phil-b259

Complete nonsense. Single line working is perfectly safe and has been for many years, particularly now we have the likes of TPWS to enforce compliance with red signals covering entry to said single line. From what is coming out of Germany so far, it seems as if a technical malfunction is unlikely and human factors may be the root cause. This is why the ORR take such a strong view on the unauthorised isolation of TPWS in this country. In any case busesing passengers around by road puts the at a far grater risk of injury - the figures for road vehicle collisions, including buses are way higher than anything comparable in recent railway history, so single line working is actually far safer than the current arrangements for travellers.

The consensus on here was that the ex LSWR stock never wore BR green in real life anyway. The 'BR Green' seen on photos is heavily varnished Malachite with a BR font for lettering. Hornbys change to crimson is a case of making changes to get it right - and if you want BR green (a totally fictitious livery for this stock) you will need to do it yourself.

No they don't (need that is) Despite having the ability to turn locomotives at both ends the West Somerset doesn't normally bother IIRC - they consider its too much hassle to do on a day to day basis (though I think they do like to try and demonstrate the turntable at Minehead most days by simply rotating the loco through 360 degrees rather than 180). Having the ability to turn things both ends is more in the 'nice to have' category for galas and suchlike. Having a single one like the GCR currently have is also far from being pointless as turning coaches to even out fading by sunlight or swapping round engines to give new photographic possibilities can be very useful

I doubt it. You are forgetting that while Bachmann themselves are OK financially (they most certainly are not making large profits), their parent company Kadder has its own big financial issues to contend with and made a rather large loss itself last year IIRC. The big difference of course is Kadder are an overseas company not listed on the UK stock exchange and neither do they have their finances provided by a UK based bank that is also subject to the pressures of the City of London. Also I would suggest that if both Bachmann and Hornby were owned by the same parent, the volume of new models each year would fall as the overall numbers of design staff / manufacturing capacity would shrink (comparing one big company to two medium sized ones). While it is true that exact duplication is a bad thing in a market so small as model railways (and hence it tends to be avoided where possible), having two manufactures competing for customers money by offering highly detailed albut different models actually works to the customers advantage - if there is no competition what the point in continuing to spend more than is absolutely necessary?

As with steam locomotive boilers, to avoid thermal shock it is necessary to allow the to heat up and cool gradually. As such just because the actual generators / turbines have stopped that doesn't mean the heat / smoke / steam producing bits are inactive. The other possibility is that work is required on the transformers or grid connections requiring the station to be electrically offline - but as it takes days to do a propper shutdown, the rest of the plant is kept fully functioning until the electrical work is completed.

Please desist from ruining a useful and informative discussion about power generation with Eurosceptic propaganda. This forum is meant to be politics free and several of your comments thus far display far too much if that. The simple FACT is the global economy, global politics, sources of conflict, scientific understanding, environmental awareness have changed massively in the past five or six decades, and as such, sticking your head in the sand and pretending the UK, or indeed the world could turn the clock back 50 / 60 years - when individual countries were indeed more self sufficient is plain nonsense - not to mention impossible without a WW2* style global conflict to force the issue. *Even then most of our oil / rubber etc (vital for military equipment) had to be imported from the USA and run the gauntlet of U-boats in the North Atlantic As for doing nothing till others change - have you heard of King Canute who manifestly failed to change the forces of nature by staying put? While yes the likes of India and China are big polluters at present, you get them to change by upping your own game and then encouraging them (possibly through the carrot of increased trade) to do the same. There are of course legitimate questions as to the merits of different approaches taken by various EU countries as to energy security / resilience in an unstable world - we have already touched on France and Germany but basis on facts not political rants.

Why does everything in this country have to be done to benefit City Of London wheeler dealers and their gambling lifestyle. A good electricity supply is a vital to the overall well being of the country, not some arbitrary 'comodaty' to be traded for financial gain.

Damed useful having a thriving Heritage railway sector in this country....

Please remember that the Bluebell and ALL their staff - be they paid or volunteers - are bound by a non disclosure clause included in the filming contract. As such there can be no conformation or discussion over what is taking place whatsoever from anyone involved,so to avoid making life difficult please confine any discussions to things that have been publicly observed. Film income is very important to Heritage railways and as such it is important not to drive away such activities by going against the wishes of the film company and the Bluebell.

