ejstubbs

I'm sure that a person with his level of intelligence would be able to find plenty of other ingenious ways to remove himself from the gene pool. Hopefully without inconveniencing anyone else.

I would point out that motorcyclists (including me) often wear earplugs due to the risk of hearing loss from noise. The major risk is actually from wind noise around the helmet, with road and engine noise significantly less of a worry as speed increases. Given that these noise risks exist, it should be possible to understand that hearing is not actually a very useful sense on a motorcycle. Most motorcycles have mirrors, and the test regime has emphasised both use of mirrors and life-savers for decades (at least since I passed my test in 1990-something). There's plenty of reference material about this on the web. Here is a starter for ten.

Just had a read of that this morning. The article doesn't make the timeline particularly clear, but I did notice this quote from the ORR: “costs of redesigning features and retrospective modifications due to the lack of rigour in the duty-holder’s original design should not be used to inform any cost-benefit analysis”. That seems a bit rich if the designs had been signed off before the new standard came in to force. To characterise not designing something to comply with an unratified standard as "lack of rigour" is taking the mick more than somewhat IMHO. Some of the decisions by the ORR and/or the other regulatory bodies - particularly the failure to allow a derogation for EGIP under the advanced projects criterion - seem to have been perverse, or perhaps more simply made with no understanding of the end-to-end life cycle of infrastructure projects of such a scale. There's a whole lot that goes on before the first sod is cut. On a completely different note: Mike the Stationmaster's remarks about the planning for the GWML scheme not taking possible (and possibly already known, if the right parties had been consulted) vagaries of geology and ground conditions into account seem to echo one of the key issues that delayed the Edinburgh Trams project, and eventually led to it being curtailed (sound familiar?) It might be illuminating to get sight of the RAID* registers for both projects. In the case of the Trams, digging large trenches down 200-plus-year-old streets and being surprised at finding unexpected stuff down there seems a little naive at best, downright incompetent at worst. A cynic might wonder how much contingency was pared out of the original plan submissions in order to meet a known budget, or to come in with the lowest tender (basically, allowing sales teams to override engineers is always a risk). * RAID = Risks, Assumptions, Issues and Dependencies. At least if you log each assumption made during the planning and design phases then you should be able to recognise those as potential sources of project risk (ie that the assumption may turn out to be invalid) which ought to have some mitigation built in to the plan - otherwise you end up with an issue, and nobody likes those...

Barney is using AnyRail which certainly has a such a function. Can't offhand remember where you go to set it, though.

I was all set to call this out as a nice story but of doubtful veracity, but the road camp bit at least turns out to be true, eg: http://www.wussu.com/roads/r98/r9803091.htm! (I'm not particularly impressed by the attitude displayed by writer of that piece, though. "I've not had much experience of the police before, other than going through the breathalysed & banned routine many years ago". Yeah, that's just a routine thing that everyone has to do, isn't it...) "So Bracing", surely? Well, if Devon can have "Westward Ho!"... (I've now got this idea in my head of the deep-voiced guy who does all voiceovers for action movie trailers saying "Skegness is,,,So Bracing".)

Good find! Modelling a road torn up by tank tracks could be an interesting challenge - maybe even a first for RMWeb?

I'd agree that Ashburton-eque end-to-ends might be something of a cliche. A bit like Minories, but at least Minories offers a fair bit of operational interest whereas the archetypal West of England BLT offers little more than a sleeping cat a lot of the time <ducks for cover>. Looking again at the "legend" you have created for each layout, I'm dubious about the reference to evacuation for the Ashburton-style layout. Evacuation in the UK was mainly about moving vulnerable civilians - almost entirely children - from large cities which provided a combined target of industry, transport and administration, and thus were regarded as being obviously at risk of indiscriminate area bombing (what the British rather erroneously called "the Blitz"). Evacuation was also organised and carried out as a one-off process, albeit spread over a number of days - and repatriation (or whatever the term is when populations are returned to their homes in the same country) tended to happen in dribs and drabs. A town of the size that would be served by a single track branch line and one-and-a-half platforms probably wouldn't have been evacuated in any organised way, nor would it have taken a great many evacuees - I doubt it would have warranted as much as a whole trainload. Even "the boys" coming home would have arrived on normal service trains, albeit with military travel warrants, rather than the special trains that would have been laid on to take shiploads of men from ports to onward travel centres at the main transport hubs. Of course if a large, new military barracks had been established adjacent to the town then that could justify running trains that stretch the capacity of the infrastructure. Even then, though, if it was a regular requirement then that capacity probably would have been expanded somehow, if only by a wooden extension to the existing platform and an associated but minimal-cost adjustment of the track layout. But then you could that same same excuse for Minehead - in fact, there is something akin to an army camp there even today (It wasn't there during the war, BTW - I'm not sure that people got much in the way of holidays away during WWII: "Is your journey really necessary?" and all that jazz.) Minehead is also by the sea, so you could perhaps fabricate a scenario including traffic relating to marine transport. That rather depends on whether you want to model Minehead itself, or just use a track plan inspired by it. If the former then be aware Minehead had fallen in to severe decline as a port by the 20th century - and in WWII part of the pier was actually demolished to clear the line of fire for the local coastal defence gun battery (according to Wiki). However, you could always "bend" history a bit. You might also need to "bend" geography a bit, since the station is basically at the other end of the town's seafront to the harbour... (I've just noticed that Wiki also states that evacuees were billeted in Minehead during WWII. So it definitely has the evacuation link, if you wanted to pursue that - though likely no more than a couple of trains I'd have thought, and again just a one-off exercise early on in the war.)

