eastglosmog

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.

Congratulations - you have seen more of the sights of London in 3 days than I have in 66 years!

Having been past the Reservoir fairly recently and seeing the area close by it, stripped, the quarry looks like it's going to be expanding.

I'd say it wouldn't be such a stretch for Tarmac to re-jig the site for a connection to the GCR and send their trains out down the branch and eventually onto the MML.

The stripped area is the site where the next lot of quarry waste is going to go (it will be landscaped and grassed).  There is a great difference between depositing a lot of waste from the top of the granite to transporting the crushed aggregate to the same point.  There is the entire stockyard, lorry loading area and a tip between the quarry processing plant and the end of the GCR Mountsorrel branch, none of which would be easy to route a conveyor belt of the required size through.  Tarmac might send the odd token lorry load out via the GCR, but are very unlikley to send aggregate out that way in volume.  The loading sidings by the MML are some 860m long -  I don't think that length is easily available by the GCR branch and would require persuading the planning authority they are necessary.  Why would Tarmac go to all that expense - crossing of the MML fast lines is Network Rail's problem!

Heavy freight is interesting, though. There was talk a while ago about some of the output from the Mountsorrel quarries coming out this way to avoid having to cross the MML fast lines. I wonder if the bridge is designed with this in mind?

 

Rob

Sorry to put a damper on this speculation, but it would take a major reorganisation of the internal arrangements of the quarry site (have a look at it on Google Earth) to send aggregate out via the GCR.  I doubt very much if that would be cost effective.

I think at Alverstone Station, on the Isle of Wight Central, access was up the platform ramp, from the road at the level crossing at the eastern end of the station.  The Station Masters house was founded at road level, abutting the eastern end of the platform.  I think Horringford may have been the same.

Edited to add:

Looks like the only public entrance to Alverstone station was by a wicket gate adjacent to the level crossing gates. The booking office looks like it was in the ground floor front of the Station Masters house, at ground (road) level.  Passengers then climbed the platform ramp to the platform.  There was a small wooden shelter on the platform and no fill behind the platform.

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so after 413 posts of hysteria, and riotous suggestions of the need for vigilantism to protect it, you mean Swanage railway aren't going to strip it for bits, sell it on ebay and dump the rest on the beach after all ?

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Come off it! That's a bit OTT - only 200 of the 413 posts at most!

 

But verdigris shouldn't be happening with "safety" flux anyway should it? When I bought this flux a few years back from Gaugemaster, I understood from the word "safety" I was buying a flux that wouldn't attack steel tools or leave verdigris. (The description on the website is vague: "A good general flux with the added advantage of its non-acidic composition".) But I got the same results as the OP. I contacted G/M but they admitted that they didn't really know what the "safety" in "safety flux" was supposed to mean, but that my assumption sounded reasonable. Given the rusting and verdigris I'd experienced I asked them if non-safety flux could have been mixed with safety flux at bottling, and they couldn't guarantee that hadn't happened.

 

So either I've misunderstood what "safety flux" means or G/M's safety and non-safety flux are mixed at source. But they couldn't offer any illumination either way.

 

Long story short, I binned the lot of it and went back to Carr's Yellow. The extra I had to pay in postage for Carr's (I could have sourced the G/M flux locally) was preferable to having to replace rusted tools. 

 

Sadly, as I have found to my cost when a supposedly Universal relay switch for switching frog polarity failed to work with their own CDU, Gaugemaster's understanding of the meaning of English words seems to differ from those found in the Oxford English Dictionary.

Coleford on the Severn and Wye might be worth considering.  The original S&W goods shed was some distance from the station (and much closer to the town), but after the adjoining GWR station was severed from the rest of the GWR network in WW1 by the closure of the Monmouth - Coleford line, the GWR station became attached to the S&W station.  The S&W goods shed was taken out of use post WW1 and the GWR goods shed used, so post WW1 the goods shed was on a different site to the passenger station (although actually closer as the crow flew).

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 ISTR that Fairford itself was a station where the platform was on one side of a road bridge on the single track and the goods yard and run round loop were beyond it. .................

Afraid not. Although the run round loop and goods shed at Fairford were beyond  the station platform, they were on the same side of the road bridge and shared the same access road.  The goods shed was actually quite close to the station buildings.

HMS Victory is a good example. I may be missing something, but in the UK we have a proud naval history, and Portsmouth is our premier naval museum.

In terms of what I'd call a large boat, there's only Victory and Warrior. That's not the whole collection of course as I'm sure there's at least a sub and that X33(?) as well as loads of smaller things (I'm not really counting Mary Rose because it isn't really preserved, it's an excellent exhibition surrounding a conserved wreck which has been considered lost for centuries).

Obviously military boats are not the same as trains, but we somehow keep many centuries of naval history represented with very few full scale exhibits. Seems to work, and on that basis I suspect the NRM could do very well with considerably fewer locos than it has at present.

As enthusiasts we overstate the historic significance of our favourites, most of which are just another engine to casual families.

I think you're forgetting HMS Belfast in London - she is bigger than Warrior!  The submarine you are thinking of will  be HMS Alliance at Gosport.

