ejstubbs

Surely an Audi would be programmed to accelerate, so as to deter any other driver who might be impertinent enough to try to assert their right of way? (Sorry. I know not all Audi drivers are like that, and I'm sure you aren't. I just couldn't resist. Consider me as having issued a written warning to myself to play nicer in future.) On a possibly more helpful note: if you join one of the Audi online forums then you might be able to find someone local to you who has a VCDS (the VAG group's diagnostic tool) and could check whether the car is showing any error codes. I doubt the dealer can do that over the phone (though these days, what with connected cars and all that jazz, who knows?) You can even buy a pretty cheap device that you plug in to the car's ODBII port that will display error codes and even allow you to clear (some) of them - e.g. this one. Or a mobile phone app like Carista or Torque Pro can also do the job, given a bluetooth or wifi ODBII dongle.

Would you still be as surprised if you saw how much he gets paid? I suspect I'd be more than happy on his basic remuneration package, ignoring any performance-related bonuses. And I'd be driving an F1 car to boot! Agreed, he probably doesn't enjoy losing and/or visibly making heavy weather of the job at hand, but I'd be surprised if the regular additions to his bank balance don't soften those blows somewhat. That said, other drivers have walked away mid-season having decided that they'd made their pile in F1 and it was time to move on. I wonder if Seb might end up doing the same?

Per my later post, and the ensuing discussion with melmerby, I took those figures from the Kadee web site. I suppose it's even possible that Kadee have changed the spec of the NEM couplings over time... If I'm bored this evening I might actually put the caliper against some Kadees I have at home to see if the number I come up with match yours, Kadees' own etc!

What make and model of car do you drive? Many modern cars can - supposedly - detect lane markings and speed limit signs. I'm thinking perhaps it detected the "give way" markings on the road and thought you weren't going to be able to do so if required. Or perhaps it read the speed humps sign as a hump-backed bridge? As for it apparently not having happened before, perhaps it could have been down to different lighting conditions (e.g. the clocks having just gone forward => lighter evenings). IMO it would still have been the driver of the vehicle that was too close behind that was primarily at fault. If it came to a court case and if the other driver (or their insurance company) could prove that you had "brake tested" them then you might be held partly liable. In this case, though, the cars ECU logs should show that the car itself made the decision to stop in a hurry, so unless you could be shown to have tampered with the system, or failed to maintain the car properly e.g. ignored any warning lights or ECU error codes, not had it serviced according to the manufacturer's schedule or the like, then I don't think you could be held in any way culpable. (Whether the other party would then be able to sue the manufacturer instead of you, I don't know.) There are other reasons why you might come to a stop unexpectedly quickly that a following driver wouldn't necessarily be aware of. For example, if you suddenly realised that there was potentially dangerous obstacle that couldn't been seen until you were close to it (people have been known to spread tacks or, worse, caltrops on roads that they object to being used for some reason). I once saw the whole exhaust drop off a car that was in front of me and slide quickly to a halt in the middle of the road in front of me. Yes, that was likely down to poor maintenance on the part of that car's owner, but if I had been following too close and my car had been damaged by hitting the ex-exhaust then I would have been (or at least felt myself to be) partly at fault for not being able to avoid their debris. That's why the onus is always on the following driver to keep a safe distance. All that said, I wouldn't be happy driving a car that had shown itself capable of doing what yours did. I'd be inclined to take it to a dealer to be checked anyway. And if there is a means to switch off the system that did it, I'd probably do that in the mean time.

Given that metric units are something of a mystery to many of our American cousins, I suspect that the imperial* measurement is more likely to be correct. We could actually be looking at a double typo on Kadee's part: I make 27/64ths of an inch 10.71mm (not rounded). Maybe someone mistyped that as 10.61, then by a process of Chinese whispers it was incorrectly corrected by removing the 1 (which was needed) at the end and adding the 7 (which was also needed) at the front, leaving the 6 (which wasn't needed) still there. * Though I'd guess that they don't call them that over the pond. Predicably, Wiki has an exhaustive (and exhausting) article on the subject: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_customary_units

Nope, taken straight from the Kadee web site: https://www.kadee.com/htmbord/page19.htm Where did you find the 10.61mm figure?

