Guy Rixon

Southampton had the well-known lines from Canute Road to the town pier (also, earlier, serving the royal pier) and on into the Western docks, as noted above. As a child, I remember watching diesel shunters (07s?) trundling along this stretch.

It also had some lesser-known tramways from the main line to the quays and small docks on the river Itchen; these were upstream from the Eastern docks. If memory serves, there was one that ran along Chapel Road and another, further north that ran to the quays near Belvedere Roads. These, apparently, were still running up to the early '80s.

Use a cocktail stick, simples.

I do, but increasingly I find it's too blunt an instrument for the fine work. Haven't yet tried whittling the stick to a finer point. I'm going to try the dispenser needles in the post above; got to be worth £2.85 to try them out.

That is Microsoft having a laugh. Just how many analysts, programmers and project managers could they employ for half that and still make money hand over fist?

Between 20 and 30, I would guess. Microsoft are reputed to pay their developers well, and I would be surprised if total cost of employment was below £100,000 p.a. Back-porting patches to an "obsolete" OS is not going to be a popular job within their company, and can't safely be done by inexperienced or second-rate staff, so (a) they may need to offer incentives, (b) they need a decent proportion of senior developers and © they need a larger testing and QA contingent than might otherwise be expected for the volume of software. 20 staff is possibly more than they need but not ridiculously more. I'd guess that a team of 10 might be about right, including management, QA and somebody looking after the internal paperwork.

So yes, they're taking a large profit, but not, I believe, in the millions of percent. You can't do this work with a couple of interns and a dog.

Also, £5.5 million is a tiny amount compared with the NHS budget (and with Microsoft's turnover). Choosing not to spend that extra money on the NHS computers was a ridiculously bad decision, whoever made it.

Organizations running Windows XP are able to get some continuing support (= security patches) by paying MicroSoft  for a special contract. After the end of general support for XP in 2014, the NHS had such a contract. The price goes up each year. When the renewal cost reached £5.5 million, the support was not renewed. I don't know whether this was decided inside the NHS or by the treasury.

With the Selsey line in mind the 25 mph of light railways would have been speeding as the timings show more like 11 mph. The rough riding of three wheelers was mainly due to the side frames and floor being more rigid and unable to flex under load like a four wheeled coach could. Some Continental 6 wheelers appeared to ride well, but only because of very careful design of the springing. It is not just slackening the outer springs as this caused the 6 wheeler to pitch backwards and forward under load around the middle axle.

With all springs the same you get the firm unforgiving ride that 6 wheeled coaches tend to have.

I doubt at 12 mph it made much difference bar lower axle loading.

I don't think that Col Stephens deliberately bought 6 wheelers, he got what came with the line, or secondhand deals on anything that was in running order. He did not buy in rubbish, just cheap if possible.

 

Stephen.

In fact, main-line 6-wheelers generally had softer springs on the central axle. One GER example I measured recently has: J-hangers and long suspension links for the central axle and plain spring-shackles for the outer two; Spencer's patent rubber pads as secondary springing on the centre axle only; nine spring leaves on the outer-axle springs but only eight on the centre-axle springs.

When H. F. Stevens started buying stock, c. 1900, the 4-wheeled coaches of the larger companies would have been mainly in two classes: ancient and worn out, or recently renewed and not for sale. The stock available for sale and in good condition would mainly have been mainly 6-wheeled. He could have had a job lot of District coaches after 1905 but perhaps they were too far gone.

I suggest that the distant would be under the outer home signal of the terminus, not on the platform starters, and the the terminus would have an outer home somewhere in the covered way so that trains could shunt out of the platforms while remaining within station limits. However, if the branch is only a quarter mile long, that puts the outer home nearly halfway to the junction, so I wonder if the station limits of the terminus and junction could actually coincide; and, if so, whether there would be any need for a distant?

Note that this branch is actually shorter than the normal distance from a home signal to that signal's clearing point! 

Why not do it the other way round? Buy a cheap kit for a narrow gauge coach and rebuild it for standard gauge. It would have to be one of the large loading-gauge kinds, not an FR bug-box.

