peach james

Why do I know the name of "Beachy Head" ? Ah, got it in one- HMCS Cape Scott... I missed the great 80 RPM astern movement on PRO. Some Jr officer was given the task of planning a dry hookup RAS in 2005 with HMCS Ottawa. They chose to use Race Rocks as the lead mark... and of course, the RAS went over distance. It ended in rig everywhere, an emergency astern with 2 boiler flame out & purge bypass, and generally, a complete brown material scattering... I was told the depth recorder went to 3m at the bow, on what amounts to a vertical shelf into an area of special environmental concern... The flame out would have been from going from 4 fires to 6, as the steam demand would have increased, without a regulator on the fuel/steam valves...so, no working 600-150 reducer = send the watertender to change the hand bypass to increase steam available. It was OK set for 4 fires, you could go down to 2 and just be feathering the relief, but if you set it at all low, then going up to even 5 fires meant that a boiler would drop on low steam pressure. As this was one of the Fireeye trips, you had to reset it, then purge the boiler, then reflash... about 10 minutes if you were good. By using the purge bypass, as soon as the trip was reset, and you had a purge in, you could roll back over to fire the boiler. Remember to turn the key OFF again- once it was "safe" to loose the boiler... James

How about Something OK (Utah Saints) I'll have a V, please Bob (Blockbusters) Yer so Mediocre (Tom Petty) Wooden Shoes in the Machinery (Beastie Boys) Tree Sap Song (Skydiggers) Jesus Brother Ed (Arrogant Worms) Enola not so happy (Utah Phillips) If I had a spitball Launcher (Bruce Cockburn) Home for a nap (Spirit of the West) James

A couple of comments from the peanut gallary: 1. He is Honorary Colonel of 423 Sq. Traitor- he could have taken a fully serviceable 50 year old airplane up instead ! (423 used to be Sea Kings) 2. He's a fairly decent person to have on your ship- he and his crew came on PRO somewhere around 2007, and he was less work than having a real politician onboard, and more fun too. Tom (the Buffer) is a great man. Chris orders the Tuna Melt... James

The club came, the club went. Sadly, so did my vision !. It turns out that one side-effect of being a diabetic is that my eyes are totally a mess. So, seeing much of anything is now a bit of a challenge. I'm not sure what that means overall, let alone for Long Marton. Certainly, I am not going to rip out what is already there- it works (ish), and as such, can always use scenic treatment. I can see to run trains, but text is a very hard go at this point. My GP and the diabetic nurse said that it should get better over the next month or two, but I'm not holding my breath. I've been spending the last couple of weeks working on the Lego. New table arrangement has been taking shape, because I no longer need a 12x24 area for the club layout. (just 2x16 now...) James

The alternative would be to make up a drawing for them to be either made by Shapeways, or cut by someone with a laser cutter? I tried making the more normal S&C style windows out of many pieces of plastic, and gave up fairly early on. There is no way that I could make the windows that way- etching looks to be the way ahead for me. (but LM is all "standard" S&C windows). It comes down to time vs money- if you have lots of time you don't have to spend much money... (and if you can see them...ha ha !) James

I figured that I should post in here, not in Jeffs main thread... I've had a bit of a health scare- not near as serious as Andy's, but I managed to get my blood sugars to 25 mMl/L, or a lot higher than they were supposed to be at. I've been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes- which generally means I need to spend less time in front of a computer, and more time outside wandering around. The bad part for me right now is that my sight is a ugly mess for reading text in particular. It's supposed to clear up, as the sugar from my eyes is re=absorbed into my body. So for now, I can't see much in the way of text, it's all basically a blurr making reading a little challenge ! Good news: show next weekend for Lego ! Bad news- I'm the mostly responsible person for it ! On the OO front, the next event for the club is going to be taking the new layout to the Victoria (BC) model railway show at the end of May. It won't be finished, but hopefully it will be wired & running. That's assuming I can see to wire it. Long Martin is presently in use as a drying rack for Lego track, as I clean some 20+ year old track off for further service. The gunge is quite amazing... In case you lot thought I'd done a Jason and biked away, I haven't really. I just cant see well to be able to comment ! James

