KingEdwardII

Even now, after Covid has rearranged the timetable, there are commuter trains from Winchester to Waterloo that are expresses - they don't stop between those stations. This reflects how big a deal commuting is for that route. The route is 4 track from Basingstoke to Waterloo, with separate fast and slow lines, supporting long distance express running. This is very different to the lines to, say, Portsmouth and Chichester, which are 2 track only. The fastest times are 1 hour. Places like Peterborough and Didcot have shorter journey times to London. Peterborough has long since been a serious commuter town, while Didcot is now growing rapidly on the back of its excellent rail service to London. Any journey time less than 1 hour seems to be attractive to commuters. Yours, Mike.

I agree - as an example, the houses in Winchester that are in walking distance of the station sell for a premium, due to demand from commuters. Winchester as a whole has higher house prices than places further out. However, there are folk who are prepared to live further away from the station they use to commute - several people in my village are prepared to put up with the 10 mile trek to Winchester to enjoy the rural tranquillity and open space here. It all depends on your priorities in life. Yours, Mike.

My view is that an amazing number of small stations DID have goods sheds. As an example, all but the very smallest stations on the East Somerset & Cheddar Valley railways (Yatton to Witham via Wells, in Somerset) had a goods shed. Cranes were also a very common item in the goods yards, as were loading docks. Yours, Mike.

Yes, indeed, that is the photo I was referring to. It is definitely on the "Low Level" ex-TVR line from Aberdare to Abercynon. I remember the spot from my own journeys in the DMU from Aberdare Low Level to Cardiff, due to the peculiar arrangement of trees that you can just make out behind the loco - there is a group of dead ones that I think were killed by waterlogging, possibly as a result of land subsidence (very common occurrence in mining districts like this). The caption has the geography of the Cynon valley correct - Mountain Ash is down the valley from Abercwmboi, to the south and east. The infamous Phurnacite plant is out of sight to the right of the photo. The same book has a photo of a pair of 2-8-0Ts tackling a loaded coal train on Glyn-Neath bank, part of the Neath - Pontypool GWR line. Both of those are smokebox first. Yours, Mike

Hmm. I have a photo of a 2-8-2T heading a coal train down the ex-TVR branch in the Aberdare valley near Aberaman, less than a mile from where we used to live. This one was smokebox first. There were some beefy locos like the 2-8-0s and 2-8-2Ts allocated to Aberdare shed, although I expect that many of these were used on the Neath-Pontypool line where the gradients were not as friendly as on the lines heading down the valleys to the coastal ports. Another thing to bear in mind is that there were plenty of long-distance coal trains, which did not go to the South Wales ports. These needed longer range and more powerful locos than the 0-6-2Ts. Indeed, many 2-8-0Ts were converted to 2-8-2Ts largely to service this type of train, having greater range by means of the enlarged bunker. Yours, Mike.

Hmm, station parking in our part of Hampshire can be at least as eye-wateringly expensive, so the train does not have so much of an advantage there. £10 a day is not unusual. The alternative for us is a taxi since buses don't go within a mile of our home. Admittedly, there are stations elsewhere with more reasonable charges - Alnmouth in Northumberland last week was a snip at £1.50 for the day. Yours, Mike.

Ahem, that URL in the advert "alphagraphixkits.co.uk" IS the website address - most modern browsers don't need the "https://" at the left in order to get the home page of the site. Less typing for you!! Yours, Mike.

Let's hope they do a better job than the South West main line near Hook ;-)

I use electrical FLEX cable for my bus cabling. 2.5mm2 and 1.0mm2 are readily available and relatively inexpensive. This works out cheaper than specialist model railway cabling. For a small layout like yours, the smaller size will be adequate, since voltage drop will be negligible over the cable runs you are going to have. Yours, Mike.

Hmm, that is by no means true and it would be a dangerous assumption to make. Computer PSUs can supply a wide range of voltages, some as high as 20V or more. The USB power supply standard, as used on my computer, can provide 5V, 9V, 15V or 20V, for example - and there are later versions of the USB standard that provide for even higher voltages. Similarly wide ranges of output current apply to these PSUs - my computer can draw 100W - 5amps @ 20V, for example. The only way to be sure with a particular PSU is to check out its specification in some detail. Yours, Mike.