I had the steps in mind, and changing the two rows of vents to pan top vents to look a bit different. But if the two rows of vent are meant to be for gas I will leave them. It can add the gas pipes easily along with the taps etc, and planned of course to do the pipes on the buffer beams. I assume it will need a round gas tank added under the floor, with pipes etc, and the brake cylinder (or cylinders?).

I do think the footboard needs widening, and perhaps should there be an upper footboard as well?.

Not sure what you mean by "two rows of vents". Did you mean the roof-mounted ventilators (e.g. Laycock a.k.a. "torpedo" style)? They weren't specific to gas-lit coaches, oil-lit and electrically-lit coaches had them too. If the Hornby moulding doesn't have roof vents (can't see any in your photos) they're easy to add.

+1 for upper footboards, specially on a light railway where platforms might be a bit low. BoT would probably insist.

If you want to try a guard's compartment, prints of side lookouts are available on Shapeways.

Controllers with variable pulse-width tend to break coreless motors if the pulse frequency is low. The motors slow down and nearly stop after each pulse, then spin up again with the next pulse. Starting and stopping wears the motors out very quickly. Controllers based on variable pulse height, or with a high pulse frequency (or both) should be OK.

The brake rodding on the chassis makes no sense unless there are handbrake levers. As moulded, it seems to be derived from the LNER vacuum-brake arrangement, where there was a lever on each side. I suggest scrapping the moulded brakes and adding a single pair of V-hangers with a centre crank on the brake shaft.

There should be steps on the coach end, so that the railwaymen can tend to the gas lamps. A gas-lit coach would need a lighting-control bar on the end opposite the steps, and pipes running up the end to the roof. Alternatively, you could remove the moulded gas lamps and fit oil-lamp tops.

If the coach is to represent a vehicle running after 1889, you'll need brake connections, vacuum or air.

Also what gives best orientation for loco bodies?

 

Opinions are divided but seeing as I do not yet have a printer at home I can not experiment myself.

 

It would be useful if I know what orientation is cheaper and what orientation would give best print. The latter being most important.

 

I'm guessing as you see it the right way up might print better but cost most?

 

What about cab or smokebox down and print like a tower?

Any surface in contact with the support wax gets a poorer finish. Usually, you'd want you loco bodies printed right-way up so that the good finish was on the most-visible parts. 

If you print it with smokebox down, then the whole of the boiler and smokebox and running plate is in the wax to support the overhang of the cab. Your cab fittings will print better but all the rest suffers.

If you print it smokebox up, then the inside of the cab is in the wax. There would be some support material next to the boiler, supporting the smokebox where it overhangs the boiler cladding, and supporting the chimney and the dome and the safety valves. The smokebox would be mainly clean, except aft of the chimney. Running plate and any side tanks should be cleanish, but any detail on top of tanks would entail support on the tank top behind that detail. This orientation would probably add a lot of wax (=cost) to the print and it's tall so the machine-space charges would be high. I would not go this way; I think it would cost more and give a poorer result.

IMHO, I think your only lower-cost route for printing steam-engine bodies in FUD is to do them as kits.

Detection bars lay normally down, I understand, and were raised by the point rodding when moving the points. When a train wheel was above a bar, then that bar could not rise, thereby locking the points in their current position.

Treadles, IIUC, normally lay in the raised position and were actively pushed down by a wheel flange. A treadle might, for example, be made to sound a gong to warn shunters of an approaching train.

My hazy understanding is that a turnout would be locked by a detection bar if it could be changed under a running move of a train. That, I think means if a train could be moving over the turnout after relevant signals have been put back to danger and the locking freed to move the points. E.g., consider a train running into a platform and passing over points in the station throat and later the engine-release cross-over. While the train is approaching the station, the points are locked by the home signal governing the approach. When the engine has passed that signal, the signaller can put it back to danger, and that, absent the detection bars, unlocks the points. The bars keep the train safe.

Another use for detection bars is to lock signals. Once a train is stopped within station limits - e.g. standing at a platform - and the signal that allowed it in has been returned to danger, nothing mechanical stops a signaller from clearing that signal to allow another train onto the same track. This is a significant risk where the view of the line from the signal box is poor. A detection bar locking the signal mitigates the risk.

