ejstubbs

12 hours ago, Sabato said:

I think the buffers are not a normal feature of end loading docks.

I was just using the distance between them as a convenient basis for measuring up the other dimensions from the photo.

2 hours ago, JeremyC said:

Just to point out the buffers won't be vertically above the rails as buffer centres are about 5' 8" .

Yes,  I realised my mistake yesterday - see my post.

3 hours ago, Nick Holliday said:

This might be of interest, http://www.swithland-signal-works.co.uk/plans/16_Carriage_Landing_No1.jpg A genuine Victorian example.

Very useful, thanks.

1 hour ago, DCB said:

The @Sitham Yard post looks quite modern.   Most end loading docks would have  pre dated motor vehicles being essentially built  with the stations and very popular in the earliest  days when toffs took their own carriages  on "Carriage Trucks" when they travelled by train. 

Are you suggesting that an older one might have been narrower, or wider - or just of a different construction?  Sorry, not intending to challenge what you say, just to understand what it might mean on my between-the-wars era layout.

I'm also thinking that my estimation of the buffer locations was wrong - they should be ~1ft further apart than the rail gauge, which I think makes the width of the dock face more like 12-13ft.

@Sitham Yard Thank you for that: a much better photo than I'd been able to find trawling through my books and t'Internet.  So, on the basis that the buffers are positioned vertically above the rails, by viewing the photo at its maximum size and applying a ruler to it, the face of the dock seems to be roughly 9½ft wide, offset slightly due to the presence of the platform ramp on the right.  That gives me something concrete* to work around for the one on my layout.

* See what I did there?

How wide would a typical end loading dock in a goods yard have to have been?  I'm assuming that the vehicles which were loaded and unloaded couldn't have been significantly wider than the wagon carrying them - and in fact less wide, in the case of a closed wagon like a CCT.  But would it have been required to allow a certain amount of space on the dock at either side over and above that e.g. for people involved in the loading and unloading to have safe access alongside the vehicle?

I suppose that if the vehicle was being driven on or off the wagon then no such intervention would have been required, but if for some reason it wasn't able to move under its own power and it was having to be manhandled then there would seem to be a need for a bit of heaving room.

1 hour ago, DCB said:

You  can tell volunteers NOT to do something

Multiple reports indicate that the volunteers in question were indeed told NOT to do something - strictly, not to do it again - but that they went ahead and did it anyway.  That's not really acceptable from anyone in any organisation, in any kind of role.  (Except perhaps for certain politicians...but let's not go there.)

1 hour ago, Pete the Elaner said:

is it about time there was a race somewhere in Africa?

The South African Grand Prix was a regular fixture on the F1 calendar from 1962 to 1985, with another two races post-apartheid in 1992 and 1993.  There had been efforts to reinstate South Africa in the F1 calendar, and even a provisional/leaked calendar for 2023 showing South Africa taking Belgium's place, but that initiative eventually fell apart.

Rather more obscure is the Moroccan Grand Prix.   The first Moroccan Grand Prix was run in 1925, but of course there was no F1 in those days, and no drivers or manufacturers championships.  Various other Moroccan Grand Prix took place at a couple of different circuits on and off during the 1930s and 1950s, but the only year it was an official part of the F1 calendar was in 1958, when it was run at the Ain-Diab circuit near Casablanca as the final race of the F1 season.  That race was notable as the one where Mike Hawthorn won the drivers championship by one point from Stirling Moss: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1958_Moroccan_Grand_Prix

10 hours ago, Ron Ron Ron said:

2 compact 35mm APS cameras

APS did not use 35mm film, it was 24mm wide.

35mm cameras are not obsolete: you can still buy 35mm film, either ready-loaded in cassette or on 50ft or 100ft bulk rolls that you can load into your own cassettes (I chore I used to subject myself to in order to save money as an impecunious youth).   I still have a small collection of 35mm film cameras, including my Dad's old Yashica rangefinder camera with a built-in CdS meter, a Zenit (which could also be used as a self-defence weapon, it's that heavy), an early 1980s Chinon SLR (which was actually available with autofocus lenses back in the day) and a couple of more modern compact rangefinder cameras.  I've put film through each one of them in the last year and had perfectly good prints from all of them.

18 minutes ago, rodent279 said:

Can't read the article, seems to be behind a paywall.

