Titan

Looks like a long exposure where a bloke with a head torch has wandered along the road up to the Transit - sharper top line being the trace from the head torch, bottom one the beam of light hitting the ground. In fact if you look closely I think you can just make him out near the end of it.

I am actually wondering if its worth chopping the very front - that is just the part that would be yellow on the blue livery, off of a lima Deltic and using that to replace the GBL version. Its the one part lima seemed to do well. It would also neatly get rid of the square buffer cowls if you do not want to model D9008.

I see they copied the mould from 55008, the only Deltic to carry the squared off buffer cowls!

The only thing I can find is that the RAIB states that not only the current standards, but the previous equivalents (track design handbook?) going back for at least 100 years specified that it should have one, and they presented no evidence that it ever had! Gauge widening is really only an advantage on very very tight curves, on anything else they can allow a greater 'skew' of the bogie or short wheel base wagon, which can increase the angle of attack of the flange which in turn increases the risk of flange climb. To be fair, the rails on this curve had been replaced fairly recently (at which point the lack of check rail ought to have been corerected, but its seems it was just replaced like for like) and the amount of wear was well within acceptable limits.

Yes, its so obvious that a train behaves like a motorbike its a wonder that RAIB missed it!!! Its like playing alternative theory bingo, I wonder which one will be next? Eyes down...

Interesting you should bring that up, I do find it rather ironic that a 100% loco should have a greater tendancy to derail than one that has seen some service. On the one hand a modern loco with a different profile might not have had a problem, on the other its the same profile that 47's have always been turned to without them falling off the tracks because of it.

Well seeing as the train was coasting through the curve when the derailment occured,(18mph entering the curve, falling to 14mph at point of derailment)traction/braking does not really come in to it. The driver said the train inexplicably came to a halt just before he was about to apply some power to get through the junction.

It seems were mixing up factors and causes, yes many factors, but only one cause - lack of check rail. Its a bit like saying that if someone misjudged their braking and lightly bumped back of the car in front which was stationary at a red traffic light, causing a small crack in its number plate, that the stationary car was a cause since if it was not there they would have stopped before getting to the line and there would have been no accident. Likewise the wheel profiling was a factor but as it was perfectly entitled to be as it was - like the car above was entitled to be where it was. it was not a cause. The only cause (as opposed to factors) was the lack of check rail. Indeed the RAIB specifically differentiates them as such - the wording they use being the check rail as a 'causal factor' ie the one that caused the derailment to happen (paragraph 74) Everything else is merely a 'factor' (including the lack of lubrication now that I re-read it!) not what caused the derailment, but a factor required for the derailment to happen.

The problem is that all of the contributary effects outside of the track faults, were all things that the track should be capable of dealing with, and if the track was not faulty would not have been an issue at all. You can't say that just because an unusual set of circumstances came together, especially since the track should handle them anyway, that the track is in any way less to blame?

Read paragraph 73 of the report. As I said, all the points were considered and the only cause was the track.

It seems that people have not read the report thoroughly as all the points mentioned above were addressed, and considered. Firstly wheel loadings. RAIB do computer simulations, which are tried and tested and have been verified against the real world. the reason why they use this is because any post derailment check is pointless anyway since the derailment itself may have bent and twisted things such that any issue discovered could not be proven to exist prior to the derailment. The simulations determined that a perfectly set up and sprung loco would have still derailed under those conditions on that day, so trying to blame poor springing won't get you very far. Secondly, the reason why this particular wheelset derailed was that it was newly turned, and the profile of a newly turned flange is in fact more suseptable to derailment than a moderately worn one. It was also completely free of contaminants/lubrication and bone dry, meaning higher friction and therefore more likely to flange climb Indeed they ran the profile of the wheelsets of the leading 47 through the simulation, which confirmed that the moderately worn flanges would not have derailed, but the newly turned ones would. Thirdly, the flange lubricator had recently failed, thus all trains passing over this stretch whilst the flange lubricator was working would not have been suseptable to derailment. In other words all the issues you bring up were considered, and the end result was no ifs, no buts, no maybes, the sole reason for the derailment was the track, and nothing but the track. There is absolutely no scope or argument in any shape or form that NR could possibly come up with to change that fact, as that is indeed what it is - fact.

