RLBH

That sounds like the Clyde, Ardrishaig and Crinan Railway of 1887, which was to run from Hunter's Quay to Newton Bay on the Cowal Peninsula, with a ferry to Furnace, then a line from Furnace to Lochgilphead and Crinan via a junction at Kilmichael Glassary, with new piers at Hunter's Quay, Newton Bay, Furnace and Crinan. A description of that line may be found on the Scottish Law Commission website in conjunction with the repeal of the 1892 Act formally abandoning it. The Rural Transport Committee didn't consider a railway in the Crinan area at all, only commenting on improvements to the road service in the area. They do briefly mention a proposal to improve the Crinan Canal to a single-lock ship canal at a cost of £1 million, but only in the context of it being outside their remit.

It's one of those situations where, if you think the solutions are expensive, just wait until you see the cost of not solving the problems!

That's a different proposal for Skye – the 1898 Hebridean Light Railway Company proposed a branch to Uig that the Rural Transport Scotland Committee didn't even consider, and their proposals for Lewis were very different. The 1890 West Highland Royal Commission considered something different again for Skye and Lewis.

The Rural Transport (Scotland) Committee of 1918-1920 has come up now and again. I've managed to get a copy of their two reports - the main report published in 1919, and a supplementary report from 1920 - through the National Library of Scotland's online resources. It makes rather interesting reading, and some of the things that have been claimed about it turn out not to be entirely true. Equally, some of the things it recommended were rather interesting! In general, standard gauge was to be preferred where a connection to existing railways exists, to preserve the benefits of through running. One point which I didn't think of is that this extends to locomotives - it allows the light railway's locomotives to access the main works, whereas a narrow-gauge line would need to provide its' own works. Where no connection to the main line network was possible, narrow gauge was expected to be cheaper, and whilst 2'6" gauge was preferred a considerable quantity of 60cm gauge equipment was available as war surplus. Baldwin 4-6-0 and Alco 2-6-2 locomotives were particularly liked, and conversion of War Department covered goods wagons to passenger coaches was proposed. The ex-War Department narrow-gauge 20lb rail was considered too light, however, and the Committee proposed 45lb rails for narrow-gauge lines. Surplus 75lb flat-bottomed rail was thought to be well suited to the standard gauge lines. The actual lines would be laid alongside existing roads and left unfenced where possible, running at low speed (25mph, in keeping with the Light Railway Act) to permit this. Passengers would board carriages from the ends, dispensing with platforms, and fares collected on board, dispensing with booking offices and their associated clerks. Indeed, halts were not to have any buildings at all except possibly a goods shed. Signalling, too, would be dispensed with - all lines except that from Culrain to Lochinver would be worked by one locomotive in steam. Of course, what we really want is the list of lines. There are some notes on the route in the text, though this is usually rather vague. As noted above, they would have followed the existing roads as closely as possible. The lines actually proposed, between the two reports issued by the Committee, were as follows: Standard Gauge, total 252.5 miles Alford to Bellabeg, 19¼ miles Ballater to Braemar, 17 miles Turriff to Maud, 21½ miles Fraserburgh to New Aberdour, 9 miles Falkland, 3 miles - this was a separate prewar project not formally included in their recommendations Stranraer to Drummore, 14½ miles Parton to Dalmellington, 28 miles Pinwherry to Ballantrae, 8 miles Balfron to Fintry, 8 miles Garve to Ullapool, 33 miles Conon Bridge to Cromarty, 18 miles Culrain to Lochinver, 40 miles Lybster to Dunbeath, 8 miles Thurso to Scrabster, 2 miles Nigg to Portmahomack, 12 miles Muirtown Basin to Loch Ness steamer quay, ⅓ mile Gifford to Beltonford Sidings, 11 miles Narrow Gauge, total 173 miles Whiting Bay to Blackwaterfoot, 20 miles Stornoway to Barvas with branches to Carloway and Ness, 40 miles Ardvasar to Dunvegan with branch to Kyleakin, 75 miles Dunoon to Strachur, 21 miles Beauly to Invercannich, 17 miles A reasonably substantial number of other lines were considered but rejected. These were often reiterations of previous light railway proposals, some of which had been fairly well progressed but had fallen at one hurdle or another. Among the more notable proposals which were rejected were updated versions of the Highland Railway's lines to Aultbea, Laxford Bridge and Melvich, a line from Inveraray to either Arrochar or Dalmally, and a line from Campbeltown to Tarbert. Others were clearly pie in the sky concepts that the Committee was being very polite in even considering. Railways were generally rejected due to lack of traffic, although in a few cases the Committee felt that a railway might be viable but no practical proposal for one had been made. In many such cases the Committee recommended improvements to roads or road goods service - to be operated by the railways as a kind of low-cost branch line - and hoped that demand might be stimulated to the point where it justified a railway.