But one very serious issue is that the "kids" now won't settle for 600 sq ft, with 1 parking spot & at an inconvenient place...they want 2000 sq ft, with built in dishwasher, and stainless steel appliances, somewhere that is "hip". Because they don't see themselves being able to do the work on the 40 year old house (like re roofing it with their mates), and they don't see themselves moving in 5 years to something with 2 actual bedrooms rather than a 10x12 master bedroom, and a 8x10 kids bedroom...they want it all and they want it now. Costs to build have sky rocketed, at least here with a lot of the costs being driven by daft regulations. (OK, I can see that some insulation is needed- but when the cost of the mandatory "upgrade" would NEVER be paid off at an economic rate of return, we'd be better focusing that effort elsewhere...). Still, I am unsure what the eventual solutions are for the problems. Glad I bought "way" back in 2001 !, as my house has a bit more than doubled in "value" (but the wages that I was making then would NOT have doubled...). No idea what my kids will do in 10 years when it comes time for them to go out the door... James

I just let the ship carry it all. As she weighed in at somewhat less than 24 k tons, it didn't matter if I packed a few extra's on or not... Our figure for Fire Fighting Ensamble is about 52 lb for bunker gear, scott pack (Scot 4.5, 45 min bottle). Plus ~10 lb for either TIC & Radio, or Halligan & Axe. And 50 lb/length of charged hose... When I did basic (9636) I think we were up at about 70 lb in the ruck, and about 20 lb in LBE. That was without any crew served weapons (there weren't enough to give them 1/section), or gas equipment (again, not enough to go around). Food was daily issue, mostly because it was hayboxes not IMP's (cheaper...). We did the 14km march with just LBE & rifles- so about 30 lb all up. 1 hr 47 min, IIRC. James

Are you sure they weren't just various houses of Chuck, the muddle engineer? (he went from a row house, to a semi detached, to a fully detached, to a hole in the ground...) If you don't know, it's in the wartime Model Engineers . And yes, on a more serious note, lots of deaths of civvies. James

OK, so most of my experience is from what dad's said about road steam...and certainly there were people who in the late 50's bought a roller for ten or fifteen quid, then got a boiler certificate, ran it until said cert was not renewable, and scrapped the roller, and repeated it. That's not to mention the odd accident (I think a BB1 ploughing engine suffered that fate...ran away & was cut up in the middle of the road...I know in the 70's it almost happened for a 2nd time). Dad & Grand-dad owned Super Sentinel Tractor 7529, which was repaired by Bridson's after ~6 months out of use, and was figured to be one of the earliest paid for restorations. I can ask, but I know windows, mirrors & some welding in the boiler plus paint, remembering Sentinel boilers come apart for such tricks. It lasted in their hands for 3 years before being sold up, in part probably because of needing more work, and part because grand-dad (Wilfred Powell) was having more health issues. So, if the engine wasn't in fair mechanical nick, I can easily see passing it over for a different one. Why take the broken lump when you have ALL this choice in front of you? James

Ha...what about 12/16 bolts? HMCS Huron had them go through the (Stbd?) gearbox in about 1997. Apparently, they did a bit of a number on the bull gear (which is locked train gearbox...). The heads came off due to a failure to radius the shoulder of the bolts used on the (570KF) Cruise engine input shaft, which then meant they had stress risers, creating the heads falling off problem. I know there was an extensive write up in Canadian Marine Engineering Journal (public) about the incident. I know there was a lot of close looking at the gear faces too. It's not a case when you can just add some toothpaste to smooth things out !. I was the 2nd last out of HMCS Algonquin's gear box in 1998 with the command gear inspector being 1 layer further up than I was. (and a 3rd person in the bear pit, to act as our safety). I never went crawling into Protecteur's gearbox, but there was much less worry about it because it wasn't nearly as highly stressed (only 10500 hp/side or so, on about 20" of gear face) James

I knew there was a description of the NER locos in MRC, and indeed, April 1987 is the issue for one built in 3mm/14.2mm gauge. Nothing on if it ended up on a layout, but a bit of older modeling of the NER locos. James

(I don't think he's like Rod, Neil and a few others...but it's a good use of a tin foil pyramid !)

