over to the right-hand frame, and read off the dimensions. You can see that dX (the distance moved horizontally) is showing 17.97mm, which we can take as 18mm within the limits of error for this process, meaning that the door opening is 18mm (4ft-6in scale) wide. This is confirmed by the X = 41.00mm read-out, showing that the door frame is 9mm (2ft-3in scale) from the 32mm centre grid line. To make these mouse positions clear in these screenshots I have added target marks (as spacing ring copies). It's not necessary to do this to use the jotter readout functions. Right-click on the jotter and then on the ? help item on the pop-up menu for more information about using the read-outs. Martin. Download the GIMP from the GIMP web site, or obtain it from computer magazine cover disks (e.g. the June 2002 issue of "PC Format" magazine). More about using the GIMP on track photographs . More about Templot. © 14-June-02.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-31831603 edit: apologies for re-posting this link. New glasses needed.

Just posted on Facebook:

Martin.

River Severn at Lincomb Weir this evening.