11.68mm vs 10.76mm for the #19

11.68mm vs 10.76mm for the #19

To prevent B from clearing his distant if A's starter was on - i.e to lock B's lever in place - you'd have to have interlocking between the boxes. In practice the "interlocking" was done at the signal post, using a mechanism that stopped the arm of B's distant from moving until A's starter had been cleared, even if B had pulled the lever for his distant. There's quite a good diagram of such a mechanism on page five of this LMS Society "monologue" paper.

The Amazon one was wholly within Amazon so no real mystery there, just lucky timing on their part. The eBay/Gumtreee one can only have been a coincidence. The bike had been listed on Gumtree for some time, and I haven't yet updated/shut down the listing since it sold. And the buyer paid in cash. So minimal electronic trail for eBay to follow, although they knew that I was interested in the watch because I'd done a number of searches for it and had some auctions watchlisted. I'm happy with the products I ordered and the prices I paid for each, so I'm not complaining. Though I would be unhappy if I thought data was leaking from Gumtree to eBay via cookies (I'm pretty hot on shutting down the use of third-party cookies when the option exists - as it should by law).

Yesterday evening I sold (on Gumtree) a mountain bike that was surplus to requirements. Later that evening I was browsing eBay and up popped a suggestion for a Garmin multisport watch that I'd been thinking about getting: brand new, £20-£30 cheaper than any seller I'd seen, and the last one they had! Needles to say, I succumbed. What I want to know is: how did eBay know that I would be so vulnerable to their blandishments just at that moment?! (Come to think, something similar happened a few weeks back with Amazon. I'd been looking at some software being offered at a good price, but it disappeared before I could convince myself to buy. A few days later up popped a suggestion for the same product, from the same vendor, at the same price - and the last one in the shop!) The Amazon one I can kind of understand, but the Gumtree/eBay combination can only have been a coincidence. But a lucky one!

Wikipedia also says that the viaduct is 416 yards long. That's pretty much half your estimate, and suggests that the curve is only about 90°, not 180° as you assumed. However, it also says that there are 21 arches, which is again roughly half your estimate, so your result is probably not that far off after all (though you could have got there quicker if you'd used all the information available).

A fair few folks use the National Library of Scotland web site. The OS 25 inch maps (if they cover the station you're interested in, at the date you're interested in) are detailed, though not guaranteed to be 100% accurate. For example: https://maps.nls.uk/view/106006688

Just had four on my sunflower hearts & peanuts. Like you, first time in ages. The regular visitors (tits, green finches, chaffinches and the occasional bullfinch pair) don't seem at all keen on my feeders these days No real idea why.

Just seen an instance of a multiple appearance in VNC: Only the second time I've spotted it happening, mind you (first time was the week before last IIRC).

I don't think your complaint is with CovDriver, but the mardy types who complained about his useful and informative posts. (I realise you probably didn't mean it to look that way, but generally when you quite someone else's post, what you write after that looks like you're replying to it.)

Looks elegant, but at another £2.50-odd per coupling might be a bit daunting. (Kadees are expensive enough as it is!)

Not sure what's confusing about having the jiggle button next to the controller you're driving the train with. Sounds a lot more straightforward than having a jiggle button for each uncoupler (plus associated wiring & IRJs) which is what would be required if you followed the approach in your diagram.

The law says otherwise. And in the DB instance the case was held before a jury, so it wasn't just a bunch of out-of-touch judges making an obscure interpretation of the statutes.