I'd like to see the traffic wardens try to clamp it or tow it!

Hey, I didn't say it was a good idea, only that it could probably be made to work. Plenty of bad ideas have been implemented with some degree of success because someone thought it worthwhile. Thinking about it, multiple working of steam locos just gets you an articulated duplex with separate boilers for each engine.

Given the existence of push-pull systems for steam locos, I imagine it could probably be done by someone sufficiently demented. Probably the result of the Midland trying to make pairs of Compound 4-4-0s more economical still on large trains.. Fireman on each loco, driver only on the lead unit?

It seems that they didn't, or at least not very well. It also had a nasty habit of freezing up entirely during the winter months.

On the subject of wacky coal wagons, Burlington Northern's Trough Train warrants a mention: Yup, that's a 13-unit articulated coal hopper. Or rather, 23 of them in one train, because that's what happens when North American railroads and King Coal meet. You definitely won't get that under the screens in the Welsh Valleys.

Living in a second-floor flat, my garden railway musings are largely unconstrained by considerations such as the available land. I've realised that an N-gauge garage sized track plan will take up a large garden if modelled in 45mm gauge. Almost exactly the size of my shared back court, in fact. I'm not sure that the owners of the other eleven flats would agree that it's a fortunate coincidence. Coming the other way, a CJF 00-gauge plan built to the original sizes but in N gauge will take care of points growing over 50 years and mitigate the issue of cramming lots of track into a layout. In N, it's the same amount of track, but it's not nearly so overcrowded!

The numbers will always be the important part, but branding gets your firm a chance to present its' numbers. Granted, if I've got two hundred thousand tonnes of coal to move from Gascoigne Wood to Didcot, I'm never really going to look anywhere other then the railway and due diligence means that I'll send out the RFQ to all the usual candidates. For that kind of work, it really doesn't matter what colour the trains are painted, as long as they pick up and drop off the load at the appointed times. On the other hand, if I've got ten containers of widgets to be moved from Motherwell to Birmingham, my normal instinct might very well be to use a road haulier. If EWS (or whoever) can get me to notice them, I can request a brochure. If I like what I see in the brochure, I can invite them to submit a bid. And if it turns out to be a competitive tender, the branding helps create an image - a bold and dynamic brand will be treated very differently to a conservative, safe brand. Of course, an American department store owner did once say 'Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is, I don't know which half'.

In the days before continuous brakes, end, European and American railways provided a number of brakemen along the length of the train to set the brakes on their wagons in motion. I don't know if it was done much in the UK, although Ffestiniog gravity slate trains were worked this way. Obviously gives finer control than a brake van, but considerably more railwaymen to pay and rather worse conditions for them!

Steam and blue/grey coaches is one of those combinations that looks better than it has any right to, in my book at least!

The electrification study was published in (IIRC) 1937, and was predicated largely on trying to avoid high coal costs west of Newton Abbot. Similar considerations were behind the original GWR oil-firing scheme for the West Country (using war surplus fuel and facilities built for the Royal Navy) and I believe a scheme for diesel traction early in the BR years.

