F2Andy

The map Harlequin links indicates the line to south splits off with "GWR Wycombe Branch" to the west, and "GW and GC Joint Railway" to the east. But these appear to be just the up and down lines to Saunderton and onwards to London. What is the story there?

That sounds like some pretty sophisticated programming. Certainly doable, but be aware it would need some good coding skills (also needs a degree of planning before hand with regards to track occupancy indicators).

I guess kept in a dark, dry environment?

Does anyone know if they take credit cards at the door?

There is an image of two going for scrap here: I have a feeling there was interior branding. I took it from Watford to Manchester in early 1984, but must admit I remember little about it. I do remember I was given a miniature newspaper; I think it was that day's edition, but only about 5" high. Not sure what the point of that was. I think there were other touches that did set it apart, but cannot remember what now.

Whalley viaduct on the line from Blackburn to Clitheroe. Taken on a sunny day like today... but a bit colder.

I am somewhat behind on this thread, so apologies for going back to January, but the UKF vans image is intriguing me. The first van appears to have no roof. As far as I can see it is otherwise a normal UKF van. I am aware that as-built they had no sides, but no roof?

Actually some steels are okay to use with anhydrous hydrogen fluoride. In the absence of water it is not particular acidic. Still very dangerous - arguably more so, it is readily absorbed through the skin, rather than reacting at the surface. Scary to think it was in unfitted wagons.

Thanks, that's great. I did have a quick look on that site, but the "liquid chlorine" heading put me off. Should looked deeper!

I am a fluorine chemist by trade (hence my user name), and so would like to model an appropriate train (for my era, ca. 1980). Anhydrous hydrogen fluoride is the raw material of pretty much all fluorine compounds, and I know it was transported by train at one time. I believe it was manufactured by ICI at Runcorn, and transported to the BNFL plant near Preston in four-wheeled wagons. It is likely it was also transported to refineries, as it is used to "crack" hydrocarbons. However, I have never come across a photo of such a wagon. I can only find US wagons on Google. Can anyone help me?

Sorry if this is slightly off-topic, but the second link says: "These coaches were built in 1920‑21 specifically for working the tightly curved Balerno Branch in Edinburgh ..." Surely bogie coaches would negotiate tight curves better?

Thanks. Wigan World turned up a few interesting photos. And Jeremy C's finds are excellent, even the black and white one.

it is the front of the station I am more interested in. The pillars in the photo are on the modern bit, and I am wondering if the canopy on the road would be the same.

I know the trains were blue, but what colours were the stations? I have had a Google search, and not found much, plus I have poor colour vision, so I would appreciate some advice. What colour were doors and windowframes? What about the iron work supporting canopies? Seats? Anythug else? If it makes any difference, I am interested in old stations in the NW of England, and more specifically Wigan Wallgate in 1980.

I do not think anyone has mentioned Broad Street, which was half electrified and half not - until the latter was just closed altogether. Good image some way down this page with a class 31 on non-electricified, with class 501 behind. http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/b/broad_street/

The point would be in case the loco missed the message - just the same as for setting the speed in fact. I wonder if it uses the same two minutes you mention?

Nothing here you need to know to use DCC, I am just curious about how the technology works. When the user sets the speed of a loco, the base station sends a message across the layout, and the relevant loco picks up that message and responds. So far so good. I recently learnt that the message is still being sent out some time later. A loco was set to full power while it was off the track, then put on the track, partly on a cloth, to clean the wheels (may not be best practice, but not relevant here), and even though some time had passed (perhaps 20 seconds, but that is a long time for electronics), the loco started. This makes me suspect that the base station is continually sending these messages. If you have six locos running, then it will cycle though them, telling each one what it should be doing, even if no one changes the speed on any of them. The base station has to send out something all the time, so it might as well be doing this. But what about the other locos, the ones that are not moving? Does it also send out messages to them all the time telling them they should be stationary? How does it decide which locos to send it too? Given an address range of up to around 10 000, it cannot being doing it for every possible ID, can it? So does it only do it for locos it has told to move this session? When does it stop sending "stop" messages to a specific loco?

I believe even very strong magnets should be fine. It is a changing magnetic field that generates a current, and so would be a problem - a moving or spinning magnet, or an electromagnet with alternating current in it. These are what you see in transformers and generators.

So was one phase at ground? That is obviously quite different to modern three phase systems, where touching any one will give a shock. I am wondering what the implications of that are?

Thanks for the responses. Building on comments here, I found this web page, which seems to be a more up-to-date version of S-9.2.1 than in on the NMRA site. https://sites.google.com/site/markgurries/dcc-welcome-page/advanced-topics/decoder-addressing/decoding-dcc-addresses The answer appears to be:

The documentation I have found says that with two-byte addresses, the range of addresses available is 1 to 10,239 (though some implementations might reduce that). The first two bits of the address byte have to be 1 to indicate this is a two-0byte address, which leaves 14 bits for the address itself, that gives you 16,383 addresses. However, The first eight bits cannot be all 1, as that is the null address, so that reduces the range by 256. That leaves 5,888 addresses unaccounted for. Can anyone explain this? Have I misunderstood something? I do appreciate this is just part of the magic that happens behind the scenes, and there is no reason I need to know this; I am just interested.

I have been reading "Oil on the Rails" by Alan Coppin, and in the section about WW2 it talks about the "Pink Belt", "This was an area 30-60 miles deep, all along the coast from Newcastle to Plymouth in which no large stores of petrol were allowed to remain overnight, in an attempt to deny fuel to the enemy in the event of an invasion." A consequence of this was a lot of traffic on the railways - especially with so much being used to support the war effort. Apparently nines times as much oil products were moved by rail in 1944 compared to 1940. However, I cannot find any other reference to a pink belt on the internet (plenty of other interesting stuff). Has any one else heard of it?

The text on petrol tank wagons say (more or less): No naked light to be brought near tank Keep cover securely fastened whether loaded or not Max working pressure 10 psi I would guess this is the same type of information - basically safety instructions. Ammonia is not flammable, but safety data sheets do say keep sources of ignition away, so may well be there. The maximum pressure will be well over 100 psi, and looks to be the second line of text? The other lines look like they start "no" to me.

We are looking to revise our club rules. One issue raised is about liability if the club folds. There is no reason to think this is about to happen, and we have a fund to cover foreseeable expenses, but what happens if there are outstanding debts? Is it usual for the rules to say liabilities will be shared by all members equally? Or is there a way to limit the liabilities to the funds the club has so members are not liable? Obviously, if we were a company we can do that, but my suspicion is that that would involve other expenses. A couple of members have said they would not be prepared to be members if they are potentially liable for unlimited amounts (say if someone gets injured, we are sued and the insurance company wriggles out of it). Has anyone got any advice? Any experiences or suggestions that might be helpful?