Michael Hodgson

57 minutes ago, Dunalastair said:

Looking very good. Reads as if you are rising to a significant challenge at that size.

 

Walls and gables? Hopefully you will get further than the current condition of Invershin on the Far North line.

 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invershin_railway_station

Appears to be a victim of the Highland Clearances!

and an LSWR timetable

A problem I've not seen before, but it would have a practical use unmodified!

If you couple it to another loco or two, they will overpower the defective bogie and drag the loco around ... and  the counter-rotating wheels should help to clean the rails.  That's essentially a technique I've used successfully to clean the running rails in coarse scale 3-rail O gauge, where a loco runs in the opposite direction if you simply turn it round.  (two 0-6-0s running chimney first dragging a third which faces tender first).  Cleaning the third rail isn't as easy, but if it's stud contact, the pick-up skates seem pretty good at polishing the studs anyway.

Glad to hear it's found a good home.  It's really sad that so many layouts end up being scrapped.

Beautiful job.  They wouldn't have remained that pretty for long in real life though, especially the Oakbank Oil Co.

I thought WC&PR No 5 was the large railcar?

On 02/10/2022 at 22:32, ChrisN said:

 

Yes, you are right.  I am not sure where I got the idea that they had been amalgamated.

Probably because their headquarters moved not long after the Millenium.  For over a century they had been based in Old Jewry, a minor street near Bank Underground, but just as the Met are no longer in Great Scotland Yard, they relocated to Bishopsgate.

I'm told the Post Office happily delivered letters simply addressed to "Old bill, Old Jewry"

To hell with these decade-long modelling "periods" - you're pinning the date down to 3 days!

The troops I knew about, but one of those photos seems to show police carrying guns with fixed bayonets.

They did that with the cattle wagons too but I understand the practice ceased at some date, though I couldn't tell you when.

I haven't seen evidence of lime in modern lorries or cattle pens used at auction markets, I think they are simply pressure washed now.

Love it.  You shoould also have weathered the cattle pen. 

You'll need a few dollops of thick cowpat brown for that!

2 hours ago, Miss Prism said:

I look forward to discovering when window frames changed from the dark colour to white!

 

I think you will find it was when they had the painters in

Rule 18.  It's on the internet somewhere, so it must be right.

Beautiful modelling, a joy to behold.

But to answer the question in the title, we're in the run-up to Hogmanay .... or at least this side of the border we are.

Wishing you a happy and heathy New Year - at least I can toast your work from the other side of the border we are

On the layout I am talking about, you drive to the next station (but only after you have offered it and the box in advance has accepted it).  The next box (if train is not booked to call and conditions permit) will have offered it on and cleared all his signals and turned his controller on so it continues until it reaches a box which is unable to send it on.  If the train is booked to stop, or if the line ahead is still occupied, a box will clear the appropriate signals and drive the train accordingly.  If there are insufficient operators to man all signal boxes, some stations can be switched out of circuit, that all his main signals are pulled off and the sections connected together electrically, so the box in rear drives as far as the next box.    

Operator in one box cannot in most cases see what is happening at adjacent boxes, so reliance has to be placed on the block.  Track circuit lighting up are useful as confirmation of  approaching trains.  Completeness of trains is established by attaching tail lamps, some of these are proper cast metal models of a lamp, some are simply red painted discs hung on the coupling hook of the last vehicle.

2 hours ago, t-b-g said:

 

That sounds a fascinating layout. It is a shame that Cliff has had to scale back his plans for AIMREC but it was always a very ambitious scheme and the pandemic seems to have made the difference between him being able to do the full version or having to be a bit less ambitious. I hope a new home can be found for the layout. Are there any photos online or any that you can show us? I would be most interested in seeing what it looks like.

The real problem at AIMREC was the originally envisaged premises not being available, and nothing on a similar scale being available, funds were perhaps not as much much as had been hoped, and whilst the pandemic has obviously delayed progress I don't think it was a key factor.  I don't think there are any photos of the layout online, although it featured in a series of three consecutive issues of the Constructor many years ago.  Part of the layout were originally portable, and it did venture out once to an exhibition before I was involved.  The layout has been extended considerably since then and dismantling/moving it will be very difficult. 

