Wheatley

15 minutes ago, 5944 said:

The 31 (and the 40) were moved from York to Shildon today - could it have been related to getting the loco prepped for that? It's been a long time since the 31 moved any distance, especially on the mainline.

Ah, I noticed they'd gone on my way home, thanks. The 108 has been split too, I hope they've not been taking advice from the 503 mob...

There's a chair visible (I think) directly above that white staining on the pit wall in the last photo. 

Foamboard is excellent stuff for large non-weight bearing* structures like large buildings. Provided you use a sharp (ie new) Stanley knife blade it cuts easier that card, a blunt blade will snag the polystyrene though. Clad it with whatever you like. I use hot glue to butt join the foamboard, which shouldn't work in theory but it does, and Pritt Stick, Evo Stick or double sided tape to glue cladding materials to the paper faces. 

If you work for any sort of largeish organisation go see your marketing and comms department as they seem incapable of presenting any kind of concept without sticking it all over large sheets of the stuff.  If you dont take it off their hands afterwards it goes to landfill. Failing that, Hobbycraft as mentioned. 

* You can actually use it for baseboards and diorama bases, but not anything you need to lean on. Its weakness is any kind of mechanical joint, eg attaching legs or joining to another board, you have to reinforce those bits with ply. 

15 minutes ago, SM42 said:

 

J remember some years ago, someone stole a firework ( mortar type)  from the display at Trentham Gardens. 

 

The advice to whomever took it was not to light it as you needed to be 400 yards away when it went bang and no-one could run that fast 

Which type you presumably can't buy in Sainsburys. 

57 minutes ago, SM42 said:

Yet we can go down the local supmarket very November  and buy proper explosives. 

Hexamine is the starting point for RDX, and from there Semtex and C4. Your local nail bomber is going to have to buy an awful lot of penny bangers to match the explosive power of a couple of ounces of that. 

It depends who I'm talking to about it.  If it's a fellow weirdo then it's a model railway, to anyone else it's a trainset because at any non-believer level the difference is pretentious.

Unless it would be more fun to wind them up by calling it a Performance Art Installation. 

Wibdenshaw had half a bus garage on the viewing side. Although that wasn't a real place !

4 hours ago, 009 micro modeller said:

Why would they know (or need to know) given that they don’t work in collections or conservation. It’s of only peripheral relevance to the subjects they usually deliver talks on… 

They didn't say they didn't know, they actually did say they couldn't possibly comment. It's a 'House Of Cards' reference and I got it even if you didn't. 

As I couldn't give a monkey's whether the NRM has a functioning workshop or not I shall step away and leave you to it. 

(31A - it's actually almost worth the 7 quid to get in !). 

Yes it was there when I went past last week too. 

My guess was asbestos removal or grit blasting something, the Explainer "couldn't possibly comment ;-) ". 

In the meantime, the last time I was there they were doing something with the 31 in the Great Hall that involved parking it over the inspection pit completely sealed up with  polythene sheets and gaffer tape. 

It seemed unnecessarily unkind to mention to the Explainer that it was a shame they didn't have some sort of workshop where this sort of thing could be done. 

Struggling to see how someone with the nouse and motivation to build either a kit or something from scratch (which is the market Squires serves) can't work out how to use a non-phone payment method or doesn't have the patience to. 

And yes, it is excellent news. All power to Squires' elbow. 

I confess to being well practised on the fillet idea as the result of being hopeless at accurate layout planning, and having to add bits as I go along ! 

The Google Maps idea is genius. 

7 minutes ago, BluenGreyAnorak said:

Add on a little bit of baseboard to accommodate the whole of the houses?

That, and a bit of the road to give them some protection from stray sleeves and elbows brushing past. It doesn't need to be the full ply construction, something lightweight cantilevered off the existing board will do. 

If that doesn't work/fit then I'd shorten the gardens as that to me would be the least unacceptable compromise. But then I've managed to get a 28 ft long formation into a 14 foot garage by bending it in half, so your mileage may vary ! 

42 minutes ago, woodenhead said:

Weather for the next 7 days is also looking settled which bodes well.

