whart57

8 hours ago, PatB said:

most towns, even quite small ones, had a gasworks, which would require a regular supply.

Not necessarily supply by rail. In some towns, Stourport for example, the coal came down by canal. Before the war, the old gas works in Herne Bay got its coal from a barge that parked itself on the beach half a mile away. The coal was then carted to the gas works. The later, much larger, new gas works was built by the railway line and got its coal that way.

From a modeller's point of view this provides a problem. The old, mid Victorian, small gas works for which we have room on our layouts did not use enough to coal to justify a dedicated rail connection. If they weren't close to the line - and a good few were built before the railway arrived - then they would just cart their coal from the rail head. Expensive, but cheaper than relaying the town's gas mains.

The need for those gas pipes also meant the gas works had to be close to the centre of town whereas railway companies tended to think a two mile walk to the station was a bracing experience.

It's only a few years ago that I saw a couple of guys bagging up the coal grit that washed up on Seaton Carew beach and taking it away in an old Land Rover. Surely that has stopped now.

As an aside, I had hoped that some of this coal grit from this North Eastern beach would be suitable for model railway purposes. The size is right as is the colour - obviously. Trouble is it's impossible to get the small shell fragments out and as these are white they show up badly.

Just finished watching The English Game on Netflix. Some frequent shots of a train and station that purports to be the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway in 1880 at Darwen and Blackburn. I have no idea where that was filmed nor how authentic the train is. All I can say is that it wasn't an Austerity 0-6-0 and a couple of BR Mk1s which used to be a TV producer's idea of a Victorian train.

1 hour ago, jonny777 said:

The local merchant had a few 16t coal trucks at the station and coal men shovelled the coal into cwt sacks and lifted them on their shoulders to stack on the cart. They were strong men because 1cwt was equivalent to about 50kg these days. 

 

From the age of 15 until I finished college I used to do farm work as a summer vac job. This was the late sixties and early seventies and the first bits of 'Elf and Sadie' were coming in. One of these was to ban manhandling of grain and other sacks of over 1cwt. Two and a half hundredweight was not unknown and the older guys dismissively referred to 1cwt sacks as "boy's sizes"

I don't think anyone has mentioned the film The Railway Man based on the memoirs of Eric Lomax and starring Colin Firth as the middle aged Lomax still traumatised from his days as a POW of the Japanese.

Railway scenes include a pretty reasonable attempt to represent British railways c1970, with steam gone but the blue-grey plague yet to take hold. So green diesels and maroon Mk1 coaches

And unlike the classic Bridge over the River Kwai, Railway Man actually filmed the Death Railway scenes on location in Thailand. So we have the modern trains of the Bangkok-Kanchanaburi-Nam Tok line, filmed at Kanchanaburi and crossing the actual Kwai bridge, and a quite reasonable attempt to represent the wartime trains using old 4 wheel vans from the SRT and a preserved Thai steam engine given Japanese number plates. As the SRT loco was a Japanese import anyway this is the smallest of all subterfuges.

The Thai rolling stock for the 1970-80 era scenes does date from the period except that the livery was from the time the film was shot. Back in 1980 however the GEK diesels would have been on top link mainline work, not slumming it on a backwater like the Kanchanburi line

One last observation. One shot of a train crossing the Kwai Bridge looks as if it has been compressed sideways to fit the pcture format. Makes the loco and coaches look a bit like the Rovex "shorties" older rmweb readers might remember from childhood.

This crisis is not going to be over any time soon so expect a longer period where travel is restricted and public gatherings banned. For us that means it's unlikely there will be any model railway shows till after the summer at the earliest, possibly not till 2021. If there are no shows then a lot of model railway traders face a bleak year, and mail order will be their only lifeline.

The trend was already heading towards a deliver to home and click and collect retail model anyway. Covid-19 is likely to accellerate that process.

Lovely old "tank" Rover in one of those London Bridge shots

4 hours ago, Steamport Southport said:

 

Nothing wrong with that. It's a design classic which has lasted for decades and will be used on heritage railways for decades to come. In the history of Britain's railways it'll be as relevant as Rocket and Mallard.

 

I notice those that criticise the Pacers never actually travel on them...

 

 

 

Jason

They were never intended to last decades though were they?

And it seems to me the bulk of those complaining about the Pacers are those who ride on them frequently. It's easy for those of us many miles to the South to regard them as quaint.

10 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

French railways were fairly obsessive about reducing coal consumption because decent steam coal  was fairly absent from their coalfields and much of it was imported from South Wales making it relatiively more expensive.

Few countries had their own decent steam coal. But each found different ways of dealing with the situation. The Americans for example built locomotives with huge fireboxes into which they could chuck any old crap they had to hand. The Dutch and Swiss went big on electrification. And then there was oil, either burned in converted steam locomotive or used as fuel in internal combustion engines.

