Gibbo675

Sorry old lad common sense is banned, as I will shortly be for daring to have an opinion !!!

Especially when its plastered over with vinyl, another good idea which also helps conceal cracks in aluminium.

I know all about it, I used to fit TPWS kit along with air brake overlay systems and data recorders to steam locomotives back in the day.

Quod erat demonstrandum.

Its quite simple, pick an idea and use just that one. Do not use several all at once. To put it another way, for lunch have either scambled egg on toast or Haloumi cheese with walnut salad. Do not both mixed up on the same plate at the same time with the added complication of the requirement of having to eat it with chop sticks. Only an idiot would do that !!!

Point work!?!?! Spent all your Beer and Curry money on far too many A4's as I see it !

Hi Stephen, The LMS pacifics were not bad considering that they were several feet longer along with an extra cylinder and associated wobbly bits. Gibbo.

Hi Tom, Unfortunately myself and Clagmeister don't have a running joke regarding Mother's day. Now cyclical time line fluctuations and the repetition of DNA sequencing representing within the materium as quasi three dimensional "solid" illusion projected back into the subjective through conscious displacement is another matter. Perhaps Clagmeiser might like to comment as to whether or not he feels that he is autonomous or just a shard of humanity. Gibbo.

Really, how many good ideas are there in the world these days ? Aluminium trains don't seem to one of them, make them out of steel, first they are cheaper to start with and second they are easier to fix if they do go clunk ! Its a bit like deciding to have scrambled egg on toast for lunch and then looking in the fridge half way through cooking it only to discover the Haloumi cheese* and deciding that would have suited your taste much better, along with a salad with some walnuts, at that moment. You don't throw it all in the in bin, you eat the scrambled egg and have the cheese and salad another day. As far as cost goes the amount the stupid government spent on a Track and Trace system that does not work would have paid for the entire system to be completely electrified. Should that amount of currency (£37bn) have been spent more sensibly then all these ridiculous bi mode trains wouldn't be amusing me for all the wrong reasons. * I'm not actually middle class, I am far better than that and I eat well also. Gibbo.

You wouldn't want one to land on the end of your................................................................finger !!!

Hi RJS, Do please explain, for as I see it should you standardise and then later invent something better then at least in the transition phase there would only be TWO standards instead of loads, and loads, and loads, and loads of incompatible nonsense as we have currently. Someone better informed than me will no doubt be able to tell us all how many incompatible systems are currently [causing havoc] in use on the railways of Britain. Just thinking out loud. Gibbo.

Hi Rab, If the industry had any sense, which along with lots of other industries it doesn't, operating systems along with coupling and multiple working systems would be standardised and life could be so much more simple. I should like to hear why upon this earth that it isn't actually possible without having to listen to the usual nonsense about TOC's, regulations, unions, credentials or indeed complete lack of common sense. As for, "Tin hat on and searching for a trench.", if you have something to say get on and state your truth, that is what I have just done. Gibbo.

Hi There, My motorbike has got a yaw damper for similar reasons, those being high frequency oscillations when the front tyre is only just making contact with the road surface under acceleration nullifying the effect of the castor angle: I made the components from aluminium and then TIG welded it all together, what was I thinking !!! Gibbo.

Gandalf seems to like it: Gibbo,

I think the grey would be best.

Hi Jim, Ha ! Ha! Large logo livery ? Gibbo.

