Wheatley

I know I've posted this before but idc. 

Barnsley booking office, 1991, Mitch and his medallioned chest hair at the counter with his feet up on the cash drawer and his brew and ashtray safely parked on top of the APTIS machine. 

Respectable looking Welsh gent: "Single to Machynlleth please" (pronounced correctly). 

Mitch: "Wheer ?"

RLWG: "Machynlleth"

Mitch: "Nivver erd on it, wheer is it ?"

RLWG: "It's in Wales"

Mitch: "Whats nearest station like ?"

RLWG: "Machynlleth. I came from there yesterday on the train"

Mitch: "Arrs tha spell it like ?"

RLWG: "M-A-C-H-Y-N-L-L-E-T-H"

Mitch: "Ah reyt - tha means Mackley Hinlith !"

RLWG: "It's pronounced Machynlleth"

Mitch: "Norrin Barnsley it int". 

Certainly all the 14x/15x series DMUs and contemporary EMUs had toughened glass from new. 14xs were single glazed throughout, 15xs had double glazing in the main lights and single in the hoppers. Sometime around 1995 onwards the single glazed panes were fitted with anti-bandit film on the inside to prevent spalling and reduce the tendency for missiles to come through into the saloon rather than just stoving the window in. 

The change to mostly laminated glass with a couple of toughened 'break through' emergency windows came ( I think) after the Watford Junction derailment in 1996. 

Same as Micheal and the Cap'n although I think I used a slitting disc. 

Never had a problem fixing crank pins  finger tight then tightening up with either pliers or the slotted screwdriver used at an angle. 

Never booked in advance. I've no interest in joining the scrum for bargains, and im rarely there at opening time anyway. 

On 10/05/2024 at 18:18, Michael Hodgson said:

Nothing strikes me as a special attraction at the KWVR (unless you're particularly into the Bronte sisters) or locations like East Grinstead.  Both lines are long enough to give a pleasant ride through the English countryside though.

Riding the K&WVR over the years allows you to study social history first hand. 

On your first trip in the 1980s you get a pleasant ride into the country past a load of 19th century woollen mills, some derelict and some repurposed for other uses. 

On your second  trip in thd 1990s you get to see which of the mills have fallen down or inexplicably caught fire all by themselves. 

Nowadays you can wave at people living in the housing estates where the inexplicably self combusting mills used to be. 

5 hours ago, ardbealach said:

Its always enjoyable to have a 'keek' at a fellow modellers library as well!  A few of the titles match my own.  (Alisdair)

I thought the bookshelf would get more interest than the neanderthal carpentry :-) The plastic boxes below it are (part of) the 'to do' pile. 

4 hours ago, 31A said:

Far too tidy! 🤣🤣  Looks very smart.  Good library!

 

Did you buy the workbench, or did you make it?

And it  has to stay tidy otherwise the door doesn't shut !

It's a load of IKEA Besta units piled on top of each other with one of the shelves on runners and some home made drawers added. 

Prototype pointwork is specified in terms of switch length (A, B, C...) and the crossing angle (1 in 6, 1 in 8 ...) rather than radius. The Peco large radius is about 1 in 5, I've no idea where to measure the switch length from though. So A6, B8 etc. 

I've laid out a double to single  junction on my layout using entirely Peco large radius points, it's roughly half the length the prototype plan says it should be which gives you an idea how compromised Peco points are. That said it looks good and it effectively self-compressed itself to fit the space available without me having to do anything complicated !

And I have a new workbench !

Very little workbench progress recently due to not having had a workbench since February while we decorated the living room (very slowly). 

There has been some progress in the shed, albeit of the "fixing things which should have been done properly in the first place" variety. One of these was the baseboard joint at the Dumfries end of the platforms. This was built without dowels as the boards hinged up to allow access to the fiddleyard for maintenance, and therefore had to be able to move past each other without anything catching. An increasingly Heath Robinson-ish arrangement of split hinges and cabinet catches developed, none of which really worked but all contributed to the increasing number of holes in the baseboard top and frames. 

So earlier this week I made a few more holes to find all the screws holding the frames to the mating edges, removed them and tidied up the edges ready for new frames to be fitted. 

This time the new bits of framing were  prepared on the bench with dowels and bolt holes fitted to be fitted as a single unit. The steel strip mending plates are holding the boards in the correct position using the Up Main as a reference. 

All screwed back together. The missing bits are the trap points at the ends of the loops on the left, and the horse dock siding and headshunt on the right. 

I prefer card generally so that's what I've ticked. However, I tend to pay by cash at exhibitions because I've taken a wedge of cash for any traders who take cards or because it seems unfair to land them with bank charges for a £2 second hand wagon. 

I have no qualms buying something for pennies from Sainsburys on the card. 

1 hour ago, The Stationmaster said:

Contraventions of the Rule Book are a railway operational matter and therefore not necessarily within the purview of the Railway Inspectorate.   So - depending on what is in their Licence - WCRC might be in breech of that because surely they are required to comply with the RSSB Rule Book as are other train operators?

