brack

Its alright, they've also got night time closures on both the M1 and A1M at the same time. I don't see great evidence of competence from those planning these things on either road or rail.

I think the point people were making wasn't that swanage were planning on scrapping it, more that historical public assets in our national collection should not be removed from it or given away to private groups, or dumped outside unprotected for 6 months either.

Just be secondhand kitbuilt wagons from eBay - most of them won't roll anywhere.

an entry charge doesn't put people off if they're on their own, but it does put people off with a family and 3 or 4 kids in tow. There's a lot of places I can think of where I'd go on my own, but taking my wife and daughter along makes it well over £30 to get in, which is pretty steep for many. National Museums being free to UK residents seems a good policy to me in terms of encouraging people here to value and enjoy culture and history. Free entry means I'm more likely to make lots of shorter repeat visits rather than trying to soak everything in in one long day and get my moneys worth (and bring my dinner and something to drink). Given the cafes, shops etc (and the carpark at york) I suspect that several repeat visits per year may be more valuable to the museum in a financial sense than one visit per decade, and people don't mind paying for other stuff if they've got in for nowt.

0629-4 NCB No103 Backworth Blue Bell disposal point 04-03-50 (JW Armstrong) 440 by George Stephenson, on Flickr found this on flickr, dated 4/3/1950

definitely the free entry too - hence the repeated visits. I think free entry should mean free entry though - no guilt tripping or suggested donation signs on boxes - they just insult people and make them feel like they have to sneak in past them. The brake van rides at shildon are good value though, and about the right length for a small child. The variety of locos and their vastly different styles/shapes/colours is important too.

Recent unfortunate decisions to give away historical artefacts notwithstanding, the NRM do a good job. We've all had the chance of a good whinge about their missteps, so I thought that it might be a good idea to have a thread explaining what they do well - less so the "well they've got Mallard" but more which little bits and pieces work well. I have a 4 year old daughter and a wife who is interested in things but is not a railway enthusiast. We visit shildon every month or two and York every few years. Things which have struck a chord: The snowplough film next to the snowplough - the child loves it. The ambulance train exhibit - wife and daughter found it really interesting (when we explained it to the little one) - a year later and she sometimes brings it up. I think being able to walk in the vehicle really made it real for her - she spends a lot of time looking in the windows of the sleeping car, or trying the seat cushions at Shildon. Perhaps being able to actually get into the vans/wagons/coaches might make things more real (within reason - not sure how you'd get in and out of a HAA easily, but a van, a 5 plank open, a coach should all be relatively easy). Getting in the cabs of locos (everyone likes this) My wife enjoyed the explanation of the controls etc. in (I think) Green Arrow recently - obviously needs someone there who knows what they're talking about, but very effective. My daughter likes the various 'games' at shildon - the loading the wagon, the signal reaction game, the carriage seats etc. The events at Shildon - the recent modelling one was very interesting - putting extra things into an existing setting keeps things fresh (the ships, the paper models of planes etc were fascinating). The 5" gauge lines laid out was great.

Perhaps we should start a thread on what the nrm do which is working? I visit locomotion every month or two and York every few years. I have a four year old daughter who loves going (hence the frequency of visits - it's only 15 minutes to locomotion and it's indoors!) and a wife who finds things interesting. There is much which is good, but recent disposal decisions are not - I don't think I or many others can explain our position any more clearly than we have already. Maybe then our positive experiences may be more useful (and hopefully carry more weight) than Mr Wolmar's recent suggestion.

I'm afraid I think they'd keep the tanks, the terriers being pretty light on their feet to start with. A purpose built tender 060 of terrier size ought to be just about plausible, but it's tender would be of matching proportions.

Yes. Nofraric (a French trio) did an o9 microlayout based on a fictional whaling station on Kerguelen. http://fr.1001mags.com/images/couv/V/VoieLibre/58/34969-VoieLibre-58-Page-007.jpg I've found it quite an interesting little layout, given my o9 modelling - loads of character. I'm not sure I'd be quite so cartoonish with the whales and penguins if it was mine (for a Sudanese 18" project I drew up and 3d printed the correct species of tortoise for the area). But I suppose it gets around the gruesome nature of it a little.

I'm sure frying oil in the great hall for 8 hours a day will leave a lovely sticky deposit and smell on the exhibits. I wonder, does the national gallery have advisors suggesting they bin some paintings so they can put a burger van indoors next to The Fighting Temeraire, and while we're at it we've too many van dycks, so we've lent one to a pub to use it for a sign, it'll be outside for a bit so we mightn't want it back, so maybe we'll just give it to them? I mean most people can only name a handful of paintings and everyone just takes photos on their phone these days, so maybe we should chuck most of their collection out and just keep half a dozen to show people what painting is.

Absolutely the JZ Ng network, but I'd also suggest that the various colonial networks are very much neglected. One I'd think deserves attention is the Argentinian railway system up to the 60s/70s - various gauges from metre to broad with large networks, often built and run along UK practice with many UK built locos and later generations of us or foreign built power.

Especially this one - the original rocket is what they were given by Lord Carlisle's Railway, but has a new smokebox, firebox, cylinders in a different place and a few other changes compared to its original state. However the other 2 rockets were built somewhat later so are definitely replicas, even if they're much closer to original condition than the real one.