One solution for the actual trackbed is to utilise the 'land viaduct' idea where piles are sunk and a concrete slab is laid on top them - just as you would for an ordinary bridge, except at ground level. this has been used successfully on the ECML where historic mining subsidence was causing problems with maintaining a safe and reliable trackbed. Obviously this will do nothing for the retaining wall issues - that effectively needs a rebuild with deeper and more stable foundations - but if it is not actually integral to the trackbed then it may be an easier thing to undertake.

Being able to physically do something is very different to it being a financially worthwhile exercise. Unfortunately in the model railway world there are an awful lot of modellers who seem to think manufacturers are charities or are immune to normal company management which includes paying proper attention to the financial impact of new developments in terms of extra costs inured and revenue displaced from existing product lines as well as how much extra 'new' money may be generated by a particular venture. Thus what is coming strongly on this thread is people on here seem to be losing sight of is this venture is that Peco themselves have said they are using the production of plain line basically as a trial to see if it is profitable venture for them overall. If it is (based on revenues / facts - not hearsay) then points will be considered - if sales are not as good as they expect then development of points may be put on hold or shelved and thus talk of what sort of point geometry Peco should adopt at this stage strikes me as a waste of time. On the other hand if early sales are encouraging then it encourages expansion of the range. For my 2 pennies worth - I don't have the room to move away from using small / medium radius Peco points and still model what I enjoy. Thus if Peco want me to invest in this new bullhead track then sticking with code 100 / code 75 geometry for any new pointwork is a must. That in itself does not mean that other modellers needs are irrelevant or that I would begrudge them if Peco went for a completely new geometry for new points to match their plain line - but it does mean they won't get any of my money spent on it.

Not with tension locks and probably not with Hornbys own 'close coupler'. Based on previous super detailed coaches they have produced it will either be two genuine Roco close couplers that are required or a mix of one Roco and one Hornby to get gangways touching.

Thats not just a set of Lorry trailers - its the A20 approach to Dover (which presumably is what did for the row of houses. the reason it looks like a trailer park is that to try and prevent Dover getting jammed up when there are delays on the Ferries, lorries are stacked on the inside lane all the way back to Folkestone with all other traffic using the outside lane. Traffic lights at the head of the queue release lorries when there is space at the port and the whole stretch is subject to a 40mph average speed enforcement* at all times - even when the port is flowing freely (Except that Kent Police are on record as saying they don't actually peruse non UK registered vehicles for fines which is a bit of a disgrace when at least half the traffic is non UK registered)

And your solution is??? Railtrack Mk2 Vertical integration (impossible under EU law and opposed by the FOCs) 'Deep Alliances' (despite the one between NR & SWT being dissolved by mutual contestant as not working well enough to keep going) Nationalisation (and being even more under the thumb of HM Treasury) Yes Network Rail has its problems - nobody is saying they don't*, but it does lots of good work on a day to day basis - fixing broken rails, repairing 1970s vintage signalling equipment handling far more trains than it was designed for etc. That may not be 'sexy' compared to major projects but its what allows London and other large conurbations to function on a daily basis and that should not be ignored in favour if of the media spin / Political ideology or populist sentiment that insist its NR is useless. * The much praised 'Private sector' companies are not immune to big screw ups - have a look at lots of retailers over the past decade and its easy to find plenty of examples of bad decisions made by management - yet the company still caries on. Alternatively look at the city financial sector and just how much money had to b spent propping up ostensibly private companies which continue to trade today.

Which is why I continue to take on NR bashers on this forum. Like any business NR has its faults - and I readily admit the GWML programme has suffered form quite a few mistakes but even with that its miles better than the Railtrack days when engineering played second fiddle to shareholder profits and the company reputation in the eyes of city investors - people should remember that. Continued NR bashing only encourages the Politicians that 'something must be done' - breaking up NRs 'monopoly' in the name of 'grater competition lowering costs' being a favourite one. As for the Government, well its hardly a secret that at heart, the Conservatives have always been hostile to railways - they require a high level of subsidy and remain a stubbornly difficult thing to flog off to the private sector in the way that other utilities have been. While I welcome the current Governments investment in various schemes that does not blind me to the fact that NR is regarded by the Treasury as an abomination that needs to be 'dealt with' as soon as they can find an acceptable way to break it up that doesn't interfere with the EU requirements to separate trains & track or involve something similar to the PR disaster of Railtrack. Network Rail, is a good employer and one I am proud to work for. It treats the safety of its staff and the public highly plus invests heavily in bringing new talent into the industry through its apprentice schemes. It is full of dedicated staff who do a very good job in trying to keep the nation moving despite much of the infrastructure ruining at or beyond its design capacity. It is good at responding to emergency situations such as the Dawlish washout or the Lamington Viaduct problems and deserves better than to be kicked about by Whitehall to cover for political errors (Like an overly ambitious electrification plan that took no account of the lack of staff available to deliver it). The one comfort in all this for the likes of Simon and other recent entries to the industry is the country needs railways and its an industry that has proved remarkably resilient to political attempts to get rid of it. As such I would say to them don't be disillusioned and remember a true railwaymans allegiance is not to whatever companys name appears on their contract of employment - your allegiance is to the railway system as a whole and the passengers or freight that gets transported by it. Its a concept completely lost on Politicians and indeed much of society at large but one that still survives in the wider railway family.

