ejstubbs

That's not flat: I reckon there's a good six inches difference in elevation between the crossing tracks. I'm impressed that they made sure to run their CMX track cleaner through as soon as the line was open.

The turntable isn't shown on the 1936 map. The map in my post was the 1905 one.

Thanks to everyone for your responses, they do help to explain how things came about. I was under the impression that the BoT was also not keen on crossings on the flat. I could well be mistaken about that, though. Moretonhampstead is a terminus on a single track main line with a single platform face (unless the line to the goods shed also had a platform face, which I doubt - any in any case, the difference is the same). There is no "up" or "down" line - it's all bidirectional. My understanding is that Yealmpton was originally going to be a through station - the line was intended to extend as far as Modbury. If that had come to pass then the loop would have indeed had have "up" and "down" sides, and hence to have trailing access to the yard as it was oriented you would need to access it from the non-platform side of the loop, via a diamond. As a terminus, the Yealmpton configuration looks a bit odd IMO. (Come to that, as a placename Yealmpton looks a bit odd!) References: Wiki Waybackmachine BBC Domesday Reloaded Cornwall Railway Society (caption under last photo) If you mean in the modified configuration post-1885 then that would seem not to have been the case - see the signal box diagram in my OP. There is a facing turnout on the approach to the station to complete the run-round. See also the 1905 OS Map: (The 1936 map shows that turnout as being slightly further east, beyond the road crossing. It also shows the crossover as being partially hidden under the station roof rather than fully in the open.) However, the 1885 map does show a diamond crossing on the loop, to give access to the loco shed from the platform road: Unless there's a crossover hidden under the station roof - which BG John's photo plainly suggests there wasn't - then I assume this one must have been a single slip, otherwise how would a loco run round?

In one of his books that I have on my bookshelf CJF admits that the layout of Ashburton can be problematic - specifically, with regard to shunting the kickback siding - and suggests Moretonhampstead as a better prototype to model. In a moment of idleness I had a quick look at Moretonhampstead on old-maps.co.uk and I noticed something a bit odd. Thinking that it might have been an OS error I had a look on the SRS web site and it looks like the OS was right. I'm puzzled as to why the goods yard is accessed from the run-round loop, requiring a diamond crossing across the platform road. Why not a turnout straight off the platform road? Could it have been purely to save on an FPL? It does seem to make shunting the yard rather ungainly, in that wagons would have to be propelled through a reverse curve from the main line. In a model that could be a little problematic. Any thoughts?

Hardly any need to change trains. For Birnham Wood will come to Dunsinane... Folks, it's Birnam - no "h". The "ham" suffix meaning farm or homestead is Old English in origin, which suggests to me that it's probably not relevant in the etymology of Birnam as a place name. There is no named settlement shown in the location of present-day Birnam on James Stobie's 1805 map of the counties of Perth and Clackmannan, or John Thomson's 1832 Atlas of Scotland (both maps courtesy of the National Library of Scotland maps web site). Stobie's map shows a place called Burnbane around four miles roughly south-east of modern Birnam, on the south bank of the Tay opposite Caputh on the north bank. There's no mention of Birnam Wood. Thomson's map also shows Burnbane in roughly the same location, and an earlier map names the area as Burnbean. Only Thomson's map shows Birnam Forest, in more or less the area that the OS puts Birnam Wood these days. According to the local tourist association's web site the village itself is Victorian in origin, having arisen around the terminus of the Perth and Dunkeld Railway. It wouldn't surprise me if someone decided to name the new settlement as a romantic allusion to Shakespeare, in an attempt to drum up tourist trade. The station was originally just named after the nearby and much more ancient town of Dunkeld, but these days it's called Dunkeld and Birnam. By the way, according to the current OS map it's 11½ miles from Birnam Wood to Dunsinane Hill as the crow flies, and requires a crossing of the River Tay. Pretty good going if you're on foot and having to carry a chunk of tree as camouflage in addition to all your regular accoutrements of medieval infantry warfare! Actually, this makes me wonder whether Shakespeare's Birnam might have been a corruption of Burnbane, since there does appear to have been a crossing of the Tay there. (Dunsinane Hill is, of course, a tautologous place name.) My favourite place name in the area is Tullybelton. Whenever I see the signs for it as I drive up the A9 I always do a momentary double-take; for some reason my brain always registers it a Bellybutton for a fraction of a second...