To be fully effective, a detection bar has to be at least as long as the greatest gap between wheels in a train - i.e. the distance between the inner wheels of the two bogies of a coach.

Since your station is approached through covered way, it might well have had a treadle-operated gong to warn staff of trains. The gong itself would be visible on the layout, but the treadle would be out of sight on the approach.

I think you need detection bars on the throat point-work leading to and from your platform roads, and on your engine-release cross-over; these protect against point movements under the train. You probably don't need detection bars to tell the signallers which platforms are occupied as they can see that well from the box. If trains ever shunt onto the running lines in the covered way they may be hard to see from the box and then you should have detection bars to remind the signallers.

One should also consider when the full suite of safety measures came into force. Bear in mind that train brakes only became mandatory in the late 1880s. Interlocking of points and signals started in the 1860s, but was not applied everywhere until much later.

Oh FFS.

 

Just when my current range has finally become stable and printing reliably it seems I may have to redesign the whole sodding caboodle, tell me I'm wrong please otherwise I'll shoot myself with a bananna.

 

Seriously. Is the redesign good or bad news?

 

Price drop sounds great though.

Your biggest problem will be the cost of the support material inside your shells. Work out the volume inside and add $0.50 per cubic centimetre to the current cost. Then knock off $2.50 for the drop in per-print charge. Sounds like your prices would go up a bit.

I'd say that anybody making this kind of change to a historic artefact has two, moral obligations. First, they record the changes, in enough detail to satisfy both historians and detail freaks, and make that record public (i.e. on the WWW). Second, where original parts, like name and number plates are exchanged, they keep the originals. Changing to reproduction nameplates and selling the originals on for cash would be unhelpful to future researchers.

The LSWR axleboxes are temporarily withdrawn. Shapeways are refusing to print the original model, saying that one of the detail elements is too thin. I'm trying to find a way to redesign it with thicker detail, but without it affecting the appearance too badly. I'll post here when I have a solution.

Shapeways have just announced a new pricing-structure for FUD and FXD prints. This includes: base fee per print reduced by $2.50; lower charge per unit of model material; new charge for support material; different, more-complex charge for machine space, heavily biased against tall, thin prints. For the items in my shop, which are all sprued arrays of small, flat-ish things, I think this means a reduction in price; but the model is complex and it's hard to be sure.

The new charging model starts from 22nd May 2017. Anybody contemplating an order may wish to delay to get the new prices. No promises that they will definitely be lower!

After 22nd May, I might rearrange the spruing to reduce the costs further. (Sprues under the parts require more support material; sprues joined to the sides of parts need less.) If the prices actually go up then I will definitely try this, and if they go down I may do it anyway if the savings are sufficient. Therefore, a further delay in ordering after 22nd May might get you a better price still; but again, no promises.

Do you mean'... it's the only 42' LNWR brake coach ...' ?

Because there are one or two others of other lengths, like the

D343 50' 7 Compt all Third Brake, which I believe has been drawn incorrectly in the LNWR Non-Corridor Carriages book by Millard and Tattersall, in that they have followed the 1915 Coach Diagram book details, e.g. Only one door is shown for the Brake/Lugg Compt.

There may of course be a Wolverton GA drawing. The book and the Diagram book show's just one door.

When I queried this a while ago, I was informed that indeed there was only one door, and in fact told to buy the Millard & Tattersall book for details, which I did, but I had found this photo below which is of a type that's in neither of the above books. 

In the past I had pointed out that the Dia 229 had twin doors to the Guard/Luggage Compt, - the 1915 Coach Diagram book only has one door shown for the Guard/Lugg compt., Again I needed the photo to confirm the arrangements.

 

As will be seen, the configuration of the D343 from this end is window-door-door (the top of the window is 'just' visible)

- then compt., wall beading and into the standard window-door-window for the rest of the coach.

 

Ebbw Vale D343 Coach.jpg

 

Ebbw Vale D343 - Detail.jpg

 

Up to today, D229 was the only ducket-less brake I'd found. Just this morning, I found in Jenkinson a 50' WCJS brake that looks like the D343 in your photo. I was wondering when it might have been cascaded to LNWR service and it looks like 1914 is a possible date. The WCJS brake would be allowed on the (ex)-SER as it was 8'6" wide, but I presume that it would not have been detached as a through coach while formed in a WCJS train.

