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Titan

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Everything posted by Titan

  1. That could mean that the bogie frame is worn around the axles. When sufficiently worn they end up with the worm taking the weight, with the axle rocking on it. This causes the coffee grinder noise as the gears don't mesh as they should, and a wobbly body as the axles rock. Of course being Triang they still run, but in an unworn state the motors are an awful lot quieter and smoother. It also means that in a worn state they ride lower than they should which does not help your case either!
  2. The Oxford canal has also suffered a landslip, fortunately in a cutting so the canal is blocked rather than breached as some have reported. Unfortunately it is in remote section so getting in heavy machinery to dig it out is problematic.
  3. It was done on purpose, dual sourcing I think it was called and it proved it's worth on several occasions, as in the early days serious faults were sometimes discovered which meant only half the fleet needed to be grounded rather than the whole lot!
  4. I was involved with this! Taking the 465's to Vienna for climatic testing. Some time was spent adapting the Translator vehicles so that they could be hauled by continental locomotives. Previously they had needed a blue star or ETH fitted loco to provide the electricity required to operate the EP brakes on the Networkers. Yes Networkers - I will come to that later - A small generator was fitted to the translators to provide the electrical supply needed instead. However the French turned their noses up at it so the Networkers had to be run with inoperative brakes, and a long train pipe tied to them with extra vehicles added to the rear for brake force, rendering all the effort we had put in wasted! Now to the "Networkers" bit. Rather than a single 4 car unit as it appears, they were in fact two halves, one GEC/Alstholm the other BREL/ABB. This was because only two cars would fit in the chamber at once, and we weren't going to drag 8 cars all the way to Vienna just so we could test 4 of them. But things were not straightforward. Although the two builds may have looked the same with a superficial glance, there was hardly a single thing that was the same on either of them. This included the intermediate couplings. One was Dellner, the other was BSI - not the ones you see on the outer ends of units, but a bolt together bar coupler type, which of course were incompatible. So two adaptors (might have been three to have one as spare) were made and tested at the RTC Derby. One for the trip, and one so the other 4 cars remaining in the UK could be coupled up and shunted around more easily, and I think a spare just in case. Similarly the electrical cables needed some adaptors, and some creative ordering from LPA procured parts that could be bolted together to form adaptors. Plenty of other spare parts were loaded in to the Translator vehicles in anticipation of what we might need for the long journey e.g. a full set of brake blocks for the translator vehicles themselves, or anything that we thought we might manage to break during testing e.g. Windscreen wiper arms, motors and blades. The Translator vehicles were quite well filled! I spent a week in Vienna Arsenal with them which was pretty epic, including walking past 18000 every day on my way to work!
  5. One freight I would include is a speedlink service. Often a wide variety of wagons in one train, could even be electrically hauled by something like a class 85. Would be ideal for your smaller mixed freight - in the real world could be as short as one wagon!
  6. All axle drive? The gear on the centre axle will have to have a different ratio if they are using the correct size wheels. Would have thought having the centre axle non-driven would be acceptable in this case...
  7. Class 25 traction motors had a habit of catching fire too.
  8. Reminds me of my time changing brake blocks on 309's at Clacton. You never let two units out together that had just had their blocks changed, as it took a little while for the new blocks to bed in. So a freshly changed unit always went out with a part worn so the reduction in brake power on the first couple of applications was not too significant. Wonder if the drivers ever noticed that the brakes could often be a bit less strong until you got past Thorpe-le-Soken? There was mind you an incentive to do it right as often my train home was the one I had just re-blocked!
  9. There have been a number of accidents in the UK due to inadequate brake power that would have been discovered if the driver had carried out a running brake test properly, but the brakes passed a stationary continuity test, and indeed would have passed a stationary continuity test after the accident if the train had not been spread all over the tracks...
  10. Possibly, but have noted similar effect when marker lights have been cleaned with a mop and bucket and the ample fluid used washes everything below it too. Looks like someone washed the whole glass rather than just the dots on this occasion.
  11. I think I used 5 amp diodes on mine - they only have to sustain momentary current rather than continuous, but even so and with diodes being cheap I would much rather fit and forget as it were.
  12. I think I may have been on the same train, at least I hope so or it happened more than once!
  13. Easiest way is a diode matrix. One stud for each direction and the appropriate solenoids for each direction fire simultaneously. No need for normalisation or any switching, but a CDU will almost certainly be required if you have not already got one.
  14. Clapham happened shortly before I joined BR. It might not have had the highest death toll in history, but in terms of it's effect on the railway it is certainly up there as one of the most historically significant. The shockwaves were reverberating around for many years afterwards, arguably until this day.
  15. From what I understand is that they were white. Here is some rare footage of one flashing, unintentionally caught on camera whilst filming "The Plank"
  16. Probably maintenance costs. 4 larger motors are cheaper to maintain/buy than 6 smaller ones. It is notable that the Co-Bo's were the only type 2 with more than 4 motors, and then only just! This however meant that they also had the highest TE of any type 2.
  17. There are quite a few BR locos that don't have fuel tanks below the solebar, e.g. class 20 - between the cab and the engine room. There were some locos that had a boxed in underframe to form a tank - think peaks and 31's had this arrangement, no doubt someone will correct me if I am wrong!
  18. Did not know you could turn the first digit of the headcode up to 11!
  19. I wonder if the MTK cab fronts are supposed to be identical or whether it is another packing error? I notice that you have gone to the trouble of removing the low roof seam that was only on the Motor coach following relocation of the pantograph. I think these units also only had jumpers on one end. Whilst not a problem in normal service, you would have to be careful about sending one to St. Botolphs (as was)
  20. So, were class 309's officially allowed at 100mph before either the Deltics or the WCML electrics? The first section of 100mph track on the GE was the stretch between Chelmsford and Colchester, which I thought was 100mph from their introduction in 62/63.
  21. Whilst you can name a racehorse almost anything you like, there are some restrictions regarding obscenity and vulgarity. However there are some that will try it on, and occasionally one will get through. Hoof Hearted was one such, which somehow seems quite appropriate for a Deltic. Dunno if he won anything though.
  22. I remember it well, although in this case Thomas was not the banker, he was the station pilot who had brought in the ECS and they forgot to uncouple, as with many of the original stories based on a real event (or two).
  23. The solution is very simple. OLE does not need the precise horizontal alignment that track does, so if you can line up the track good enough to avoid derailing, then OLE will have no problem at all. There will be no issue with having a single solid wire or conductor on the traverser. Wire the traverser with a single wire to the centerline, which extends say 10-15mm beyond the end of the traverser, with a slight upward ramp so the end of the wire is 2 or 3mm higher at the end than it is when above the traverser. You then have a similar overhead arrangement on either of the two roads with approx 15mm or so extension over the traverser, except the top road is offset 5mm or so past the center line, and the bottom road 5mm or so before the center line. This means that the traverser can move between the two roads with the OLE on the traverser moving between the two. The OLE in each position will have a horizontal gap of 5mm, so both wires will be over the pan as the pan exits the traverser, and the pan will transfer seamlessly from one wire to the other where the wires cross vertically.
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