phil-b259

Stafford (& Stoke on trent, etc) can be served by using the connection onto the WCML at Litchfield (the end of phase 1) which will remain even after extension of HS2 further north.

Oxford - Bletchley cannot be compared to either Penrith - Keswick or Colne - Skipton because of the very simple fact, namely the fact that the railway still 'officially' exists between these two places. In fact to be precise about it. (1) Oxford - Bicester bit already exists as a passenger railway, (2) Bicester - Calvert as a freight branch and (3) the remainder (Calvert - Bletchley) is 'mothballed'. Yes the track, etc will need completely relaying on section (3) along with a substantial upgrade to section (2). However section (1) is being taken care of courtesy of Chiltern's plans for an Oxford service so the costs of upgrading this section don't fall to the East West Project. On the other hand Keswick - Penrith or Colne - Skipton start from the major disadvantage of not having a single piece of railway land to use thus the biggest hurdle is not actually the railway engineering side, it is the fact that the amount of money required to buy back the land and create a suitable trackbed makes getting a decent BCR ratio (under the current Governments criteria) nigh on imposable.

Tornados tender (as with the loco itself) was designed to take account of main line running on todays railway. Thus it features a larger water tank as well as having spaces for all the modern stuff (low level fillers, data loggers, GSM-R, etc) designed in. This is infinitely preferable to having to modify an original design and is the reason the group will be using a duplicate of Tornados tender for the new build. So from Hornby's point of view, they already have some of the model ready to go.

That was a post privatization intative by Connex. Certainly in NSE days the remaining refurbished 4BIGs were still in use a buffet units with some semi permanently coupled up to a standard 4CIG unit for the non stop Vic - E Croydon - Brighton service (I think they were known as 8DIG units and branded as 'Capital Coast Express' units - replaced by Connex refurbished 319s with that little bar like area under the pantograph well)

Ahh the golden days before mandatory hard hats, eye protection and climbing harness (I kid you not) to get up signals. Give it another 10 and I suppose we will all have to be wearing bio-hazard suits lineside. All in the name of H&S you understand

Very nice, although I am still not quite sure what era the LMS liveried example is meant to be from. Being a passenger loco, under the revised LMS livery scheme, it should have a small amount of red lining (as on the crab released by Bachmann a few years ago). Without this I can only conclude the model is, as with the Fairburn tank, presented in Derby's WW2 plain black livery (Crewe was using the newer 'block' style insignia by then).

I stand corrected (I should have checked really, rather than relying on my memory alone)

To be honest I think the layout of Dunton Green was more of a factor as the Westerham branch joined the mainline facing southwards towards Sevenoaks rather than northwards to London. If this had been the case then not only would through services to London been possable but there is allways the possability that Dunton Green station could have been resited (like Swanley - origionally it had seperate platforms on the Chatham & Sevenoaks branches before being rebuilt in 1938/39) to allow the splitting of trains.

That shouldn't be a problem because railway signals fitted with lamp proving have a special delayed action realy in the lamp proving circuit designed to get round this issues. If you are getting a blank signal indication it points to an issue with this relay or asociated circuitry. The rate of flashing has not changed with LEDs and is designed to ensure drivers can recognise it at a varity of speeds. Besides the actual rules state that a driver traveling at linespeed must be able to see a signal for 10 seconds before they get to it and that for the last 5, nothing is permitted to obscure the view.

Its actually more about preserving the life of the fillament more than anything else. Even in your home a fillament lamp is much more likely to blow on intial switch on due to the inrush of current than when it is actually working.

So while it seams Bachmann have comendably gone and producded left and right hand duckett types, they have used exactly the same roof molding (based on the right hand style) and the same underframe (base on the left hand style) for all varients. If they had stuck with the same roof and underframe setup then at least one of the varients would be correct out of the box.

But what you do need is contrasting colours for the doors to comply with disability regs. Not sure how you would do this for the InterCity livery, however I have allways thought that SNCF had the right idea ages ago (well before the said regs came in I point out) - Paint standard class doors green, first yellow and catering red. The angled design on the TGVs worked particularly well in my view. In many ways I think it would be better to return to just a few standardised liveries (certanly cheeper when the franchise holder changes - with the franchise owners influence restricted to company name and logo like Scotrail is now.

As built the southern DEMU controls were incompatable with those of contemparary EMUs despite the apperence given by the mu jumpers and buckeye couplers. In the 80s however I believe one DEMU set was modified so it could work with EMUs but the project was not persued.

