peach james

Up until the late 1970's, that was the USN plan too...read "The Intruders" for an example The best that the USN had was Paveway 1's, with the BN holding the designator on target by hand... So, lacking an integration of Harpoon onto F35 is a problem, but it is a problem that likely could be solved by throwing some $$$ at the problem. USN/USMC isn't that interested in solving it, as the USMC is far more concerned with F35B being able to drop SDB or Mk 82 Series than conduct a Sierra Strike. I would assume (har, laugh at it) that the F35 has the cabling for the 1553 Databus on the pylons, and that it is a software rather than hardware limit that would fail to allow for Harpoon to be fired. (and an integration of Harpoon, or some other ASM) If it is strictly a software limit, then it is something that can be developed around. I'm not an air bos'n though ! James

Picking fruit- we live 22 km from town. Picking huckleberries is a fine activity for children. Blackberries are coming into season, (trailing cane type, with way too many @#$#@$ thorns for my liking). Salmonberry is going out. If as a kid you didn't know what it was, you don't eat it. Especially Fungi, of which there are some very nice ones, and some very deadly ones around here... Both my lads pick fruit. Why not? Old one is now 13, young one is 9. I've been eating the results for at least 6-7 years. That's with red berries, which can be problematic. Trick is exactly as above. If you are not SURE, leave it alone. Jam Jars- I have a collection of Bernardin ones, most have been used 2-10x. You buy them by the 12 here, and the only problem I have is when you trade jars with someone who uses the odd sized lids. (there are 3-4 sizes of lids on them...). I don't tend to reuse regular jam jars, but that's because I have enough (>60) jars to hold a normal year's production of jams. Lids are recommended to be consumable (single use), which I do, based on the seals not being great a 2nd time. Since sometimes I have had jam stored for 3-4 years, that's not a horrid expense. It's cheaper than the sugar James

My HR team can't even lay me off properly ! (you can't make this up, really...) I'm on layoff over the summer. It being summertime, this wasn't a shock to me. Heating plant engineer. So, my boss called me in end June, and formally said to me that he has no work until mid September (25th, I think it is...). Great, not a problem. Issue me a Record of Employment, I'll bag off to Employment Insurance, and collect whatever they're offering me for the 3 months that I won't find another job during... but wait ! I'm on what is close to a 0 hours contract, and canceling my contract has other problems- like it also cancels my security clearance. So...now they can't figure out how to lay me off for the summer. Got EI working on it from their end...because I'm not spending MY time at 0$/hr doing it. James

Copper boxes. The advantage of going to higher pressures is mostly shown up in using smaller cylinders, which then can fit outside rather than between the frames. You can get about 20" between the frames, and up to about 23" outside the frames in the UK loading gauge. Then you can translate that to wheel diameter, and figure out how many wheels one needs to get the starting Tractive Effort to the rail. Horsepower isn't what you are worried about, it's the 1/4th of the weight on the drivers for the TE to be able to start the train that matters. By going to a higher pressure (for example, 300 PSI vs 250), it means you can use 2 outside cylinders, and get to the maximum TE that the weight will allow on 4 axles while staying inside the loading gauge. (this is the classic Lima SuperPower style of loco for North America...) The maximum pressure (and Temperature) are important for Horsepower production, because the laws of thermo demand it- the higher temp difference between inlet and exhaust, the more efficient the engine will be. So going to 300 PSI and 800f superheat, you can gain a fair amount over being at 250 PSI and even the same S/H. Steam Density changes as well, which affects flow losses through passages. Note that in order to get enough cylinder area for high HP locos in the UK loading gauge, a 3rd cylinder between the frames is required. (See DoG as the example, vs the Britannia's) The topic can get deep quickly, I'd suggest reading "The Red Devil" as it has most of the series of choices that have to be made. Exceeding 250 PSI with a copper box, or 300 PSI with a steel box on a loco type boiler is hard due to the amount of flex required in the boiler and the ensuing difficulty of keeping leakage and broken stays to a minimum. LMS Fury, and CP 9000 are both examples of attempts to bypass the conventional limits of steam loco's. The Sentinel-Doble engines made for Columbia are another example, as was the LMS Sentinel-Doble shunting loco. (or the ultimate last gasp attempt, in the form of Jawn Henry built for the N&W in the US) Note that none of them were repeat ordered... (the definitive book on Jawn Henry is "Rails Remembered Vol 4", I am not aware of any similar railfan books for the Schmidt type HP locos. The Sentinel locos are briefly mentioned in "The Sentinel Vol 2", but again details are lacking. James Powell (Cert 3A, PRO class/3rd Class Power Engineer)