Only if Network Rail are insured for this sort of thing. Either way a cheque should be coming from Network rail, unless Network rails insurers pay WCRC directly rather than via Network rail themselves.

As this story could be heading for its 46th birthday in August I guess it hardly counts as 'new' but it was new to me and made me laugh! A staunch enthusiast bought two tickets for the last steam train. As he settled into his seat by the window, another man asked if anyone was sitting in the seat opposite him. 'No', he replied, 'the seat is empty….' 'Really!' said the man surprised, 'Who in their right mind would buy a 15 guinea ticket and not use it?' 'Well, actually the seat belongs to me. My wife was meant to be here, but she passed away.' 'Oh, I'm sorry to hear that...I guess you couldn't find someone else, such as a friend or relative to take the seat?' 'No, they're all at the funeral,' he replied.

Mine seems to be pretty good in that respect, it knows where the gaps in the central reservation are, and will either say 'in 800 yards make a U turn' or just direct me off at the next junction and round the roundabout or whatever. It generally only says 'turn round at the next opportunity' if you have entered a dead end, or all the roads (if any) leading off your road are dead ends or no through route for some distance, which normally only applies on single carriageways.

I remember driving solo without sat-nav, and it was something I do not want to repeat. I have a poor memory so trying to remember every turn on a long journey was not an option. Even with a map, after every turn I had to pull off the road to consult it to confirm that I had indeed taken the correct turn as I would never read a map whilst driving, and to try and memorise the next one. I eventually had the idea of writing down all the turnings on a list that I taped on to the back of the sun visor as an aide memoir so I could flip it down and glance at it as quickly as glancing at the mirrors without the need to stop. So yes I could manage, but it was a bit like managing with an abacus instead of an excel spreadsheet... I have also found that most times I thought I knew better than the sat-nav, I didn't, and would have been better off following the sat-nav!

That's 55022 on the Lickey, not 16 - but cracking photos anyway!

On the one hand I have never heard of their oil consumption being considered excessive, but on the other it is normal for the oil carry over to be sufficient to dribble down the sides of the body from the exhaust port, so it can hardly have been low either!

It is because they are two strokes designed to run at far higher power output than in Class 55. The clearances between piston and cylinder allow for this, which means that at tickover there is more clearance than might be found on other engines. And since the pistons move over and seal the inlet/exhaust ports, this results in more lube oil being able to find its way in to the cylinders/exhaust than would be the case otherwise. The end result being that the oil accumilated during idling gets burnt off when full power is applied. Once the engines have been running at full power for fifteen minutes or so and burnt off all the oil, they do run quite clear - just a little blue haze which can be less dense than the black smoke you might get from any other diesel working flat out. Just look at any video showing a Deltic at 100mph and you will see what I mean!

Looking at the large size of the dumper I suspect it is in fact capacity, not gross weight. They can carry a heck of a lot compared to smaller ones.

No, thats for the boxes of Pasties!

'When I said that the track position needed to be on record that's not what I meant!!!'

Yes indeed. Primary cause was lack of a check rail on the curve alowing the wheels to climb, when there should have been one provided on a curve that sharp. Contributary was the lack of a working flange lubricator. Network rail had replaced about four or five mechanical ones with a single electric one, which was not working. Presumably there will soon be a big cheque winging its way from NR to WCRC.

And one chain is almost exactly 20 meters!

There ought to be someone somewhere with sufficient authority. I find it very difficult to believe that there is not a single official in any organisation that cannot give someone authority. If it is solely a legal issue then the law needs to be changed.

That is true and probably the biggest drawback of the two car. I am wondering though - is there any three car unit where both driving cars are identical or perhaps just different underframes? 313 perhaps? That ought to have wide appeal, and if it needed only two sets of tooling to make a 3 car unit might be more viable.