DK123GWR

16 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

Looks as if someone's done a conversion, a pretty good one by appearances but why?

A faster and more powerful alternative to a 153? Perhaps for stopping services on fast lines with some very lightly used stations, or where trains from a small branch line have to run some distance along a faster/busier mainline?

Or in model terms, for someone who only has space for single car units, but wants a change from their 121/2/53?

2 hours ago, KeithMacdonald said:

And now pop-pickers, it's The Best Of Fear-Porn (Top Of The Pops) 1966 to 2019

 

Perhaps we could add 40 degree summers? Oh, wait...

The rates at which sea levels are rising has almost doubled since 1993. I'm not sure why the main focus of diplomats from the South Pacific would be rising sea levels unless they really were an existential threat (in the most literal sense) to their nations.

The Arctic may not have had an ice free summer yet, but ice coverage has reduced by 40% since 1979. It will happen.

Or perhaps I've missed the point and we're supposed to be laughing at the ignorance of whoever wrote this? I apologise if this is the case, but my sense of humour is weakened somewhat by the real-world consequences.

On 20/07/2022 at 15:47, Hroth said:

Our old chums Rocket Railways?

 

This one's a hoot too!

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/393907529237

If this were on a deliberately old-fashioned layout depicting a freelance railway (perhaps narrow gauge), I don't think it would look out of place, especially if those sliding doors do work. I wouldn't expect to sell it for this money, simply because anyone building such a layout would probably prefer to build their own stock, and I've no interest in buying it myself, but I think some here are being a little harsh.

6 hours ago, The Black Hat said:

That GWR livery is one that is well designed and will sit on just about anything and look quite good

The pictures make it look much better than it is in real life, but an Oxfordshire bus operator has identified a possible counterexample.

Are these really that mad? Yes, they're low-quality kit builds, but the price doesn't seem too ridiculous for useable parts that could probably be re-bashed.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/134153164361?hash=item1f3c26d649%3Ag%3AwlAAAOSw7lRisu1i&LH_BIN=1

Perhaps this is a decimal point error, but even then it would be £42.95!

The loco-tender connection on these models is the worst I have experienced. The nut has broken on mine too (I have tried and failed to fix this), and its a nightmare trying to get the spring in the right place to put it back together. The mechanism is decent when it's in good shape though (unfortunately the gears on mine have disintegrated) and it's quite good looking considering the age of the tooling.

I don't have mine to hand but I don't think there's a way to get a tool in to grip the nut. Perhaps the best approach would be to cut the screw, bodge a new mechanical-only coupling, and then find a two pin plug and socket to wire the loco to the tender. I would probably have a go myself over the summer if not for the aforementioned gear train issues.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/403706205494?hash=item5dfec3d536%3Ag%3ATqoAAOSwXCNioNsL&LH_All=1

Surely this is not normal? £20 for an X04?

18 minutes ago, Les1952 said:

Wheels that should be flanged on the prototype are, and these wheels are NOT of reduced size or reduced flanges, meaning traction isn't reduced.

It wouldn't be anyway. The weight on the driving axles is identical, whether it is all on the first and last axles or shared evenly across all of them. Frictional force is determined only by the normal reaction force (the weight, when on a flat surface) and the coefficient of friction (which is determined by the materials). The area making contact is irrelevant. In case you doubt the physics, Sam has done an investigation which illustrates the point in the context of model railways.

50 minutes ago, Hroth said:

All I know about Philosophers....

 

 

 

39 minutes ago, J. S. Bach said:

This whole thread is turning into spam.

And on that note:

23 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

That's the best joke I've read on here for some time, and that's a fact.

If you add the word 'exclusively' to the first sentence then it's pretty much spot on. Suppose that an evil supervillain rules over the world and is killing anyone who is right handed (the exact reasons they do this are not significant). If we only pay attention to empirically grounded, falsifiable facts then all that we can say is that 'a person rules over the world and is killing all right-handed people'.