Archer transfers, whose rivets are excellent, also do Louvre transfers. I haven't yet tried them, but they might be easier than trying to sand bits of microstrip triangular and glue them on straight.

you don't want that hideous thing! you want a burtonport extension 484T....

or alternatively, put 3 locos at risk. Which is the issue I personally feel is the biggest one. Private owners or lines are more likely to fail in future. At some point in time it is likely that lines will close, descendants will have no interest and locos will be lost. In many respects the golden era is now - many enthusiasts are retired, have spare income, can give large bequests to favourite projects in their will etc. Hence new builds, lines like the lynton & Barnstaple, the welsh highland and even the southwold being resurrected, the GCR bridging the gap and other great achievements. Looking at the enthusiast demographic it seems that this will contract in future. I know that this sounds very doom and gloom, but there must come a time when nobody will remember working steam and people may question why we have all these lumps of iron, steel and copper to be kept around the place. At that point in time you'd worry about the future of locos. Firstly those privately owned or on smaller (more marginal) heritage sites/lines, then those on larger lines would be at risk, particularly anything not easily maintained or able to earn it's keep economically. I'd hope that our national collection would be the safest of refuges, therefore deaccessioning historic, unique locos and transferring ownership to private trusts, companies or individuals will put the future of those locos at a much higher risk, perhaps less of being scrapped, but certainly of being acquired by a wealthy private collector and disappearing from public display for half a century (look at the rampton collection, Cecil Raikes or the Isle of Man's thornhill), or being acquired by less wealthy eccentric collectors who might dismantle them, put the pieces all over several barns and sheds, then pass on and nobody will ever find all the bits (I believe there are a few in this sort of state already). I know there is some sort of agreement that the NRM get first refusal should the recipient of the gift decide to dispose of it, but if someone at the NRM has decided now that something isn't worth saving, I wouldn't hold my breath about them making the right decision at such a future time. Hence I'd be fine with a 25 year loan with an agreement in place that restoration is acceptable/preferable or something similar, but cannot agree with the decision to pass over ownership.

The kf as a UK built export loco is there on merit, plus it was a gift from China I believe, although the south African 4-8-0 fulfills a similar role. Exactly what role the shinkansen has in telling our national story of railways is the question to ask. Apart from perhaps highlighting our lack of proper investment for 40 odd years.

they've got 3 Rockets and 2 Sans Pareils for starters then. They did have 2 T3s, are you suggesting someone couldn't tell the difference between the big NER 080 and the LSWR 440 versions?

Hmm, at least this one might be kept under cover. Why is it to be given away rather than be loaned? The BTC selected it to be preserved in 1953 - presumably on the grounds of it's significance as an edwardian heavy freight loco design. I'm not sure how this has changed or diminished in importance since? I'm less upset about it than the T3 as it might at least be kept under cover and it is not as unique in preservation, but I still wonder why it wasn't loaned as per many of the other locos at STEAM - they have no plans to restore it, so don't need to pretend that it has to be given to them so they can invest in it (as per the T3 giveaway)? Its as the NRM has been given a quota for locos to get rid of each year - I thought the entire point of a national collection was that we preserved things for posterity, not simply a holding pool until someone in an office somewhere decides that they need more space for the cafe and the place is all cluttered up with locos.

I agree somewhat with the idea that much of our thinking lies along the "last war" lines, but we assume that a 'proper' war won't start again because of the UN and half a century or more of relative peace between powers of the first few ranks. I sincerely hope that wars will not become as commonplace as they once were, but we can't really guarantee that - as others have pointed out it didn't take germany long to rearm in the 30s and we were very glad that resources had been invested in the development of new military hardware since the end of WW1, even if we were in some respects less prepared than we could've been. Our nuclear capabilities are not really for a first strike situation - we don't have enough missiles to back that up unless we attacked a small or non-nuclear power and the rest of the world would be ranged against us if we did, its only use is as a deterrent to make others think twice about attacking us with similar. I'd suggest that the most likely role for our defence forces is either defending remote territories (falklands or similar) against an invasion or supporting joint operations overseas eg. Iraq, Sierra Leone, Libya etc. In either case our new carriers would be very useful. Whether you feel such an engagement is necessary is a different kettle of fish.

modifications may require more maintenance, more complexity, more initial investment or may end up working very tired frames/boilers/components harder than they were designed to do. Look at the festiniog - they have removed some improvements from Linda/blanche. I suspect part of the reason is key members of staff who'd installed them having left, but there must be other arguments to remove them. Porta's 2-10-2s on the RFIRT were also demodified after he'd left - possibly keeping modernised locos working requires higher/different training/knowledge than is always available, whereas an unmodified loco is much simpler to maintain.

I think the engine block in many emd locos is a welded construction. Cracks occur, but can be fixed relatively easily if you can be bothered to.

Heaven forbid that members of the public have an opinion when a publicly owned asset (ie. something we all co-owned) is given to a private organisation without good reason or warning and haven't currently got adequate facilities to conserve it.

15 year leases on new motive power was pretty much standard us practice until power by the hour. I imagine that ews just followed standard WC/US policy. I think the us engine overhaul timings are roughly 7-10 years or 750000 miles. So a loco coming up to the end of its 15 year lease is just coming up to its second heavy overhaul.

Ammeters in series, voltmeters in parallel across the component you're measuring.