Do you mean an African or a European swallow? Someone had to say it...

It's basically Ashburton, flipped over and with a couple of sidings added (and no loco shed on the loop spur). Agree 100%. If you're going to use flexi in the plan (which he has) then you're going to be cutting rails. If you're going to be cutting rails at all then you might as well abandon the idea of plug-and-play geometry track (ie setrack). There is more logic in using streamline points with setrak (which can be, and would need to be, cut) for straights and tight curves, than there is the other way round IMO. This is the perennial issue that people bring up with Ashburton, and which was a problem even on the prototype - though exacerbated there because the road that fed the kick-back siding had the goods shed on it, which seriously reduced the effective length available for the loco to draw back in to. I would also question why the creamery road is quite so long. Is the creamery really massive (which would make the kick-back access even more of an issue), or just a fair distance from the station? The latter would be less problematic, provided there is a valid scenic reason why it couldn't have been closer. Even then, it would arguably be better to have it accessed from the goods loop via a diamond crossing, or even a single slip on the crossover at that end of the loop. I'd agree with those saying that 3ft wide might be too much of a reach for stock at the rear of the layout. By all means use it for scenery, but keep the moving stuff within easier reach in case of derailments etc. To me it looks rather as if the track plan has expanded to occupy the baseboard real estate available - there seems to be a lot of empty space around in some parts eg around and between the two sidings lower left. The UK wasn't like the USA: land wasn't cheap and plentiful, somebody owns and values most of it, especially around centres of habitation, hence why railway companies usually had to get an act of parliament passed to be able to buy the land they needed for the railway. Yes, you need room to manoeuvre people and road vehicles in a goods yard but at the same time the railway company wouldn't expend capital purchasing empty space it didn't need. Bottom line: I think in 14x3 you could rationalise and tighten up that track plan a bit, and allow more room for some creative and attractive scenic features. I'd agree with David about the fiddle yard: it has to be long enough to take the longest train that you want to run in to the station. And if you're going to have a fan of turnouts into the fiddle roads then that'll take up more length. Even the Peco three-way point, which could be used to save space, takes up as much length as a coach. Or you could use a traverser, provided you are happy to deal with the additional complexity that would introduce in baseboard construction (and don't forget that traversers trade length for width to a certain extent, so your exit to the fiddle yard would need to be that bit further from the end wall to allow all the fiddle roads to be accessed).

The utility of a run-round on the bay depends to a degree on how intensive the passenger service is planned to be. You can operate by having trains arriving in the main platform, running round there and then being shunted in to the bay preparatory to departure. That's what I am planning to do on my soon-to-be-resurrected layout which in its new incarnation is going to be partly inspired by Minehead. Obviously it means that the main platform and the main line will be busy for longer than would be required just arriving and running round in the bay, but so long as that doesn't conflict too much with other movements then it's fine. (It's often observed that, at many of the kinds of station that get modelled, or used as inspiration for layouts, not a lot happened quite a lot of the time anyway.) I note that the the run-round on the bay platform at Minehead isn't shown on the 1928 25-inch OS map, but is on the 1936 one. I'm not sure how closely the OP is planning to model Minehead but if they do want to include the bay run round in their plan then they may find it reassuring to know that it would be correct for the period they intend to represent.