Just read the description in the quote again. I agree with those who say that, if the loco is stationary, then the controller will not be putting out any voltage for the reversing switch to be able have any effect. However, if the loco is at a crawl then the pushbutton DPDT reversing switch should/might work. I had a thought, though: what if you use a DPDT centre off switch? Bring the train to a stand in the right place with the switch in the 'normal' on position then, if the couplers don't uncouple as the train closes up on the loco (a bit like BR60103 describes above, or e.g. because the leading wheelset on the train is attracted to the uncoupling magnet), you could put the switch in the centre off position and turn the controller up a bit (exactly how much would need experimentation) then quickly flick the switch to the 'reverse' on position and back to off - giving you the minuscule jiggle required. Turn the controller down to zero again, then set the switch back to the 'normal' on position prior to moving the loco on. I think it should even be possible to source DPDT switches with one "on" position momentary so that it would spring back to the centre of position just by letting go. I've certainly got some SPDT on-off-(on) switches*. Aaaand...here we go: eBay item number 223458342565. (Other suppliers are no doubt available.) * By accident, as it happens: I ordered ordinary on-off switches but got sent on-off-(on). I thought they could come in handy so didn't bother complaining. I do use one for an isolating section at the end of a terminus platform. In the normal on position I have a diode in the circuit which means you can only drive the loco out ie away from the buffers. You can leave it in that position, or the off position, as a fail-safe in case you get distracted while bringing the train in to the platform. If you know you're paying proper attention then you hold it in the momentary (on) position while sidling the loco up to the buffers, knowing that you can simply let go the toggle to cut the power if you think you're about to run through the buffers. Or to save twiddling the controller knob if you're just being lazy(!) The (on) position also bypasses the diode so you can "do the Kadee shuffle" i.e. move the loco back and forth with it held in that position.

Incomprehensible. I mean, why do people video in portrait format?????

The original author of the post you quoted (which seems to have originated on that cs.trains.com forum, not Facebook) appears to be still active on that forum. Maybe you could try messaging them through that forum to ask if they can supply details of their "cutting key"? And then share the info here! Quite an interesting layout he's built, as well: http://broadwaylion.com/broadwaylion.htm

To be fair, he did plead guilty to both charges. It's not like he was trying to use those factors* as an excuse to get off, and he does appear to be genuinely remorseful. (I'd be more annoyed about the lawyer apparently trying to argue that the fact that others have crashed there reduced his client's "moral culpability"). * Though GPS should hardly count as a factor to any rational person. That said, I can see little rational explanation for the "GPS guides drivers to horror intersection" title under the embedded video clip. The article says that the offending driver was going from Colac to Lorne. The road he was driving along is called the Colac-Lorne Road. The intersection with the Birregurra-Forrest Road is here; zoom out and it's clear that, well, that's the way you go to get from Colac to Lorne. Anyone making that journey would think it perfectly reasonable to go that way, whether they were using sat-nav, a paper map or just local knowledge.

I nearly didn't manage to put up a venetian blind in the kitchen at the weekend. It was a replacement for one that had become irredeemably sticky with congealed grease (mmm, nice). The replacement looked outwardly identical to the original, was bought from the same shop and bore the same branding as the original - but refused to fit on the easy-peasy to use metal mounting clips that the original one had been mounted to. It turned out that the internal mechanism of the replacement included additional internal brackets that exactly fouled the original mounting clips So I had to reposition the clips (I decided to use the ones supplied with the new blind, just in case they'd also managed to subtly change the profile of the lip that they clip to - I wasn't going to get caught out with that trick!) It then became apparent that one of the offending bits of internal mechanism was exactly in the middle of the blind. For the length of blind we had, the instructions said to use three mounting clips. Having to put the middle clip slightly off-centre offended my sense of order, but there was no choice. Then it turn out that there was a massive knot (hidden by paint) in the section of the wooden mounting batten where I was trying to fit the left-hand clip, and the self-tapping screws wouldn't penetrate. So I ended up having to move that clip 10cm to the right to be sure of clearing it. We do now have a fitted, working and clean venetian blind, but those off-centre and asymmetrical mounting clips, though almost invisible unless you are up close on a stepladder, are going to bug me for ages. At least until they're hidden by the pelmet that SWMBO is now insisting on having, anyway.

Surely, if it's DC, you don't need the IRJs and all that malarky*? Just put the momentary reversal switch on the output side of the controller, before it goes anywhere near the track. Then there's no risk of shorts due to the loco bridging the gap between the normal and reversed polarity sections. * Unless, maybe, you're using common return? But let's not go there again...