Sadly, that seems to be true - and in my view this reflects the reasons for the decline of Britain relative to many other advanced economies: the opposition to development and new technologies. Yours, Mike.

Interesting, but it does not match my experiences. The money quote is that passenger traffic is 3.5M per week against an expected 2M, which sounds like a wild success to me. That it is busy in the rush hour is no surprise and let us note the design of the trains, which provides for a *lot* of standing room. Compared with typical tube services, I think that Elizabeth line looks pretty attractive. The timings from Paddington to Canary Wharf are 17mins with a train every 6 mins - and this is not yet the full final service on the line, which should have double the frequency of trains! A commute from Didcot looks like a doddle to me... Yours, Mike.

Didcot has been expanding for years on the back of its superb rail service to London - fastest services to Paddington are 40 mins in the morning. This is way shorter than the time taken from Winchester to Waterloo - and Winchester has been prime commuting territory for many, many years. The only surprise for me is that Didcot has not got a lot bigger a lot faster. The new Elizabeth line connecting Paddington to Canary Wharf only makes things yet more attractive... Yours, Mike.

They certainly do for the units that operate down to Southampton & beyond - several of the stations south & west of Basingstoke have short platforms and yet are regular stopping points for the 10-coach trains through to Bournemouth. Yours, Mike.

Small correction - it's Glanypwll. Sorry, but the mistake grated with me. In Welsh, "pwll" == pool or pond, "glanypwll" == "shore of the pool".

Indeed - I can't see many people who have an Android phone going out and buying an Apple smartphone just for their model railway. I certainly would not. Yours, Mike.

Yes, it is doable, but liquifying Hydrogen comes with a horrendous cost in terms of the energy required to do it. This simply makes the Hydrogen that much more expensive at the other end, since the energy must be paid for. There are no magic solutions here. Yours, Mike.

Yes, except that transporting Hydrogen long distances is technically very challenging and also very costly in terms of energy. My own view is that Hydrogen is likely to be a niche player only in future energy provision. Yours, Mike.

It might translate to some of the cities in the UK, most particularly London, where owning a car can be problematic and is not a necessity. My son lives on the edge of Wimbledon with his partner and they do not own a car. They use public transport a lot, but for more difficult journeys will hire a zip car as needed. Once you get outside the major cities, things change radically. It is never going to be practical to provide enough public transport in rural areas. Without cars, many villages and rural small towns would be dead. It would take a lot of changes to make the journey from my house in Hampshire to my wife's family in Northumberland practical by any means other than a car, for example. The 10 miles at each end between the station and the house is tricky, let alone the hassle of crossing London, makes the train option both difficult and expensive. Yours, Mike.

I do this with my DR4018 decoders and MTB MP1 motors - but there is 1 motor for each turnout in the crossover and each motor has its own switch for handling the frog polarity, so this is handled naturally for each turnout. So both turnouts operate at the same time using a single command to one channel on the DR4018. Yours, Mike.

I think that conservationists sometimes forget what "nature red in tooth & claw" is really like. A couple of years ago a local nature lover got really upset about the arrival of Red Kites in our area, because they started eating some of the small birds, which he definitely did not like. That the Red Kites were native birds that we humans had exterminated in the past seemed to be forgotten - and the Red Kites were only doing what they had always been doing. Top predators eat lots of prey - surprise, surprise! I just wish the Red Kites had crow on the menu - we have a local plague of those and some reduction in numbers would be appreciated... Yours, Mike.

Looks like that layout would demand a few sheep to go with "Bopeep Junction"...

There is nothing new in this kinf of design error. I remember the IBM mainframe computers in the 1980s had a main panel with a large red button in the middle for "emergency off", which would shut down the machine. Every installation I came across had added a safety cover over this button - usually an ingeniously taped-on small box - so that you could not directly press the button, but had to lift off the cover first. The cost of mistakenly pushing this button, e.g. during the weekly payroll run, was rather high... Yours, Mike.

Not boring - just quietly efficient, doing what it says on the tin... ...that is what you really want from any transport system. Yours, Mike.

Hurrah! About time. No more awkward lengthy walks to change trains at Paddington and Liverpool Street... so just one more step and we shall be complete, next spring with the direct Shenfield to Heathrow services. I'm looking forward to that since I travel from west London to Stratford for sports events. Yours, Mike.