Streamline Code 100 short radius turnouts are 185mm long, medium radius are 219mm (this information is on the Peco web site). It's also necessary to allow extra space for clearance between stock on the normal and reversed routes. For example, you can't uncouple the loco from an incoming train right at the joint between normal track and the heel of the turnout, and then expect the loco to be able to get through the crossover in to the run-round loop. In my experience you need an extra 50mm or so clearance at a bare minimum (which requires pretty precise control of the loco, so a bit more is better). The same goes at the other end of the run-round. So you need to allow at least 10cm more than the length of the longest train you want to run round between the crossovers on the arrival platform (barring a station pilot being available to help shunt the stock clear of each crossover during the run-round maneuver). I agree with Zomboid that AnyRail or one of the other planning tools can be incredibly useful in working out what you can get in to a given space. I would just add the caveat, per the above, that such tools don't know about how much room train operations, clearance required for lineside buildings, minimum platform widths etc need, so you have to provide that additional knowledge yourself while using them.

I'd suggest buying a new pony truck for each locomotive (I think it's spare part number X9384 for James, going by the Hornby service sheet - not sure about the Bachmann class 4 2-6-0, tbh it looks suspiciously like a NEM socket on the service sheet for that one) and experimenting with appropriate surgical modifications to the old ones to try to get a Kadee fitted to each.

Google image search identifies that photo as being on the cover of the 2003 edition of "Steam at Tonbridge: The Men and the Engines" by Mike Feaver. The book is available on eBay, Amazon, Abebooks etc if you or your friend are inclined to get hold of a copy. Or you might be able to track down the author eg via the publisher, Meresborough Books (they seem to specialise in local history/interest for Kent and Sussex).

Something I keep forgetting to ask: what's the bell for? Both the converted Hawksworth and the Collett slips have one - bottom right of the middle window.

There is a film of the final slip coach working to Bicester on the Railway Roundabout To The End Of The Line DVD; it's the last segment on the DVD. It includes views of both sides of the slip coach: The commentary states that it was one of the three converted Hawksworths, number 7374 (there doesn't seem to be a clear view of the coach's number to confirm this, unfortunately). The film also includes some interesting footage of the departure from Paddington, including a Castle and a Warship stabled together at Ranelagh Bridge.

I'm well aware of that. I wasn't citing the tram as an example of the government's mistakes, but the cancellation of the airport rail link. It is the case, however, that the existence of the tram project was an enabling factor in the cancellation of the rail link. Re EGIP: arguably the removal of the Dalmeny chord, the Greenhill Junction remodelling and other parts of the original EGIP plan have not been helpful wrt the implementation of the project, and the scale of the service improvements it is eventually going to deliver (ie journey times reduced from 50 minutes to only 42 rather than the originally proposed 30, and no increase in frequency). Due to continuing increases in passenger numbers, the cost-saving achieved by increasing train lengths rather than service frequency now appears to have been a false economy: the scrapped elements of EGIP look like having to be done after all in order to meet demand by improving service frequency as well (example reference). The curse of limited-term thinking. Hardly. It's given us Border Rail, which is far from being "the Waverley Route", and which again was done on the cheap and is now suffering the consequences. I am as happy as you are that there is investment being made in Scotland's railway infrastructure and services. I just wish that it was being done properly, rather than paring the spec down to the bone in order to deliver something at the lowest possible cost that can be trumpeted for political purposes, which experience then shows is barely fit for purpose. It must be frustrating for politicians when real life threatens to undermine their ideological foundations... And it's not as if there is no investment being made in rail south of the border - though in that instance the shortfalls in deliverables vs expectations seems to be more due to failings on the project management/engineering side than cost-cutting and scope squeeze.

And the Edinburgh Airport rail link - leaving us with the tram, which they found they couldn't cancel, and which by all accounts is slower and more expensive than the airport bus. At least we now have Edinburgh Gateway - nine years after the airport rail ink was canned. And you still have to change on to the tram to get to and from the airport. I wouldn't necessarily point to the Scottish Government's example as an ideal model for governance of transport and infrastructure. On the other hand, I can't see much wrong with the new study that's been commissioned. From that brief article it sounds like infrastructure improvements are being considered, with the aim being to reduce journey times. The proposed changes have been budgeted, and they're now asking an independent party to verify that there is a business case for taking the project further.

