Jump to content
 

Edwin_m

Members
  • Posts

    6,435
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by Edwin_m

  1. Since the Polmont derailment in the 1980s, when a propelled push-pull train hit a cow, various measures have been introduced to protect against trains being derailed by objects on the line. Modern rolling stock on the main line has obstacle deflectors under the nose and metal "lifeguards" immediately in front of the wheels that aim to push any object along ahead of the train.
  2. Where road and rail are approximately at the same level, putting the road under is usually much more disruptive and expensive. With a road over rail bridge the railway can be mostly left alone, but digging down will disrupt it as well as the road.
  3. The standard spec allowed a wide range of voltages and frequencies from DC upwards on a single phase. Some coaches were incompatible with Deltics and the original generator 47s (so needed AC?) but these were based on the Western well away from those locomotives. HSTs had a totally different an incompatible system sending three-phase AC down the train, which avoided the need for rotary converters on the trailers.
  4. Yes I now tend to agree. The horizontal bar on the fence in front of the train confuses things.
  5. I think there's a speck of dust just under the signal which makes it look to be lowered, but it's actually at danger. However, the visible track looks to be passing in front of the train, so it may be on another track that is a bit lower and hidden from view.
  6. West Midlands has a statutory enhanced bus partnership. This offers funding to operators in return for taking agreed measures, but differs from franchising in that it requires the agreement of the operators in question. Enhanced partnership guidance
  7. Currently only in London, which was exempted from deregulation in 1986, and a franchise system just starting up in Manchester under recent devolved powers. Several other cities are looking seriously at doing the same, but haven't done yet.
  8. Indeed. I guess the pipe would have to be gapped, so the train would have to detach from the piston and connect to a new one on the other side of the gap. Someone would then have to remove the piston from the dead end of the pipe and re-position it for the next train. If it failed to detach then the piston would slam into the end of the pipe and almost certainly break something.
  9. How did single track sections work when this line first opened as an atmospheric railway? A socking great pipe between the rails would make points rather difficult...
  10. Yes they do. Modern street-running trams have to be fitted with head lights, tail lights, indicators and brake lights. They normally also have to have reflectors, though I don't see any on the Parry vehicle. The end reflectors are yellow on a bi-directional tram, because the normal red and white ones would be wrong half the time. The various photos indicate this vehicle only has a door on one side. I speculate that it was built as uni-directional but probably had a second set of controls added because the various demonstrations it ran would have been much more difficult to do if they'd needed loops to turn the vehicle. This might also explain the difference in end window arrangements.
  11. Same for me in 1987 - in the first section of the Rule Book that applied to all staff. As I was mainly office-based but with a view of the railway, it sounded like an excellent justification for staring out of the window all day. It is indeed very unlikely to cause an accident, but so many railway accidents have been caused by a combination of unlikely circumstances. An intermediate tail lamp lit might suggest that whoever was doing the coupling hadn't finished the job, for example not connecting and testing the brake pipes would be extremely dangerous. A split train can still become dangerous if not dealt with quickly, because the air brakes will leak off after time, and it could be minutes rather than hours. This driver had a very lucky escape and appears to have been a victim of confirmation bias, ignoring several things that suggested his train had been divided rather than just suffered from vandalism. https://www.gov.uk/raib-reports/runaway-of-two-wagons-from-camden-road-tunnel
  12. I recall oil lamps on DMUs up until around 1980. I don't know if they got brighter bulbs at that time - there didn't seem to be any sort of lens to concentrate the light (which makes sense as the signalman would be observing it at an angle). The original tail lamps on diesel locomotives must have been even harder to see, and when running light they tended to carry oil lamps even after DMUs no longer had them.
  13. And even for older models that don't have this, it's easy enough to disconnect the tail lights and connect to spare function outputs, or just leave them disconnected if the locomotive spends all its time hauling a train. Combined with the over-bright nature of model tail lights, this grates with me when an exhibition layout is otherwise to a high standard.
  14. The real crime to me is seeing a model locomotive with tail lamps lit when hauling a train. Any rail staff seeing this should report it immediately*, because if the train should become divided behind the loco in an Absolute Block area, the next signaller will consider the line as clear on seeing the tail lamp lit. *I once did so by shouting across to the driver on the avoiding lines at Derby. He replied that it must have been like that all the way from St Pancras. Oh well...
  15. At a guess, the retaining wall above the "blind" arch was there before they built it, but they needed to undercut it to get the track alignment they needed. The "blind" arch is to stop the rest of the cliff falling on the railway. They couldn't extend the retaining wall to track level because the track would be in the way, and making the tunnel a bit longer would have been more costly. The apparent asymmetry of the arch in the second picture is at least partly because it's skewed, again because of the shape of what is has to support above. Hence the right hand side is nearer the camera and appears lower than the left. You may be able to zoom the photos and count the bricks on the vertical part each side to see if they are actually at different heights above the track.
  16. Universal do at least recognise the existence of railways on the map on this very basic project website: https://universalukproject.co.uk/ There might be some potential for visitors to arrive by train - lots do at Bicester Village. But it most likely needs a frequent London service without a change, so I'd expect Universal to focus on the proposed Wixams station on Thameslink, slightly further away on the east side of the site.
  17. I think it's the one on this page (scroll down to 10.13) or a variation thereon. It's stated to be at a colliery so probably controlling the speed of the train through the loading hopper.
  18. Yes, unless there's a subsidiary aspect for moving forward into sidings.
  19. In modern practice there are also stop signals that only show red aspects, either with or without a subsidiary. These mark the end of a route which is signalled by a single yellow (so can be used by passenger-carrying trains) but where there is no main route onwards, for example when reversing in a platform primarily used in the opposite direction.
  20. That's a particularly confusing one, as the term "dummy" suggests that it doesn't change its aspect. In the topsy-turvy world of signalling jargon that would be a Fixed signal.
  21. I seem to recall a stencil indicator south of on the old aggregate sidings at Draycott (between Long Eaton and Spondon), but they were long disused when I moved into the area so I can't say for sure. An overbridge blocked the line of sight between the driver and the shunter working the frame. I've also seen in a couple of places normal bulkhead-type lamps on poles with signal numbers and R suffixes. But I can't immediately recall where.
  22. Not aware of this one - I assume it was built for the Oxford electrification but never actually used. So an electric EWR without Oxford electrification would have had to bear the cost of, at minimum, a 25kV trackside feeder from Radley to Oxford. And even that might not have provided enough redundancy in case of outages.
  23. If an electrified EWR couldn't be fed from the Bletchley end (both normally and under alternative arrangements when a feeder is offline for some reason) then the scheme might need a new feeder of its own in the Oxford area, which could have been fed from the Didcot end had that electrification gone ahead. That's potentially quite a big extra cost.
  24. The brake continuity test is still required after coupling up hauled stock (coaches as well as wagons). I think it's not used with modern multiple units but others may know better. By confirming that air pressure exists at the furthest vehicle from the locomotive, it establishes that brake pipes have been connected correctly and are not blocked.
×
×
  • Create New...