KingEdwardII

The one at the GWSR that was recently restored looks spectacular. Makes me want to acquire one for my preservation-era layout. Yours, Mike.

Yes - and deliberately so. I think that it is dangerous. OK, some folk arrange to be able to tilt their baseboards through 90 degrees for work to take place. Others organise it so that anything that needs soldering can be removed from under the baseboard for the soldering to take place. I consider these reasonable approaches. Actually soldering under baseboards which are in position, I consider unwise. For work under baseboards, I strongly prefer either clamp or screw based systems. Yours, Mike.

First, I say - don't do ANY soldering under the baseboards. It's tricky and can be dangerous. It isn't necessary. The approach I have is as follows: - Bus wires traverse around underneath all the baseboards. 2 separate clour coded wires, in my case 2.5mm2 wires from mains flex - Connect wires of a smaller diameter to the bus wires as needed. The connection is made using "splice connectors", which are cheap, quick and easy, needing only a pair pliers to make the connection. I use 1.0mm2 wires for this. - These wires connect to terminal blocks - Multiple droppers to the track are connected to the other side of the terminal blocks, generally using small diameter wire (0.5mm2 or 0.25mm2) Various terminal block types have been discussed on this thread - screw type terminal blocks of small size are probably the cheapest, which use screws for fastening. Wago connectors are very simple to use, with each wire held in place by a lever mechanism, but they are a bit more expensive. Which type is best for you depends on how often you intend to make changes to the wiring. For me, it's mostly fit and forget, so the screw type blocks are what I use. Yours, Mike.

This may have been discussed a lot previously, but is Abbey Wood actually a good terminus for the Elizabeth line in the South East of London? Given that Canary Wharf is on this leg of the line, there surely has to be a lot of demand to use this route for commuters to get to/from both Canary Wharf and the City. Currently, Abbey Wood has a fairly limited service out to places like Dartford, Gravesend and the Medway towns. How is this meant to work once the Elizabeth line is open? I have seen that there have been consultations about extending the Elizabeth line eastwards in this area, but I have found information about this somewhat confusing. Any insight on this? Yours, Mike.

The way things are going, we may get a few more of those in order to keep the lights on!

Yes indeed - it can be seen in the following diagram of a horse hoof; I'm sure that it's the shape of the horse hoof frog that gives its name to the railway frog. Frankly, "frog" is a nice simple term which has a clear meaning in the model railway world. Yours, Mike.

Unfortunately, our rural location would have meant a rather soggy walk to the nearest pub - and our on-site clubhouse bar was closed at the time of the alarm. Else we too would have done the headcount in the bar!

Well, compare Euston with KX/St Pancras. There are North/South train lines there that give connections direct to a number of locations in South London and straightforward connections at Blackfriars and London Bridge to others. That's the kind of connectivity you'd hope for. Northern line from Euston to Waterloo is not great if you have luggage - I've done that a few times. I realise that Crossrail 2 was supposed to address some of the south west connectivity issues, but the current political situation makes that look as likely as a flying pig... Yours, Mike.

When the fire alarms went off at a random time in our buildings with 2000 staff (actually caused by a Freon escape, not a fire), we had a clockwork evacuation that worked to plan. The main downside was that it was pouring down and we all got rather damp outside. Cue much grumbling. Yours, Mike.

That's probably true if you have a lot of luggage, but (as with anything using the roads in central London, including buses) you're in the lap of the gods with respect to the length of time it will take. For the connection between Waterloo and St Pancras, I always use the tube, but I limit myself to roll-along luggage that will negotiate the escalators/lifts. Generally, the timing is predictable using the tube, although there can be failures, so I have 3 or 4 alternative routes that I know well. Yours, Mike.

London south of the river is dominated by the train network, so the underground is only a "necessary evil" as a way of reaching one or other of the rail termini which serve south London. Train - underground - train is really tedious, especially when you have luggage - I know since I have done many trips from Winchester to Brussels or Paris using the Eurostar. It is this arrangement of having to change twice that prompted my remark that it would take more time to get to/from Euston than it would to get from Euston to Birmingham on HS2. Check out a journey from Euston to say Croydon and you will see what I mean. Meanwhile the Victoria line gets you to - Victoria station. The Northern line gets you to Waterloo, Charing Cross and London Bridge. Yes, it's connected but it ain't fast and it certainly ain't easy. "Short" here is well over half a mile along a very busy road. Imagine doing that with luggage in the rain. Fortunately, there are tube lines which will get you there, but again, this is not particularly fast. I regard London not as a transport hub but more an obstacle course. Yours, Mike.