'Accepting' is not the same thing as 'liking'. It is perfectly possible to dislike any particular change yet at the same time accept the rational engineering / scientific / economic reasons why that particular change has been made over alternative options. Emotion and the laws of physics are two separate things and should stay that way - which does not preclude anyone having separate views on each as long as they do not get confused.

On the St Pancras to Bedford scheme, the 319 units only get up to 110mph, plus both the units pantographs were designed with this fact in mind. I severely doubt that the OHLE would be up to running them at 125mph on a regular basis before we started to see the same issues develop as on the ECML. Its one of the things NR will have to address as the wires progress further and further north from Bedford.

Linespeeds please Headspans are indeed quite widely used in Germany, but as far as I know not on lines where the speed gets much above 100mph. Above that portals are used for multi track areas. I also remind you that the IEPs have a design speed of 140mph and there is a plan to run them at that speed through Goring I believe as soon as the GWML gets ETRMS level 2 fitted. As such the OHLE NR are installing has to be suitable for operation at such speeds by multiple unit style trains with two pantographs in use not that far apart in a single train and headspans are not suitable for this.

Firstly only a fool thinks things will stay the same. Yes Heathrow is vastly different from 50 years ago, but anyone with any degree of sense would have quickly realised the general direction aviation was taking - namely more people flying leading to bigger, noisier and more frequent planes with the necessary infrastructure to match. Similarly if you lived next to the M4 past Maidenhead - which was built as a 2 lane by-pass of Maidenhead it wouldn't have taken long to understand that as the cost of owning and running a car fell and the M4 was completed to Bristol, noise and pollution will increase. That doesn't mean you have to like such developments of course - but any dislike has to be tempered by a healthy dose of realism, an understanding of trends in society and the way technology / science / engineering is developing. If you do so then developments which you do not personally like will not come as a shock and you can try and undertake mitigating measures. As such if you live next to a major road, railway or airport then all complaints about "its radically different from 19xx" show is, fundamentally, the complainer hasn't done their homework, in particular observing global trends such as an increase in the number of people taking overseas holidays or the rise in multi-car households, the loss of traditional factory / locally based employment, etc. If you actually study the airport capacity debate and the views of influential organisations its clear that Heathrow will, at some point in the future get its 3rd runway - its not simply going to disappear however much people protest and anyone living in the vicinity should be planning accordingly. The only saving grace is that at present the air quality is s bad that it can't go ahead due to EU air quality rules BUT if we leave the EU or planes and particularly cars get much better with regards emission so the problem can be sufficiently controlled (note not resolved) then the 3rd runway will happen. Personally I think that is a bad idea - but as a realist the optimum solution (of moving the whole airport to the North West of London) is not going to happen, so it won't come as a surprise when the 3rd runway eventually happens. Secondly as regards the choice of electrification structures - people, particularly the residents of Goring need to start understanding physics. Headspan style construction is fundamentally bad for high speed railways and has no place on the GWML. Saying we want dainty headspans that will forever be susceptible to strong winds and won't cope well with multiple pans ignores the fact that they are asking thousands of travellers from Bristol and Wales to put up with an inferior infrastructure solution and have their journeys subject to disruption on a regular basis simply so a few hundred people can keep their "nice views" and no doubt high house prices. As I said earlier the decision to use portal structures is for sound engineering reasons and as such the rights of the many (GWML commuters) trump the resident of Goring. Its the same with HS2, the national Grid or indeed some road schemes, with the world as it is today the rest of the UK needs them to happen and the rest of us should not be held hostage to the opinions if a small number of locals who want things to stay the same forever in their locality. As for the difference between the WCML & GWML portal structures - is their really that much difference. Yes the WCML uses lattice masts and cross members giving it a slightly lighter appearance, but not by much and when they were brand new I'm sure they were all shiny and reflective too. A portal structure is still a portal structure however you define it and I doubt the inhabitants of Goring would really think that the WCML style structures are an improvement as their opposition seems based less on facts or having actually been bothered to get involved at the start (as others have pointed out they type of portal structure NR were going to use was in the public domain well before work actually started on the ground) and more on selfish superficial issues, like making the area 'less pretty' and the resultant impact on their house prices etc.