Compliance with the 8000 series Rule Book modules has been fairly near the top of every Safety Certificate application I've ever read. 

5 hours ago, rodent279 said:

I was shocked to visit my dad's one day, to find him & the home help replacing a light bulb. 85 year old stood on a stool doing the bulb, home help on the floor holding the new one. What could possibly go wrong?

Went home for the weekend once to find my then 70-odd yo mum huffing and puffing a bit, and wincing as she got up. "I've hade a bit of a bump" she said. "Tell him the rest" says dad. She fell off the worktop she was standing on to clean the tops of the kitchen cupboards, landing ribs first on the chair she had used to climb onto the kitchen table to reach the worktop. 

The difference is that you are allowed to take all the controls away in your own house and let common sense/Darwin sort it out. Not in a public place or if you're any sort of public or corporate body. 

1 hour ago, pete_mcfarlane said:

The problem with that approach is that delayed enforcement can be presented as 'they were OK with this last week and have randomly changed their mind' 

Only if they said it was ok last week. Otherwise that's like contesting a speeding conviction on the grounds that you drive that fast every day and no-one stopped you before. 

23 hours ago, The Johnster said:

 
 

That’s not a Bardic, there’s nothing in the middle.  No use at all when it gets a bit lively after a Cardiff-Newport derby (‘sorry, bwt, was that the back of your skull, fares please…).  Where’s the heft?

In the early days of privatisation I sat in on a presentation by a very nice salesman trying to sell us an LED Bardic replacement. It was basically a cheap plastic torch with changeable red and green lenses. The lenses killed it stone dead as they had to be screwed on and off and were kept in a separate tin, the chances of them lasting more than a week in the possesion of even the most diligent guard before being left in the bag, left in the 'other'  jacket or just lost were minimal. 

But we listened politely and then came the questions at the end. 

"Can you use it to knock point scotches in ?"

"What about fending off drunks ?".

Poor bloke.

7 hours ago, Jeremy Cumberland said:

To you professional guards and shunters: are you able to deftly flick from white to red (or green) using the hand that's holding the Bardic? I have never acquired the knack (if there is one), and have always used two hands to change from white to red.

Yes if the movement is nice and free. Either push it with the thumb or second finger (I think, it's a long time since I've used one !) or hold the switch with the thumb and finger, loosen the grip on the other fingers and sort of flick it using the weight of the lamp to change it. 

This is the replacement at one TOC:

https://www.businessimage.co.uk/products/toclite/toclite-safety-signalling-torch

As well as being robust but light, using normal batteries and actually being useful as a torch (lets face it, Bardics were OK for not bumping into things in the dark but that's about it) it's also bright enough on the emergency setting to be used as an a proper 'line speed'  emergency headlight, albeit only for long enough to get you out of trouble. The 'bullet' or bracket to mate it to a lamp iron is on the train in the emergency cupboard. 

Continental Modeller - 5000 in 2019 apparently, Peco's own figures -

https://www.inpublishing.co.uk/articles/model-magazines-126

I pass various bits of the Transpennine Route Update  electrification works every day on the way onto work, other colleagues, many of them much younger than me are much more closely connected with various bits of it. There is a lot of very expensive kit tied up in delivering TRU. 

Having just read the Traction article I shall be taking it into the office tomorrow. The fact that it was once  considered perfectly normal for part of a major MAS scheme to involve blokes trundling casually about between trains  shovelling (?) wet concrete out of open wagons will blow their minds. 

The print edition in a bag in the shops includes copies of Garden Rail and Narrow Gauge World.

9 hours ago, GrumpyPenguin said:

Really ?

No, not really. Read the subsequent posts. 

Not familiar with Ealing Broadway but at those stations where there is still a significant gap there is usually a good reason, one of:

1. The station has so few users it's somewhere towards the CP11 end of Network Rail's 'to do' list. In the meantime it might get an Easy Acess Area (Harrington Hump). 

2. It's earmarked to be done as part of a wider project (there's a lot of platform works being done as part of Transpennine Route Upgrade including entirely new stations.)

3. Only part of the platform is non-compliant and the risk can be managed using selective door opening or local door only. 

4. It's so complicated to do it can only be done as part of a much wider scheme. Salford Central has just been done, huge gap at a very busy station. Complicating factors were that its on a viaduct, there's no access for plant and machinery without shutting half of Salford down, its on a key route which was already heavily disrupted by TRU work at other locations and it got embroiled in a sequence of funding stop-starts, mostly the Northern Powerhouse "You can have the money for the sexy new bridge but not all the other bits needed to make Ordsall Curve work" debacle. 

5. It's physically impossible to do because of platform curvature. 

The 1996 HMRI requirements which brought in the 275/250*/350mm limits also banned new platforms on gradients and curves outside very tight limits. *(Now 230mm vertical). 

19 hours ago, fezza said:

Presumably the market research has been done but I think for a £9,99 shelf price it's going to struggle.

