MikeOxon

An interesting itinerary.  I am unfamiliar with European rail routes and was slightly surprised to see you passed though Cologne (Koln) , which seems a bit of a detour on the way to Brussels but I assume it is where the high-speed lines run that matters. 

I used to travel on Eurostar quite a lot 20 years ago, when it seemed very modern but I suspect the covid years were not good for business and standards have dropped.  Kings Cross was a building site for many years but appears to have emerged very well.  Paddington too has had a good clean and shows up well against the older photos.  I visit Reading frequently and it looks more and more like a small American city every time I visit - all shopping malls, carparks, and tower cranes!

I'm sorry you had poor weather (and grimy windows) for the South Devon stretch because, in the right conditions, it still ranks as one of the great scenic railway journeys - you do have to make sure you get a seat on the seaward side to make the best of it, though.

I have poor memories from my last Penzance trip, as it was made just as they were changing from HST sets to the Hitachi sets and no one seemed to have told the booking computer.  We ended up in seats intended for disabled in a corner of the restaurant car, surrounded by kitchen trolleys and the like while, on the return journey, the system had failed altogether, with little food available and a very harassed lady trying to do the job of an entire team.  At least we were spared a replacement bus service!

Mike

On 30/07/2023 at 10:38, 25kV said:

Many moons ago as a child I visited the Atmospheric Railway Museum, which I think was in the Starcross pumping station -

Sadly, the museum has closed and the building is now occupied by a fishing and boating club.

35 minutes ago, Annie said:

Steve Flanders ….has omitted the outside framing on the carriage body.  A pity really since your model looks so much better for having it Mike.

I may have exaggerated the framing a bit but it has to be visible on a 4mm scale model!  The actual style is uncertain but one of Dawson’ paintings shows it, although not quite as in the dwg found by the BGS.

extract from Dawson watercolour

11 hours ago, Annie said:

An all round excellent article Mike.  And thanks too for posting the link to that interesting Indonesian video.  

 

Some time ago Steve Flanders made a set of parts for Trainz to replicate the atmospheric South Devon Railway.  https://www.jatws.org/ing4trainz/sdr.htm

 

I've been tempted more than once to attempt to do something with them.

Thank you Annie.  I'm very pleased to see that Steve Flanders' model appears to be based on the same sources that I used.  It would be interesting to see an operating layout that uses his system.  I wonder how the 'magic incantations' for the piston carriage were written?

If you look around, there are several videos about both the Indonesian and Brazilian atmospheric railways although few have a commentary in English.  The idea of using a concrete box girder as the air duct is neat and I notice that the square plate attached to the carriage is described as a sail at one point.

2 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

Even then, it was foreseen that electricity was the ultimate solution (I'm sure I've read a comment by one of the Stephensons to this effect). This was the Age of Michael Faraday!

According to Alan Peck's "The GW at Swindon Works", Dean wrote to the electrical engineer, Crompton, in 1892 that he had been instructed by the Chairman to discuss the subject of electrical haulage through the Severn tunnel. It seems that Dean showed no enthusiasm for the idea - perhaps he saw it as another potential 'atmospheric railway' type of disaster - and the correspondence fizzled out.   I explored what might have happened in the Imaginary Locomotives thread:

https://www.rmweb.co.uk/topic/14790-imaginary-locomotives/?do=findComment&comment=1358729

Mike

4 hours ago, kitpw said:

the inability to turn or turnout an atmospheric train would seem to suggest that additional or alternative traction might be desirable.

4 hours ago, Annie said:

A chain could be attached to the piston in the tubes beside the line and used to tow the carriage into position at the station platform.

I'm writing Part 3 at present and will include something about these 'features'.  In those early days of railways, manhandling and horse-shunting were commonplace activities at stations and yards.  Lack of operational flexibility was a major reason for the 'atmospheric's' failure.  When the continuous leather valve failed and needed replacement, the Directors decided to cut their losses and opted for steam locomotives instead.

1 hour ago, Dave John said:

Very impressive Mike. 

 

That certainly illustrates how it worked. I didn't realise that the hangers were cranked like that. Must have involved a lot of work at the termini, lifting the whole piston frame and moving the whole coach ( via a point? ) to the return track. 

Thank you very much Dave.  Actually, there was no 'return track' - another great limitation of the system! - it was just a single line.  The offset in the hangers meant that the carriage could not be turned.  Manoeuvring the carriage at stations was another nightmare!  I'll write something about it in my next post.

The good news is that I have managed to assemble the parts but I shall aim to complete the whole thing before I post again.

34 minutes ago, Annie said:

A brilliant article Mike and a great piece of research.  The model making and 3D work is downright clever too.

I'm so pleased you enjoyed it, Annie.  The research was really done by BGS members and I interpreted their work for the model.  I felt that the information the BGS unearthed has been unjustly neglected, so people are still making models based on that illustration by Robert Barnard Way - there was one in Railway Modeller, July 2023..

The model making was a bit 'Brunellian'  - great in principle but a pig to actually realise!!!  I think I'm on top of it at the moment - the next post will tell!

Mike

An excellent example of pictures being worth thousands of words.  I've really enjoyed browsing this post 😃

Mike

Thank you for such an enthusiastic response, Crompton.  I have though about propulsion, possibly by using a magnet to connect the car to the piston, but my current problem is to create a model of the apparatus under the car!

The did run goods trains and the last one to run was in fact a goods train to Exeter.  The late Eddy Brown, who contributed so much research to the BGS, made a drawing of a goods train, which can be seen in 'Broadsheet' no.44 (Autumn 2000).