So, the jury is now sequestered, and some very interesting bits come out that they weren't told... http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/lac-m%C3%A9gantic-rail-disaster-1.4481968 (for more detailed coverage, go to http://www.okthepk.ca/megantic/index.htm ) I have an opinion, but it is rather political for here... James

Wouldn't the FRED provide you with where the back end of the train is? (at least, if the gap got bigger than when the train started...) The length of the train is going to be something- Feet, or meters (or KM...), so that data should be easy enough to input along with the destination of the train ? I'm assuming at some point, someone will have to input data into the computer, with the length, weight, makeup (cars) ect of the train- or that data will be transferred from somewhere else into ETCS for that specific train. From that, the FRED would give the end of train data back to ETCS so that there would be two reporting points for a freight train- the front & the back. If the data from both ends doesn't reasonably agree, one would expect at ETCS 2 or higher, that it would set signals against and assume the train has split in some form or another. If you are using ATO, or confuser assisted throttling ( http://getransportation.com/train-performance-improves-ge-transportation%E2%80%99s-digital-solutions-software ) then you would already have speed restrictions in the system, I would expect either to provide the train with guidance to power position required to make the most efficient use of said power. FRED=Flashing Rear End Device, the nasty name for the (usually orange) box on the back of North American trains since 1984 or so...they do provide a bunch more data now than they did in 1983 when they were approved, I understand including velocity & brake status. James

No, that's _any_ service, and especially Veterans Affairs... I went into a public-'ouse to get a pint o' beer, The publican 'e up an' sez, "We serve no red-coats here." The girls be'ind the bar they laughed an' giggled fit to die, I outs into the street again an' to myself sez I: O it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, go away"; But it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins", when the band begins to play, The band begins to play, my boys, the band begins to play, O it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins", when the band begins to play. I went into a theatre as sober as could be, They gave a drunk civilian room, but 'adn't none for me; They sent me to the gallery or round the music-'alls, But when it comes to fightin', Lord! they'll shove me in the stalls! For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, wait outside"; But it's "Special train for Atkins" when the trooper's on the tide, The troopship's on the tide, my boys, the troopship's on the tide, O it's "Special train for Atkins" when the trooper's on the tide. Yes, makin' mock o' uniforms that guard you while you sleep Is cheaper than them uniforms, an' they're starvation cheap; An' hustlin' drunken soldiers when they're goin' large a bit Is five times better business than paradin' in full kit. Then it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, 'ow's yer soul?" But it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll, The drums begin to roll, my boys, the drums begin to roll, O it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll. We aren't no thin red 'eroes, nor we aren't no blackguards too, But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you; An' if sometimes our conduck isn't all your fancy paints, Why, single men in barricks don't grow into plaster saints; While it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, fall be'ind", But it's "Please to walk in front, sir", when there's trouble in the wind, There's trouble in the wind, my boys, there's trouble in the wind, O it's "Please to walk in front, sir", when there's trouble in the wind. You talk o' better food for us, an' schools, an' fires, an' all: We'll wait for extry rations if you treat us rational. Don't mess about the cook-room slops, but prove it to our face The Widow's Uniform is not the soldier-man's disgrace. For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Chuck him out, the brute!" But it's "Saviour of 'is country" when the guns begin to shoot; An' it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' anything you please; An' Tommy ain't a bloomin' fool -- you bet that Tommy sees! (and yes, I was 2% smarter than Allan, as I joined the Royal Canadian Navy & did "only" 20 !) Petty Officer 2nd Class James Powell, Mar Eng Art (Retired)

Only one option for that right now, and that doesn't take you to the ocean...just to a river ! (VIA to Churchill is currently embargoed due to track conditions, no trains to Churchill, awaiting legal developments !) So, the current option is ONR to Moosonee, which leaves you some 19 km short of the arctic... James

I did that with the lawn tractor ! Our fire chief, who lives ~2 km away heard the bang...no, I didn't need new underwear, but it was a close run thing.

