Wheatley

No railways in last night's episiode so I presume RMwebbers were busy enjoying the story for what it was and not getting apoplectic about all the errors. Let's start with the live minefield in the middle of a UK base.

A point that leads me to think that this model is a case of style over substance and clearly aimed at the collectors market.

A Standard goods aka a Jumbo would be a much better choice for modellers.

Bernard

But the Jumbo would be much harder to LIDAR scan.

All this post has managed so far is to prove that train spotters / railway enthusiasts / whatever are a bit weird and self obsessed.  

It's a drama, made for dramatic entertainment, and as drama's on British TV go it's a very good one. You can't turn 2017 Oxford into 1968 Oxford accurate in every detail so there are compromises which 99% of the audience won't notice.I'm sure that elsewhere there are academics tutting about the stereotypical portayal of academics (who also seem to be a fairly obnoxious and bloodthirsty bunch according to Endeavour/Morse/Lewis) and the inaccurate portrayal of how the Oxford Collegiate system works, and retired policemen bemoaning all the bits of police procedure which weren't quite right too. I bet you didn't notice any of those. 

Perhaps you'd all rather they put the money into something which is cheaper to make, gets higher ratings and makes more advertising revenue like "Britain's Got Talent" ?

I believe there is a big project on the way to build a new linking section between the two Halls which will eventually require the diversion of Leeman Road.

That's the York Central masterplan which is being masterminded by City of York Council so don't hold your breath. In the ten years since they started it all they've succeeded in doing is turning the wagon repair works and CM&EE workshops from commercial land into derelict commercial land. Oh, and building a nice fence alongside Cinder Lane.  

https://www.york.gov.uk/majordevelopmentsyorkcentral

http://www.nrm.org.uk/aboutus/futureplans

Passenger fares contribute about £10bn a year to the cost of running the railways, according to ORR. That's about the same amount that the government last ploughed into 'Help to Buy' to help just 135,000 people get into lifelong debt. On that basis £10bn to make the railways free sounds like a good deal.

You might argue that if they were free the demand would not be regulated by high fares as it is now and passenger numbers would go through the roof. But when I were a lad the buses in the Peoples' Republic of South Yorkshire were almost free - you could go anywhere in the county for 2p per journey child fare and 5p-25p adult. (For comparison a bar of chocolate cost about 15p). They were well used but I don't remember hoards of people having to walk home every day because they were full.

So I went and did a quick goolemaps look at Dent.  It looks like the platform on the station side is about 250 feet long. 

Dent, Langwathby (I think) and a couple of other platforms were extended to accommodate 2x156 in the early 90s. Two 156s are 92m long, a few metres extra was allowed for over/under braking so they should now be a shade over 300 feet.  

The issues that cause delays are far wider than just problems with the 37's. For example

 

Northern crew are unfamiliar with and don't like loco hauled operation making them prone to calling failures for marginal problems  like

the rolling stock is also dated and prone to fail, particularly the DBSO's

the cumbrian line is in need of repairs and upgrading

 

I am sure there are other less well publicised issues. Put them all together and you end up with a problematic service 

If it's broken it's broken. The last 37 failure was on Jan 24th - loco earth fault, taken out of service on Control's instructions after speaking to the DRS fitter. Since then there have been 2 DMU failures on the same route, 3 if you count the same 153 failing twice in one day. Any fault on any unit on the Cumbrian Coast is potentially a cancellation as there simply isn't stuff lying around that can be stepped up like there is elsewhere. The place isn't exactly knee deep in under-employed buses either which makes alternative transport an issue, especially on a school day.

They've been operating them for two years so they're hardly unfamiliar by now. The local MP needs to vent his ire at the DfT - they specced the service.

The Up siding has road access, which must make it rather more useful. There must be (or have been at any rate) some thought that the down siding was needed for something, the pointwork for it was renewed about 10-15 years ago at any rate (in a slightly different place, which threw things off for my model before I realised, grr!)

I vaguely remember something about the crossover being renewed a while ago which may or may not have been something to do with the service which used to start there before the early morning Leeds - Carlisle was reinstated. The lie by points may have been renewed at the same time. I may be talking utter rubbish too.

On a  running schedule, when  detained in a loop by the signaller for advancing other traffic,  we describe and book the time delay as being "recessed".

I do not know if this term is old or modern, and if regional or not.  Similarly in some regions signal  route indicators are lunars or feathers, and  ground signals are dummies or dods,  yet wherever we work, everyone  seems to understand these mess room terms  in spite of official  attempts to  banish old railway  vernacular from the "infrastructure" ( infrastructure   == management-speak for the privatised railway)

"Recessed" seems to have been in widespread use for a long time. In spite of official attempts to modernise language (mostly by people who know a lot about business theory and nothing about people in my experience) some of the performance regime terms are straight out of the old telegraph codebook - 'Pine' and 'Cape' for example.  

What will happen to the standards for historical accuracy when the source of information will be in books/internet rather than listening to people's memory?

