peach james

I brought the 3 finished 30' radius/ 10' long (outside rail) sections home today, and screwed on ties to one of the 10' sections that has been there for a while. I still have to shorten up the fishplates to make the connections to the driveway, and I can't do any welding at work until they finish doing some asbestos abatement (they are washing walls & window cills...) Current progress at home: You can see the 3 curved panels on the grass. That's going to require burning off, to see what actually is under the grass, then landscape cloth adding, and a figuring as to where the curve actually is going to start. I left an opening because the trick-or-treating kids often come down the stairs in the center, then up to our front door. I'd rather not be trip and treating them There are 3 shortish panels of welded 7.5" track to the right, they are going to be taken to my local blacksmith and handed in for him to do something awesome with them- they're not much use to me. By the time I'd done anything to them, I might as well have started fresh. We're late enough I can burn off whenever I want to, so I will have to put the big propane torch back together & have at it. Looking at this, I have to make a 2nd 5' panel of curved track...there's no other way. Ah well... James

Careful, the model has more metal in it than the real ones...

You don't carry little dutch boys for damage like that? Ya, devcon sounds about right- we used something similar on the tanker when we rubbed through the shell plating. Done from the outside via our divers, then inside we pored in cement because it was near the bottom of the bilge, on the bottom flat plates. I'm assuming the stiffener is welded to the tank, in which case the HAZ material is different composition than the rest of the plating, and probably somewhat porous (it's a weld...), so, through the easiest way it goes. James

I'd consider using 0.1" connectors- a pair of them will be nare on the size of a 3mm (1/8") connector, and they are fairly readily available. Though the 3mm connectors are not a bad suggestion either. If you've already modified the lighting circuits, adding more capacitance to "keep alive" is another way forward, as LED's draw so little current in comparison to GOW bulbs... I use the .1" connectors in lego trains, with up to 3-4 wires, and they are flexible enough for that. (about 26 AWG wire)

Your numbers are suspect...there are more recent (late 70's) numbers from South Africa in The Red Devil, and the figure I have seen over here was that at 6%n, steam burning coal was cheaper than diesel burning oil. That's in relation to 614T, and the ACE experiments- there are some write ups of it in The Red Devil, as well as various ones found in Trains magazine. It is more n efficient to burn fuel in a power station, regardless of if it is oil, coal, or natural gas, because you can have whatever weight of equipment you want, and you don't have to move it with you. From a capital prospective, I am far from convinced that the 25kv electric system the UK has chosen to implement is the most capital efficient- I suspect that 3000VDC overhead might be cheaper, depending on the standards of track and speeds expected. (a la MIL western lines, as posted above by me...). I suspect there is a large gap between what can be made to work reasonably safely (even in current safety climates) and what is elected to be done in the UK, alongside what is going to end up being done in Ontario with GO...I think that they are trying to make a Daimler when an Austin Mini would do (or Cadilac and Ford, for those over here...).

Yes, it is possible. Go look at my thread on Long Marton, there is video of me doing exactly what you are asking. It took me treating RR&Co 5.7 as a starting for an overlay layer of Ladder Logic for me to do it, but it is workable. I suspect that JMRI would be a better starting place- at least, if I was starting again, that's where I'd go now. Mostly because the overlay layer in RR&Co does so much of the computing, rather than the native logic in RR&Co. James

So, now it's burning about 4 nm off my workplace: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/fire-container-ship-hazardous-materials-1.6223180 I'm not in till Wed AM, as long as my boss doesn't think that there are only 3 of us qualified to wear BA at work...and that I'm the only one with currency. (2 ex pulp mill, and me). I take it the smoke is lifting enough that it isn't impacting onto the shore. ( I work right about https://www.google.com/maps/@48.4289007,-123.4327805,19z and the ship is somewhere about 8 km out on Constance Bank) James

Shipping news from Bouy Juliette: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/shipping-containers-juan-de-fuca-strait-1.6222341 Our ports are so overloaded, they are just pushing the containers into the ocean James

Much unhappiness there !

Done at Springhill, NS, Canada. https://www.geothermal-energy.org/pdf/IGAstandard/WGC/1995/1-jessop2.pdf

Only one on goods stock and inner coaches, because they should not be the only thing detected, but two on brake vans/brakes. That seems the most sensible compromise. (& more specifically, 2 on the rear BCK or BSK, because they are only run in directional sets by choice) I also set ~5 seconds delay on clear for occupancy, which helps with minimizing the risk of "flickering" over the occupancy to a following train & resulting in a rear end accident. Why? Because to error is human, to really make a mistake usually adds a computer program James

They may not have been- the horn is usually set to play the whistle tone (long, long, short, long till on crossing) by a single press, for liability reasons- that way, the railway can "verify" that the horn was sounded correctly to limit legal liablity.

I do about 1/6 of the wagons, brake vans, BCK's, BSK's & BG's. That should ensure enough detection to avoid the problem mentioned ^, of trains lacking detection having the turnouts change under them. It also should allow the control software to stop the train if the train separates - but as I'm running a rather obsolete version of RR&Co (5.7), it doesn't allow for an easy way to do so. If you can get the resistive ink pen, it is easier than soldering to the backs of wheels