1 hour ago, t-b-g said:

If you read the notes next to the Buckingham Block instruments, I am not sure we are doing it 100% correctly but as the power is switched through the signals, they really need to be pulled a bit earlier than perhaps they should!  

It's quite easy to wire with old fashioned 3-rail DC. Each station has a controller for each of its running lines.  Control is handed over from one operator to the next at the Home Signal.  The power feed is taken through a rotary selector switch, and you select the signal to which you want to drive and that runs to the third rail via contacts on the levers of the signals in rear of that.  Where points intervene, lever contacts corresponding to the normal/reverse positions link the relevant tracks together.   So unless you set the points and clear the signals power doesn't reach the piece of track the loco is on, and if you pass the selected signal, the train grinds to a halt as the power goes no further.  One the running rails acts as common return for traction.  The other rail is broken into sections for track circuits, these are connected to bulbs for illuminated box diagrams, fed by an AC supply.  The uninsulated wheels of 3-rail stock complete the circuit, which lights the lamps when the track is occupied although of course this system is not fail safe.    

23 minutes ago, Lacathedrale said:

Right - so I've got the order of home signal-line clear wrong. Thank you! I've updated the original entry to reflect that.

 

In regard to your last point about a vehicle standing at the stops - in my era wouldn't this be controlled by a calling on signal (pulled off when the locomotive had come (nearly) to a stop at it?

If it was a regular practice, a call-on signal would probably be provided.   Some companies were more generous than others with their provision.

If not, bring the train to a stand before clearing the signal, by which the driver understands that he must drive only as far as he can see the line is clear.

It would not be at all unusual not to have a call on into a terminus.

11 minutes ago, t-b-g said:

 

Yes, Buckingham is alive and well! There are still plenty of little jobs to be done but it is mostly fully operational and it gets run once or twice most weeks. I attach a recent photo plus some snaps of the block bells and instruments.

 

Glad to hear it's still going strong.

I've had to maintain a number of home-made instruments and bells similar to this for the layout I mentioned earlier.  That is worked mostly by lever frame and cords, with the signal or point returning to normal either by a rubber band or using gravity with a weight to pull it back when the lever is restored.  This needs an enormous amount of maintenance of a big layout.  There was originally some limited interlocking using additional cords.  For example, the signal reading over a point required to be Normal could not be cleared when the point lever was Reverse because a cord tied between the signal and point lever via a pivot behind the frame prevented both being pulled at the same time.  Signals reading in both directions over a crossover could not be cleared at the same time by the same method.  This interlocking was however far too heavy on maintenance to cope with ham-fisted operators and has been abandoned.

17 minutes ago, Lacathedrale said:

I posted a thread in the Signalling subforum to clarify the block sections for the layout plan and to confirm the specifics around pulling off home signals at a terminus - if you have to do it before you set line clear to allow the signal box in rear to pull of their starter signal - why bother having home signals at all?

 

 

A real Signal Box usually (these days) has what is called Line Clear Release.  That means that the signal box in advance must have turned his instrument to Line Clear (or the equivalent on a single line instrument) otherwise the lever for the Starting Signal is electrically locked at Danger.  This is a safeguard against the signalman prematurely clearing that signal.  Having cleared it he must have the ability to put it back to Danger, as he might need to if an emergency arises.

A more advanced version of this is a control called Line Clear One Pull.  He can pull the signal with the block at line clear, but as a safeguard against his pulling it again for a second train until the Block has been restored for the first and a second Line Clear is obtained.

In the case of Home Signals, they are often required to be at Danger before Line Clear can be given - a contact can be fitted to the back of the signal which will detect the signalman omitting to put it back behind a train.  It would be contrary to normal practice to have to clear the home signal before accepting a train.  A home signal might be locked at Danger until the section of track immediately has become occupied for a minim period (perhaps a couple of minutes), so that a train will find the distant at Caution and be forced to have slowed down before the signal can be cleared - this might be used for a low speed point into a yard or similar.  This enforces one of the old procedural rules that a signalman must see that a train has come to (or nearly to) a stand before certain low speed movements may be signalled.  Signals into a terminus, including distants used to be cleared provide the line was clear to the stops.  If there was a vehicle standing near the stops, the signal would only be cleared once the signalman could see that speed was under control.  Nowadays, distants would be fixed at caution, and the final signal would show at best a single yellow aspect.

