Michael Hodgson

Doesn't look as though anybody got airbagged.

Well there's a only a single yellow line and no "No Parking" signs, so what's the problem ?

9 hours ago, Wheatley said:

The two car definitely looks like a mobile gin palace though. 

Put it into revenue earning service and you'll need more than two cars!

2 hours ago, JJGraphics said:

 

We have not seen a meter reader for a very long time and we have changed suppliers several times. They just accept your word for the readings.

 

John

Mine were read for the first time in a couple of years not long ago, though I too have changed suppliers a few times, so it does still happen.  But certainly infrequently.

Thanks for that Iain,  It used to be simple - we all used 12v DC.

I think that tends to reinforce the argument for somebody like the NMRA putting forward more detailed standards.

As you say voltage affects current draw, and I don't really see a need for that to vary from command station to command station either, although I can see that larger scales might justify higher voltages.  If you need to draw as much as 10mA to get get detection, you wouldn't want every axle detected if you run very long trains as our transatlantic friends often do.  In steam days my local station saw trains telegraphed as "HW" (hundred wagons) - with 200 axles that would be 2A!   Not that I will be equipping every axle of course.  It will be every brake van (and some of those will have working tail lights anyway), and end vehicles on coaching stock in fixed rakes, plus any odd vehicles that get used as tail traffic - horse boxes, parcels etc.  Fitting SMD resistors is going to be a tedious job, but at least it can be done in batches.

I have not yet finalised my choice of detector, but your comment steers me away from DR 5088RC as I would prefer something that can see a vehicle at less current.  Don't think I will be using Railcom anyway as iTrain can keep track of what's what but it would be nice to keep that option open so that it can self-correct if things are crane shunted. 

The Z21 has multiple interfaces and should be able to handle a mixture of different detectors, and I suppose it 't doesn't really matter if only one or two sections are Railcom detecting and they fail to notice all the wagons.

Is there any formal (eg NMRA) or de facto (eg some manufacturer) standard for the resistance to be used on axles for reliable detection? 

Obviously the optimal value will be dependent on the sensitivity of the detection equipment chosen, so one might expect to see some sort of standard evolving.

I have occasionally seen such axles advertised on ebay and there are plenty of metal wheelsets available to replace older plastic ones, but the DIY approach seems to be the norm when it comes to resistors.  10k seems to be a popular value, but higher values are also used. 

Surely this must be a gap in the market or is it so difficult for RTR manufacturers to automate that it would push the price up too much for those who don't need it?

On 18/09/2020 at 17:52, steve W said:

The Spanish system has traditionally worked on a similar principle, the customer decides which of several bands of maximum simultaneous kW  usage they want to have available and then pay a fixed monthly fee plus the metered kWh usage.   If the max usage is exceeded at any time the smart meter shuts the supply down.  Switch off  e.g the aircon or washing machine and It will reset. On old traditional meters this was done with a current monitoring circuit breaker that could easily be exchanged for a standard one of higher rating thus defeating the system (illegal, but in the village I'm familiar with, common).  This whole system was born out of neccessity due to the historicaly very poor infrastruture, the main fuse in my friends house was only 20A with supply cables to match. Once the smart meter was installed he couldn't  keep the swimming pool pump on!  His tarrif  (and wires) were changed and the meter set to a new limit.

 

Hmm.  Our Electricity Board sealed fuses are typically 100A, maybe 80A in smaller properties, presumably with supply cables to match.  I don't know what if anything they change for EV chargers.  I've got a much smaller fuse on the circuit that feeds the garage light and its 13A Socket.  If I wanted to make an unauthorised alteration to my distribution board, I would have to either run the risk of doing any wiring on live circuits or pull the sealed fuse.  If I were to do the latter it was supposedly something that should have been picked up by the meter reader as part of his visit.  With customer reading of meters they only come round once a year or so now to make sure I'm not telling porkies.  I suppose even that visit doesn't happen any more with the new technology.  Anyway, I suppose the street light would be the best place to hot wire an EV charger - nice and handy, close to where I park ... if they would only change to diesel powered street lights, we wouldn't need to buy EVs!

Dreadful stuff.  The rails were coated steel and rusted severely.

I had a load of it but it went out.

Here in Hitchin there's a music shop with a first floor door that open like that and on my my to the dentist about a month ago I have seen the hoist in use for a piano.  You'd need more than a hard hat if that gave way - I felt safer walking on the other side of the street!

