Sheffield

Some years ago I worked in central Sheffield, and my wife worked at the Northern General. She used to drop me off and park the car at the hospital. In the evening I would wait for her out side a church. One evening a car draws up, and a voice calls out from inside "They don't open while sunday", and drives off.

I have a short offcut of FB rail by the back door, as it makes an excellent door stop.

I am not convinced that retests would do much for road safety. Most people who drive badly do so deliberately. They know they are unlikely to get punished, that they will gain some advantage by their action, and sadly, they enjoy taking the risks. Many of them think they are clever, because a lot of the media teaches them that the "good" drive drives fast and hard. But they would not drive in this way on the test; they would drive carefully as required to pass. Most if not all people who have been driving for some years develop ways of driving that would not allow them to pass a test, but that does not necessarily mean they are unsafe. What retests would do is cause a lot of worry and distress, and push up motoring costs. Most of the drivers who would loose their licence would not be the ones who deserved to loose it, and a lot more people would be tempted (or forced) to drive without a licence. ​And could public transport stand the extra numbers forced to use it? And what about rural areas, rapidly loosing any form of public transport? The best solution is the opposite of present government policy. That is a lot more policemen on the roads.

Not only do we all know why the other fellow is going wrong, but it seems to me that the less we understand and know about his job the more certain we are that he is incompetent at it. Perhaps that is why MPs can comment with such certainty about the work of every body else.

I wonder what the Stephensons and Brunel would make of the idea that we need the Chinese to build our railways (and our power stations) because we seem to lack the money and skill to do so ourselves.

I wonder how they could be registered as new vehicles and put on the road. They will not comply with regulations for new vehicles.

I had a Marina provided by my employers. It was an excellent car for the 1960s. Just unfortunate that BL was building them in the 1970s.

One possibilty is that with four people in the car the driver was engaged in conversation, and was consequently driving on "auto pilot", with his brain semi subconsciously registering that the road ahead was clear, and giving no thought to what ever may come in from the side. There appears to the trees to the side so the railway would not have been obviously visable. Often we look without really seeing. Such as people who arrive at a junction, look to see if there any cars coming, see none, and pull out into the path of a motor bike. I wonder how the driverless cars now being tested would deal with this situation. Will they be able to detect a level crossing in this sort of situation?

You can say the same about Leicester. I live abroad now, and when people ask if I would like to go back to where I grew up I have to say I can not, it does not exist any more.

Yes certainly the HST revolutionised rail travel. I was using the railway for long distance journeys at least once a week at the time and remember the difference they made. In my opinion the MK3 carriage is the best post war design and none built later have been any where as good. Although the orginal engines were noisy when trying hard even that gave the impression of power and meaning business.

I have thought that if the GCR mainline had been kept and run along the lines of the Chiltern route it would now be a useful connection between London, the Midlands and the North West. But it does seem that improving or restoring existing lines is just puting the railways where they should be today, whereas HS2 is the future.

Farage? I think I have heard of him. Is he the fellow who was on the telly the other day saying people should not be allowed to come from Europe and take jobs in Britain? The one who thinks Britain should have nothing to do with the EU? You know the chap I mean. The one who employs a Germain woman as his secretary, and makes a lot of money as a member of the European Parliament.

How far it has fallen. Britain can not build a power station without French help, and now it needs Japanese help to build a railway.

I don't think all of the Flying Scotsman's axles where undersize. Mine were fine, although wome people reported trouble. I suspect it was the usual Chinese lack of quality control. One trouble I did have was the screws used to fix the wheels seemed soft, and the Allan Key soon lost its grip in the hole, so should I need to I will have a job getting the wheels off.

I wonder if the boiler (or in this case "bodywork"?) will be metal. In the initial publicity for the Flying Scotsman the impression was given that the boiler was to be metal, but in the event it as plastic. A good thing in my view, and would that other O gauge kit makers could afford plastic moulded boilers, but not what some were expecting. I suspect the reason was that the advance publicity model as built from the DJH kit, and the parts for the Flying Scotsman were not made until there was enough demand to justify it. The postings on the forums about building the Flying Scotsman were almost as entertaining as building the kit itself and I look forward to a repeat with Mallard.

I built the A3 version they did some years ago, and found it quite a good kit for an etched metal type kit, although it was not the easy Airfix type kit some people seemed to expect. Of course at the end it cost as much as the DJH kit upon which it was based, but I was able to pay for it monthly, and it was pleasing to have something interesting drop through the letter box from time to time, even though the magazines were rubbish. The other thing I found was that as I got the 4 parts every 4 weeks and had 4 weeks to fit them there was no tempation to rush and spoil it. On the other hand planning ahead was difficult.