Thanks both, that confirms my suspicions. I don't intend to isolate the slip on all exits. It's primarily there as a space-saver, to replace two toe-to-toe turnouts. The divergent route from each turnout was isolated since it led to a separate power section. Power for the section they were in was fed to the common toe between the two turnouts. Looks like I can apply power for that section to the switched exit from the slip on the same section, and isolate it from the sections either side same as the turnouts were going to be. I will have to add an isolating section for the siding where I want to stable the loco. That might be simpler to explain with a couple of diagrams: Toe-to-toe turnouts Single slip

I've never used a slip of any kind before. My current collection of track is code 100, and my layout plan requires a single slip, which must perforce be the insulfrog (SL-80) variety as they don't do an electrofrog one in Code 100. I have no room in my plan for the Code 100 to Code 75 adaptor. I've just been experimenting on an SL-80 with a multimeter and as far as I can tell it's not self-isolating like the ordinary turnouts are - every rail is always live, regardless of how the switch blades are set. Is that correct? I have read the Peco instruction leaflet but it's not completely clear on the matter IMO. All it says is that the the Single and Double Slips are "already wired", whatever that is supposed to mean. I get the next bit, about having to isolate the slip completely if you want to use it to cross two separate power sections. That's not the issue in my case, but it does suggest that my findings are correct. In my layout design, one leg of the slip is a siding. I had naively assumed that the siding would be isolated if the switch blades were set so that there was no access to the siding from any of the other routes, but it appears that this is not the case. So am I right to conclude that, if I want to stable a loco on that siding while another loco is running on one of the other roads emerging from the slip, then I will need to have a switched isolating section for that siding?

The original track plan can be seen pretty clearly on the 1933 25inch OS map: The main difference cf 1969 is the presence of the passing loop (including trailing access to the goods yard) and of course the road through the goods shed, which seems to have gone in 1969 (TBC) but is definitely there now. It's not clear whether the trailing goods yard access from the loop was via a crossing or back-to-back turnouts. I suspect the former, which means that when the loop was removed the crossing would have been replaced by a turnout.

If it helps at all with the shunting 'issues', the OS shows the goods loop still in place in 1969 - which is close enough to when the film was being shot (and is in the preservation era, so 'anything goes' could still apply if required): However, the road through the goods shed appears to have been lifted at that time. And the passing loop was long gone by then, of course (there's a photo on eBay of the station in 1960 showing the passing loop not there) although AIUI the level crossing is still two tracks wide. Then again, one should never rely on the OS to be 100% accurate with details like this. And there's always Rule 1... Update: Google Streetview indicates that the LC is indeed still two tracks wide.

Er, hardly - the last post before yours was less than a month ago. But hey, that's relativity for you. Probably. Oh no, hang on, that's quantum physics.

This does sound like a better bet. If you can speak to the developer before the building work starts it's often possible to have their cookie-cutter design modified to suit your needs better. My parents did exactly this when they bought their retirement home off plan: they had two bedrooms put in the roof space. However, the less said about Dad's incredible hideaway access staircase the better - at least within earshot of a building inspector. I believe the current owner did keep it, and still shows it off to visitors. It was quite cunning, using constant tension springs instead of counterweights. How Dad sourced all the bits for it in the days before the Internet I'll never know! However, that story does highlight a key issue about building within the roof space: ensuring safe escape. You'd not get away with a staircase like my Dad's these days. It would probably be simpler all round to look at getting an extra room built on the ground floor. Yes, you'd lose a bit of garden - but then you would with a shed, too, and an additional room doesn't have the complications with power, insulation, security etc like a shed does.

Similar systems are also being trialled in The Netherlands, and in Augsberg, Germany. The idea is not universally welcomed: This also reminds me of those idiots who say that we should aim to get deaths on the roads down to zero. I can understand the idea of setting a challenging goal or having an inspirational vision, but choosing something which is obviously unachievable (unless everyone just stays at home) probably has more negative effects than positive. Many people will find an attempt to appeal to them through nonsense insulting, quite possibly triggering an antagonistic response which will cause them to ignore exhortations to modify their behaviour, or even to adopt the opposite of the desired behaviours. Others may be persuaded - through respect for authority, or uncritical idealism - to pursue the unachievable goal, resulting in skewed priorities, and time, money and effort wasted in pursuit of a mirage.

Or even, heaven forfend, obeying warning signs that are put there to help keep you alive. Or you could turn it round: in an age where there are big and fast things around (so, getting or for the last 200-odd years then - ask William Huskisson) maybe there's a downside to wilfully degrading your two most important senses by concentrating on a shiny electronic toy instead of the world surrounding you. So, at the point of potential conflict between trains and pedestrians, steps are taken to make the approach of a train not 'stealthy'. But people still don't take any notice. Whose fault is this again? Sorry, my sympathy is pretty much at rock bottom. The exit to the gene pool is that way; hope you enjoyed your stay.