Sorry, that should have been 2011. I've not read that review myself, my comment was based on Dave Franks' posting here, dated August 2011. (I got confused with this one from 2014.) FWIW I use Google directly to search in RMWeb: just enter some search text and stick "rmweb" on the end. In this instance the search string was lms track cleaning kit rmweb.

I have one and it works well for me. It was reviewed in the May 2011 edition of Model Rail and came second to the Dapol all-singing-all-dancing DCC track cleaner. It was also reviewed in Railway Modeller around August 2014 but I don't know which exact edition that was. If you want to find out then I'm sure Dave Franks will oblige - have a look at the Contact Us page on the LMS web site. He's usually very quick to respond. Do remember that the kit doesn't include the brake van - they're available second hand on eBay for not a lot of money. If you go for a Hornby one rather than the Airfix do make sure that you get the newer Hornby LMS brake van based on the Airfix model, rather than the older (ex Tri-ang?) one, because the kit won't fit that one (ask me how I know!) I think the difference is that the older one has the stove chimney bang in the middle of the roof whereas the ex-Airfix one has it offset, but I'm not 100% sure. I'm sure Dave will be happy to advise if you need further guidance.

OED says it's "sheerlegs" whereas Wikipedia allows all sorts of variations including yours. Regardless of the spelling, the characteristic attributes of a sheerlegs seem to be a rigid A frame with the 'feet' on the ground and the joint at the top guyed by one or more ropes, cables or poles. Under load, the A frame is in compression and the guying component(s) are in tension, hence they don't need to be rigid. The crane pictured in the OP definitely isn't a sheerlegs.

Actually, the police do tend to take quite a bit of care in recording and collecting evidence at the scene of fatal and serious injury road collisions. http://www.app.college.police.uk/app-content/road-policing-2/investigating-road-deaths/ http://www.gloucestershirelive.co.uk/police-explain-need-close-roads-accidents/story-16632264-detail/story.html Police are deploying new technology to try to make the process quicker: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14092232 I'm sure such initiatives go a long way to soothe the tantrums of impatient, entitled, insensitive charmers like the good citizen who started this thread on pepipoo ("WHY does it take the police here forever and a day to clear a relatively minor but fatal accident" - nice - "s**t happens, clear up and get on with life. My condolences go out to his family and friends." - breathtaking) and that well-known champion of the rights of all mankind, the ABD.

Re multimeters, I'm sure other folks will be able to offer more in-depth advice than me but FWIW I don't think you need to aim particularly high. Digital is undoubtedly convenient. I think this is the current incarnation of the one I have - the scale ranges and controls look very similar to mine, and I know I got mine from Maplin. (I don't know what the Aussie equivalent of Maplin is but I know that you can get similar devices for similar money from DIY stores over here.) Maybe AC amps would be useful if you are in to DCC; I don't know, I'm not that way inclined. One thing I would suggest is that you get a set slightly better set of test cables than the basic set that come with the meter, which will usually just be red and black cables with simple pointy test probes. I think a set with mini croc clips is essential. I find that electrical fault-finding can get a bit like soldering: you always end up needing one more hand than you've got! Not having to hold test probes in place at the same time as fiddling with switches and potentiometers is really quite useful. Shrouded/insulated clips are essential: when you're doing continuity testing, you don't want the test lead connectors making contact with things they shouldn't be behind your back!

Good example, thanks for explaining! Now, back on topic...

If you can wire a DPDT switch, does it help at all to think of your rotary switch as a three pole four way switch? Because that's what it is. It's just that the 'toggle' goes round rather than up and down. I think BR60103 was right first time: you had pins 9-12 wired wrong compared to pins 5-8. I also agree with BR60103 that sitting down with a multimeter and a switch that isn't wired to anything will allow you to verify which pins get connected in each switch position, and might help you to understand what the switch is doing.