What I would imagine is a pair of trains running to/from York, to give hourly service on this branch to Tuktoyaktuk. (with stops in both upper and lower rubber boot...). I would anticipate that there would be 1 train through to London, and another to points north (* if the track plan at the junction allows). So, from that, I would look and see at what station you are most likely to have meets at, and have that one double track, and possibly the ones E&W of it. Unless the freight demands are very high on the line as well, in which case the entire lot might be double track. I would expect that the schedule would have to be 4 trains/hr for it to be worth double track, with stations at 4 mile intervals or so. James

Thanks JJB, both those are interesting reads. The springing one particularly. I know Ontario Science Centre used to have a fair amount on Gertie, I think mostly now dated material. (I'm thinking when I was a kid, so >30 years ago now...). Anyway, interesting reading for sure, James

Because to "upgrade" the DCC standard in the way you are suggesting breaks the standard... the standard is that CV 17 and 18 contain the addresses. If you add (for instance) CV 112 to the address scheme, what happens when the number is >9984 ? The "old" DCC standard would be broken by this, and unless the "new" standard defaulted to say, everything > 9984 = 9984, then you have rendered your system into not DCC, but something else. Feel free to do so, but don't call it DCC, or imply that it is warranted(*), or in any way shape or form DCC, because it would not be. It could be MCC (Mick's Command Control), but DCC it isn't. The issue is one of how much RAM cost in 1984, nothing more or less- each bit was important, because they each cost $, so therefore, the design only allows for up to 9984 addresses. Since that beat 16 (Zero1, CTC 16), and it far beats 1, it is what it is. While there may be some future in proposing a change to DCC, I don't think this is an issue that will make or break DCC as a system. Because of the advent of computers mixed into DCC (in the form of using a smart phone as the handheld, or otherwise using TCP/IP at some point as part of the control mechanism, I can see that it might be to the advantage of users to add that at the throttle level. However, remember that DCC does NOT dictate how the throttle to base unit is to talk to one another, and there are several options out there. James (*)warranted= approved by NMRA who own some patent rights, and some trade dress, regarding DCC and the performance spec's of DCC)

https://www.bosch.com/explore-and-experience/nanoblade-small-chain-big-impact/ Might make more sense than a 12" bladed monster ! James

Indeed, it does look like someone went overboard with the plaster ! Seasons Greetings to all- I'll get little modeling done today, but the lads are enjoying it- the little one got his "Bop-It" from Santa, and the older one a couple Harry Potter books, still to do with the rest of the presents ! (& I'm waiting on a package without string from the "good" side of the Mersey ! ) James

SS Orduna Scan_June-9-2016-2-14-27-343-PM by Peach James, on Flickr Mid 30's, not exactly sure which year...

200L/hr might get us a little worried...but 200L/day would be a walk in the park. The oily waste water tank was 95T (95 000L) to full on PRO, and if we went more than 5 days without SAREXing, it was a shock. Usually, over the course of 3-4 weeks at sea, we'd end up with 30 000 L of blech that would be a supernate and unable to get rid of, so the effective tank volume would decrease until we went somewhere we could legally offload said yuch. It inevitably contained enough bilge soap that it would simply not settle, and we'd had the plumbing for burning such removed well before I got there (I think in 1986), so we couldn't take it and put it through the boiler to get rid of it. HMCS Huron had the aux boilers rigged to burn off the fuel from the bilge- the AMR bilge always had so much fuel in it that you could run the boiler (for heat, about 100 lb/hr of fuel), off the purifier shooting fuel. The whole fuel system on the 280's was a total disaster, as you had water compensated fuel tanks (and hence, MBG always...), and the system had been quite heavily modified in the TRUMP refit without thought as to what would happen. So, the purifiers discharged to a tank that held about 2.5 shots, when they were set to clear hourly because the MBG's would otherwise take over...and 5 micron filters before 15 micron filters... small things like that. It's always positive to sail around with 42" in the bilge, with the top 12" being fuel, right ? (deckplate level was about 43") The SAREX tanks on them were about 250 gal, and longer than they were tall...and located as far from CL as it was possible. Needless to say, the SAREX didn't work well...