I don't know about 0-6-2s, but there were 0-8-2 and 0-10-2 tender locomotives used in North America for switching purposes. They were generally older 2-x-2s with the leading truck removed to increase weight on the drivers. Presumably the trailing truck was still needed to support a large firebox.

It may have been the influence of the landowner – Killiecrankie tunnel between Pitlochry and Perth is very shallow and could easily have been a cutting, but the Duke of Atholl didn't want a railway line spoiling the view. The resultant tunnel limits loading gauge on the Highland Main Line.

Extremely disappointing if that's the case - this was used once and then fell apart when I got it out for a second use.

This is because a gas turbine engine needs to run the compressor stage, which uses something like 70% of the power developed in the turbine stage at full power. As a consequence, even at idle the engine is running at about a 70% throttle setting yet produces no net power - it's all used up running itself.

Finally got around to starting construction on my layout yesterday, was soldering wires and track joints without any undue difficulty and no severely singed fingertips. Came back to finish the job today and found the tip of my iron, including attachment bolt, had come loose. There's no obvious means of attachment between the bolt and the iron itself - am I missing something or has the iron gone unserviceable? Hopefully this is an acceptable subforum for this question, it seemed most appropriate!

It's worth noting in this context some figures from the first Beeching report: in an average trip, a coal wagon spent 3.7 days in terminal working (loading and unloading), 1.7 days moving whilst loaded, and just 1.2 days moving whilst empty. Meanwhile, it spent 4 days sitting idle somewhere that wasn't either terminal!

Not terribly au fait with valve gear, but I would imagine that reducing reciprocating movement would be beneficial in terms of reducing wear and thereby keeping consistent valve events. I have a notion, though, that the main point was rotary valve gear allowing for more finely controlled valve events. I'm sure someone more knowledgable will correct me!

If the railways were (are?) anything like the Armed Forces, no disaster would have come without an opportunity. Someone worked out after the ATLANTIC CONVEYOR had been sunk in 1982 that the weight of all the equipment that various units claimed to have been lost aboard her was about four times the maximum capacity of the ship.

Bearing speed is also an issue in principle, but in practice the driving wheels don't see the highest bearing speed so won't normally be a limitation. There are of course a whole host of boiler and steam circuit issues. But if you hook a locomotive up to a rolling road with an effectively unlimited steam supply, eventually the piston speed will become a limit. I've got a very rough classification scheme for locomotives based on the ratio of driving wheel diameter to piston stroke, which is proportional to piston speed. It's a bit crude, but actually works quite well – there are clear ranges for express passenger and heavy freight locomotives, with a fairly fuzzy region in the middle for express freight and mixed traffic stuff.

In principle yes, provided the piston speed was kept low enough for the technology of the day. The other approach is duplex locomotives, which allow you to make a four-cylinder locomotive with all cylinders outside the wheels. Unfortunately the results have never been entirely satisfactory. I personally suspect that a simplex three- or four-cylinder version of any of the PRR duplexes would have worked equally well.

Large wheels have historically been needed to reduce the speed of reciprocating parts. Thisis partly because high piston speed makes lubrication difficult, which can be mitigated by having a shorter piston stroke. As lubricants improved, this became less of an issue. The other reason is vehicle dynamics. With two pistons at 90 degrees, there's always an unbalanced load due to the pistons and rods moving back and forth. This makes the locomotive surge, jump off the tracks, or do other exciting things that aren't good for it, the tracks, the train, and anything else that might be on the train. With three or more cylinders set up correctly, the horizontal and vertical unbalanced load due to reciprocating masses can be eliminated. In principle I think it works for two cylinders 180 degrees apart, though in that case you can't start the locomotive with the pistons at dead centre. To fully eliminate unbalanced loading, you need six cylinders. But I don't think anyone was that worried about balancing!