I had understood the Mercian kits were reasonable good. Is this Garratt kit unusual, or am I likely to encounter these sort of problems with their other kits?

Some years ago a map was produced indicating what would happen to the UK if sea levels became higher as a result of global warming. The map suggested that the term "British Isles" would take on real meaning, and, relevant to this discussion, the railway, and indeed most of Dawlish itself, would disappear. Clearly reinstatement is the only option for the short term, but in the longer term some alternative may be forced upon us. Do the experts know why the jet stream has moved south? What if it does not move back and this sort of weather becomes permanent?

Can the modern railway really turn a train round at a terminus and back out in 30 minutes? How things have changed in the past 100 years. Then the GER at liverpool Street needed a whole four minutes.

Quote: "I think the companies' accountants just might have questioned the number of locomotives on the books." I have thought that a second hand loco dealer's yard would make an interesting layout with scope for lots of locos. If the firm also undertook wagon repairs, and its premises were a bit cramped there would be some operational interest as well.

Perhaps as well the attempts to close the Gainsborough Central/Brigg line some years ago failed.

I blairites, smokescreeners, whitewashers and protection of 4F bearings associates will now follow I'm not sure this level of snide remark is very helpful. I have tried to indicate that a lot of the problems with 4F axle boxes was because of changes made by the LMS, and in Midland days and by pregrouping standards performance was not too bad. If there is evidence to the contrary perhaps it should be posted. I seem to recall the French 4-8-0s of over 4,000 ihp had axleboxes 8.5in dia by 8.8in long ie roughyl 4F size. I had hoped we could have a mature debate with firm evidence presented on both sides, and thereby arrive at a reasonable understanding of the reasons for the Midland policy. I spent a lot of my childhood the thickness of a fence away from the Midland mainline, and the sight and sound of 8Fs struggling to get their trains on the move after a signal check caused me to have an interest in the background to the MR policy. It did seem to me at the time that the Garratts, 12 wheels instead of 8, made a much better job of it.

The Midland, at great expense, provided separate double track all the way from around Trent Junction to the Brent yards, so that the coal trains, which earned so much of the income, could be kept away from other traffic. Much the same as when BR electified the East Coast, in order to keep capital costs down to an acceptable figure the line was somewhat under specified, and the under bridges were rather weak. As a consequence the Civil Engineer was not prepared to accept axle spacings closer than the traditional MR 8ft-8ft6in. The Board was not prepared to spent yet more money and settled for 2 0-6-0s. But on the GNR Henry Ivatt did provide 0-8-0s for the coal traffic, and found himself having to explain to his board the increased coal consumption that resulted. The 0-6-0 could take 680 tons, and burnt 60 lb per mile, but the 0-8-0 hauled 1,052 tons, and burnt 100lb per mile. 70% more coal to haul 30% more load. On that basis 2X0-6-0s would have pulled 1362 tons and used 120lb coal, while 1X0-8-0 would pull 1052 tons at 100 lbs or 0.088 lbs ton mile as against 0.95. Around 7% cheaper for the 2X0-6-0s. In Victoria times the coal saving would be greater than the lower labour cost, and without the extra capital costs. In pregrouping days there was a great deal of pick up and light load goods trains. Almost every station had a goods yard that required shunting, even if it did not justify its own loco allocation. To have the same design of loco able to operate short haul trains, and in multiple, heavy trains must have some merit.

We are familiar these days with the practice of spending money to reduce labour costs, given the employment laws and labour costs, but in Victorian times that view did not apply so strongly. Labour was cheap, and easy to hire and fire. So the capital costs of doing other than using 2 small locos has to be taken in to account as well as the running costs. The MR round houses and on the London extension the problem of short span under line bridges made larger locos not so simple. And by the time of the first war, when labour costs started to have a greatter effect the railways were not in a position to undertake major capital works. Also, unlike today where hauling trains up hill is the issue, in MR days, and indeed through out the steam era, getting down the hills was the problem and was important factor in train length.. The MR goods lines to London built specifically so two 0-6-0s could do the work efficiently. Witness Sharnbrook. When the LMS did decide it was time to produce a larger loco for the job they had great difficulty in meeting the Civil Engineers requirements, and had to go to the Garratts. The fact that the Garratts were not as good as they could have been does not change the situation. During LMS days bridge replacement was carried out, eventually allowing the 8Fs to take over, although even then the Garratts continued in use. They were not replaced until the 9Fs arrived and had to be found work, so could not have been too bad in the eyes of the operators. I do wonder if crews used to a Garratt thought a Crosti 9F an improvement. The issue of waste working empty wagons back surely applies to a large engine as well as to a small one. If powerful enough for a loaded train, either are too powerful for an empty one.

There is a discussion elsewhere on the forum about inspirational layouts. I think this is one of them.