I pulled the pin from the RCN after 20 years and 3 days...and now are back at work at about 1/2 time. (I'm 43). (I have 2 kids, 9 & 13). I get 40% pension of what I made before, and health care is covered here in Canada. (probably close to NHS in terms of coverage) IF the $$$ adds up, then staying at a "job" that has become only a millstone of a job- why? So, the questions I see to ask is does the money add up, and if it does, then why work at something someone else wants you to do when you can work at something for yourself ?

I have experience on open bridged RCN ships ! Wooden ships and Iron Men... HMCS Mirimichi, HMCS Chaleur, (sailed on both) HMCS Cowichan, HMCS Chighnecto (avoided them two...) I had left back to the 280's (TRUMP's) before the last sail of the sweeps, down to San Diego and back. It was so rough that the end result was broken fresh water tanks on 2 of the 3 that had gone down... I also sailed the YAG's, which were also open bridge boats, as late as 2006/7. However, as they were 12 hr boats (only one engineer...), and weather restricted (<25 kts winds), they were a little easier to sail on. The PB's were not so limited, although it was a bit of a game to get all 4 to sea for >12 hrs due to low certificate (2B) numbers in the late 90's. The PB's and YAG's both were effectively replaced by the ORCA's (OCE too...though I never used it, I have the course) The most memorable night I remember was as lookout on MIR, when a container ship split our diamond doing 26 kts north as we did 10 kts south. OOD on MIR was a reserve Lt from HMCS Griffin (Thunder Bay Stone Frigate), who called it exactly right, that there was no-one paying a penny of attention on the bridge of the container ship. I had a NVG set as lookout, so we had a fair amount of tech on the bridge to observe this idiot run right through the port side of our diamond. (IIRC 1 mile diamond). I think a message was sent... Qualified Genny Watchkeeper, Bay Class Certified YAG 300/YDT 10 Boat Certified OCE (which have an enclosed bridge) DSC_0018 by Peach James, on Flickr (That's on an ORCA) James Powell

I don't know which software you are using for route selection (the options I know of are JMRI and RR&Co), but at least one of them took a LOT of my time to make it do what I wanted, not what it wanted, and it still has some...abnormalities...in the programming, and that's using a whole metric ship full of flagmen to do what I want it to do ! There are 6 sheets of switchboards used for LM, and only 3 of them are physical representative of Long Marton and the staging yards. The biggest problem I found was that there often is no easy way in RR&Co to link an action to an atribute. At times, that has been very frustrating, resulting in extra little blocks of "code" in the form of flagmen operated by multi conditions to get a single thing to happen. The lack of documentation inline has also been a bit of a @#$@#$@#, when I go back to make changes I have to look to see what exactly I did to make something work before I break it. Two Tone Green posted in .dcc about how to bend RR&Co 5.x to your wishes, along with Beast 66066. I've never tried the Digitrax firmware way of route selecting, and are probably much happier not to !. How I would deal with route selection using RR&Co or JMRI is to use dummy switch instructions, probably in the range of 1-100, keeping the actual turnout #'s much higher. That way, you would address #1 track as #1 (and possibly #2 for the "out" end...), and so forth, and then cascade from there to operate the turnouts as needed. For Long Marton, early on I ended up with a spreadsheet of the assigned #'s to each DS-64 (mostly) used for controlling the Torti. That includes the ID #, and the range of outputs used. That made it simpler when I found troubles with particularly the DS 54's (obsolete) that I had used for specific tasks. James