The UK government policy in 1947 was exactly that- domestically produced coal fired steam until we electrify. The 1947 HGV report recommended revising the 1929/30 tax differences that had a severe negative impact on steam wagons on the road, for similar reasons. The fact that oil was from "overseas", and coal was domestic had been brought to the attention of the house on more than one occasion pre ww2. The expectation seemed to be that diesel was a great power source, but that heavy goods vehicles should be coal fired for domestic production reasons. I would imagine the exact same thinking drove the BR Modernization Plan & the design & construction of the BR Standards. I view D/E as being as much a dead end technology as steam, it's just taken longer to start driving the nails into the coffin because of the capital cost of electrification. Said capital cost has NOT been helped by "offboarding" costs of both steam and diesel, but allocating in near full to electric- think of what the real risk levels are for a lot of the 25kv re-work that has been done, and how if it worked in the past, one has examples of how much flashover risk there really is from past clearance designs vs present. The cost overruns of starting and stopping electrification schemes instead of having had a rolling program of electrification bear witness to the election cycle management of government. Over here, if you read about the Milwaukee Road electrification, and the missing 212 miles in the middle, and how stupid private capital can be as well... ( https://milwaukeeroadarchives.com/Electrification/ElectrificationPage1.htm ) https://milwaukeeroadarchives.com/Electrification/GEStudy1970.pdf for the heartbreaking read of stupid in action... GE said the cheapest answer with Diesel at 5.25 p/ Gal was to electrify... James

Never mind in the UK, there is a most interesting report on D/E's in North America, and how the reasons why steam died as quickly as it did had a lot to do with GM and GE having capital available when the railways did not...certainly, when you look at CN and N&W, you get a rather different picture as to WHY steam died as quickly as it did, and who made money hand over fist on the dealings...

Just to confuse things further, be aware that the identity of the locos is NOT as above in reality- the frames, boilers and nameplates of at least 2 are NOT matched...so you literally get to choose the name to go with the frame. How do I know? KoS was Maid Marion's frames, and KoS's boiler & nameplate for 40 years. I am suspicious that more than just that pair are mis-identified. I understand(*) that the locos were basically "put back together" when they were sold, depending on what would kind of fit together in terms of boiler/running gear at the time. (*) that's what dad said, particularly regards to the engines that went to Bala Lake. He'd have been in the know(ish) from working with the Lloyd Jones Brothers and Mick the Scrap at the time the engines were leaving the quarry to homes elsewhere. I know dad was slightly involved in F&D RPS, as well as the group that wanted Bala Lake to be standard gauge, and that he and Grandfather Powell certainly had connections into the North Wales steam scene from 1959 on. James Powell

Then what is your magic solution? The answer is that heat pumps do what they say they do on the box- they transport 3.7x (+/-) the energy that it costs to make the heat to move of heat from where it is available to where it is desired (if in heat mode) or from where it is objectionable to where it is acceptable (in AC mode). If you burn the CH4 in a CHP power plant, then you might get cycle n's as high as 48% from CH4- Electricity. That, and the line losses- lets be radical, and say that 90% of the 'leccy gets to your house, so thats .48*.9= 43% of the heat value of just burning the gas at your house. .43* 3.7= 159% The heat pump puts out 159% of the heat value per BTU of the gas at your house, if you can burn the gas at 100% of the lower heat value and extract the heat... I'm sitting beside a pair of 600 hp gas fired boilers that are running at 85.2%n, which is probably a far more realistic in service n for any heat exchanger... Air source heat pumps are NOT a new technology- they were around before I left Toronto in 1990. The reality is that if the power plant output n is >30%, then heat pumps make sense. If the power plant is nuclear, heat pumps make sense. If the power plant is hydro, they make sense. If it's wind, they make sense. if it's solar, they make sense. Basically, unless the plant in use is old, heat pumps make more sense than burning the fuel in individual houses. It's the exact same story as electric cars.

So, what have I done since May? Well, we went on a cross Canada trip, starting July 20th. That took until Sept 6th before I got home. Since then, I have returned to working (now full time...) at the heating plant, and so far have made up 1 L, 1 R section of 5' long, 30' radius curves, and just finished my 2nd 10' section. I played with the levels on the right side and had the section of track somewhat level there, but got no further before I left. I also made up about 36 fishplates of the 240 that I need. Save that I need to shorten 4 of them for the RHS of the crossing, to fit the 5' R curve to it. That has the sleepers attached- nothing mentioned of getting 150' of plastic wood and cutting it to length, but it happened. (I need about 400' more, when I get there...I have a pile of sleepers to use as it is...) So there is progress, just slowly it seems at times.

You standing guard, say, like a Sentinel ?

What you want is something like https://www.leevalley.com/en-ca/shop/hardware/jig-and-fixture-parts/61654-1-1-2-inch-rose-knobs-for-jigs-and-fixtures but in M8 thread I'm sure they are around...but Lee Valley don't seem to carry them, which suggests that the Canada/US market for them is small. (but not the ROW...)

It's easy. Pay for the Gold version of the site. If you don't, then the ad's pay for the site...I know Andy is working to get them to be "optimized" to work in a way that makes them pay for the site, and not overrun us with ad's for useless crap, but...you pay's your money, you gets your choices. (or he who pays the piper gets to call the tune...)

I'm @#$@# when I realize I've been retired from the navy for 5 years ! I've got a few more before I get to 30 years out of high school though... James

Apparently, I need to advocate for a GPV to sit next to the N gauge Conflat P, and blow it up to 4mm James

I asked in the thread somewhere on here (the things for us to make thread). But now I've cot a conundrum- in that the Class 28 and the Conflats are about 1/2 of the specalized stock for Long Marton. But my model is in OO, not N... (I have a pair of the Heljan 28's...and a lovely set of etches from Micheal Edge for the Conflats in 4mm) We need the GPV to explode these up to 4mm/ft ! James

There is a book of the same title about BC highway policies. The practice extends all the way to federal highway money in BC- where we got the 3 roundabout 2 bridge monstrosity in a vain attempt to hold Sidney/Gulf Islands as a Conservative riding...they lost to the Greens (and everyone who uses the roundabouts gets lost too !) James