True, but somewhat irrelevant in that this figure is dominated by commuting and has little to do with long distance travel of the kind represented by HS2. It's no error - it is a fair comparision and one that does not make the UK situation look good. And maybe there is a lesson there. Doing things in the French way means lower costs - and actually better integration. OK, I can recognise some capacity problems in Birmingham, but Curzon Street is a poor solution - few folk actually live in the centre of Birmingham and it's an annoying trek from Curzon Street to New Street, which is the centre of the suburban services. Meanwhile the purpose built new Euston station still suffers from limited integration with the London transport network. Hmm, I've travelled a fair bit in those countries and in general their long distance services are considerably better than in the UK. As for local services, they have been pretty good in the places I've travelled. The local services around Munich, Berlin, etc, are excellent, for example. I would not care to hold up the UK as a great example of good local services, although there are some places which are reasonable. Yours, Mike.

To quote a certain tennis star "you cannot be serious". Getting around Britain by train is a slow business. High speed trains are a way of dealing with this, although in my eyes the current plans simply are not comprehensive enough nor well integrated and are myopically London-centric. Just look at the options for getting from where I live in the south (near Southampton) to Manchester, to Leeds, to Newcastle, to Glasgow. By train, Manchester 4hrs+, Newcastle 5.5hrs, Glasgow 7hrs+. By air, Man 1hr, New 1hr, Gla 1.5hr. Wonder how I travel to these places? My love of trains has its limits. Train travel in other countries like France, South Korea, Japan, Germany is simply so much better than it is in the UK, because they have invested in high speed trains. The UK is simply miles behind. Yours, Mike.

What a great idea for increasing the passenger numbers!!

Yes. There is more than a hint there that Euston is not particularly well integrated into London's transport system. Whether Old Oak Common is that much better is open to question, although I can agree that the Elizabeth line East-West link is better than anything at Euston. However, Euston does not link well to anything much south of the river. It does not even link well to St Pancras and the existing high speed services. It seems to me that there is a failure of vision relating to HS2 - this applies to Birmingham Curzon Street in the same way as at Euston. To get to local services in Birmingham, you have to get to either Moor Street or to New Street. So it may well end up being the case that it takes folk longer to get to/from the HS2 terminus than it does to go from London to Birmingham... Yours, Mike.

17 arrivals and 17 departures will mean 18,700 passengers arriving and departing each hour, if HS2 is as successful as the high speed trains in South Korea, where each train seems to be packed. That's a lot of crowd control! I note that they go in for airline style ticketing with an assigned seat on a particular train, similar to the way Eurostar services are handled. Yours, Mike.

This is one of those cases where you fervently hope that the graffiti artists will turn up to liven up the blank greyness. A few artful Banksies could change the outlook completely! Yours, Mike.

Plus, particularly on busy roads, significant pressure from local residents. We had a campaign in our own village for a 30MPH limit on the main road, heavily used by runners, cyclists, horse riders (etc). Neighbouring villages had more vociferous campaigns for their own limits, including events where they blocked the road in rush hour simply by having a chain of people continually walking across it. Such pressure does have it effects since local councillors get to feel the heat. All the villages now have 30MPH limits through their centres. Yours, Mike.

Keith, Glad it's fixed. I long since got into a habit of eliminating spaces in filenames due to many problems of this kind that I ran into over the years, with the underscore being my favourite go-to. It would be interesting to hear of your experiences with Seeeduino if you have the time to post about them at some point. The more modern chipsets they use make them very interesting. Yours, Mike.

Cruise control is becoming more of a standard feature these days. I use it all the time and it's perfect for dealing with speed limits through works sections. It is one feature that lets you concentrate on the traffic around you since you don't have to look at the speedo at all and your foot can be dedicated to the brakes. Yours, Mike.

What are the files that are not found? Yours, Mike.

That will work fine. My reason for switching to Digikeijs 5000 was computer control - I drive points etc from a large touch screen controlled by a Raspberry Pi 400, so I needed good connectivity from the computer to the DCC controller. Prodigy is not so good at that, but you can drive points via the Prodigy handset. Yours, Mike.

If you're running more than one engine, you'll need separate modules. Only in very simple cases could you use one module for handling multiple sections of track. That does not sound to be the case here. Depending on the point motors you are using, I'd tend to prefer to stick with controlling the diamond crossings from the point motors. You'll have the point motors in any case and if they have the switch(es) for handling frog power, they can also be used to set the power correctly for the diamonds. Yours, Mike.

Looks more like the San Andreas fault! Do we have seismic activity in Herefordshire??? Yours, Mike.

That is where the speed limit enforced by average-speed cameras is so effective. I think they should be used on all significant road works. The safety of road workers is key here. Yours, Mike.