roythebus

Thanks for the information. the loco down the bank seemed to have been there a lot longer than I thought.

Wuppertal Schwebebahn anyone?

To answer the OP, when I was there in 1987 most stock was vacuum braked as steam was fairly prevalent then. EMU stock was the usual EP/Westighouse system used on the Southern electric EP/BIG/etc stock here. The modern aircon stock that was being introduced in 1987 was air braked, as was modern freight stock. It appears the days of the vacuum brake in india are numbered apart from the heritage lines.

There's some excellent drawings of the valve gear on the wall inside the loco shed at Ooty. I took pictures of them but they were amongst the 17 rolls lost by the processing firm here.

Indian Railways meter gauge trains appear to be the same loading gauge as their broad gauge cousins, but during my visit there in 1987 ran at a lower speed than broad gauge. I understand most o the meter gauge network has been converted to broad gauge, apart from "hill" railways such as the famous Nilgri Hills line.

On another site, there's a discussion about 86 209, the loco involved in a crash at Watford circa 1975. This loco ended up at the bottom of the embankment and was there for what seemed to be a couple of years. Others reckon it was a couple of months. Can anyone tell me how long this loco stayed in the field at the bottom of the bank? I know they had to build a pecial road across swampy and for recovery cranes and other equipment to gain access as rail mounted cranes couldn't operate on the curvature with cant to lift the loco back on the rails.

Air suspension on most lorries means a constant ride height regardless of weight in theory.

There's an ariel shot of that area I've seen somewhere recently, maybe on the Memories of London FB group or one of the London Transport groups. It clearly shows the modern building between the river and Aldgate that survived the blitz, the devastation of WW2, Aldgate Bus station and the viaduct carrying the line to St.Catherine's docks. ISTR that thread also contained a discussion and photos of track still visible at street level. The trouble is I've seen so many old pics recent;y, I can't remember what group it was on!

My good friend Richard Thomas recently photographed a single power car running on the ECML. He posted it on his FB page.

They finished with the abolition of the vacuum brake as well. the SR vans were a boon to heritage railways who found them a good source of underframes to cut down for 4-wheel coaches. the bodies usually wne tlineside for storage facilities.

the answer was Ebay, the chassis arrived yesterday, the body today in as new condition. the chassis runs a whole lot better than the Lima offering but has a couple of steps missing. Not to worry. It's D8000, one of those I used to see at Willesden 1A in the early 1960s.

It says out of stock on the ebay advert. I mentioned the problem ay the folkestone club last night, a couple of lads there work at Hornby and may have access to something. Back to the club tomorrow night. I see the 31 is back on the Hornby books but at abut £170 a pop is a bit outside my budget at the moment. Mine is the class 30 anyway, the one without the headcode boxes.

Mention of magnets for coach couplings, it's nothing new. In the late 1950s I got a "train set" from Santa a somewhere like Selfridges. It was 3 coaches and an A4 style loco made from wood, painted and with wooden wheels, maybe TT size. the whole lot coupled together with round magnets in the corridor connections, not very strong ones, but they done the job.

you might want to check the resistance of the motor winding with an ohm meter. Triang used to supply one as a dealer service tool. you can use any multi meter set to ohms. Take the brushes out, put the probes on the segments of the commutator, then do the same with the next 2 and the next 2. you should get more or less the same reading between the pair. That will show if one or all the windings are defective. I can't remember what the figure should be, it's a long time since I learnt about such things.

Oh well, seems like it's only fit for stripping for parts unless I can work out a way to repair it. Someone elsewhere suggested using a Lima chassis with the Hornby motor, is that feasible?

I've just started to run my Hornby 31 without headcode boxes and found the cab end about to call off due to the well known mazak rot. Is there a replacement chassis block available for this? I sent Hornby service dept an email to see if they can help. and yes, it's one of the locos on the list of mazak rot locos. Incidentally, one of the lads at the Folkestone club thinks they've found out what causes it. One of the quality control manage ladies went to China and found that in the mazak casting shop of one factory when the metal was spilt on the floor it was put back in the melting pot to be re-used. This was probably what has been causing the problems over the years.

Fulgurex, I've got loads on my layout. There's some little U shaped contacts which can fall out and make the motor not work. It may just be dirty contacts, clean them with 1000 grade wet and dry paper or a contact file. Short across the closed contact with a screwdriver and it'll probably work.

Someone done cast metal cabs, I've got some if you want them. K's used to do cat metal bogies of the correct design, I may have some of those around. why not go on Ebay and try to get a Kitmaster pullman? they seem to crop up. I got a set of there a few years ago, some of them unmade. I tried making the kitchen cars out of the Triang one and it looks ok, but then the /kitmaster stuff was found on Ebay, so the Triang set sits in the drawer.

On my 33 it's the whole of the pivoting arm that is droopy! Maybe some viagra oil will stiffen it up? I haven't taken the body off the loco yet to investigate, but yes, I'm aware of the need to put a sliver of thin plasticard or metal shim in the NEM boxes. Time to work out how to remove the body! My Western (class52) has the same sort of problems, but the body isn't fixed on that at all.

Here's Mark Brinton's 2016 report. I remember he done an earlier report comparing the different rolling stock, maybe in the mid 1980s. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&ved=2ahUKEwi44_jS18LnAhWqRhUIHVJfBZwQFjACegQIBxAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.railfuture.org.uk%2FDL1236&usg=AOvVaw3Rt5G0Y0TMhZ_L-EbWspH-

Here's a link to Mark Brinton. i can't find a direct link to his report at the moment. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=2ahUKEwiDqqCo1sLnAhX6ThUIHUt_CYgQFjAAegQIARAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fonthewight.com%2Fquestion-on-validity-of-garnett-report-leads-to-calls-from-cllr-to-not-endorse-it%2F&usg=AOvVaw20O_zD2LBP5Pmhte9snV93

A chap called Mark Brinton had done an extensive report on stock suitability for the IoWR. ISTR it's been mentioned on here before on another thread. Mark has been a member of the IWSR for many years and was on the C&W at Ryde works for a number of years.

Yes I'm well aware of that. There was plenty of Mk1 suburban stock around but as we know it was thought to be too big. As has ben discovered in the recent past, the class 33 that visited the IWSR fitted through the structures on that line with no problem, which suggests that Mk1 stock "could" have fitted with modifications to the alignment such as those currently under discussion.

Some of the variation depended on the quality of the metal, the amount of shrinkage allowed for in the master patterns, temperature of the moulds, loads of factors really. th bigger the bit, the more difficult to cast it accurately.

That's quite true phil. As mentioned in other IoW threads, consideration was given for using ex Merseyside LMS EMU stock, COP stock, W&C stock, but no mention of loco-hauled stock. However, the Island coaches were a lot newer than the locos. Then we had the situation a couple of years ago when the electric railway was up the creek with a train stranded at Smallbrook late in the day. The IWSR ran a steam-hauled extra hauled by one of the Austerity 0-6-0ST locos. Someone pointed out the irony of the "modern" electric train's passengers being rescued by a steam loco that was 15 years newer than the "modern" electric train! There is no road access to Smallbrook, the only way in and out is by train.