It's a measure of the conservatism of railway engineers that the diesel pioneers of the pre-war years were found in odd places. Thailand was a diesel pioneer, replacing steam with diesel on its main expresses in the early 1930s. And buying the locos to do that with from Denmark. Meanwhile in the traditional leaders of railway technology designers and engineers were still trying to build better steam engines.

It's ironic then that the final hurrah of steam came as a result of the chaos of WW2 and steam power was chosen to rebuild the railways because it wasn't state of the art rather than it was. The post war steam locomotives were mostly simple designs that could be built quickly by non-specialist builders with poor materials.

Most countries abandoned conscription and national service because the last thing their army generals needed was a huge number of barely trained and reluctant - if not resentful - squaddies. Since 1945 weaponry has acquired such lethality that large armies are just logistical nightmares and not effective fighting machines.

The same would apply to conscripted social armies. Our hospitals are desperate for trained ICU nurses and doctors, they could do with a lot more trained ward staff, they will need a lot of trained rehabilitation therapists - all skilled and very skilled people. They do not need large numbers of people who can't be trusted with more than a mop. When you see five or six people turning a patient in an ICU bed then don't think four of them are just there to provide muscle. No, turning an ICU patient is a tricky operation - all those tubes and stuff - and needs everyone to know their stuff. In ICUs they are reluctant even to use student nurses nearing the end of their courses for that sort of job.

The thing is that the skills required need regular practice and updating. Having done six weeks as a conscript ten years ago is likely to be more dangerous than useful. Expansion of a volunteer reserve, eg the St Johns Ambulance lot, or finding a way of retaining doctors and nurses who have left the profession for reasons of retirement or life changes on a register (with paid refresher courses once or twice a year)  things like that might be useful.

2 hours ago, 'CHARD said:

 

It really does rile me that the clear and present risk of doing away with self-sufficiency has contributed to the current supply chain crisis.

"Self-sufficiency" at what level though? Is California self-sufficient, or Texas, or New York? Those may be American states but in terms of population and domestic product they are bigger than most countries in the UN. Is it realistic for the UK to be "self-sufficient" across the board?

It's a good ask because the UK has the world's most efficient food producer located just across the North Sea. Do we close the gates to that when we don't have, nor would have for a good while, a local alternative. Remember it's expertise and experience as much as investment in infrastructure that is important.

Then there is the small matter of us not really liking the fish caught in British waters

What about infrastructure? Well there is controversy over China's dominance in 5G, but British involvement in mobile phone technology fizzled out around the time of 2G. Well not quite, a lot of British engineers, technicians and other professionals were involved, but their pay cheques came from Scandinavian or French companies. It would take a huge investment of time, money and research for Britain to regain self-sufficiency in communication technology.

The world contains many more specialisms than it did even just thirty years ago. Is it realistic for the UK to try and cover them all?

While we should rightly question our dependence on supplies coming from the other side of the world, and we should question the resilience of JIT supply chains, but also we should not fall into the trap - again - of basing policy on emotional pulls and unrealistic goals. But I fear we will.

While the present crisis is going to have a huge effect in the short term, I'm not so sure that the medium to long term economic effects are going to be major game changers. Previous economic shocks - the 2008 banking crash, the 2002 dotcom bubble pop, Black Monday in 1993, devaluation in 1967 and of course the shocks of the interwar years were just that - economic shocks, with economic causes. This is different, this is business and economics being put on hold for three months. Many of the businesses seeking help are basically sound and most of the workers needing money to tide them over have a good chance of getting their jobs back.

It all depends on what our leaders, both here and abroad, do in planning our release from captivity. We are lucky that for all the wrong reasons we have ended up with a Chancellor who seems to have some grasp of what needs to be done. We have a Chancellor who does not owe his job to his loyalty to the political project of which we may not speak. On top of that, his newly appointed shadow is also a finance person and not a politician hopping from post to post. So we may actually end up with a coherent exit strategy that has wide support.

If we do, and a similar level of wisdom appears across our European neighbours (and American voters boot out the spivs in the White House) then medium to long term things may not be too bad. A bit more in banks and investment funds will be money that has no link to reality, but most of it is like that anyway. No, the future of our hobby has other risks.

One is the age profile, which we all know about. The club I am a member of has some enthusiastic young members (young here being under thirty) but they are outnumbered by us old farts. I suspect other clubs are the same.

The second is whether the RTR suppliers' business strategy is sustainable. And would it survive if the guy with the black cloak and scythe takes out a chunk of the older generation and their stock, collected over the years, ends up as bargains on eBay.

