SHMD

Turn the sound down! Kev. (..just try it.)

I've actually seen that tower - although not knowingly and from the other side of the Thames when I was staying in the Intercontinental Hotel. Just outside the entrance to this hotel is this: - Kev.

Is that BrakeVan needed there? Can you use it where you need it now? Kev.

"Dot" - now there is a name from the past! Everybody else, just picture "Professor McGonagall"! I use to spend my school lunch money in there, but just occasionally, a Driver of the Stockport-Staly "Donkey" would allow you on the unit for the shunt from (the then) Platform 1 (Dn Hudd) to either the bay (Platform 3) or Platform 2 (Up to Manchester(s)). Thus getting the rare crossover. The "Donkey" (usually a 2 car unit, then an old Gloucester 100/Hybrid something or other unit, and later a single Bubble Car (class x550xx) but not big enough to hold all the schoolgirls going to Stockport in the morning)) was then timed to arrive into Staly just behind the Newcastle express (within feet), to let the passengers from London change trains and proceed to Yorkshire. Then it would wait for the balancing return express (from Newcastle to Liverpool), swap over to the other platform to pick up passengers wanting to go to London. O' course, this all changed when the "expresses" were diverted from Manchester Victoria to Piccadilly and the Stockport-Staly was demoted to a once-a-week "parliamentary". Now, all scheduled times change yearly seasonally monthly weekly daily hourly everytime control has to think about it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (There is no ((predictable Timetable now.)) Kev.

They are not short of beers in the Buffet Bar. (Quite often they are short of space though!) I do recommend a pork pie to go with your first pint. (It comes with mustard and is one o the best pies I know.) kev.

Informative about the signal above Print Works Rd. Platform 3 has always been regularly used in either direction. (There must be more than 10 trains, in each direction, diagrammed each day to stop at the bi-directional Platform 3.) 10 years ago, after the first junction upgrade was finished, the point at the Manchester end of Platform 4 (up to Huddersfield) failed during the first week. this resulted all East bound Huddersfield trains using the bi-directional Platform 3. So, I "copped" this bit of line early doors on my commute home to Mossley. As we swapped over to Platform 3, what was "bang round" previously, I noticed immediately but the two ladies near me didn't. A few minutes later one pointed out to the other that we were now on the wrong track to Mossley - and left it at that. Leaving Stalybridge, they did not notice we crossed back to the Down line and proceeded on to Mossley. Entering Mossley, the first Lady then remarked "Oh, we have changed track again", oblivious to the implications of actually running "Bang Road" for that distance (or anything else)! This Platform 4 point failure also resulted in the much more serious problems for the regulars of the Buffet Bar - they now had to run all the way round to Platform 3 BEFORE the train arrived, instead of just jumping onto the train at the door nearest the Pubs exit as soon as the brakes stopped squealing! Kev.

Shove a Brake Van on the back and be done with it - wait a minute, we don't use Brake Vans anymore... Kev.

Very much so. I normally stay (once or twice a year) in central Berlin and commute out to Botanischser on the S1 or S2 lines. There is plenty of old trackwork to ponder about whilst travelling to and from work. When I was last in Berlin (June 2022) the Berlin Macht Dampf (at Johannisthal on the S8, S9, S45, S46, S85 line) was having its' first open day/live steam event since Covid. It would have been rude not to attend!! Kev.

This assumes we all have a smart phone. I do not. I do have a works phone but I am not allowed to install anything on it. (It's checked...) I also find using none-tactile controllers difficult - I find the need to have-to-look at the controller before attempting to press anything, thus taking my eyes off the action at the critical moment. Kev.

Hi Paul, Do you have an up to date plan for BeiJiao so that us newbies can arrive a bit prepared? Kev.

Sassy certainly is a big cat. You need to find a box that's (definitely) too small for her so that we can all have a laugh at her attempts to get in! Kev.

Possibly the PSU supplying the points has failed. Any more details? (Diagrams, descriptions, parts used...) Kev.

I guess, (without any further info), that the track layout is changing from under it and the gantry signals now don't line up with the new track, both across the gantry and along the tranks. Kev.

It looks like they are installing a turnback siding on the trackbed of the former Micklehurst Loop line. I wonder if it will extend into the tunnel? Ian, is there any more where that pic/diagram come from? Kev.

Ha, disregard the last post. I now have it - thanks. Kev.

...try as I might, I just can't view/download this. Kev.

That does look good, but I am always wary of good looking backgrounds with not interaction. Maybe that was just a 80s thing! Kev.

I've been playing Fortnite (so no surprises there then) but I am in Poitiers, France, and there is a "Geek" bar there. Beer, drinks, cocktails, and 10 PCs maxed out for gaming. (La taverner du geek) If you drink, you play for free. On the second night, (tonight), I had a small audience watching the "old man" play! (Yesterday, they would have seen me win, but today I only managed one 2nd, a few top tens and a couple of howlers! A good evening all the same. Kev. (Typo - Fee to Free)

Yes. Although the new track bed is extending past that sidings' buffer stop and over the recently lost Signal Box base. Kev.

...so that's where the new line is going in. I have taken quite a few photos, of the "current" Stalybridge blockade, and could not work out where all the new track was to go. (I'll post these late.) Has anyone found any (track) plans for this work ? Kev.

I would question "why they have packed up" ! These toggle switches are pretty reliable - as long as you don't exceed their specified ratings. (Using toggle switches on Seeps, or other solenoid type point motors, will exceed the contact ratings and cause them to fail - for example. Kev. (Farnell supplies mine, or I buy them direct - over the counter - when I am in China.)

...I'm pretty sure the answer is 42. Kev.

Those vehicles all look "powered" to me, and not MK1s. Kev. (Who is as blind as a bat and twice as daft!)

I can only guess that most commercial software uses multiple "threads" in their finished software. If you are "Polling" the coms port, instead of using "interrupts", then you WILL lose data whilst the PC is off servicing some other routines when more than one byte is received. Once I added the second "thread", for coms servicing, then I didn't lose a byte AND I increased data throughput significantly. Kev.

Hi Ray, Although I don't use Arduinos, (I use the PIC processor family), I too "tinkered" with RS232 coms at 9600 between the PIC and the PC, and found the link to be totally unreliable with about 20% of all characters transmitted being "randomly lost" at the PC end. The PIC transmitted everything beautifully, (verified by capturing the signal on a Digital Storage Scope), but messages could only reliably be received if transmitted at a slow Baud rate BUT with a big delay added to the end of each character being sent by the PIC. The PC was new(ish) and of quite a high spec, so imagine my disappointment when things had to be slow, oh so slow, to reliably send and receive bytes. It turned out that the problem was the operating system on the PC. PCs run "lots" of stuff all simultaneously, have a look in Task Manager. ...but PCs DON'T run things simultaneously, they actually "time slice" the processor resources between the various tasks that the operating system demands. So the program I wrote, (in Visual Basic Express 2010), was only "polling" the coms port, AND thus, losing characters that slipped in between "poll". The solution, (after much searching, hard thinking, and even harder implementing), was to use "Threading" in VBE. This basically, runs TWO programs - one being the Thread that handles the coms, and the other being my program that uses the communicated bytes. This then worked very well. Kev.