What we cannot say is that the person is evil or a supervillain (for the same reasons) or that what they are doing is wrong and that it would be better if they were not able to do this. We cannot say that they ought to be stopped, nor that whoever did stop them would be worthy of praise. Clearly, the empirical facts are important, but unless we are also able to make normative judgements about them (and about counterfactual situations), the facts are rather useless.

One might also ask how you can argue that facts are important and opinion is not without resting it on some sort of opinion which cannot be empirically tested. Such an argument would not be sufficient to establish the conclusion, for reasons which I hope are obvious.

28 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

I came across this item about a possible replacement for the 08 diesel shunter.

https://www.railwaygazette.com/uk/class-08-locomotive-replacement-concept-unveiled/61795.article?ID=z9xqh~9ntftt~nzqxhz~W4ik~Ky0gk&utm_campaign=RG-RBUK-RG Smartrail - 090622-JM&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_content=RG-RBUK-RG Smartrail - 090622-JM&adredir=1&adredir=1

It uses a single bogie from a redundant/scrapped SD-40 (class 59). I wonder if a similar locomotive could be built using a British bogie?

Though silly, the idea of using a 1-Co bogie seems strangely appealing.

On 31/05/2022 at 22:16, AlfaZagato said:

University class?

I doubt there would have been enough universities in SR territory at the time to name an entire class of locomotives after. At the outbreak of WW2 you have Reading and London. I would guess that the Southern also reached Oxford and Bristol over GWR routes. That's 2-4 locomotives.

59 minutes ago, 6990WitherslackHall said:

Or College class perhaps?

By 1932, the University of London had (according to Wikipedia):

Birbeck, UoL

Courtauld Institute of Art

Goldsmiths, UoL

KCL

LSE

London School of Hygeine and Tropical Medicine

Queen Mary UoL

Royal Holloway, UoL

Royal Veterinary College

St George's, UoL

School of Oriental and African Studies

UCL

Bedford College

Imperial

New College London

Richmond Theological College

School of Slavonic and East European Studies

Westfield College

Wye College

The Institute of Archeology would be added in 1937. The 19 or 20 here should be sufficient for a class about half the size of the Schools, so you might need to top up from another university if you want more names (Oxford is the obvious choice, geographically speaking).

The GWR named at least two locomotives after Oxford Colleges (Saint Edmund Hall and Lady Margaret Hall)* which has sparked two random thoughts:

a) Were there any others (on the GWR or elsewhere)?

b) How common are examples locomotives on different (standard gauge, mainline) railways having the same name at the same time? The LMS Coronation and streamlined LNER B17 (both named City of London) come to mind.

*There's also St Benet's Hall, but that's technically a PPH rather than a college

26 minutes ago, rockershovel said:

Have you not yet understood that the purpose of electrification of road travel, is to reduce it substantially? 

 

What possible reason is there, to believe that electric road vehicles  and their associated support structure will ever be generally affordable, or capable of the sustained use hydrocarbon ones are capable of? 

 

Browsing around over the weekend  I turned up three separate advertisements for electric car subscription services; try it, it's an instructive exercise. No 2 Son told me that Jaguar Land Rover regarded that as the future market for their cars; he has since left them for a start-up company producing modular electric transmissions  - but for commercial vehicles, personal cars are no part of their development programme. 

 

A friend's son is training as a "local driver" - which is to say, a driver who meets platooned convoys of semi-robotic lorries at way stations and drives them the last few miles, this presently being regarded as more trouble than it is worth to automate. His employer "wants to be ready". 

 

The future of travel will be very different from the present. 

 

 

 

Plus, as I understand it, rubber-tyred vehicles are necessarily less efficient than (well-designed) rail vehicles due to the energy lost deforming the tyres. Tyres are also a massive source of particulate polution (including numerous toxins and carcinogens), so electric vehicles would still make a big contribution to worsening air quality.

