david.hill64

Thanks for these: very interesting. I was amazed how easy it was to get a possession in 1952!

Horolene, but unless you want to varnish a brass finish there is no need to clean.

As Edwin said, more precisely, small bore tunnels. I worked on the Taiwan High Speed Rail project which was designed to UIC infrastructure standards. The Japanese pointed out that a huge amount of money could be saved by adopting Japanese standards for tunnel sizes. (It was a potential saving of billions). However, the UIC sizes prevailed which meant that the Taiwan series 700 Shinkansen trains have a much more attractive front end than the standard duckbill ,which is essential to reduce pressure pulses and stop sonic booms.

I don’t want to get dragged into details of Guild finances. The two big costs, publications and shows have a more detailed breakdown, certainly for 2019. Only Telford makes a loss. Telford also bears the cost of the AGM.

Just for comparison. My wife and I run Railway City Trains Ltd, which trades as Gladiator Model kits. We provide a large range of 7mm loco, coach and wagon kits plus various accessories. Our financial year ends 31st August. Our accounts will generally appear in the Companies House pages about March. (we were early this year: February, but still 6 months). It really does take than long to get all of the books completed, reviewed by the accountants, prepared for filing and filed. Gladiator's published accounts do not show a Profit and Loss statement, but if they did then most things would be lumped into 'Other Costs'. A concern of many in the Guild is that the membership have been unable to determine precisely what was spent where, though the books available on line to members give much greater detail than those available those available through companies house. They show for example that about 80% of the 'Other costs' depicted in the Company House submission were split 50:50 between publications and exhibitions. There is no requirement to give that level of detail in the accounts visible to the general public.

Agreed: the benefit isn't great but it is there, particularly in recovery from perturbations. Given the overcrowded nature of UK rail, these happen frequently. Yes, you can do the same in a fixed or virtual block system, but moving block is less hardware intensive compared with a traditional system with close signal spacing and these days probably cheaper (in metro applications at least) than fixed block: hence the move to moving block in most new metros. Train integrity detection is still a bit problematic for main line applications although Bombardier did manage it for its ETCS level 3 look alike system (same functionality, non-compliant carrier).

ETCS level 2 isn’t that much different to a traditional fixed block system. You simply need enough free blocks between you and the preceding train to give a safe braking distance (with margins). If you kept the standard 1020m block length then just adding an extra block between trains gives you the margin required to run at 140 rather than 125. (Simplified but close enough). Essentially what BR did with flashing greens on ECML. The software won’t be any more complicated. The mixture of train types will be the killer for higher speed. Level 3 (moving block) offers benefits here.

Given that HST’s managed 140 often enough before limiters were used, it ought to be a doddle for the replacement.

None. Wheels are chocked when stabled.

Shinkanshen EMU’s don’t have a parking brake. It took a long time to persuade the Japanese to fit them to the Taiwan HSR trains.

On twin pipe brake systems the brake pipe is primarily a control pipe. On single pipe systems the brake pipe also charges the reservoirs.

Interesting report. I would have lost my wager that the continuity test hadn’t been done, but in mitigation it probably ought to be done when all other activities have been completed. I wonder if the conclusions will result in a change to the TSI to require sensible brake isolation cocks to be used.

On fixed consist trains it is automatic. Not sure for others but logically automatic as it is safety critical. But I am still unsure where you found the terminology.

What is the context? ATP systems include a check on air pressure to ensure that there is sufficient air available to brake the train. There was an accident recently in Taiwan where an ATP equipped tilting train derailed while overspeeding on a curve. The ATP had been disabled as low air pressure resulted in frequent emergency brake applications.