Some kind of interaction between loco and controller then. Bach have been putting100 microfarad capacitors in the tenders of the 21 pin equipped models. I'd disconnect that.

Thanks, I'll try that.

The question had to be asked. It's surprising how often a dc loco is eventually found to have a chip fitted.

Indeed it did!  I'm quite capable of wondering why nothing works only to find I haven't switched it on at the wall!

Does the loco happen to have a DCC decoder fitted?

No she doesn't. I'm still in the antediluvian period with regard to DCC!

I was looking at the NRM website today. As a matter of interest, when is 563 going to be taken off of the "Our Collection" part of their website?  Can't imagine someone going up to Shildon to see it being all that happy at finding they have to go down to Corfe Castle instead!

I was running my Bachmann Dukedog very slowly to position a coupling in the train accurately over my electro-magnetic uncoupler, when to my surprise it reversed of its own volition and carried on in reverse until I turned the controller knob to off.  Turning the knob back up, the loco went off in the right direction again.  The loco was well away from the uncoupling magnet.  I am using an old ECM Compspeed with a center off reversing switch, so there is no way I could have accidentally changed the polarity. I tried it several times after the first occurrence and it has done it a few other times, though not reliably repeatable  Doesn't seem to be anything wrong with the wiring, and no other locos behave this way.  Has this happened to anybody else and anybody any ideas as to what is happening?

Does this locomotive's lack of BR running preclude a model of it, could help towards restoration though in reality how many units would sell and how much that would actually raise is another thing.

Well, if someone made a model of her, I would certainly buy one.  I think she is a beautiful loco.  Might have to modify history a bit more, so that the LSWR built a branch to Fairford!

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In London in the late 40's early 50's my Grandfather would never talk of WW1, if asked about it - like any young lad would do - he would go into a period of not talking, moody, and a clip round my ear from my Nan for asking about it..

 

Sandy Croall - Poppy Appeal Officer, West Cornwall.

My grandfather was the same.  He joined up in 1914 and served until the end in 1918.  He never spoke about it to his grandchildren and (according to my mother) hardly ever to his own children even when they were grown up.  All I learnt was that at one time, his mate was blown to bits next to him when they were driving a wagon.

Still, I have to admit to a certain ambivalence to whether the Great War was worth it.  Had Grandfather not joined up in 1914, he would have gone out to New Zealand to join the rest of his siblings.  This was before he met my Grandmother, so without the Great War, I wouldn't exist!

A few taken at Mormagoa in 1996:

Transhipment vessel Sanjeevani, an ex T2 tanker used for transferring iron ore from barges to bulk ore carriers that were too deep to load to full capacity alongside the quay.

The bulk ore carrier MV Endeavor that was being loaded by Sanjeevani, bound for Italy.

Another bulk ore carrier, being loaded by the ship loader in Mormagoa.

Edited to add ship's name, which i remembered overnight!

VJ Day is September 2. As far as I know, Remembrance Day never moved from November.

 

In my living memory, Australians always placed their emphasis on ANZAC Day, and it is always commemorated on that date - not a particular day of the week. Remembrance/Armistice Day is commemorated in Australia as well.

No, it did not change from November, but it ceased to be observed on November 11th (unless that happened to be a Sunday) for the reason I gave (or so I was told).  Rereading my post, see it is a bit ambiguous if you do not read Chris116's post to which I was replying.  Would have been better if I had written "nearest Sunday to 11th November, after the end of WWII".

It is about time that the end of WW1 was correctly remembered on 11th November instead of the current practice of moving it to the nearest Sunday so business is not inconvienced.

 

It is wonderful that the dreadful battles with the loss of life on all sides is remembered but 11th November should be a Bank Holiday but one which is not moved whatever day of the week it falls on.

A long time ago, I was told that the day was changed to the nearest Sunday after the end of WWII because WWII did not end on 11th November and as Remembrance day was extended to cover the dead of both wars, November 11th was no longer so significant (especially to those who had just survived the Second World War).  

Does a railway that was planned but not built count as 'imaginary'?  My own pre-grouping layout 'North Leigh' is based on a branch from the OW&W main line to Witney, which even appears on a local map of the period.  I have commented before that if this line had been built, the much-loved Fairford branch might never have come into existence - a loss to many modellers!

Interesting you should mention that, Mike.  In my version of history, where the original East Gloucestershire railway scheme got built from Cheltenham to Faringdon in the 1860s, the Fairford branch doesn't get built, either (apart from the bit from Fairford to Lechlade which would have been on the main line).  Part of the GWR's original price for support was to abandon the branch from Lechlade to Witney and substitute it with one from Andoversford to join the OWW branch at Bourton in the Water.  An amusing quirk, that the only bit of the EG to get built, does not get built!

There are 3 DVD compilations by Strike Force Entertainment called "Britain's Railways, The Home Front War Years" 1939-41, 1941-1943 and 1944-1945.  They contain many sequences of troop trains, which you may find helpful.

Well, that's proof enough for me she carried an airbrake pump in GWR ownership! Wonder when she lost it?