But it doesn't, Tony W. It doesn't show any hypocrisy. You don't claim it as your own work- just like the lump up in my photos has about 3 hours so far of my work in it, but won't be "mine", no matter how much work remains to be done on it. If you posted "look at this great loco I built", and missed out Geoff, then it would show the taint of taking credit where credit is due to others. Long Marton is my layout, not anyone else's. Same as LB is your layout, though you didn't build the track. I didn't build the track for Long Marton- Peco did. I did lay it, and I made the baseboards, did the scenery using Woodland Scenics stuff. You don't try anywhere to claim that Norman Soloman didn't build the station track. That's the difference- that you give out credit freely to those who have helped you make a smashing model of LB. I've never seen in some 1428 pages so far, that you fail to give credit to others. On the other subject, that of beginning modelers- I'd count myself almost in that crowd...I muck around with mostly commercially made trains, in a big landscape, but I have fun doing so. I don't often build kits (though I do occasionally- else why would I have the BR Mk 1 sleepers from Comet Kits that are 1/2 finished & need painting). That to me, comes from being under more of a time crunch than some others on here. I've got my two kids to look after, and they take a whole bunch of my time. I'm working 1/2 time or so, and that ends up at about it for time & interest. I thought I'd get more done downstairs now I am retired from the Navy, but the kids take a LOT of my time (& huge amounts of stress...both lads are autistic) James

I don't see any non compatable with NMRA DCC Spec systems...all the systems which use RS-232 as a basis, CAN BUS, and those which use RJ-12 based connectors, have open source elements to them, and the information exchange is certainly wide enough. RailCom is a red herring at best, would be my thought, in that it provides decoder:command station 2 way transmission. It is a bit of a kludge on the original DCC signal, as is the competing option of using Digitrax's Transponding system. Neither one is needed for accessory decoders, as they can generally be wired back (and should be wired back !) via a separate wire, and usually fed a separate signal too on larger layouts. Certainly, that is what I have found I need on Long Marton, with the booster/command station being on a separate signal loop than the accessory decoders & throttles. Mind, that's with a 24x36 layout, with >180 detection blocks, >180 accessory outputs & a fairly complex layout. I would argue that one should buy what one is going to need fairly close to in one lump go, and pick a maker who has all the elements you want available off the shelf, not vaporware, but other than that, it should be OK. Colour me a happy Digitrax user with Loconet providing the background communications system for the fixed elements of my DCC layout. James

jjb will probably be along too, but the design of the ship is not allowed to be reliant on active roll management to be stable. The stability has to come from the design basis, with the roll management system (stabilisers) failed in the "worst" position. The ride would be uncomfortable if it failed in that manor, but not unsafe. I've been to 35% or more before on a ship at sea. HMCS Algonquin, off the coast here. Allegedly the worst seen on a 280 was about 47% roll. Angle of downflooding was, I think, 93%. They were very lively ships with regards to roll, due to excessive top weight. We were paid by the 100 lb of top weight we could find to remove, payment being in short leave days. Alg. was limited to 1 helo due to top weight, even with the pig iron in the AMR and gland space. There were downflooding ports cut in the internal subdivisions to ensure that in the event of flooding at the 2 deck level or higher, it would flow down low enough to maintain positive stability. (1 deck was about heavy displacement waterline) They got heavier as we burned fuel, with the compensated fuel system being an important part of the post TRUMP design. James

So, when I started dating my wife, this is what she walked into: Which caused quite some merryment. There is the box for my 3.5" Britannia, the little shunting layout is the pink styrofoam, and about 75k pieces of lego in the photo !. Key to it, I have found, is that both of us need our own space. You have to be able to live with your spouse's choices of hobbies, and be active and encourage them. That doesn't mean doing them for them, but be supportive. My wife, Andrea, loves horses. Guess who built the barn, fenced the fields, and got occasionally used to load hay? Guess who occasionally has to help me move lego for shows? (not the OO, I can manage all that still without help...) When we moved back to Victoria from St Johns, Newfoundland, the deal we came to was a simple one- I got a basement, she got enough land to have a horse and a fireplace. Both of us were happy with it, and it made house hunting much easier. She has some idea of the value of what I have, but then I've never tried to keep it secret from her. Why would I ? I know that the collections are worth pennies on the dollar if resold anyway, so while it should be possible to sell the Lego collection off, she isn't going to get the $ which I have spent on it out without a huge amount of work. I'm supposed to only have as many live steam engines as she has animals, we're past that now, but I haven't bought any new ones. My dad just keeps building and sending them to me, really ! I'm up by 3 from where I was, with the monster outside awaiting attention: I would not stand a spouse who cannot understand my hobbies. I can understand them not taking part, but hobbies are a huge part of what makes us as people, I think. It would boggle me that anyone would try to hide their hobbies, or that a spouse who was not at least supportive of having them. That would go as far as those of my mates who play sports of various forms, or follow sports teams. I may not understand their choice of leisure time pursuit, but I can understand the principal of it. One of our Lego Club members ended up with an (ex) spouse who tried similar. Which went over about like you describe. They aren't together any longer, because the Lego didn't demand that he get rid of the spouse, whereas the spouse demanded he get rid of the lego. His collection is a similar size to mine, and had been amassed over a slightly larger period of time. She had been a much more recent part of his life, and departed much easier than the lego. James

