Harlequin

Thanks Tim, "GWR Signalling Practice" by Smith and the Great Western Study Group, says the label should be , "in one of the bottom corners". I guess that bottom right was preferred but if there wasn't room because of the drawing (as in this case) it would be fixed at bottom left. I should maybe move it further left, though.

I spotted this on BBC Four last night, while watching "Flying Scotsman: Sounds from the Footplate": Not only on it's own post but with a finial! This is on the SVR so may not reflect true (G)WR practice but I thought it might be interesting. If you want to see it in the context of the film and the driver's comments about it, go here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b087k5rf/flying-scotsman-sounds-from-the-footplate and click the timeline at around 38 minutes.

That's largely supposition and assumption and I don't agree with it at all, I'm afraid. I think the new software is clearly superior in most respects and obviously fit for purpose. There's just a bug in it that needs to be fixed. Some bugs are more difficult to fix than others, especially if they occur apparently randomly and/or only in specific configurations. To track it down will need persistance, meticulousness and patience...

OK, sorry Andy. Let’s pick this up on or after Jan 6th. Have a good break!

@AY Mod So there are lots of us out here seeing similar problems. Do you see any indication of this at your end? If not, then perhaps you need to change the metrics that you are monitoring???

Dean: Dean Goods - mentioned in passing by The Johnster but fits the OP criteria very well.

It really doesn't feel like that at this end... Because the delays are not consistent I guess some people are just lucky and don't see them and some might see a few but not report them. When the delays happen they are present both on Chrome on Windows and Safari on iPad simultaneously. At the same time other websites are working as fast as normal. The delay always occurs in the first page fetch, all the subsequent graphics and CSS files are delivered much quicker (although some of those are slower than maybe they should be but not of the same order as the initial page delay).

I'm seeing random very long response times at the moment. For example, fetching index.php?/topic/149199-forum-grindingly-slow-this-afternoon/&do=getLastComment to add this comment took 27.22 seconds according to Chrome DevTools. The same symptom as previous problems. Just letting you know, not whingeing!

Hi Mods and Admins, This is not urgent but I'm curious to understand a couple of things about Private Messages: When you look at a PM thread you sometimes see the message, "XYZ has left the conversation", at the top. What does that mean? What did XYZ do at his end? Is it permanent or could they rejoin the conversation later? Will they receive notifications of my replies or am I just talking to thin air ??? If I try to PM the same person as above, starting a new conversation, and get the message, "XYZ is unable to receive messages", what does that mean? Thanks,

Ivor for me too! Imagine the amazing DCC Sound project for him! Pshtacoff - Pshtacoff - Pshtacoff Pawp Pawp "Oh Jones, you're always getting overex - cited about everything." etc, etc...

Sounds interesting but I’m looking at the underside of a Code 75 Small Radius turnout and I can’t see where you would make the cut(s). Could you post a photo or a drawing with the position(s) marked, please?

Did you check the decoder was aligned correctly?

Fair enough. You can never rely on a damn computer to do the same thing two times in a row!

For the record the website was down in the wee small hours last night, giving 522 errors. This follows the pattern we have seen prevously: sporadic deterioration in response times then a crash.

You might have misaligned the socket and the pins, I.e. the socket is one pin too far to the left or right. I did the same thing once and it was very confusing for a while!

I don’t think it’s related to high traffic at any given time because it seems to be semi-random (it’s been doing it on and off all afternoon for me) and it’s doing it now (stupidly early in the AM). Whatever the problem is that builds up and requires a reset is possibly building up more quickly recently. Some sort of resource leak, I guess.

You could try a fibreglass pencil to clean the sides of the rails down in the gap between the blades and the stock rails. Be careful not to get any fibres on your skin, though, and hoover out any fibres from the points after cleaning. Also remember that the electrical connection to the frog relies on the hinges where the blades join the fixed closure rails. I’m not sure how to clean that joint in situ but you could perhaps try putting a drop of isopropyl alcohol on the joint and working it a bit. Then test whether you have electrical continuity through these various junctions using a multimeter. That will tell you where the problem really is.

IMHO, @Flying Pig nailed it with his revised plans. Specifically the removal of the facing points, so that goods trains on either Up or Down have to set back into the goods loop. Beautiful.

Hey TA! You might like to go and check one of your own track plan threads, where I suggested just such a thing for you some months ago.

Your curved 6 road trad fiddle yard above has the problem that you need to man handle rolling stock from the outbound side to the inbound side because there are no crossovers within the FY. So, in the bonkers vein (is it because we're all in the holiday mood?): What if that entire curved FY was a traverser that slid across the two feed lines? (I.e. up and down as we see it on screen) That would allow any FY road to connected to either feed line, meaning that no man handling would be needed (or at least it would be greatly reduced). Whichever road is spare could be the headshunt. The cost being a slight reduction in the length of the storage roads. But seriously, I suggest a KISS approach and avoiding curves in the FY. Keeping the FY roads straight will allow closer, more accurate, coupling of vehicles. Cassettes can also be used for transport to exhibitions and just keep an empty cassette pushed to the back that you can plug in quickly for shunting.

The bottom road of all the designs above can’t be connected to the “outbound” line from the scene. Ideally you want to arrange it so that all roads can be connected to both lines feeding the scene. Would cassettes be an option instead of a traverser? At 40in long they would be just about manageable and you could store a lot of them on shelves just above the fiddle yard. More storage than a four road traverser allowing for a more varied and intensive service and giving the ability to turn trains.

Now, this is getting interesting because you are heading from Ashburton to Moretonhampstead (sort of) while I am heading from Moretonhampstead to Ashburton... Let me explain. You might like to have a look at my topic "Hampton Malstead". The early ideas were inspired by Moretonhampstead but were compromised by space (and lack of experience) into a rather generic trackplan. The much more open and curvaceous, flowing plan at the end of the topic is a huge improvement but I'm still not entirely happy with it because there's still not much room for non-railway scenery around the station. When I worked up the Ashburton-like sketch for you I realised that a linear station on wide baseboards doesn't suffer from that problem and the more I think about it, the more attractive it seems! Hence, I’m potentially heading in the opposite direction to you - wider boards and simpler, thinner, straighter trackplan. So I hope you won't be upset or surprised if you see me do something like my Ashburton-like suggestion above. And I too am already thinking about spreading over three boards making up 12ft scenic length. (Feel free to have a dusty loading area - I'm not going to claim copyright on it ;-)