11 minutes ago, KingEdwardII said:

There are folk in the UK who I consider "professional protesters", who seem to do nothing else other than protest against major infrastructure projects. It pretty well does not matter what the project is, nor how necessary the project may be. "Rent a riot" will turn up and cause varying degrees of mayhem around the project, doing nothing other than increase project costs.

 

Yours,  Mike.

Nobody is getting rich from protesting. Protest is a political tactic used by the side with less resources against a more powerful group. If I had enough money to 'rent a riot' (which would be a quite substantial amount - everyone can earn the minimum wage, so I would have to pay at least that plus a premium for the risks involved to protestors multiplied by the number of people I hire) and I wanted political influence, I would spend that money on PR campaigns and lobbying. It would be far more cost effective. The only reason that you would protest is because you don't have the money or social connections for any other option. I think it's therefore reasonable to assume that most protestors are there because they really believe in the cause.*

It may be the case that people who are already wealthy and well-educated are more likely to be regular protestors, but this is because they are able to support themselves on a reduced (or no) income, so they are able to dedicate their time to supporting causes they believe in. This option simply isn't available to people on the poverty line, no matter how strongly they believe in something, because they need to work a full-time job (or several jobs) just to keep themselves alive.

*Yes, there are some people who are thugs out to cause trouble, but that shouldn't be used to discredit the majority who are sincere about their intentions, just as the fact that there are some thugs who go out to cause trouble at football matches shouldn't be used to discredit regular supporters.

18 minutes ago, JeffP said:

They also turn up for royal celebrations watched on the world stage.

Which makes sense. If you are a protest group trying to punch above your weight in terms of economic and social resources then you need to stay in the headlines. In reality, most people aren't active citizens so the only way that you can get their attention is by disrupting something they're interested in, whether that's traffic, a football match, or the jubilee. A group whose intention is to run a sustained campaign of civil disobedience until sufficient action is taken to address their concerns would be failing if it didn't show up for an event as big as this.

32 minutes ago, Hilux5972 said:

Are we to be allowed to hear the sounds of these locos yet? 

Be patient! It's good Manors!

6 minutes ago, Michael Hodgson said:

The Western Region didn't see fit to prefix the official title of Paddington Station with the word "London" in timetables etc. 

 

Many years ago at Exeter a friend (not a railway employee) took exception to the arrogant manners of an American in a hurry who yelled at him "Oi you!   Is this the train to London?" pointing at the HST which was due to depart imminenetly.  So he calmly gave the technically correct reply "No, that's only going to Paddington.  This train over here is going to London Waterloo."

It's now announced as 'London Paddington' though and the signs on the platforms say the same (or they did the last time I went). The real dissapointment though (for the tourist) is that they would have emerged right next to all of the parts of London they wanted to see, so had no reason to use the Underground.

22 minutes ago, 21C123 said:

I also find that the circuit trips when running older Hornby diesels through a PECO single slip, the wheel shorts as it crosses the crossing, is there a way to delay the short circuit protection or set it higher ?

This is probably in part down to back-to-back measurements being out. The 'right' solution is probably to fix that rather than fiddle with the short-circuit protection (even though the latter could possibly work - I just don't know how you would do it).

Dear thread,

I win.

Kind regards,

DK

P.S. My sister believes that (all) trains have steering wheels. Even she could tell you this is wrong. Why don't they give her an apprenticeship?

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/134133502350?hash=item1f3afad18e%3Ag%3Ai9YAAOSwwDlilOrH&LH_BIN=1

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/175291193936?hash=item28d02b5a50%3Ag%3A45cAAOSwP2liEPwG&LH_All=1

So I get to bid in an auction when trying to buy one item against somebody who wants a different item? Hmm...

I suppose that the first question is: what type of Sodor do you want?

I think there's a spectrum really from 'fairytale' Sodor, where steam goes on forever as the dominant form of motive power and what exists in the 21st Century is essentially a giant network of heritage railways (albeit with higher speed limits), to a 'gritty' Sodor in the style of Corbs' Sudrian Histories, with more heavy industry. You also have options for how much modernisation has taken place.