23 hours ago, Derekstuart said:

I know someone who is modelling based on Leicester. I shall suggest 'Leicester On Sea' to him.

 

Joking aside, with no connection to modelling, I was looking up Ravenscar on the North East coast, between Whitby and Scarborough. It used to be simply named 'Peak' on the basis that it was the highest point of the line (650ft above sea level). So there's any number of similarly themed names for just about any reason you like.

Ravenscar is a town that never was, but the station was not fictitious.  Land in the area was bought up by a Victorian speculator with a view to building a holiday resort served by the station, but the tourists never came.  He built a hotel/shop next to the station and you can still see the roads which were laid out for the failed development.    The location is so exposed location that the station's waiting shelter was blown away once.

53 minutes ago, Ravenser said:

And the M&GN as already noticed, was forced to name one station after a drainage ditch (Counter Drove) and another after the surveyor's plot number (Twenty)

 

So "Thirty Foot" (or whatever your baseboard length is) or "Mickeldyke" are both possible Fenland stations

 

Thirty Foot is another Drain - also called thew New Bedford River. 

And while you're measuring ditches, there's always the Sixteen Foot Drain and the Forty Foot Drain - the chaps who drained the Fens seem to have been a little lacking in imagination.  

And the former station at Six Mile Bottom still stands as a private residence next to a line which still sees trains.  It gets its name from the distance to Newmarket racecourse.

On 28/09/2020 at 00:37, Steamport Southport said:

Good view of the size of loco coal here. If you've only got a small bunker then put it on every surface possible. I presume the fireman will be busy with the hammer.

 

LNER Y5 7230 Stratford 1946.

 

 

Ben Brooksbank Wiki

 

Coincidence that this thread appeared whilst looking for GER 0-4-0STs. Seems quite common for them to be piled high with coal. I wonder whether that's the reason they had the flat top to the tank.

 

 

Jason

Extra weight to improve adhesion  - they didn't have traction tyres.

8 hours ago, Paul H Vigor said:

"Newbottle is an Anglo-Saxon name and the village as a settlement dates from pre-Norman times. The place-name ending “bottle” (meaning dwelling or small settlement) is found in other settlements in the north east. ... Newbottle is the only one in Tyne & Wear and formerly within the boundary of County Durham."

I went to school in Walbottle.  The "Wal" is an old wall that runs through the school grounds and stretches all the way from the Solway to Wallsend, and it was built by the military a couple of thousand years ago to keep them Durham lot out of Northumberland. 

Bottle is indeed commonly part of place names in the north east where the military tended to attract female "camp followers" and the term derives as I understand it from the same source as brothel.

Trains didn't need to be stationary as long with the old slam lock doors as they do with these sliding doors with their safety interlocks.  They were invariably opened by anybody alighting before the train had come to a stand.  Passengers wanting to board didn't have to wait for a door opening button to be released.  The downside with such stock was any inconsiderate types who didn't close the doors again behind them.  Oh yes, and the odd delay caused when over ambitious passengers managed to injure themselves triying to gett on or off while the train was moving.

I think WTTs allowed 1/2 minute stop for stations that weren't very busy.

As I understood it (not yet having used one) the frogs themselves are isolated from the rest of the point and are electrically dead unless you do something positive about connecting them via some form of changeover switch?

23 hours ago, 'CHARD said:

Great news for West Midlanders as planning permission is granted for the three new stations on the reopening Camp Hill line between Kings Norton and St Andrews Jcts.

 

Moseley is pictured, which makes good sense as a population centre currently reliant for public transport on congested bus routes (35 and 50), the others are Kings Heath in its original location (50 bus route again) and Hazelwell which is in a bit of a bus doldrums, and, from memory, this station will be suitably placed to serve the nearby secondary school. 

 

I hope where the odd original building remains (Hazelwell booking office maybe), that these aren't summarily destroyed or compulsorily purchased, as they're not strictly in the way of the new station infrastructure planned and constructed in line with contemporary regulations.

 

It's good to see this improvement making headway, the old GW route's rebirth from Moor Street to Smethwick Galton Bridge seems a long time ago now, and the only local things in the interim have been Coleshill Parkway and Kenilworth!