D229 is still important to me, as it could have worked through to Folkestone harbour when the harbour branch still has length restrictions.

For gold lining, one can use ink in a technical-drawing pen. It's at least an order of magnitude easier than a bow pen.

I've used a bright-yellow ink mixed with a tiny amount of black. This gives a reasonable approximation of gold lining. The only problem is that the ink will bead on some paint surfaces instead of going down evenly.

The D229 is interesting to me in that it's the only LNWR brake coach I've found without side lookouts. My layout-in-planning involves exchange of through coaches between the LNWR and SER, and none of the normal LNWR brakes will fit the SER's emaciated loading-gauge; the lookouts make them too wide. I think I will need to build one or two D229 myself...

My mother is a Viking.

 

I grew up on what is reckoned to be the borders of Danegeld.  There was no defined border, and Danish and Anglo-Saxon villages were mixed in the area.  I grew up in a village with an Anglo-Saxon name.  Two miles away was the neighbouring village, a Viking 'by' village.  Even in the 1970s the neighbouring villagers spoke with a noticeably different accent and were considered foreigners. 

 

Whether this gets you any further than an example of the extreme and extremely localised insularity of traditional rural England I leave you to judge ...

You mean your mother is Norse, rather than Viking? I presume that she does not go out on armed raiding-parties to loot neighbouring communities - the literal meaning of "Viking". Of course, I don't know your family, and the way that some ladies behave at sales would terrify the UN.

Concerning insularity, there used to be an odd effect in the fenlands that the men were local but many of their wives were born elsewhere. I'm not sure why they didn't marry local women (ladies leaving the fens for somewhere more comfortable at the first opportunity?), but the incoming brides often didn't last long because of the malaria, to which the locals had partial immunity. There are many cases of men marrying a sequence of "foreign" women and outliving all of them.

Evening all,

 

I'm don't really want to reinvent the wheel, well bogie actually, so am wondering if anyone has any positive news on availability of 4mm Dean 8' 6" bogies?

 

I've looked round the web and other than the 3D printed examples by Stafford Road Model Works on the Shapeways site, have found no concrete evidence of others. The SRW versions are designed to fit old Triang Hornby short Clerestory stock. Unfortunately, non appear to have been produced yet, which seems strange considering their scarcity. I'd be most interested to hear any comments from modellers who may have further insight into their suitability. I reckon a trial purchase may be the best way forward.

 

https://www.shapeways.com/product/CZR2ZPBEK/gwr-dean-8-6-quot-bogie-with-running-boards?optionId=58778536

 

Bill

I would want to see a print, unpainted, of these before committing. WSF gives very poor surface finish and is tricky to polish to a better finish when there is detail in the way. WSF polished by Shapeways may be OK. I'd suggest getting them printed in FUD instead, but if they cost nearly £14 a pair in WSF then FUD would be a crazy price.

Fox do a good range of SECR transfers, for both the Wainwright and Maunsell periods. They also do some SER and LCDR sheets.

There go the driving wheels, then.

 Driving wheels certainly. I wonder about the carriage and wagon wheels and associated bits. 

There is a new product in the shop: axleboxes for LSWR wagons: https://www.shapeways.com/product/ZEQBFJ92V/lswr-panter-axlebox-x20?optionId=61998358. These are the Panter design which was the most common. It's quite a large box by 19th century standards and I believe that it could contain a range of bearings, with both oil and grease lubrication, for different sizes of journals.

These boxes would be a possible retrofit for the Cambrian model of a LSWR van (the one sold as D1410 but is actually D1406). This kit is sold with a later pattern of axleboxes.

Autocoach: thanks vey much for buying and test-fitting these (sorry I did not respond before: I missed your post). Are you happy with them? They may be a little stiff if there are still traces of support material in the bore, and washing might improve that. Also, it looks from your photo that one of the collars - on the RH buffer - is incomplete. Did it come like that or did it break during assembly? There is scope for strengthening this part slightly.