The above photographs shew just why the premium apprenticeship system worked, all modern stuff is now scoped, specified. and designed by people that, through no fault of their own, think that sitting in an office and doing sums using a box of magic switches is engineering. The welding technique used in the video of Newton Aycliffe was of the MAG process in which the filler material is used as the conductor for the welding current and is fed into the weld deposition area shrouded by a gas that contains both anti oxidising agents and/or alloying agents depending upon the grade of alloy used. Ultra sonic testing is used for crack detection although the precise nature of the weld preparation edges and weld penetrations along with component shapes will have to be studied before any reliable trace may be used to indicate a structurally sound weld. Ultra sonics will indicate areas of metal fatigue in that the trace will become rather diffuse and not send back reflections of the back side of the component due to micro cracking scattering the signal. This course of action may not be possible due to the likely axis of the cracks and the orientation and access issues with regard the sections and shapes involved. Frilling holes at the end of cracks was also tried on the class 40 bogies and didn't work overly well with them either ! I would whole heartedly agree with your entire post only to add that the welding of aluminium is made even more difficult by way of contamination due to any dissolved salts carried into the cracked areas by rainwater washed mud into the cracks. No doubt one of the reasons the 158 had large sections cut out and replaced was to get to areas that had not suffered micro-cracking an such contamination. What I would also add is that should anyone read a little more deeply into fracture mechanics you will find that alloys of aluminium are especially prone to brittle fracture. Even more so once they have been subject to work hardening stresses such as have the weld areas about which the great big lever that is the yaw damper bracket is attached to. The length of that bracket as a force multiplier is quite something as far a piece of poor design is concerned, as is the area to which it is attached which ought to have either a casting or better yet a forging of greater proportion welded into the body side to bolster the forces. The method of building trains in the way the 800's have been constructed is to me inherently dangerous as the longitudinal welds offer a perfect "Pea Pod" stress raise in which the entire structure could easily unzip in a crash. Worse still the brittle fracture characteristics of aluminium as were shewn in the method of failure of the structure of the DVT involved in the Great Heck incident. From what I can see of the construction process in the various videos posted, the sections that are welded seem to have a single pass 12-15mm single vee butt weld holding them together, even with a similar weld on the back side of the extruded section, the cross section of weld material will be less than the section of the extrusions joined. I would guess that the grade of aluminium used is 5083 as it is suitable for both welding and extrusion and does not require heat treatment after welding. https://www.aalco.co.uk/datasheets/Aluminium-Alloy-5083-0-H111-Sheet-and-Plate_149.ashx Gibbo.

Hi Chaps, Just to clarify terms used for the posh trucks that passengers sit in you need to appreciate that the terms used came originally from horse drawn road vehicles as adapted by the likes of the Stockton and Darlington railway, and more deliberately the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. The carriage is the framing that supports the coach, think gun carriage, and in the more modern railway terminology, the underframe, with the coach being the fancy wooden box with seats that keeps the rain off the passengers. Strangely with respect to Pullman cars and their sumptuously fitted out coach bodies, the Pullman Car Company referred to their vehicles as underframes by way of the term car which the truncated form of carriage. Here is an early type of coach mounted upon a railway carriage as used by the L&MR. Gibbo.

Hi Dave, You could do the extremes of blue and yellow panels with one of these, there are others if you follow the, "Blue Small Yellow Panel" link under the photograph: https://www.railcar.co.uk/images/20881 This is the only yellow drivers door unit in the Derby lightweight section: https://www.railcar.co.uk/images/9392 I may one day apply transfers ! Gibbo.

Hi Dave, I would be careful of assuming that the other half of the unit would be the same for if you look through the railcar photos there does seem be be quite a few blue-green combinations. Gibbo.

Hi Dave, The full yellow ends including cab doors was a short lived paint scheme that was around in the late 1960's and early 1970's. It didn't last long and only units that were being painted at that time were treated so finding out which units and what numbers is a tricky one. I have found M79610 on railcar.co.uk with this paint job. Gibbo

Дорогoи Друзья, С днем победы! Гиббою

Hi Metroland, The overalls provided were made from drill cotton which dyed dark indigo blue as denim jeans still are today. In time and after a lot of hot washes they would eventually end up almost white, again in the way stonewash jeans look, I would suggest any colour that looks like any degree of fade of denim would do well enough. The other thing to note is that any one pair of overalls would not necessarily be of the same exact shade to another. Gibbo.

Hi Benard, Considering that 10000/1 had the same power unit and ostensibly similar traction equipment as the class 40's it does seem strange that EECo. managed to build a locomotive 5.5 tons heavier ten years later. Should that the bogies that were developed for Deltic have been used along with a shorter body and a reduction of the thickness of the body skin sheets the class 40's could have been quite different especially that DP2 came in at 105 tons again with the same basic power unit. The only thing that stopped BR from uprating the power unit in the class 40's was that the bogies would have suffered cracks to an even greater extent than they did anyway. Gibbo.

Hi Folks, Here are some bells for you: Gibbo.