eastglosmog

Looking at the website picture, the angle of the jib to the horizontal is about 40º, so with a jib length given as 148.5mm, the radius of operation would be some 114mm. It looks a light crane and long jib, so I doubt it would be capable of lifting more than 2t safely.

And I suppose the centers of the springs are jammed up against the solebar because they are weak!

Should be the latter - the 16t refers to the maximum pay load, which is added to the tare weight, to give a maximum gross weight of 24.1t.

When I am soldering a joint, holding the wire in one hand and the soldering iron in the other, just as the solder melts my glasses start sliding down my nose, so I have to drop the wire and grab the glasses before they drop onto the soldering iron.

According to the info, it was incremental to the full operating weight, so coal burning version's weight should have included the weight of coal in the firebox (although that must be a variable figure).

New scientist had an article last week explaining why this happens, but I have forgotten what the reason was!

The absence of Fylingdales from maps of the North York Moors was one of the more notorious examples of that - visible for miles but not shown on the OS map.

If you are interested, here is a link to an air photograph showing the arrangement in 1957: http://www.panoramio.com/photo/94540138. Scrolling through it, you can see a few other dates as well, showing there was only one taxiway in 1946 and none in 1942. A bit off topic, but if you use Google Earth history section, the air photo they attribute to 1945 must actually be 1937 or earlier, as it does not show the airfield at all!

Given where it was taken, possibly coming from Hartlepool docks and going to South Durham Steel works in West Hartlepool?

Not according to Stanley Jenkins, from whose book on the Fairford branch I got the information. He says that"when the airfield facilities were extended south of the railway, two essential taxiways had to cross the running lines by means of level crossings; huge gates were necessary to span these wide taxiways". There were also special signalling links between the airfield control tower and Bampton Signal box. I am not sure when these taxiways were built, post 1945 I believe.

Jim I am sure some of the weight would have been spread, but could enough have been shifted to the 3rd coupled axle to keep the weight added to the fourth to 6cwt?

A query that arises from the thread on accuracy of weighing axle weights. The oil burning 28xx where some 11cwt heavier than the coal burners. This weight appears to have all been in the firebox (firebricks) and cab (extra pipework), so all above or behind the rear wheels of the 28xx which already had a load of 17t 5cwt. So if it all went on these rear wheels, the weight would have put the axle loading up beyond 17t 12cwt and into the red route classification. My query is, did that happen, or did Swindon manage to adjust the weights sufficiently to keep the load below 17t 12cwt? Would they even have cared? With the limited development of the oil burning, I suspect it actually made no practical difference as the location of the refueling points would have limited the oil burners to routes that where red coded, anyway. However, had the scheme carried on and Banbury had obtained a refueilling point that was planned, it could have made a difference, as the eastern half of the Banbury Cheltham line was blue and the 28xx's were used on it for the ironstone trains. Thanks for your thoughts on this.

Oops - you're right. Misremembered what I had seen.

RAF Brize Norton had two taxiways crossing the East Gloucestershire Railway. Railway is long gone, but the airfield is still there and very much operational. The road at the eastern end lies within the potential runoff from the runway and has traffic light control to stop traffic at danger times.

The Strike Force Entertainment DVD compilations "Britain's Railways - The Home Front war years Volumes 1 to 3" contain quite a few sequences of tanks being transported by rail, mostly British but some Canadian; and mostly on Warflats. Shows details of how tanks were tied down for transport. In addition to what Tony has said up the thread, heavy tanks such as Churchills were limited to one per Warflat, as they were too heavy for two per wagon. Lighter tanks like .Valentines could be transported two per wagon. The tanks were not normally sheeted except for those with open turrets, like the Firefly variants of the Sherman.

Another example is the Midland Singles, which had a published driving axle weight of 18t 2cwt and an actual weight of 19t 2cwt. The LSWR Civil Engineer refused to accept the loan of a Midland siIngle for trials because of this and effectively scuppered Adams intended single (see Bradley's LSWR Locomotives, The Adams classes).

Well, I work in the real quarrying business. According to my dictionary, virtual means "Almost or nearly as described, but not completely or according to strict definition." What you describe has very little similarity to a real quarry, only to one small part.

The latest spec for railway ballast I have seen requires the crushed rock to be evenly graded over a range of sizes from 20mm to 65mm. That scales at c0.3mm to c0.8mm in 4mm/ft. No more than a third of the particles should be any more than twice as long as they are thick. Not quite sure what you mean by a virtual quarry, but if you want to see what a modern rail loading facility looks like, try the MQP website http://www.mqp.co.uk/rail.htm. As Johnster notes, the crushed rock tends to be whiter when freshly crushed partly because of the fine dust. It tones down with age and getting the dust washed off. Most modern ballast plants, crushers, screens and conveyors are enclosed, to keep the dust and noise down, so you will not see much ballast other than on the stockpiles or in the wagons. The Gaugemaster 00 ballast is of the right size, but tone is a bit dark for fresh ballast. Most of us need it that way!

I have one and it is bonded and has the frog polarity switched as shown in the first reply to the post linked to by sb67. Works fine.

Humm - looks a bit brown to be Carboniferous Limestone. Probably meant to be Granite, although a bit brown - could be the photograph, though - looks less brown on the web photos. However, I suspect Network Rail would refuse to accept that lot - some of it appears to be to coarse and too flaky.

Can you post some close up photos of the Wagon Essentials loads? The pictures of their products on the web are too distant to be certain what it is supposed to be. Having said which, it looks like it might be intended to represent Carboniferous Limestone, but it could also be meant to represent grey granite.

Sounds like one of those adverts that New Scientist regularly ridicules on its Feedback page.

Just seen that the government has approved a £1.6billion (current estimated cost) approx 3km long tunnel to replace the A303 by Stonehenge (in spite of some archeologists reservations about it). Supposed to be following a line about 50m further south. Current estimate of opening date sometime about 2021, I believe, so OTB will need to schedule his next visit for then! Plenty of time for someone to change their minds about it, though.

Well, at least I have still seen more of Portsmouth than you have (my father was born there and my paternal grandparents lived there, so I have had a bit more of an oportunity)! When you have a chance you should certainly go back and visit HMS Warrior. Unfortunately, when the proto A303 was laid out, back in the dark ages, nobody bothered about what visitors to Stonehenge might think in 2017. There has been a long campaign to move the A303 or bury it, but there are strong archaeological objections, due to the consequences of disturbing the very important remains round about and the cost of tunneling is astronomic. Must say, though that one advantage of being over 60 is that I was able in my youth to visit the stones close up. They are much more impressive when you can stand alongside them (especially if you are quite small at the time). In this case, distance does not add enchantment to the view. Try a trip to Avebury, where you can still stand alongside the stones.

I have used Model Railway Solutions self adhesive cork underlay (https://www.modelrailwaysolutions.co.uk/) and No More Nails to glue the track to the underlay with success. I found the self adhesive underlay easy to lay and the adhesive will attach securely to wood or plastic ( I also have a plastic bridge). The off-cuts have also proved quite useful for attaching other things to the underside of the baseboard, as well. As Ian says,, No More Nails sets rock hard. It also is quite tenacious when first applied, making it possible to slew the track into the right position and for it then to stay there. I can recommend getting a copy L. V. Wood's "Bridges for Modellers" (OPC,1085) - it contains details of ballasting across bridges.