It is also VERY flimsy - there is a very good reason why no other Europien railway organisation uses headspan type OHLE supports on high speed lines and a cursory glance at infrastructure faults on the ECML will show the proportion of OHLE faults is far higher than the WCML which uses portal structures. Put simply head spans are only good for slow speed lines - if you actually want a electrified railway capable of supporting high speeds then you need portal style structures. Anything else is simply delusional and people believing it need to wake up to the realities of physics rather than wanting the impossible.

The GW IEP fleet is reportedly being changed from a mixed bi-mode / straight electric fleet to all being bi-mode. As the bi-mode versions will not have the same amount of tractive power under diesel as electric, they will suffer a performance penalty. Thus it makes sense to concentrate electrification resources on the Paddington -Swindon - Bristol Parkway stretch where much of the line is cleared for 125mph running and the need to run at high speeds is vital if line capacity and the number of TPH is to be maintained, rather than, say, the route via Chippenham or the line to Oxford where the need to use the IEP in diesel mode will not cause too much trouble when it comes to pathing etc.

It depends if it is classed as a manufacturing defect or not. The application of what you believe is an incorrect shade of brown on every model is not a 'defect' - its a design issue and as I understand it in such cases consumer law technically only provides for the ability to change your mind about the and return with you being liable for the return postage. If on the other hand the lining was not square because the body had not been correctly inserted into the Tampo printing tool, then that is classed a manufacturing defect and as with all defective items you have the right to return it to swap for another example or a refund with the seller refunding the postage costs.

As I understand things, responsibility for organising the diesel gala (in the sense of selecting visiting locos and getting them to the railway) has been given to GBRF to sort out. This might sound strange but when you consider that there are more than a few Bluebell volunteers (including the loco department) have day jobs with said company, the fact that GBRF are the preferred company to deal with when it comes to stock movements and non steam charters on / off the line and the the fact GBRF were the ones tasked with moving the waste out from the Imberhorne cutting during the building of the extension. Most importantly though, and something the Bluebell themselves admit, they are not very good when it comes to all things diesel - being a 100% steam worked line the rest of the year What traction GBRF may sort out is not known at this stage and I'm sure the Bluebell has suggested some possibilities - but whatever er does come must be vacuum braked as the Bluebell does not have any air braked stock.

I received my replacement 'Southern 207' version today and am pleased to say it runs fine around my 2nd & 3rd radius curves (unlike the initial one). However I have a question to put to other owners of this model concerning the livery. Close examination of the model has bought something to my eye with regard to the lining of one of the tanks and I am wondering whether it is a, how can I put it a manufacturing defect affecting a couple of models (as I have had with the green lining on a Hornbys 700 class loco cabside where the part had not been fitted square into the printing machine) or whether it is present across every model and is not a defect so to speak. If you closely examine the tank of the side of the loco to which the air pump is fitted, the white lining towards the smokebox end of the tank doesn't seem to form a nice clean rectangle, if that makes sense. It seems like the gap between the white line and the top edge of tank gradually increase a bit as you move towards the front of the loco and this may be creating a bit of a parallelogram effect . The issue does not seem to be present on the lining of the other tank and I should stress that overall the livery application is excellent and I still want a model of 207 so if they are all the same as my example it would be useful to know as its most certainly not a 'deal breaker'' as it were if it turns out to be present across all examples.

True, but its one of those 'Southern' characteristics to have their stock / locos with lots of dangleley cables stuck on the front - going way back to the first EMUs on the LSWR. Its also emphasises, how can I put it, the 'practical' approch of the Southern, which historically has been more concerned with the ability to do a good job than worrying too much about looks.