You need a 12ft ladder: https://12ft.io/https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/heritage-and-retro/heritage/five-volunteers-suspended-from-north-yorkshire-moors-railway-after-station-group-accused-of-carrying-out-unauthorised-work-and-taking-safety-risks-4411596 or a copy from an archive https://archive.is/uOG0x

According to a post on the Rail UK forums, the suspension happened a while back, and followed a warning that appeared to have been ignored: https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/nymr-is-there-an-issue-at-levisham.253670/post-6386675 (note the date of that post).

3 hours ago, RedgateModels said:

More likely to give RB time to come up with a suitable bung ......

Why do RB (and AM) have to attend?

On 29/10/2023 at 09:38, SR71 said:

I'm presuming nothing happened to Verstappen for stopping at the end of the pit lane for a picnic then?

Reported here that Russell has got a two-place grid penalty for the Brazil race for "driving slowly" in the pit exit.  Inconsistently applied rules yet again?

Anyone know how to disassemble the Hornby long i.e. corridor clerestory coaches?  I know how to do the short, non-corridor ones: undo the screw underneath to remove the underframe 'detail' and release the roof, then carefully ease the roof locating tabs at each end out of the slots in the coach ends.  Job done.  Is it a similar process for the long (corridor) clerestories or are other tricks required?  And are the 'new' long clerestories (R4198,R4120 etc) different to the old (R435,R436 etc) ones in this respect?

9 hours ago, Dunalastair said:

There was a large demolition site at the end of Eyre Terrace

That'll be the ex Royal Bank of Scotland Fettes Row data centre and Dundas Street IT department offices, now being turned in to bijoux apartments and the like IIRC.  Must have been around 2015/2016 when I last worked there, on a programme that literally no-one doing actual work on it (as opposed to the senior management who'd dreamed the thing up) believed would ever see the light of day - and not long after I moved on to pastures new it was, to no-one's surprise, canned.  But only after several millions had been spent, including renting capacity for the not-so-new system to run on, in a data centre which was owned by an American corporation - despite the potential ramifications of the PATRIOT Act on any bank data held there being spelled out in some detail when the idea was first floated...

King George V Park, next to the playground which now occupies the site of Scotland Street Station, was a pleasant place for a lunchtime stroll to get away from the madness within.  A hundred years or so previously it had been the site of the Royal Patent Gymnasium, a Victorian outdoor fitness centre - which does sound a trifle bonkers, but was apparently quite popular for a while.  It might have been entertaining to include a session on the 'Great Sea Serpent' during my lunchtime peregrinations.  Remnants of the aforementioned attraction have been now discovered under what used to be the Royal Bank's not-really-a-car-park* during the new construction work.

* It was never properly surfaced.  According to RBS folklore this was some kind of business rates fiddle, in that they could argue that it wasn't a staff car park as such, just a piece of empty ground that staff happened to park on.  How they explained away the manned security barrier was never explained.  Every six months or so an e-mail would be sent round announcing the temporary closure of the not-really-a-car-park while the surface, such as it was, was regraded.  As I used to take the bus to work there, it made no odds to me.

Unless I imagined it, there was a 'trailer' between programmes on the Beeb the other night saying that they're releasing a number of Classic Who series on iPlayer at around the same time as the 60th anniversary specials.  IIRC there was a Tom Baker one and a Peter Davidson, plus at least one other.  Or maybe I read it somewhere?  There is a brief mention of it in Digital Spy's announcement of the 60th anniversary specials (starting 1st November) so it seems it's not a complete figment of my imagination.

(I didn't think Jodie Whittaker was as bad as some people seem to, though I do think a lot of the stories during her time on the show pandered rather too much to her "just playing herself", per the interview with her in this week's Radio Times.  And a few too many of the stories were just weak and unengaging, perhaps partly for that reason.)

4 hours ago, Daddyman said:

I think my dad's book is on the Alnwick and Cornhill branch and doesn't cover Alnwick to Alnmouth (I may be wrong - again, it's upstairs in the loft so can't check at the mo).

I just checked my copy, and there's nothing of substance about the Alnmouth to Alnwick branch.  It does briefly mention that it was opened in 1850.  According to Wikipedia and Railscot, what is now Alnmouth Station was originally named Bilton, though your dad's book refers to the junction as Lesbury.  The Alnwick to Cornhill railway opened 37 years later, running from a significantly upgraded Alnwick station compared to the original terminus of the Alnwick branch (the passage in your dad's book about this is quite interesting reading).

20 hours ago, Lacathedrale said:

my knowledge of locos, freight, etc. is very limited indeed apart from the general understanding that there would likely be coal drops and hoppers in ex-NER eras.