Brunel certainly had great powers of persuasion.  He frequently managed to convince otherwise staid bankers to support his idealistic schemes.  He always seemed to have a blind spot concerning railway engines, though, since his specifications for steam locomotives were disastrous when implemented.

I like to try and correct 'fake news' 😄  I agrrr that it must have been an exciting day for the BGS.  I suspect there are quite a few followers of the 19th century GWR who hope that some drawings of the semi-mythical 4-2-4T No.9 will eventually turn up somewhere.

Mike

47 minutes ago, Dave John said:

I have often wondered how it worked in practice. 

I've been on a steep learning curve and intend to write about it in Part 2.  The truth is that it didn't work well in practice and not just because the appropriate materials weren't available.  There were just so many shortcomings, when it came to adapting the idea to railway operations.  No points, no cross-overs, and very little control for the 'driver' of the train.

59 minutes ago, MikeTrice said:

Personally, I prefer to break the bodies down into a kit of parts as it allows me to orientate each to get best print quality.

I agree entirely and usually follow the same plan.

My concern was that the Geetech printer dealt with the small features far more successfully than the Prusa although th Prusa has fewer artefacts in the flat areas of the planking. 

I have accumulated quite a collection of BG 12 ton coal wagons in attempting to resolve the problem with various changes to the Prusa slicer settings.  Now, I shall try using Cura and see how it goes - more wagons to come!!!

1 hour ago, MikeTrice said:

I changed from Prusa slicer to Cura which made a big difference.

Thank you very much for that, Mike, I'll give it a try.  I have been continuing to use the Geeetech while my last print head keeps going but replacements are no longer available.

Thanks njee20 but it was just an 'interesting' design to tackle, while I think about where I want to go next.

3 hours ago, Mikkel said:

Aha, moving into NG prototypes now, an interesting development.

It' just that I like to try the quirky and unusual and see what challenges they throw up, when it comes to modelling them. 

As this was just an experiment, I have printed at only 0.15 mm resolution, hence the banding but, as you say, the printed vinyl will cover most of that, although in reality it's not at  all obvious.

1 minute ago, MikeTrice said:

For PLA I use Deluxe Plastic Magic or EMA Plastic Weld

Thank you, Mike.  I often just use a 200°C soldering iron to 'weld' parts together but this was too delicate for that method.

19 hours ago, JCL said:

Hi Mike, looking great! Here's a thought on your threads - is it possible that your PLA might be damp? ...

 

Thank you Jason.  this has been suggested by Prusa as a possibility.  The trouble is that the same reel of filament prints well on my Geetech E180.  It's a bit disappointing that the Prusa is causing me problems but I am forced to change because new print-heads are no longer available for the E180.

3 hours ago, Lacathedrale said:

As always, fantastic modelling and very informative.

Thank you.  I sometimes feel that my modelling interests have gone rather 'out on a limb', so it's good to know that that are still of interest to some people.  Some of my subjects, especially the early engines were themselves rather 'fantastic'!

3 hours ago, Mikkel said:

A lot of interesting stuff in here. I had not realized that there was such a variety of the tilt wagons.

Thank you Mikkel.  There was very little standardisation in the early days and wagons were built in small batches by several different makers.  The early ones were all-wooden, built like farm wagons, but the GWR began to use iron construction in the 1850s.  After that, the writing was on the wall for the broad gauge so very little new stock was built and a great mix of styles ended up on the Swindon dump in 1892.

3 hours ago, Mikkel said:

In Danish the word for tent is "telt", so same origin I assume.

I assume that the Danes brought the word to Anglo-Saxon England, whatever its original source.

3 hours ago, Mikkel said:

The colour shaper looks interesting, I wonder if it could be used for controlling edges when painting coach panels.

That is the purpose for which I originally bought my set - they work very well at defining paint edges.

Another photo in the link you referred to intrigued me - an engine with Mansell driving wheels! 

I tracked it down as 'Gazelle' on the Shropshire & Montgomery Railway.  

It was later converted from 2-2-2  to 0-4-2WT and passed into Colonel Stevens' hands.  Amazingly it is now preserved - see https://preservedbritishsteamlocomotives.com/1-0-4-2wt-shropshire-montgomery/

It looks to me as though the safety valve cover is bolted to a flanged cylinder, like a short length of pipe.

5 hours ago, Mikkel said:

A printer that prints itself. The robots are coming! 🙂

That was how Josef Prusa started as part of the RepRap project.  All the plastic parts of Prusa printers are available as downloadable files

As I mentioned in the original post, all the moving and heated parts are completely exposed and there is no back to the display unit, nor is its ribbon cable enclosed.  I did feel that the lack of a back to the display unit seemed an odd omission. On exploring further on the website where i found the calibration tool, I found a 3D-printable back!.

It took about 2 hours to print on the Mini+ and does the job very well. I used my usual brown filament which I think blends well with the orange front of the case.

I do feel, however, that this cover should have been provided in the first place.

4 hours ago, Mikkel said:

Poor instructions have always been a mystery for me. "Let's develop a quality product, spend much time on technological innovation, then finish off with some miserable instructions."

To be fair, I think they had tried hard to provide a decent manual but the photographic illustrations let it down for me.  I suppose that there is a problem when preparing something that has to be translated into many languages. My use of captions is probably not possible but numbered call-outs could be used, while line drawings are usually clearer.

Sine I wrote the above post, I have found, from reading on the web, that many people have difficulties with the first layer calibration.  There is a 3D-printable tool to set the SPINDA sensor at the correct height, so I download this gauge and re-set my printer.  It was now possible to trim the vertical (Z) axis to an appropriate setting for my PLA filament.