Yay ! I cancelled my 2020 trip after the forecast windspeed on the ECML topped 60mph, the overheads not usually needing that much help to fall down. Then spent the day in the office watching both my outward and return trains on TRUST run right time almost to the minute. 🤨

1 hour ago, 34theletterbetweenB&D said:

Too slow. An electro-mechanical network should be capable of resolving root cause much more swiftly. Half an hour at most. Need to eliminate shouty folk on phones and do it by AI.

Thats an excellent idea, you should suggest that to the DfT as a replacement for the current Schedule 8 arrangements. Do let us know how you get on. 

On 13/02/2024 at 22:50, uax6 said:

There have been many things used as tail lamps over the years, from newspapers to bog roll!

There is a Bradford Barton paperback called "Signalman" by Michael Burke, detailing his career around Manchester in the 1960s. 

The Platting Tail Lamp was a local custom whereby the tail lamp of a particular trip working from Miles Platting could be anything except an actual tail lamp, hung on the drawhook of the last vehicle*. 

"For a period a particularly lacy bra was popular with the shunters". 

(* Which is why the handle of a BR standard tail lamp is such an odd shape.)

2 hours ago, njee20 said:

I like how the photo of the departures board has 3 different cancelled trains, each with a different reason. Total clarity 👍🏼

All three are not incorrect  and all three will have been generated by whatever delay code the Network Rail or individual TOC controllers put in the system, which will have been based on what they were told at the time. All three indicate that something major is going down and that this is not going to be fixed by the time you finish your coffee, which at least manages expectations. 

Getting them all to agree with each other in TRUST and getting the delay correctly  attributed to the same root cause is a Day 2 back office job.

Control are too busy standing up with a phone at each ear shouting at each other across the room trying to work round it at this point. 

Brought quite a lump to the throat at times today listening to almost all the presenters struggling to get as far as the next record without choking up. Nicki Chapman pretty much cried through the whole breakfast show. 

Whether or not you liked him as a DJ he does seem to have been a genuinely nice bloke. 

2 hours ago, john new said:

Just read elsewhere that the Shipley - Ilkley line is also shut for about a month with bustitution due to cracks in a cutting side near Baildon.

 

Just south of  two very shallow short tunnels on a route with other very shallow short tunnels nearby, in an area made up of geological porridge (the Guiseley Gap) so presumably known to be  prone to landslip when it was built.

I don't imagine the water helped though. Nor I expect did the 1970s bungalows built on the top of the cutting that's now slipping. 

https://maps.app.goo.gl/RGcP3qnwrsGkdbR29

Yes I was surprised too. It's as not terrible as could be realistically wished for. 

We were having a similar conversation about this at work. Unfortunately the Disability Discrimination Act means that the days of just asking the CCE if he's got any old bridges lying around following an electrification scheme are over (I think Settle's came from Drem ?). Nowadays you either get the full DDA-compliant works or nothing, as the halway house is, with very few exceptions,  illegal for new works. 

1 hour ago, locoholic said:

Requirements of different stock? What about the requirements of the rail network, and the passengers? Seems that the tail is well and truly wagging the dog these days!

Westinghouse  v vacuum, 21" vacuum v 25" vacuum, vacuum v air, single pipe air v 2 pipe air, screw couplings v buckeye, screw v tightlock, tightlock v BSI. Don't imagine incompatibility is a symptom of the modern railway. 

Oil lamps continued on DMUs and locos because until the Rule Book was revised (1974 ?) the lamp (white metal thing) was the indication, not the red light, which only had to be lit if the journey was to take place in darkness, fog  falling snow or through a tunnel. 

After they were discontinued plenty of DMUs were stopped to check whether they were complete as the 40 watt bulbs were useless in bright sunlight. We had a spare oil tail lamp in the box at Huddersfield Junction which was occasionally waved at Huddersfield bound guards as a prompt to confirm whether the lights were on or not. 

Planning application with drawings - https://onlineplanningregister.northyorks.gov.uk/Register/PlanAppDisp.aspx?recno=11477

Fox and Cambridge Custom  Transfers. Previously Modelmaster as well but see long running thread on here and caveat emptor. 

Not that I can think of (I had a look in Smiffs, I dont have the pic in front of me). It's a grainy pic taken at a distance.