There is (or certainly was, last time I passed by that way) a set of ex-NER coal drops still in-situ in the old goods yard of Belford station:

These photos were taken about ten years ago.  The latest Google Streetview photo suggests that the drops are still readily visible beyond the somewhat menacing-looking metal gate.  That photo seems to show rails at ground level in the yard, but there's nothing like that visible in my photos, or in the 2009 Streetview photo.  Google's satellite view does show a single siding, but it stops short of where the 2023 Streetview photo seems to show rails, so I assume that it's just materials being stored there.

30 minutes ago, Nick C said:

Yep, that's the fee from Vauxhall (standard PSA group one) - £195 is about the same depending on exchange rate...

That's a bit of a rip-off if you ask me.  The Certificate of Conformity for my two Skodas was free of charge.

10 hours ago, melmerby said:

Back to Easy Group and their "owning" the EasyLife name.

I used to work for a multinational computer company called Tandem Computers.  The UK CEO once received a "cease and desist" letter from a representative of the Tandem shoe shop chain.  They were swiftly advised to get lost.

AIUI (though IANAL) you can only trademark a term for a defined use, or range of uses (which can nonetheless be quite wide), and the primary cause for complaint by the trademark holder would be if there was a potential for confusion of the businesses, either intentionally or by accident, or damage to the reputation of the trademark holder e.g. "borrowing" the name, or a clear reference to the name, for a wholly unrelated business of questionable legality/ethics.

In the case of Tandem, it was pointed out that anyone confusing the computer company with the shoe shop would quickly realise their error, or have it politely corrected for them.

I suspect that the band Easy Life could have had a good chance of defending their case in court, but absolutely couldn't have afforded to do so, and EasyGroup Ltd knew that.  So not dissimilar to a SLAPP in some ways: a large corporation bearing down on a largely innocent third party pretty much just because they could.  I suppose it's possible that they may have felt that the content of some of the band's songs was not something they would want people to associate with their insurance products.  Conversely, the band may have decided, on having the potential for confusion pointed out to them, that they didn't want people mistakenly to associate them with insurance salesmen (a sentiment I can sympathise with).

We've had a good year for butterflies here, as it seems everyone has: UK butterfly numbers at highest level since 2019.  One highlight for me was a comma landing on my arm when we were out walking in Roslin Glen.  Apparently they've only recently started to recolonise southern Scotland after recovering from a population crash in the mid-1800s which saw it pretty much confined to the Welsh border counties.

On 26/07/2023 at 13:47, tigerburnie said:

We have very few butterflies, it is spooky, several buddleia's in flower and just bees and the odd Red Admiral or Tortoiseshell.

We do have one buddleia, in fact we've had it for years, but we never see butterflies on it.  The only lepidopteran we've ever seen feeding from it was this year and it wasn't a butterfly, it was a hummingbird hawk moth.  Which was nice, since we've not seen one in our garden before.  Fortunately the butterflies seem quite happy with the other nectar-bearing plants we have.

I spotted a Silver Y moth the other day on my way to the bus stop.  I can't remember the last time I saw one of those here so that was nice, too.

On 28/09/2023 at 03:37, OnTheBranchline said:

I wonder how many Taylor Swift fans will burn their $500 Travis Kelce jersey once they break up. 

Interesting/amusing article about just that here Travis Kelce says NFL is ‘overdoing’ his connection with Taylor Swift:

Quote

Parts of NFL shows have become little more than broadcasters attempting to crowbar as many Swift song lyrics as possible into their analysis, often leaving no blank space for football. The NFL’s bio on X after Sunday’s Chiefs game read: “NFL (Taylor’s Version)”.

2 hours ago, Steamport Southport said:

Don't shoot the messenger as both the Guardian and Independent (and others) are running virtually the same story.

All I can find on the Guardian web site is: "A man in his 60s has been arrested by officers investigating the felling of the world-famous Sycamore Gap tree in Northumberland, police have said."  The individual is not named (I can't turn up any mention of his name on the web site) and the only other thing it says in relation to the arrest is that he remains in police custody assisting officers with inquiries.  The Mirror is carrying a similar story to that in the Mail and the Independent.  Going solely by Google hits, The Sun seems to be all over it like a rash.

2 hours ago, The Johnster said:

It does sound as if they were perhaps not the sort of people whose first recourse is to legal remedies, which sound as if they would not have realistically been available to them anyway (not a leg to stand

on, and they knew it), and I would venture to suggest that their clearly established propensity for ill-advised direct action may have been a factor in their original sacking and eviction.