 

http://www.westmidlandsrail.com/news/planning-application-for-moseley-railway-station-submitted/

Decades ago when I lived in Brum Hazelwell station was the home of the Birmingham MRC who met there one evening a week.  Quite good premises but for the problem of local youths breaking in and doing damage.  We had put steel sheeting over the boarded up windows and doors but the yobs then took to breaking in through the roof.

I remember the station approach was a bit dangerous turning off a hump-back potentially in the blind spot of somebody coming up the other side.

I have used Gixen for years (and a few similar sites), but the free version now only allows you to set up very few at any one time.

I have only once known Gixen to fail to bid for me when it should have done (their system was down or something)

21 hours ago, ejstubbs said:

I never knew until now that there is a version without the switch.  There you go, you learn something new every day.

 

I prefer to use latching relays rather than microswitches, which I find fiddly to set up and potentially prone to moving out of adjustment.  A relay fires when the point motor does, no mechanical linkage required.

Seep do a model PM1 with single pole switch on the PCB, PM2 lacking that switch and PM4  latching, with switch.  I'm not aware of a PM3.  Ideally one is likely to want double pole switch, one pole to wire the frog the other as a feedback to show which position the point is in.

The downside of using relays rather than switches directly operated by the solenoid is that should the solenoid fail to operate, the relay will not reflect the actual position of the point.  Of course you may be quite happy with that if they operate reliably.  Of course if you attach more gubbins to what the solenoid has to shift, there is more chance of it failing to operate as reliably.

Point indicators on the real railway show 3 conditions, Normal, Reverse or Wrong.  The "Wrong" position shows briefly whilst a point is in the process of moving or not detected as locked fully over.  This last option is mainly relevant to modellers if they use slow-acting motors rather than solenoids.

1 hour ago, johnlambert said:

The stuff  watch always seems to go for a bargain price.  The stuff I bid on, not so much  

Well, if you hadn't bid on it and only watched, the other bloke would have got it cheaper.

I blame all these ****** other bidders for pushing up the price of "bargains"!

52 minutes ago, KR Models said:

Keep talking like that and we'll send yours in neon pink!

As the site foreman told the builders about the company's new Hi-vis "It's not pink, it's salmon".

13 minutes ago, Welly said:

Nice idea but this assumes that airlines have no long term viability in the future. Nightstar (and Eurostar destinations beyond Paris/Brussels) was canned before the carriages were even completed due to cheap flight competition.

 

The average traveller will endure a 2 hour Ryanair hop rather than spend 6 hours on board a train.

Plus the two hours hanging about in the departure terminal and faffing about with security checks and another hour waiting for baggage handling to lose their bags at the other end.

How people travel depends more on the fares than journey time.  They get up at silly o'clock to fly Ryanair mainly because it's cheaper than the traditional airlines and the trains.  They would change their minds if the green lobby eventually succeeds in persuading governments to subsidise heavily more than at present environmentally friendly transport and impose punitive taxes on the airlines.  Of course the real problem with a sleeper service is that you can't cram as many passengers to a carriage as Ryanair can into a fuselage,

Of course flying might become politically correct again if Elon Musk were to design a 747 that can use lightweight lead-acid batteries to flap its wings.

At least we won't still be under orders to stay at home by the time they've built these new supertains.

Not the best switches around.  They aren't worth the extra over the version that doesn't have a switch.  It's why some people prefer to attach microswitches or use relays etc.

Having said that you've already got them and you want to use the switches.  The springy moving contact strip might benefit from tweaking slightly to give greater pressure.

15 hours ago, 217 RIVER FLESK said:

A photo of t'other side would be nice also

 

I think that's that side must be the version arranged for the 4+4 coupled wheels

I infer from the above that the A(N&SW)DR used the standard RCH block regulations rather than their own, and that they didn't use the "No Block" regulations anywhere on their system.  This would suggest that they did use permissive block.

The GWR regulations (at least the 1936 version) do include the "Regulations for Working on Goods Lines where the Absolute Block System is not in Operation or where no special regulations are in force."  Their version (on lines to which it applied) added to the RCH regulations a Time Interval of 5 minutes before another train could follow, and trains arriving between 5 and 10 minutes after the previous one were to  be cautioned, but the GWR line in that area would have been Absolute Block. 

8 minutes ago, Accurascale Fran said:

 

Aha, forgot the Revolution N gauge ones are now in stock in Rails. Could be it?

Ah OK, missed that - didnt realise it was being done in N as well.  Thanks for clearing that up