Yes I fell for that one too. Don't normally buy BRM but I thought I'd give the combined BRM and Traction a go, didn't quite get the 'two magazines in one' memo, assumed the other things in the bag were Traction and a catalogue of some sort and had to ask the newsagent to check the price at the till ! It was a local independant newsagent too, not a supermarket, so I wasn't expecting the supermarket 'just chuck it in the trolley extra value bagged stuff you didnt want' trick. 

I know the price is on the cover (if you look hard for it) so it's my own fault. Lesson learned. 

Headlights - 1 or 2, always white (excluding royal trains and weird Southern lamp arrangements).

Tail lights - always 1, always red (same caveat as above). 

Lock engaged in shunting (eg station pilot) 1 red and 1 white at each end. 

So your tail lamp is correct if the loco is running light and going forwards. If its going backwards it should be white, but it should be on the bottom centre lamp iron not the top centre. Top centre would indicate a stopping passenger train working tender first, in which case the smojebix end shouldn't have any lamps on at all.  

To be prototypically correct you would have to change the lamps so many times you'll eventually break something. Which suggests they're either a) not thought through by anyone who knows anything about engine lamp codes except what the lamps look like or b) it's a gimmick. 

If you really do want to be prototypically accurate it's so much easier with a cast or printed lamp with a 1mm hole drilled it it and a pair of tweezers. 

28 minutes ago, 'CHARD said:

Am I correct in thinking that whisky wasn't palletised; ale was crated but not conveyed in Palvans.

The Johnny Walker Palvans were apparently used only in and around Kilnarnock, between the blending and bottling plants. Now that is a bit niche. 

http://www.srpsmuseum.org.uk/10142.htm

Not come across any evidence of the BR ones in general whisky distribution but then I haven't looked ! 

2 hours ago, Richy59 said:

Was quite excited for these but now a little disappointed that most of them - especially the ‘early’ ones - have ‘Return To’ markings on the sides. Make it really quite limiting for locations.

As CC points out, that's because they were quite limited in locations, at least loading points. Amongst others you've got: 

Ammunition from ROF Glascoed

Tinned peas from Batchelors at Wadsley Bridge.

Lever Bros traffic from Port Sunlight

Campbells soup from King's Lynn 

Bagged powdered milk from Kirkcudbright Creamery. 

Once loaded they could go anywhere where the customer needed 12 tons of tinned soup, or margerine or anti-tank shells or whatever. They might have been loaded by forklift but if necessary palleted or mechanically loaded goods could be handballed off (citation available if needed but it'll clutter the thread up if not). So unlikely to turn up at a wayside goods shed but very likely to run yard to yard thence to a main distribution point. 

2 hours ago, russ p said:

I'm still not sure what advantage its going to bring as carpark will be smaller than it was. With York being set in a rural area especially to the north and east its not that practicable for people to use public transport to get to the station and very little if any long term parking near by. Very few hotels have parking in York 

I don't think the car park will  be that much smaller when they've finished, but no-one sane or not using a company account parks next to the station, it's £20 a day which is extortionate even by York prices (£19 in the ACPOA car park on the old Unipart site). The Park and Ride is only £3.80. 

It's to ease the flow of traffic outside the station, taking away the bridge will open up that corner into a sort of plaza around and under the Victorian arches through the city wall with the road through the middle and bus bays either side. Similar to now but more spread out using the space right up to the city walls and without a massive jerry built crumbling lump in the middle. You can see on my last photo the concrete Lego bricks inserted into one of the piers to stop it falling over, they were put in a few years ago (so I'm told). 

What's particularly interesting is that the bridge approach ramp is currently holding up that corner of the city wall, there is a lot of borehole drilling going on on the old roadway, I don't think they're quite sure what's under it ! There are also a lot of targets on sticks along the back of the city wall and some (presumably) laser scanning things on various buildings so they're keeping a close eye on any movement. 

https://www.howardcivileng.co.uk/case-studies/york-station-gateway/

I didnt say it was impossible, I merely offered a reason as to why it might not be as popular as it once was. 

1 hour ago, adb968008 said:

London can support more tours than it has, but it was neglected as a market.

The south east generally is a complex pile of spaghetti to weave a path through and an expensive place to cause delays, even if the costs are capped under the Performance Regime. 

Even in the early 1990s when FSS were running trips from there every week and the Performance Regime wasn't a thing, the imperative was that their path back into London was preserved because if they missed that they could wind up hours late. Plenty of times I was asked by the FSS train manager to cancel the run pasts at Appleby and just do a minimum water stop because they needed to hit their WCML or ECML slot. Given that he would be the one getting grief off the passengers for their missed photo ops it can't have been asked lightly. 

And a few times I cancelled them for him because the Sprinter was up his bum ...

This is the alignment of the lines leading to George Hudson's first York Station, latterly West Offices and now City of York Council's offices. After the present Station was built the lines remained for carriage storage before being lifted in the 1960s for a staff car park. 

As part of the York Gateway project Queen Street bridge is finally going, 60-odd years after it ceased to serve any useful function.