On the block Allan

Having a chat with some friends the other day about the gun powder wagons I mentioned that as a lad I was told that they were built with a low profile to enable them to fit into tube tunnels, for whatever reason. Others had not heard of this. Any thoughts anyone?

Allan.

This morning, Monday, 113 trains are shown as cancelled for the rest of the day on the Greater Anglia website at 05.00, of those trains, 111 serve stations in Suffolk and only 6 serve Norwich!

Al.

On the Greater Anglia website at 08.00 this morning (Sunday) 77 trains were shown as cancelled for the best part of the day and not one cancellation included the place Norwich, makes one wonder why?

Al.

Quote

Class 14 mystery. On 1st March 1969 I was traveling from Sheffield to Doncaster when my adult travel companion saw a class 14 and said it was D9516, we were traveling backwards at the time so I only saw the locomotive but not the number. I have always assumed it was in one of the Rotherham scrap yards on the West/North of the line. Looking at different lists and records I cannot find any reference to D9516 being in that location around that time or indeed identify it as another member of the class. Any thoughts out there?

 

Allan. 

In the late 60s and early 70s at a time when everyday run of the mill freight would not run on Saturday afternoons and Sundays, (my observations) would there have been any M.G.R or Oil trains shown in the W.T.T to run on a regular basis on Saturday afternoons and Sundays?            Allan.

Question for any secondmen from the early diesel era, Can the steam heat boiler on a diesel locomotive work if the prime mover is/has shut down. Was it not possible or was it forbiden in the rules, would it be possible on some classes of locomotive and not others or would a different make of boiler make a difference? If it could work, would there be a time limit?     One example is if the locomotive failed in cold weather would the heat for the train still be able to be maintained?

Hi

 

I have a couple of pics of Class 203 DEMUs (specifically 1033 and 1034, both showing 54 at the front) passing through Diss in Norfolk sometime during the 1970s. Does anyone have any info on these two and their relation to Norfolk, if any?

 

Cheers

Pete

Hello Pete,

I was a box boy in Ipswich Goods Junction signal box between July 1970 and September 1971 and one Saturday there was a special from the Southern Region heading for Norfolk (could have been Wroxham?). The train was formed of S.R. DEMU stock and the signalman was not satisfied that the red blind on the rear was an alternative to the tail lamp and had the train stopped. Sorry I can't help with further information but hope this will help.

Allan.

Thanks folk for your info. If you have the time eastwestdivide, #8, your notes will be interesting thanks.

Hello all

A couple of questions for anyone in the know, What was the max speed of Motorail trains conveying car flats in the seventies? also, was the passenger accommodation First class, First and Second class or just Second class? I think I recall seeing photographs of the formation including sleeper carriages.

Allan.

Yes, and wasp stripes "jump out" even more when what they are on begins to move. 

 

John

Strange really, if the wasp stripe locomotive is doing what it is designed to do then a large percentage of the time the sighting of the wasp stripe would be obscured by coaches or box vans etc being propelled.

It almost certainly wouldn't ignite but in the H+S crazed world of the modern railway I'm suprised that they let a kettle run through a large fuel spillage that had a trainful of passengers trapped above it.

What about the fumes and any sparks from passing pantographs?

Loose coupled is a reference to wagons that are not connected brake wise to the locomotive, nothing to do with the coupling itself, therefore in the past the loose coupled portion of a train was marshalled at the rear with a brake van as the last vehicle.

Allan

Hello Allan,

Thanks for your reply, not sure which plastic wheels you mean.

Michael

Hello Michael,

My reference to wheels was the centre part of the wheel which is black plastic with a metal tyre fitted to the outside, wasn't sure if it had a name or term in it's own right, the wheel sets I was referring to as a pair of wheels and an axle.

With my early attempts at improving running I tried to adjust the pick-ups which made matters worse, By the way my class 14 is also fitted with Loksound V4.

Stick with it Michael I think you'll get there, I almost gave up with mine and left it at the back of the loco shed for a few months, glad I didn't give up.

Allan

Hi all,

I have a Heljan Class 14 fitted with a Loksound V4 decoder which is running a bit jerky in both directions, as a starting point to try to fix this I am going to give the wheels a good clean and try to put a bit more tension on the wiper contact on the wheel backs, in order to do this will I have to remove the wheels from the loco?

 

I know that here are a number of CV tweaks to try and smooth things out but I thought I would try the wheel cleaning first.

Any advice would be much appreciated

 

Regards

Michael

Michael,

The problem I found with my Heljan 14 lay with the back of the plastic wheels being slightly proud of the metal tyre in places thus preventing the pick-ups from making good constant contact, remove the base plate, drop the wheel sets out and try removing a small amount of plastic around each wheel near the tyre and see if this goes some way to improving the performance, I did this with mine and wow what a difference, I was so pleased with the smooth running it was some while before I had a break from running it. 

Regards

Allan

I didn't think mk3 sleepers existed in 1980

Could be right Russ, I put "I think" because it was from the top of my head, just looked up the date of accident. Will have to do a little more research.  

There's a fair few mk3 sleepers around that aren't on their original bogies, BR kept the bogies as useful spares when they disposed of many of the sleepers. Several preserved lines snapped them up a sleeping accomodation for volunteers to use.  They are usually on accomodation bogies, don't recall seeing a fully grounded one.

I think a lot of mk3 sleepers were in store at the time of the Bushey derailment 16th Feb 1980 and donated their bogies to replace the damaged ones.

The 35 locos were only to replace the section between Crewe and Glasgow, because those trains were already hauled by AC locos south of Crewe.  Just to be clear, they weren't dedicated to that route, all the loco classes could appear anywhere on the electrified network.  35 locos could provide around five trains per hour in each direction over a three-hour journey, which isn't hugely excessive considering some of them would be freights that took much longer than three hours and at any given time some of them would be in works or awaiting duties somewhere. 

 

The 50s would have had the added inefficiency that some would be waiting at Crewe whereas the electrics could stay with their trains for the longer journey to Euston.  A diesel also has lower availability anyway due to needing fuelling and more maintenance, but I don't think those factors would account for 35 locos replacing 50. 

Don't forget that in addition to the 35 class 87s there were several class 81 -85s which were stored in the early 70s and reinstated when Weaver Jct to Glasgow went live.