We did a similar thing a couple of years ago here in Victoria, BC. Bring out your unwanted trash, and trade it for someone else's unwanted trash ! Actually, it worked out really well, with things trading at around 1/5th their actual value, but everyone felt that it went well. I got a pair of etched kits to play with at some point, and some other stuff for layout building. Someone else walked away with my tender drive Hornby Brit and 9F that had been replaced by the more current versions. Yesterday's move was to give a RG4 that was given to the club to the member most likely to use said RG4. (along with the EAMES Jubilee "kit" that it is supposed to have been for...). James

Realize that is the full budgeted cost for the lifetime (?) of the ship being quoted. Which is quite different than the current purchase plan. I'd assume (har har) that the purchase price will be in the order of $1-2 bn/hull, built by Irvine. (and that the west coast ships will then need $200 mil of refit as soon as they arrive...just judge me as a cynical (ex) west coast sailor...). Given that we are looking at 15 hulls, that's $30 of the $70 that they are estimating. A lot of that will be in government supplied material (radar/C4I/weapons) too...so not the hull costs. Goodness knows what the RCN will end up with as a total # of hulls though. Right now, we are making due with 12 CPF's, 4 2400 subs, and MV Asterix as the AOR. (plus 12 MCDV's which get used a bunch in the Caribbean as though they were a real warship, and the 8 ORCA's on the west coast) . I know that PCU Harry DeWolf is coming along, and should be in service fairly soon. With them, it gives the RCN another 6 hulls to ease the job of the CPF's particularly on the east coast. (yes, it will take 6-10 years to build out, but that eases the problem of a 2nd FELIX program on the CPF's, which make the previous Cadilac's look decidedly overbuilt in places...) Manning is an increasing problem for the RCN. In discussions with one of my friends who is a CERA, he was fairly desperately short of qualified engineers. See : Which should add a little of a laugh to the situation. (and not at the $ they are offering, oh no...) James

I've been listening to the HeadStones ( I guess making bad choices since 88 or so...), and they have released another cover, this time of Edmond Fitzgerald Mind, I happen to think that everything is legal in Kingston (Ont) as long as you don't get caught too... not an official video, but one done up by a fan. There are more covers which I like, U2 doing spring hill mining disaster is another one on my list.

Tony W, I know that Jason Shron is looking for photos of lift out sections for his home layout. (it's a travesty, being of Toronto Union Station to Kingston, Ontario...). He's looking for the best of solutions, as he has a lift out to slowly build. He uses Facebook as his homepage for the layout, I know you don't use facebook, but if you have any good images, a note to him via the Rapido page might go well appreciated. James

Great British Train Show. Put on by someone who knows the value of free coffee and donuts... Helps that it's basically more of a convention than a show. Of the ~1500 attendees in total, probably 300+ of them are die hard fans. I went. From 3500 km away. With a layout. James

1. If they are ASCO's, they are older ones. Modern (ha!) ones are smaller solenoids than that, with a black metal label on them. (or at least the 110V ones were...) 2. Ah, the white board: Comments on Flickr. The money is a rev pool, probably arriving in Esquimalt. Our LO purifiers setup is listed at the bottom of the white board, and are Sump-Sump (meaning main engine sumps), and Stbd-Stbd, meaning the other one is running on the Stbd Turbo-Alternator. Much cleaner than on diesels, as they were just running on Mil-l-357 steam Turbine Oil on the turbines. There was more to it than what is shown, we kept the daily tally of running machinery on there, as well as having the engine room log.

