peterfgf

My understanding is that NBL failed to make the transition from steam locomotive building to diesel locomotives which needed a step change in engineering capabilities (machining, tolerances, material etc). I think they also failed to design and built the monocoque bodies required for the WR hydraulics which then came in seriously overweight. I suspect the warranty claims by the WR played a major part in them going out of business. I've just downloaded but not yet read this: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/331114601_Business_History_The_Decline_and_Fall_of_the_North_British_Locomotive_Company_1940-62_Technological_and_Financial_Mismanagement_or_Institutional_Failure Peterfgf

Excellent name for genie-rator van

I used Wago lever clamp connectors (or look-alikes). The clamping is secure and easy to use and very easy to lift the lvere to disconnect. I was seceptical until I tried them but I'm no going back to screw chocolate box type coecctors. Peterfgf

I had another look at the photos. The crack surfaces look corroded so the crack could have been present for some time.

Thtat's rather spectacular. Definitely a clean underpants moment.

It is a very odd failure mode. The circumferential stress is usually twice the longitudinal stress and high stresses should have blown the cylinder apart like a burst gun barrel. I suspect there is an unknown factor at work - corrosion or undiscovered casting defect. Unfortunately I think it means a new cylinder block but can't be sure at this distance. I don't really like metal-stitching (Metallock) on stressed parts - alright for holes in crankcases but not otherwise. Petertfgf

Guilty. My first car was a Ford 100E, 3-speed gearbox and no synchro on 1 to 2. Plus vacuum powered windscreen wipers which meant you had to change down a gear to clear the windscreen -a frequent need in rainy Derbyshire with dirt from the limestone wagons, especially Sam Longsons crawling up Topley Pike.

I remember seeing the early castings from HPC in his little shop in Market Street, Buxton. There was a long way to go with quality and deformation and I didn't expect to buy any. I've got a rake of the Hattons' ones which I'm very pleased with and will now get some loads for after reading the comments above.

Norfolk? NFN?

At the risk of side lining this story, when I lived in Newcastle-upon-Tyne I used to drink half and half, which I think was half of Exhibition and half of Scotch (think of the Blue Star rising over Newcastle). I loved Exhibition but it used to give me violent and very smelly farts. The mixture quelled that and I was then more or less acceptable company. Peterfgf

Thanks, your comment about her hull form explains a lot. Most ships have some flat bottom to allow blocks to be spaced out athwartships and I was wondering if perhaps she had a more rounded hull- unusual, there must have been a good reason. Peterfgf

I haven't had to use his expertise, but I can recommend his sounds. Peterfgf

Shipyards are assembly operations: welding big steel blocks and bolting down machinery to go inside the blocks. They only have one serious bit of engineering to do, the alignment of the main propulsion shafting. The trick is have as long and as flexible a shaft as possible with as few bearings as possible (but enough bearings to prevent whirling). Cruise ships and aircraft carriers come into this category and the alignment isn't too much of a problem if you know what you are doing. At the other end of the scale are tankers with slow-speed diesel engine right aft with a couple of shaft bearings with short stiff large diameter shafts and huge changes of hull deflections with draught. These come in the b. difficult category by any consideration and S.Korea and China are now well up the learning curve with these ships. . Lots can still go wrong though, especially with unusual wake fields and water lubricated/resin/plastic bearing materials. Unfortunately the problem (as reported- and it remains to be confirmed) is not too surprising. On the other hand, even when there was bags of experience around, Swan Hunters had propulsion shaft whirling problems on the Ark Royal and Illustrious (Tommy Wilkin and Strassheim of Swan Hunters had written one of the definitive papers on shaft alignment). Peterfgf

I rather like these but I thought Derbyshire/S.Yorks might be a bit far off their patch (unless Rule I is applied) but then I looked at the invaluable BR Database https://www.brdatabase.info/locoqry.php?action=class&id=601067&type=S&page=alloc and found the following allocations: 68497 Sheffield Darnall 41A, Sheffield Grimesthorpe 41B 68512 Staveley 38D, 38D 68523 Staveley 38D, Sheffield Darnall 39B 68530 Sheffield Darnall 41A, Staveley 41E Barrow Hill 68556 Langwith Junction 41J 68558 Staveley 38D 68569 Langwith Junction 41J, Sheffield Grimesthorpe 41B 68579 Heaton 52B 68586 Heaton 52B 68589 Staveley 38D 68591 Langwith Junction 41J, Staveley 41H 68592 Staveley 38D, 38D 68608 Staveley 38D 68616 Staveley 38D 68618 Sheffield Darnall 41A, Sheffield Darnall 39B 68621 Canklow 41D, Langwith Junction 41J 68623 Langwith Junction 41J 68632 Staveley 38D, 38D No excuses needed now. Perhaps one even migrated to the C&HPR in place of a NLR tank.... Peterfgf

Sounds like a certain company headquartered in Copenhagen. They didn't have ink tracks on the charts but they may as well have done. Peterfgf

The eccentric return should be fixed in its position relative to the wheel, at something like the position shown (but check whether it should be 90 degrees different). Its going to be difficult to get that screw out, so I would suggest a dab of solder or araldite on the head of the screw and on to the crank. Don't use cyanoacrylate as it will run and lock up the whole crankpin. Peterfgf

It's fitted with a Loksound micro v.5 chip with sounds by Wheeltappers - very good. The blanking plug looks like it may be a Next18. The default acceleration and deceleration times are very long: I've halved them as a start and may reduce them a bit further. I know its proto typical but... Peterfgf

See http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/c/cambridge/index12.shtml Peterfgf

The siding in Dorking Main station was relaid with brand new bullhead chairs and track a few years ago. Peterfgf

I had a moment of hope and thought they had produced a Class 124 Transpenine unit. Peterfgf

I used 3mm thick EPDM from Rubberstock in the Netherlands on top of 9mm birch ply baseboard. Grey, with adhesive tape on ones side. I glued the track directly to the top of the foam using Copydex. This has a good working time, grips the track well, dries clear and can be removed and reset if necessary. I'm more than happy with combination. Peterfgf

May I recommend "Titanic: A Fresh Look at the Evidence by a Former Chief Inspector of Marine Accidents" by John Laing, who takes a very measured approach to her sinking. Peterfgf

I would suggest looking at the Z21 site . There is lots of information and illustrations about connections, in particuoar look for "All connections of the black Z21 digital system" (or white) in the attached link. It's all pretty clear about how to do it and what can't be used. https://www.z21.eu/en/downloads/manuals Peterfgf

Concur the previous posters comments about using good quality decoders with a high current capacity on older models. I have a Craftsman MR 0-4-4T with an X04 motor and burned through a few el-cheapo decoders before reading the specifications more carefully to look for overload protection and high current capacity. Peterfgfd

The drive through the gears and through the coupling rods is not just poor design but a mechanical impossibility to get right, given the manufacturing tolerances. It might be possible to get the wheel diameters precisely all the same and precisely the correct diameter to correspond to the gear reduction but the engineering would cost you an awful lot of money. The only way to get these models right is to strip out the gears - -but I have read that might easier said than done. Peterfgf