These Frichs diesels weren't really beauties either

but they were at the forefront of loco design. In 1932 they were at the head of one of the world's first long haul expresses to move away from steam traction, the international express from Bangkok to Kuala Lumpur and Singapore

11 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

It's a moot point to what extent streamlining really was about saving coal and achieving higher speeds and how much it was about being seen to be part of "streamline moderne" design. Even in the 1930s, the arrival of cars and aeroplanes were giving the railways an image problem (Obsolete Victorian technology ill fitting a sleek modern era)  and road transport an associated and  potentally existential problem. 

As an example of that compare the electric multiple units introduced by Netherlands Railways in 1924

and the diesel multiple units introduced with much fanfare in 1935

The streamlining - and the silver livery - were a statement of modernity and a break with the "old technology" of steam rather than a technological necessity. By contrast the 1924 electrics were more or less standard coaches with motors, cabs and pantographs.

Do these Dutch locomotives count as ugly?

They were built by Borsig of Berlin for the Holland Railway (HSM) and used on the network of light railways the HSM built after the relaxation of regulations for local railways and tramways. These ran on the now preserved line from Hoorn to Medemblik for nearly fifty years. None were preserved and AFAIK there are no plans to build a replica though it would be interesting for museum lines in the Netherlands - most of which were light railways originally - to have one.

I wonder how long those low floor carriages lasted

6 hours ago, cctransuk said:

 

No - it's a standard, standard gauge Motor Rail light shunter.

 

Standard with one wheelset being 19th century split spoke wagon wheels and the other wheelset a three hole disk?

Is this on the site of the former SER/SECR/SR/BR(S) locomotive works in Ashford?

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/mar/22/hollywood-style-studio-in-kent-moves-step-closer-despite-uk-shutdown

This is a re-guaged armoured Simplex isn't it?

I had never considered that the radiator was inside the armour plating. Cosy.

I would nominate James Stirling's F class 4-4-0 on the South Eastern Railway.

The wheels look far too big for either the superstructure or the wheelbase, the cab looks like it should be on a different engine (Stirling cabs look fine on smaller engines like the O class), in fact the whole thing looks like Stirling told the draughtsman to use standard components and make them fit.

They were decent engines for their time though, and aesthetically speaking were much improved when Wainwright got hold of them and made them look like the D class' matronly elder sister.

On 13/03/2020 at 19:08, Caley Jim said:

The Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway found that members of all social classes were happy to travel in the cheaper second class carriages, which, although they had roofs, had wooden seats with no upholstery and no glass in the windows.   It was even said that Magistrates were happy to travel in the seat-less 'stand-up' fourth class!

 

Jim

There are quite a few accounts of wealthy director types saying they were happy to travel in open thirds. The fact that so many were saying that when giving evidence against Gladstone's proposal to regulate the railways and insist on roofs and windows for the lower classes does suggest a bit of economy with the truth.

One of the problems with travel by rail for the richest was that you couldn't summon a servant. Trains would not pull over and allow the carriage carrying the servants to catch up so your good lady could summon her maid. So from the 1850s on railway companies started building "family saloons" for hire. These would be a first class saloon with a neighbouring second class compartment with a connecting door.

2 hours ago, Edwardian said:

But such was life in the early Nineteenth Century.  Those plush yellow First Class coaches would not initially have attracted the very upper echelons of Society.  The idea of taking a seat in a compartment with strangers, people to whom one had not been introduced, just because they could afford a First Class ticket! 

 

 

First class on the railways was the equivalent of an inside seat on a stage coach. Those who could afford to keep and run their own carriages would not choose to travel with the hoi polloi on a stage coach. Some railways in the 1830s had mail coaches, with fares higher than first class, this reflecting that on the turnpikes the Royal Mail coaches were a cut above the ordinary stage coaches.

Second class was the equivalent of an outside seat on a stage coach, not surprising then that the first second class coaches were open.

Incidentally the idea that if someone could afford a First Class ticket meant their fides were bona  lasted until the twentieth century on the cross channel ferries. Until Edwardian times possession of a First Class ticket for the London boat train spared someone the indignity of passport checks. The penny finally dropped that government agents and criminal bosses were probably the people best able to afford the SECR's eye-watering first class fares.

It's worth mentioning that 0.5mm in 3mm scale equates to the two inches of tread wear the real railways used to allow before re-tyring a wheel. That and the fact that flanges are overscale suggests that 19.5mm wheels (scale 6' 6") would be a good choice for wheels that the drawing says are 6'9" diameter.

How old is the Mekpak, and how much have you used? If it's been used a lot then you will have been adding plastikard to it dissolved in the chemical via the brush. Old Mekpak often looks cloudy for that reason. So your tie bars may be stuck by this goo rather than the Mekpak working on materials it wouldn't work on if you wanted it to. If that sounds a possibility then soaking in fresh new Mekpak might work. Bit risky though.