The same as will happen with every other subject before about 1930. The accurists will do their best to conduct accurate research from original sources, take care to corroborate them where possible and note the limitations of published sources, the pragmatists will consult enough sources of sufficient reliability to get it about right enough for whatever purpose they need the information for, and the other 99% of people will engage in heated and ultimately pointless debate over it on whatever replaces the internet.

There would be a requirement for the guard to inform the bobby that the train was inside, tail lamp complete.

And where there was no telephone provided, the message was often conveyed by taking the lamp off and waving it at the box so the bobby could see it.

They're still there at Kirkby Stephen (the Up one being made up of bits of the former goods yard and cattle dock). There's no need for their original purpose any more but I think track machines are sometimes stabled there, and possibly as an access point for road-rail machines.

I've never seen the down one used but the up refuge is still occasionally used by the Engineers. It has also been used for stabling bent 156s after the accidents at Ais Gill and Crosby Garrett in the 1990s :-(

Incidentally, Regulation 3.5 (Warning Acceptance) was still permitted on the down line as late as 1992, in clear weather only. It was either for setting back into the down lie by or was a throwback to crossing over into the yard (which was on the up side) thirty years previously which no-one had ever seen the seen to rescind.  

These spurious projections are caused by what the moulding trade refers to as sunk ejector pins, which is ultimately down to running a mould well past the point at which it should have been pulled for rectification. 

Not necessarily an ancient mould problem, I've just finished removing a load from a 2016-tooled Airfix kit (Lanc bombay doors).

Durham was another, the Palatinate in that case being the Bishop of Durham. Hence all the road signs reading 'Land of the Prince Bishops' as you cross the county boundary.

Thanks.  This pretty much confirmed what I thought.  I do find it odd that a train would need to pass, then back up in to the siding.  But I suppose this does create some level of safety.  As you mentioned, it eliminates the potential for a fouled facing point diverting a high speed passenger train into a freight train.

 

I guess this brings up another question...

 

In an area such as the fells on the StoC line, it seems like there was plenty of land.  Why not just have a passing loop.  A fairly long would could have been incorporated.  I suppose there is some history to this, in addition to the facing points point.

Simply because a loop would require facing points, see LMS2698's answer. Because of the increased risk of derailment all facing points had to be lockable, which added to the cost both of installation and maintenance.   

In LMS/BR days loops were installed at Long Meg sidings and Blea Moor specifically to increase capacity. It meant you had two locations where goods trains could run 'straight in'. So you might let an express goods run to one of the loops rather than stop it a couple of boxes further back to set it back into the lie by.  The goods was still held for the higher priority train, but it was held that bit further on with that bit less ground to make up. The cost of providing the loops was balanced against the cost of holding up traffic, it was presumably not considered necessary / cost effective to put more loops in between those two.

At locations without lie bys (and with light-ish traffic) another option usually permitted was to use the main to main crossover on a double line to set the goods back onto the opposite running line (obviously provided you had time to do it). One of those things you never/rarely see modelled.

I stand corrected, thank you.

Ok, as well as the fact that there is a fundamental regulatory obstacle, there however a number of commercial, contractual, resourcing and financial reasons why they would not want to. :-)

Assuming we're talking about using the assets currently available rather than building new steam locos, then there is no regulatory or statutory reason why a TOC could not run timetabled steam services. There are however a number of commercial, contractual, resourcing and financial reasons why they would not want to.

A one-off like Tornado on the S&C was reasonably straightforward if quite heavy in terms of management time arranging it. It was effectively a charter train which just happened to be running in the path of a timetabled service so provided the 'turn up and go' ticketing option was still available (which in theory it was) then the DfT was happy that the franchised service was being delivered and the only ORR interest was in whose operating licence it was operating under (TOC's or charter operator's - doesn't really matter which as long as one of them is formally responsible for managing the risks arising). The loco, stock and crew were all hired in.

But if you were operating for a longer period you really want the traincrew resources in house where you can manage them effectively, not only in terms of their competency (Wooton Bassett) but also in terms of guaranteed availability. On the Cumbrian Coast it is relatively easy, a DMU driver can be trained to drive a 37 fairly quickly, everything is just bigger, heavier, dirtier, faffier and takes longer. But driving a steam loco is a completely different skill set - it's the difference between being allowed to drive a 7.5 ton Ford Cargo on your car licence, and taking a horse on the road. The The Ford Cargo controls are the same as the car, just bigger and laid out differently, but although taking your horse on the road involves the same rules (Highway Code) steering and braking on the horse is totally different and a Ford Cargo isn't scared of cars/lorries/birds/plastic bags/tufts of grass blowing in the wind etc. 

If you take driving in house that poses a training and competence issue which even BR ICSTU struggled with in the 1990s when everyone was working for the same firm and ex-steam men were still around to ask. If you take on the additional task of managing steam competence then your driver managers need to be steam competent too or you need to hire that specialism in.  If you hire in drivers then you have the additional problem of managing your supplier to make sure their drivers are competent/sober/healthy can stand unaided etc.

Your traction resource is transient - the pool of available locomotives goes in and out of boiler ticket all the time and is largely maintained by third party volunteers. They all need to be individually licenced too whereas for vehicle acceptance purposes one Class 158 is very much like another.  