Again such a long time since I posted but there has been progress. The test build of the revised design for the Coal Engine is substantially complete. Sorry that the picture isn't better quality and apologies too for all of the solder wash not yet cleaned up. The camera has a cruel eye! Dave is still stuck in Taiwan pending restoration of flights but we expect to have the kit (with Webb 1800 gallon tender) available in August. We hope also then to have the new Bowen-Cooke tender in stock: just waiting on the resin casters to do a run. Now for the unwelcome news! We regret that there will be a substantial rise in headline prices effective 1st July. We have decided to make prices inclusive of post and packing as most of our business is done that way. Including postage charges the actual rise is less than 2% and is the first increase since September 2018. We have had a bit of a run of some items so a number of loco kits are now out of stock. We will be happy to supply any kit that is presently out of stock at the old price (including free postage) on receipt of a £50 deposit. We will supply as soon as items are back in stock: likely end July. Thank you, David

Recently went to see this one: Described like this:

My son is also working from home: 10kWh per day extra energy consumed. Guess who's paying for it?

Those against HS2 will grasp at any straw in defence of their belief that HS2 is unnecessary. We don't know for sure what the long term effects of the current virus epidemic will be, but if you look at SARS as an example, it doesn't take long for the situation to recover. In terms of the time needed to complete major infrastructure projects, the virus will (I think and hope) be a transitory thing. The government now can borrow money at hitherto unbelievably low interest rates. It is doing so to pay the wages of those who would otherwise be unemployed. At the end of this it will have protected the lives of people who would otherwise have been very badly affected (and in the process probably secured a few votes) but this will be forgotten. If you borrow money for infrastructure investment - HS2, HS3, rail electrification, road improvements, Satellite positioning system, fibre networks, power supply strengthening etc you have a resource that will make money for decades. I don't buy the argument that because of COVID 19 we can no longer afford investment. On the contrary we need such projects to get people back to work.

The comment about the advanced nature of BRR's ARS is probably still true. Back in 1998 when the specifications for the Taiwan High Speed Rail system were being prepared, the team included a requirement for ARS functionality within the signalling system. When reviewed by a very competent Frenchman who had been in charge of the French side of the CTRL link, he observed that such functionality was indeed desirable but didn't believe it was yet available. He was very surprised when told by the UK signal engineers working on the project that it had been a standard feature in IECC installations for quite some time. The Japanese, who won the contract, couldn't get their heads around the requirement at all. In the mid 90's BRR's signal section was developing the Control Centre of the Future, the functionality of which is only now becoming part of NR's 'Digital Railway' aspirations with ARS broadened considerably in scope. Personally I dislike the digital railway description. as Oldudders commented once, a semaphore signalled railway is truly digital: the peg is 'on' or 'off'. The advantage of modern CBTC systems is that control can be more or less analogue with updated movement authorities sent out every other second or so. A degree of precision hitherto unobtainable.

The joke at Bounds Green was that if 89001 was called Avocet, the 91’s should be called ‘Avareset’ such was the frequency of such a requirement. When I worked for Eversholt I had a conversation with Brush about building a small number of additional 89’s. The ECML needed more train sets so the possibility of acquiring and fitting out the spare Mk4 bodyshells was investigated. History shows us it never happened.

So now almost as reliable as a Pacer!!!

If you look here you can see what the call on may look like. https://signalbox.org/signals/gw.htm

This is also true, but this figure relates to mothers born in the UK. With recent substantial immigration - and I make no judgements on this - mostly of younger people, then there can be growth without further immigration if the fertility rate of the recent arrivals is greater than that of the more established population, which it would appear to be. So government policy regarding transport needs - including HS2 - healthcare, housing, education etc and the financing of them, are all based on growing population.

But as John Tomlinson pointed out, 27% of the forecast increase in population is caused by excess births over deaths. So the current birth rate would appear to be in excess of the death rate.

Not according to the Office of National Statistics: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationprojections/bulletins/nationalpopulationprojections/2018based 4,5% growth to 69.4 million by 2028, passing 70 million by 2031 and up to 72.4 million 25 years from now. The projections have come down a little since 2016 estimates. Noteworthy that the proportion of over 85's will double. These, if wanting to be mobile, are less likely to be driving and will likely desire public transport provision. Agreed that the pandemic may amend matters.