rodent279

After 12 hours spent trying to wrestle 3 out of 4 pistons back into my engine block, there was only one bottle I could crack open!

Ah, so was the gearbox drive on the inner pair of wheels only? If so, then the outer rods were to drive the outer wheels. Hadn't realised that, I thought the gearbox drive was to all wheels.

What was the point of the rods then?

Fortunately, we don't have many of those.....

So where has the myth come from that it was built to continental gauge?

Bridges and tunnels maybe, but not platforms.

To be fair, that's Britain for you. Wallowing in the past.

Don't see many of them around now. Still looks modern though. Probably rarer than a lot of what some see as "classics".

Had the GC stayed open, it could have taken a lot of the freight that clogs the WCML.

How do you know I have imaginary friends? I guess the whole point of a model railway is it's an imaginary railway. I just wonder though, if for example, Edward Watkins's dream of a channel tunnel had come true in say the early 20th century, would we have seen continental gauge trains running up through Leicester? Maybe MSW electrification would have been extended south, with a changeover to 3rd rail somewhere in north London. Perhaps, really pushing it now, we would have seen SNCF CC6500's working into southern England, maybe as far as Leicester or Manchester? Dual voltage EM2's working to Paris Nord? Flight of fantasy maybe-but then so are many of the imaginary locomotives discussed on here!

Reading this thread, especially wrt to the Radstock branch, it occurs to me that just because the remains of a railway (trackbed, cuttings, embankments, tunnels etc) are still present and visible, that does not mean that reinstatement is an option, let alone an easy one. I get the feeling a lot of people think "ohh there's an old railway, all you've got to do is lay some track and off you go" ( not a dig at those on here, I'm taking about the wider public). At a guess, from someone who has little knowledge of the practicalities of reopening a closed railway, I'd expect that the visible remains of a closed railway are 10% or less of the infrastructure required to reinstate a working railway. Before you even start dropping ballast and sticking track on top, vegetation has to be cleared, embankments and cuttings have to be made sound, drainage made serviceable again, fencing, bridges & tunnels either rebuilt or repaired. Then you've got to build or rebuild stations, install signalling & communications systems, lighting, signage, then integrate with the national network. Then you've got to find trains to run on it, staff to man and drive them, and maintain them, and staff to maintain the infrastructure. Quite apart from the cost of acquiring land, the cost of all those activities could easily be 10x, maybe even 100x more than the cost of track and ballast alone. Thoughts anyone?

This is a fascinating thread. Is there one for Imaginary Railways?

I've rigged up an engine crane in my garage. A 1tonne chain hoist suspended from a thick wooden beam, supported by two wooden battens bolted to the garage walls. I wouldn't trust it with a tonne, but it's fine for a Minor engine & gearbox.

I think E3100 had a grille in the central position instead of a window, but not sure whether on both sides or just one. You'd have to check photos. As a general observation, although they all look similar, there are subtle differences in the cab and cab roof profiles that mask it possible to distinguish an 81 from an 85, 82 from an 83 etc. For example, 84's had slight dimples in the cab roof. 81's had a sharper curve to the lower body side end than 85's, and the lower cab corners are rounded differently compared to an 85.

Sounds like that was a close shave! I'm putting engine and box back as one, if nothing else it saves the ballache of trying to marry the two whilst the box is suspended from a crane. I like having all my fingers!

Yes, even fully built up it's fairly easy to lift. Even a bare engine block seems considerably heavier.

No, I'm pretty sure it broke because I didn't support the box properly. The engine and box have been separated twice in the last 5 years, so I doubt that it's the spigot that got rusted in. But every cloud etc etc, it's definitely been worth it, I now effectively have a reconditioned box

My experience of Turbostars on the MML was that they are smooth riders. Voyagers I find indifferent, not specifically rough, but not what I'd call smooth either.

Well it's rude not to.

Good luck, think you'll need it!

I think a lot of people think repairing a box is a bit daunting, but really it's no worse than an engine. Holds no fears for me now, and I now have a far better understanding of how it works.

Yep. 1098 ribbed box. I broke the bellhousing when I took the engine out, purely my own fault, I didn't support the box properly, and as the engine came out, the top edge of the bellhousing was supporting the combined weight of engine & box, and a piece broke off. Looking at the break, it's not clean, there is muck in there, so I think it was fractured anyway. So I've got hold of a spare bellhousing and transferred the innards over. The silver lining is that I've renewed the 1st & 3rd motion shaft bearings, which were getting worn, and the needle bearings inside the laygear, along with the layshaft. I also renewed first gear, as some of the teeth were roughly broken and fractured, so I may have avoided a catastrophic failure.

Today, I 'ave mostly been rebuilding my gearbox

Posted twice in error

Where did all those Hillman Hunters, Vauxhall Vivas, Avengers and Ford Escorts go? When I started driving in the late 80's, almost every other car was one of the above, if it wasn't a Sierra or Fiesta.