Don't assume that 'unusual' = 'popular' either, or at least 'popular with the people the DfT are paying you to run the servivce for'. The 37s on the Cumbrian Coast are attracting traction cranks from far and wide but the regular passengers for whom it was provided (essentially Sellafield workers) are all car pooling because the 37s are unreliable. If your Plandampf services are too full of gricers then your core travellers/voters/constituents/council tax payers will get vocal and the DfT/Transport Scotland/Rail North will start asking questions about core services. There's a reason Tornado was on off-peak services out of season on a lightly used route, north of the bits which directly affect the Leeds/Bradford commuter services and only for three days in half term.

It can be done (assuming there's nothing in your franchise agreement which says it can't) but whether it would be commercially sane to do it is another matter.

Lie? 32,000 are registered, many more are not...

Presumably you know how many of those 150,000 views are unregistered members, will you share that ? (and even then that's still not the number of readers, it's the number of times it was read.) I presume you also know exactly how many page views a month the diary section gets and I bet it's not 150,000. 

My point is that it isn't a fair comparison so the numbers are meaningless. You're comparing apples with oranges and expressing the answer in either bananas or pears depending on which suits best.  

 

Let’s put this into context. RMweb gets over 150,000 unique visitors a month, that’s more than ALL four main model railway magazines combined.

Yes, but you've only got 32000 members, so at least 118,000 of those are the same people reading it several times. On that basis I'm at least 30 RM readers because I've read a bit of the last issue every night.

How to lie with statistics.

• In Quarter 1 (Jan to Mar) 2017, 89% of adults in the UK had recently used the internet (in the last 3 months), up from 88% in 2016; while 9% had never used the internet, down from 10% in 2016.

• Virtually all adults aged 16 to 34 years were recent internet users (99%), in contrast with 41% of adults aged 75 years and over.

Nevertheless, most of the railway and aircraft modellers I know (as in actually know, not know of) don't use any modelling sites, even though they might look up the weather forecast or football results on their phone.

I do, and I still rely on the RM listing rather than looking on here.

There may be a simpler explanation!   It may have been that someone on nights or at the weekend was a bit bored and enjoyed doing a bit of tarting up. 

A remakable amount of this went on towards the end of BR, especially after the likes of Stratford's silver roofs and Union Jacks were officially sanctioned (or at least not officially stopped). Tinsley's painted nameplates for example.

It wasn't always boredom or entirely unofficial either. The reason the S&C signal boxes are maroon and cream to this day is because the RRNE Line Manager at Appleby thought the official RRNE colour palette looked crap and asked the Works Supervisor across the yard to ignore it.   

It's really not. I think there are vastly more important threats than a bit of plastic. North Korea, Russian expansionism, terrorism, Israel/Palestine, Religious nutjobs, Far Left nutjobs, Far Right nutjobs, etc.

 

They're just threatening people, not the long term ecology of the planet. Ok, if Russia and NK start lobbing ICBMs at each other that might skew the ecology a bit but human beings murdering each other won't, even murdering each other in large numbers.

Mind you, if you take an even longer term view, the planet will eventually adapt to the plastics problem and survive. It might not be habitable by us but it will survive. 

From a point of complete ignorance about the fire, how can cars in a car park catch fire ? 

 

BBC reports quotes a witness who said it started in "an old Land-Rover". As the owner of one of those I can confirm that they can ignite quite happily all by themselves once you get enough oil, fabric-covered wiring, DIY mods/repairs and dodgy connections in the same place. Which is why mine has a big chunky battery isolator fitted, with the isolator key chained to the ignition key so you can't leave it unattended and switched on.

I'm intruiged to see how many insurance claims 1400 burnt out vehicles will generate ...

"Seeing as we're using the profit from the house I just sold as the deposit for this one, and seeing as my salary is four times yours and is paying the mortgage, we're having this one with the built-in garage so I can turn it into a train room rather than the one you want with the concrete sectional garage miles away from the house and no spare room."

Turns out you can make a concrete sectional garage very cosy, and a bit of plexiglas on top of the pergola linking the back door with the garage keeps most of the rain off as you trudge between the two with the stock boxes. 

I suppose I have got things back to front  but I am confused that the above appears to a/the rule of the competition.  I am sure there are a lot of modellers who can make a "cameo layout" without having to buy a book.

I think it's a more than a little churlish to complain that a competition set up by, administered by and presumably paid for by the author and publisher of a book requires you to buy a copy of the book to enter. It's like complaining that the 18.83 Challenge was discriminatory to non-P4 Modellers. Yes it was, that was the whole point.

brianusa, on 06 Apr 2017 - 23:10, said:

Presumably they can't be bothered with the extra effort of tacking a customs form on the parcel. 

That. I'd rather post it through the door of the nearest charity shop than faff about with that.

Maybe so.....but this guy obviously knows his market

I'd be interested to know where in the country he is located.My local dealer (in Devon) stopped getting in pretty much anything LNER / Eastern Region some time ago unless pre-ordered.

Ah, that's a good point actually, mine is firmly in LNER territory.