Do axle counters know which way the train is travelling as it counts the axles? I assume they must do, otherwise two identical trains (eg two 3-car multiple units) entering at opposite ends of a section at different times might look to the signalling system like one train traversing the section, and it would think the section was unoccupied when in fact there would be two trains in it (which of course shouldn't happen anyway, but if it did I imagine it would be useful to know about it rather than blithely allow yet another train to run into the section and pile in to the wreckage of the first two...hmm, cheery thoughts for a Wednesday afternoon)

Why does it say: "The new signalling system uses axle counters for train detection, and in this situation the system would not have identified that the train was in the wrong place"? The summary of the incident doesn't seem to suggest a belief that the axle counters were actually faulty. Is it because the axle counters only detect a train passing one specific location, whereas a track circuit covers a complete stretch of track? Looks like good work by the driver to have spotted the problem before anything serious happened, though. Is it usual for drivers to check that points have been set correctly? (Depending on the speed the train is doing, presumably - I assume it's hardly practical at 125mph.)

Just been doing some casual Googling... According to this RCHS paper: "the never-completed Latimer Road and Acton Railway of 1882 left some traces — a bridge over the West London and another over the North & South West Junction were visible for many years. The alignment was close to that of Western Avenue." The bridge over the N&SWJR is fairly clear to see on old OS maps, as noted higher up the thread. It's not clear to me where the bridge over the WLL was. However, if a bridge existed over the WLL, that would seem to suggest that the plans for the LR&AR maybe did not include a junction with the WLL. This notice in the London Gazette of 26th November 1886 seems to go in to quite a lot of detail about the LR&AR, though most of it is lost on me as I am not at all familiar with that area.

old-maps.co.uk has an OS 1:10,560 plan of Swindon from 1960-61 which would appear to be around when your Dad's photo was taken. There are a number of large, round objects* shown in the north-west corner of the works. The tender certainly looks as if it is 'surviving derelict' in the photo. You can see that the bent wood - so probably plywood - is splintered quite badly on the curved face of the front right hand corner of the tender. * As the old joke goes: "Who is Round, and why does he object?"

Given that the "Ethiopia's Spice Girls" is a dismissive label applied by The Daily Mail itself, then yes, I'd say that it was. And the story was about funding for Girl Effect being withdrawn, so it looks like you've got your wish. What was the slogan? "We've sent an Ethiopian women's rights group £5.3M. Let's fund our BTP instead." Catchy! Rather overlooks the fact that the BTP is largely funded by the TOCs, though (which in turn are subsidised by the government, hmm...) Oh, hang on: "...the government said there are "more effective ways" to invest UK aid." So it looks like it might not be going to the BTP after all, but to some other non-deserving third world country instead... At least we've stopped sending £200M a year to a country that runs its own space programme. Oh, hang on, maybe we haven't after all. Basically, the whole thing is a bit of a mess, and probably affords rich pickings for anyone who wants to find something to complain about. Ideal source material for the Wail, then!

I probably share your concern but I am not sure that a spring operated ramp might not carry the same risks? The sprung ramps from Hornby and Peco are designed not to do this (that's not to say that they always operate faultlessly!) A bit more weight in rtr wagons rarely hurts anyway... Some people make uncoupling ramps out of strips of transparent plastic. The idea is to install the strip between the rails with a slight upward curve, so that it should do the same job as a sprung ramp without being so visually intrusive. Never tried it myself but I'd imagine it would be easy to get the tension in the ramp wrong and...ping! You could probably knock something together using a Peco or Hornby sprung ramp with a piece of thread, attached to the underside and running through a hole in the baseboard, to pull it down when not needed for uncoupling. As my Dad used to say, in his day the mantra was: "Only do it electrically if you can't do it mechanically"!

As an alternative to replacing the complete coupling, you could look at the replacement hooks available from PH Designs: link. These are etched in brass, so non-magnetic, and a Hornby-specific version is listed. The idea is that you attach a piece of magnetic material using the wee holes at the end of the extended lower arm. You can use the classic Brian Kirby bent staple, or some people suggest florist's wire - not a product whose specification I've ever managed to pin down to the point where I felt able to place an order, TBH. As the hooks are brass you would probably want to blacken them eg using something like this. FWIW, I did experiment briefly with the Bachmann version but I couldn't find a way to attach the bent staple reliably. Also, the hook seemed too loose on its pivot which meant that it tipped over rather than flipping up when over the magnet, which in turn meant that it didn't actual uncouple. This latter problem might have been due to using too powerful a magnet, though. I did persist for a while with the classic Kirby method, which involved converting all my stock to Bachmann couplings (not too difficult an undertaking, I found) but since then I have switched to using Kadees. (I still have most of the PH Designs Bachmann hook fret unused if anyone would like it?) Googling should reveal a number of other discussion threads on RMWeb, and other railway modelling forums, about Brian Kirby's idea, its pros and cons, and variations upon it which people have experimented with (including using smaller and less obtrusive but more powerful - and more expensive - neodymium magnets instead of flat ferrite magnets shucked out of cheap magnetic cupboard door catches).