I can't see any reference to Renwick being sacked in any of the articles I've scanned.  According to the Mirror piece:

Quote

The [Jesuits in Britain] says the original lease was legally held by Walter's father and after his death they extended the lease to allow Walter time to find a new home. The last lease extension ran out in 2021 and the Jesuits were then granted a court order to have Walter evicted, it is claimed.

 

...

 

The Jesuits said many people denouncing the repossession have based their objections on the fact Walter has been running a paid-for campsite on fields adjacent to the property. They said the campsite was never allowed under the terms of the lease, and did not have planning permission from the local authority but they never took action on this point.

 

But over a number of years, the Jesuits say they have received complaints from both the local council and the National Trust, who own an adjacent property, about the "antisocial behaviour of several campers, especially during the pandemic in 2020".

 

Northumberland County Council bosses said they received a complaint in 2020 regarding an unauthorised campsite on Plankey Mill Farm but because it was more than 10 years old it did not require planning permission.

I'm not sure where you're getting a "previously established propensity for ill-advised direct action" from, unless you meant it as applying to whomsoever does turn out to have committed the deed - but as yet we still don't know what their motivations might have been, so this seems to be fairly speculative.

I have a feeling that this may start to get a bit Christopher Jefferies-ish (and if anyone recognises the reference they will no doubt also be aware of the financial penalties which were imposed on certain newspapers for fomenting false speculation in that case).

9 hours ago, The Johnster said:

And the 16yo has been released on bail, so it sounds as if he had some part in whatever happened but that the 60yo is the main guy.  It will be illuminating to find out what his motivation for the act was; not many people hate trees...

Apparently the rumour going around the local mill is that the 60yo had some kind of a grudge against the National Trust, and co-opted the lad to carry out the work.

Very much an unsubstantiated rumour at the moment, though, so don't be surprised if the truth turns out to be entirely different.

Difficult as it may seem to some people to believe, Detroit have a 26:14 winning record vs Atlanta: https://www.footballdb.com/teams/nfl/atlanta-falcons/teamvsteam?opp=11

Quite an interesting piece with Lando Norris in The Observer: McLaren driver vents his frustration at F1 regulations which mean managing tyres takes precedence over aggressive racing

Quote

"You are not driving at 100% because one slide and you’re done. You are just managing your tyres and your temperatures. It is frustrating, it feels like you are going so slowly. You just want to be able to race closer but as soon as you push, you light up the rears once and it’s game over."

 

“The cars used to be 200kg lighter and that is a lot,” Norris says, with emphasis. “They should make the cars lighter, simple as that. You make them quicker by being lighter, then you can remove some of the aero stuff, which makes all the dirty air, and then you would be able to follow better.”

Some interesting detail figures about the growth in size and weight of F1 cars, too:
 

Quote

At tracks such as Monaco, they are simply too big to compete properly on a track where they lumber round the tight corners of a circuit that belongs to a different time.  In 1989 the Ferrari 640 weighed 510kg. At the end of the V8 era in 2013 the cars weighed 640kg. This year the minimum weight is 798kg. They are behemoths in comparison to their predecessors. The 640 was 4.40m long, this season’s crop of cars is more than a metre longer at 5.63m.

7 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

Almost all parks, beaches or reserves etc around the country have several free gas or electric BBQ's that you can use, they all look like this - use them, wipe them down for the next guys.  The councils etc  clean them once a day.

 

No need to buy your own!

And in similar locations around the UK people bring their own "disposable" barbecues which leave scorch marks on turf, set fire to heatwave-desiccated vegetation when they're chucked away into undergrowth while still hot, and ditto waste bins when they're disposed of [not very] 'responsibly'.

2 hours ago, 34theletterbetweenB&D said:

The baseboard act as a loudspeaker membrane, efficiently coupling to the air mass thanks to its area.

The thing about loudspeaker cones is that they weigh relatively very little.  I think it might be possible to deaden drumming from the track a bit by attaching additional wood,(maybe dense hardwood, to the underside of the baseboards.  But I imagine that might be a tad inconvenient and/or impractical when it comes to wiring, fitting point motors etc.

So I think you're right: it's definitely preferable to try to isolate the track from the baseboard so the vibrations never reach it, rather than trying to dampen the vibrations once they've already reached the 'sounding board'.

How much is a modern F1 grid grid "worth"?  Obviously you can't calculate it by auction prices, but would it be valid to base it on the teams' costs for construction of the cars?  And are such figures available?