At the fairytale end, all trains probably finish at Barrow where you can change onto mainland services. The Sudrian network will be largely independent, with a few railtours running through. The steam locomotives will likely continue in similar roles to those they had been in during the mid 20th Century (albeit with freight locomotives shifted over to passenger work). If there is any diesel traction then it will probably be a mixture of preserved locomotives (surely including Bo-Co), and perhaps there is a DMU which runs from Manchester once or twice each day. Any freight heading for the mainland would also be diesel hauled, and managed by a national FOC.

If we go for modernised Sodor, and assume that some freight flows continue into the 21st century, then I would imagine that a national FOC (probably EWS at this time) would be responsible for them, using their normal locomotives. Perhaps the NWR took advantage of Sprinterisation to buy up redundant first generation DMUs (108s and 121s, for example) which are now used on regular passenger services Perhaps there was money provided to give the NWR sprinters and pacers. It is likely that many of the preserved steam locomotives were among the group made famous by Awdry's writing - and given how many of these were unique in some way it makes sense from a national perspective as well. Some of the branch lines may be operated in much the same way as real heritage railways, using the smaller engines, while the larger locomotives might be used on a service similar to The Jacobite running the length of the island twice each day.

We could also go gritty without much modernisation, though it seems unlikely that the NWR would have been quite so neglected. It is likely that Sodor as a whole has become very poor, with most people living in poverty relative to those on the mainland. Here the network is badly run-down and heavily rationalised. The railway is still struggling on with mostly the same fleet of locomotives that it had fifty years ago, though they are now all far beyond their expected lifespans. Perhaps the bridge to Barrow was damaged and the money was not there to repair it, leaving Sodor isolated from the rest of Britain. Whether a train turns up is down mostly to luck, with the railway having descended completely into confusion and delay.

Before going further, you need to have a think about what sort of place you want Sodor to be, because that will have an enourmous effect on how the railway operates.

9 hours ago, john new said:

Difficult to post without being political, but some form of internationally agreed import tariff on goods from countries with low wages, no pensions, no H&S legislation, no decent affordable health care, etc., etc., would be a big start. It isn't just the industries you think of, ask anyone in Keynsham, Bournville or York about the lost confectionery works. Then again look at the way domestically  our hospitality trade and shop/retail workers are shafted at home in the UK and you realise those in power appear to like it the way it is.

 

Or better, some form of internationally agreed minimum for wages, pensions, H&S standards, affordable healthcare, etc., etc.

Obviously, that sort of reform will never come about through top-down processes, but that doesn't make it any less desireable.

54 minutes ago, ISW said:

If you'd cut the end of the board off, you'd have lost the fixings at that end as well. I sort of assumed you had a 'plan' to reattach the circuit board using glue / tape / etc.

The board has four holes but only two screws. I would have moved the screw at the end to be cut off to the other ends so that it is still fixed rigidly in position, then taped it near this end to prevent it from bending upwards when clumsily catching the end of the board.

58 minutes ago, ISW said:

When I've hard wired a decoder (adding DCC to an old non-DCC locomotive) I've only put resisters at 'one end' and put the LEDs in parallel, as you say, but I was using discreet wired components not SMDs. However, it seems that most manufacturers duplicate these SMDs on their RTR locomotives. I'm guessing there must be a good reason?

Tidiness (not having loose wires running the length of the loco) could perhaps be one reason, but of course there are other, more technical possibilities too. Hopefully someone else will know a little more about the specific components in use.

29 minutes ago, ISW said:

Yes, these are associated with the operation of the end LEDs and reducing the voltage down to ~3v.

But since these components are duplicated for the lights at the other end, the p.d. accross the solder tabs there should only be ~3V. So, providing the wires in the circuit board (and those components) are able to take the additional current from running two sets of LEDs, perhaps this isn't an issue?

As you say, shifting the PCB may be an easier option so long as it can be fixed into place, but this probably won't be too hard to do. The only thing which might prevent it is the location of the speaker.