As long as both of you thought you got the better part of the deal, then it all works out in the end ! Lovely photos of the Semi's, but there's only one Pacific for me... (& that one's from Sherwood Forest) As scratchbuilt by Harry Boneham, plans vetted by Riddles and drawn by LBSC: James

The reason why to move is simple, the design of magazine is directly affected. Which has a carry on to basically ALL aspects of the design. The design on the Ford involves elevators which move vertically and sideways. I would suspect displacing in all 3 axis... So, they are far more complex than the previous designs. Also remember, they are a vital part of a nuclear weapons _system_, and as such, have a fairly substantial certification requirement which the US hasn't done since the early 1970's with USS Nimitz. I would expect that the way forward is known, and right now it is a $ issue, more than a technical issue, to solve. That's based on 2/11 being in working condition. USN has extensive experience of what _can_ happen when stuff goes south with ordinance on ship. See USS Oriskany fire, and USS Forrestal fire. ("Trial by Fire" for those of you with enough memory...) James

Thank you all, it is helpful in a general sense. As you can imagine, the prints are in my dad's stuff, and he knows that one of the men is a relative, and was a Boilermaker living in Buckley. Not which one...and everyone who could have answered that question is dead. We are left with trying to figure out who is who by the clues, and knowing that the photo is >1903 is helpful. Knowing that it is on a GCR wagon is probably less helpful, but may help in some odd way. We'd looked at the engine, and think it is a Marshall, but can't be sure. Since dad builds them, and I wear them out, that probably means it's a dead end from the details. James

Ive shipped my 3.5" gauge Britannia across Canada coast to coast. A VERY stout crate surrounds it, with a system involving a plug in the chimney and screw downs in the cab, with the engine traveling inside its lifting box, inside the crate. I watched the dingbat house movers tip it on end within 10 ft of where it started on one trip, right after signing its value. (Estimated as the same as the OS kit...at least there was a commercial grounds for that value)... Anyway, 5" locos exceed the average lift ability that a 3.5 has...so are a little less likely to be slung around. I've been gifted probably one of the biggest 5" locos possible, in the form of the D&HR Class D Garrett. Boiler is done, both engines are done, needs most everything else. Current thought is how to run the reversing gear, I have an idea. Chances are very good that it will end up a far more experimental loco than a scale model. James

Any ideas? I believe the image is taken in Buckley, or thereabouts, and probably pre WW1. The engine is a semi-portable, and at least one of the gentlemen is a relative of mine. So, the guess is that the wagon is a GWR wagon. James Powell

Liquid Electrical Tape. https://www.canadiantire.ca/en/pdp/permatex-liquid-electrical-tape-0388015p.0388015.html?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI8qOC57TE4gIVkFqGCh1FGAYcEAYYASABEgJcCvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds#store=176 (as an example) James

The answer is as always, it depends. Long Marton is wired into Cinch Jones connectors, with the intent that the majority of it is portable. It doesn't mean it moves around much, but when I need to get to say, the plumbing in the walls, I can take it apart, and move it out of the way... Using terminal strips would to me, seem to be a perfectly appropriate way of dividing the layout into sections. That, or even the loop of wire as mentioned. The one thing I wouldn't do is have the wire tight at each set of joints... Having it even crudely sectionalized like Long Marton can make fault finding MUCH easier. Some sections of Long Marton are up to 24' from the booster that powers them, so probably more like 30-40'. I tend to use 14 AWG wire (15A capacity, if you want to think of it that way...) to limit voltage loss. It's when you get to things like 22 AWG that voltage loss and current capacity becomes an issue. I melted (!) a truck on a lit passenger car, so yes, the physics of it do require passing the short circuit test... I don't anticipate that the full amount of Long Marton would be salvageable if I moved house, but the major chunks would give a vast start to building a new layout. I probably would do something different, but it would all depend on space available. James

(if you are using Digitrax) Tower Controller TC64 provides 64 LED outputs without further modules. http://www.rr-cirkits.com/description/index.html Again, this is another option for a way to do what you are asking. Not _the_ answer, which would appear to be Cobalt Alpha Mimic for what you are trying to do. James