5 hours ago, t-b-g said:

Having operated Buckingham for around 10 years now, I have grown to enjoy operating with a good timetable, signalling and block bells and instruments. When I operate layouts without them, it just seems as though something is missing.

 

I remember articles in the Modeller decades ago.  I assumed that layout was long gone - I take it I was mistaken.  I quite agree that proper block working, a timetable and clock make an enormous difference to a satisfying operating session.  For over 50 years I have from time to time operated one part or another of a very extensive O gauge coarse scale railway which is fully block signalled, although for security reasons it would be quite inappropriate to identify the layout or disclose where it is.  The layout in question will ultimately need to be relocated and it was going to be moved to AIMREC, but they have now been forced to drop out as they don't have the extensive premises they had originally hoped for.

13 hours ago, uax6 said:

 

Also 'Train out of section' would only be sent when the train had passed the signal box (and the clearing point 440 yds beyond the home board) AND was complete with tail lamp (the tail lamp is only there to prove the train is complete, nothing else!).

 

Andy g

.... depending on the company involved.... because despite the Block Regs having been agreed at the RCH, there were at least four different practices concerning Train Out of Section as they managed to interpret things differently!.  This was why the LNER had a problem trying to standardise the rules at Grouping when the rest of the Big Four all issued a common book by the early thirties.  It also took BR until 1960 to consolidate the regs into the standard green book usually used as the definitive set, and even then there were quite a lot of SR only bell codes and the WR had a few differences too.

• Some exchanged Call Attention first, some didn't.  Some signalmen dropped Call Attention but only unofficially if management weren't about (called sloppy working).
• Some acknowledged 2-1 by a single beat (they presumably were trying to avoid potential confusion as to whether you also wanted to block out in the other direction)
• Some only exchanged 2-1 when the train had passed the 1/4 mile with tail lamp complete AND the train was continuing on its journey.
• Some sent 2-1 the train had passed the 1/4 mile with tail lamp complete but kept the block at ToL until the train was continuing on its journey, at which point they dropped the block and sent 1 beat.

And fairly recently around the March area, it was practice (tacitly accepted by management) of sending 2-1 and dropping the block, with no acknowledgment - this saves the chap at the box in rear having to get off his backside to acknowledge.

Then there's what you did on Permissive Block where that was authorised using instruments which had counters incremented when another train entered an occupied line.

With Track Circuit Block there are no Block instruments and trains don't need to be offered and accepted, but in the absence of Train Describers the standard bell code as used in Absolute Block might be used to describe the train without prior Call Attention.

And the Midland had a dreadful system of "Signalling by Telegraph Bells", where the Slow/Goods lines didn't have their own block instruments, and they shared the same bell with the fast line (saving the cost not only of instruments but more importantly on line wires).  If the train was offered with Call Attention exchanged first, it was running on the Main/Fast line, if Call Attention wasn't sent, it was running on the Goods (probably permissively).

I think its was the NER and LYR who also had bell codes which allowed train to be offered and accepted on the wrong line - goods trains only, and generally after the daytime service had finished.

How about a convict class, named after notorious criminals, like jack the Ripper, Dick Turpin, Al Capone or Guy Fawkes? 

There was a ship's captain in Bristol who got the contract to deport some convicts sentenced to transportation.  The contract  didn't specify the destination beyond "overseas", so he duly dumped them on Lundy Island and went straight back for another boatload without venturing beyond the Bristol Channel. 

Would that be within the loading gauge (with chimney stowed of course)?

18 hours ago, Dave John said:

Ok, a very harsh closeup.

 

 

 

 

Not perfect, but better than I could do by hand. 

Looks pretty good to me.  I don't think I could achieve that standard even by following your technique, but it does seem to be a practical approach to a very difficult problem and has enabled you to produce excellent results without having to get the hang of those lining pens which I gave up on long ago.  Congratulations.  The carriage seating is pretty impressive too.

Horses don't just walk - they have quite a few different gaits (though not necessarily all used when you've tied them to a railway wagon)

https://www.myhorseuniversity.com/single-post/2017/09/25/natural-and-artificial-gaits-of-the-horse 

Usually 4 per horse.  They don't generally travel with a spare.