Looking at old-maps.co.uk, the Ordnance Survey have the village shown as "Woolvercot" on the 1876 1:2,500 map. On the 1899 1:2,500 map it's "Wolvercot", and it stays that way up to and including the 1938-1946 1:10,560 map. It doesn't become "Wolvercote" until the 1955-1961 1:10,560 plan. That's not to say that the OS is the definitive source for place names - in fact they have a reasonably well-documented track record of getting certain ones wrong - but that does suggest that it's not just a GWR thing. It's also possible that the accepted spelling did change over time, though whether that was with or without influence from 'authoritative' sources such as the GWR and the OS can probably only be confirmed by more thorough research. According to Wiki, the place was recorded as "Ulfgarcote" in the Domesday Book, which at the time was definitive because the King said so! (Wiki also says that it was "Wolvercote" by 1185. I'd say that assertion may be somewhat questionable, though: that would be only 100 years after Domesday Book, and I think it's unlikely that most English words had standardised spellings at that point. After all, The Canterbury Tales was written two hundred years later than that and in its original form it is pretty much illegible to most modern readers of English. I suspect that it's possible that there is a record of it being called "Wolvercote" in 1185, but that does not mean that the name wasn't commonly rendered in a number of other ways between then and the nineteenth century.)

Tube stock on the Forth Bridge! I bet that would get some raised eyebrows if you modelled it.

I have that exact loco. Here is how I fitted Kadees to it: Rear coupling I cut away the rearmost cross-member of the tender chassis bottom, leaving the screw hole in the tender chassis exposed. I installed a Kadee #5 coupling in this hole, using the original countersunk self-tapping screw to keep it centered. The coupling ends up at exactly the right height. (You might need to trim the tender chassis slightly to make the coupling sit horizontal.) Front coupling I drilled a hole 3.5mm in front of the existing coupler screw hole. I drilled and tapped mine to take a black 2-56 button-head machine screw, but you could make it any size compatible with the mounting hole in the Kadee gear box (as I mentioned previously, I personally would not use a self-tapper for this). I installed a Kadee #141 whisker coupler in a #262 gear box mounted on top of a Kadee #211 15 thou shim, trimmed to fit the #262 gear box.

Blimey, Aylesbury must be a real dump if people from there have to go to Milton Keynes for pleasure. (I lived in Bracknell for a short while, a long time ago. We used to go to Guildford to try to have some fun...)

Or indeed the Varsity Line. Because it's between Oxford and Cambridge - like the Varsity Match, which took place at Twickenham last Thursday.

Come to think, I did experience something a bit like this with my Airfix non-corridor coaches. On these, the lower end of the brake pipe projects no more than 1mm (more like 0.5mm I think, though I've not actually put a ruler next to it) below the buffer beam. My first attempt at Kadee-ifying the couplings on the bogies left the Kadee coupler shaft just clear enough of the buffer beam for the two not to interfere - but I'd forgotten about the projecting end of the brake pipe. Coming off a curve, the coupler shaft would catch very slightly on the brake pipe: sometimes with no ill effect, sometimes just enough to derail the bogie. It took me an age to work out what was going on; only when I noticed the very faint "click" as the coupler shaft flicked past the end of the brake pipe did the light begin to dawn. The solution in that case was to lower the mounting point for the coupler gear box, and use an underset coupler to bring the coupler head back up to the correct height. (A more brutal solution would have been to trim off the offending fraction of the brake pipe, of course.) That sounds like a bit of graphite lubricant on the CCUs might indeed help to free them up a bit. I have a small puffer bottle of powdered graphite at home, originally sold for use as a lubricant for security locks. Kadee do powdered graphite in a 5.5g tube, under the IMO somewhat distasteful (and certainly misleading) name of "Greas-em".