I was under the impression that LMS passenger locos given black livery were (prior to WW2) given red lining and given the compound was a passenger engine, Bachmann would have applied like the crab they offered a few years ago. Plain black just look wrong somehow

I too found that by changing the front and rear wheels on the Dapol tanks to Hornby or Bachmann ones (leaving the middle set alone) solved the de-railing problem. I also agree with Jenny that the lack of solebar lettering on the Dapol version does stand out, especially when sen alongside the Hornby offering.

Nope, the "Widened lines" still have restricted clearences and cannot acept trains with a length grater than 20m per car. Thus while most MK3 20m derived units are OK the only locos permitted are the class 73s and 31s. Anything else is too long. Back in the 70s however the bigest restriction was the "Hotel curve" at Kings Cross which was even tighter, such that todays EMUS would have fitted through it and peak hour services from the GN lines had to be short length Mk1 suburbans to fit.

It is well proven that electric trains are cheaper to maintain, lighter (that means they are kinder to the track as well as using less energy to move along) and have a better acceleration rate than diesels an import factor on routes with fairly frequent station calls. Also electric traction is far better at coping with gradients due to the ability of the electrical supply system to provide far more power than any diesel can. OK you can add more engines but that also increases fuel costs, maintainence costs and causes more wear and tear on the p-way. The class 185s for example weigh considerably more than their electric cousins operating on SWT. Also as inefficient as it is compared with overheads, the 3rd rail system still trumps diesel traction - there is simply no way lines like the Brighton main line could handle the number of trains it does without the advantages electric traction provides.

Basingstoke - Southampton conversion only really makes sense because of the ammount of non 'southern' traffic (frequent intermodals, XC services, etc). Pretty every other 3rd rail route in the south east is dominated by EMUs to and from London (OK, Kent may have Channel tunnel flows which it can factor in) - hence the only advantage for conversion on these routes would be a more efficent electricity distribution system (and better reliability for the 20 or so days of bad weather over the winter. I remain to be convinced that the potental conversion of the Bsingstoke - Southampton section can be replicated elsewhere, the benifits don't justify the costs and we would be better off spending the money on wiring up other bits of the UK network than simply replacing one type of electric system with another.

Thats the key point, none of the trains at Amsterdam Airport terminate there. Now assuming we have a 2tph Reading - London service, each train will sit in the platform at Reading for 30minutes at a time thus effectivley removing one of the platforms for the duration (just the same as if Amsterdam Airport had terminating trains running at 2tph). If any Heathrow service is also 2tph you lose yet another platform meaning Reading ends up with only two platforms avaleable for all through passenger and freight trains on the relief lines. Like I said earlier one solution is to send the train into a siding (or the new Redaing depot) between journeys but that does require the provision of easily accessable said sidings (i.e. they don't need shunters aceptance switches etc to use them) to be factored into the track layout. If this could be done the both crossrail and a new Heathrow service could use the same platform, alternating between them and leaving three of the four relief platforms free for through traffic.

On the other hand going through to Reading would reduce the number stabling and turnback facilaties required at Maidenhead and also solves problem of how to serve Maidenhead to Reading without losing the conectivity provided by the current through services. Granted Reading might need some carefull platform diagraming, but given that everything published so far suggests no more than 2tph beyond Maidenhead and even with the possably of a further 2tph to Heathrow, (something which might not be needed if Reading crossrail services went via the proposed western spur and through the airport itself rather than West Drayton), I find it hard to believe that Reading won't be able to cope. Besides is there really any need to have the unit sit in the platform at Reading for 30 minutes between trips, depending on the eventuall layout chosen could it not head off into the new depot for a 10 minute layover betwwen services?

This has all been discussed before. Basically due to the way Hornby (and Bachmann, etc produce their models these days) Hornby cannot suddenly produce a new chasis. They have to get in contact with the factory in China (which is not owned, managed or even dedicated to Hornby products) and try and arange a production slot for new chasis blocks which given they way the system works, you are looking at anywhere between 6 and 18 months for one to become avalable. Hence the wait. This is where your car anology falls down because car production lines continually turn out the same products, i.e. Ford don't say 'this month we will make a batch of Focus cars, next month we will do some transit vans, the month after that some KAs, they have dedicated production lines turning out the same thing 365 days a year. If Hornby did the same they would have a production line turning out only class 31s 365 days a year. Also when they stop production of a particular car, thats it - if all the spares get used up then tough - its down to making your own or getting them from the breakers. Again this is more to do with the batch production line system than anything else. The current crop of class 31s will have been ordered with the factory in China at least 6 months ago and as with any contract (remember Hornby don't own the factory) it will have been for a specific number of locos in a specific number of liveries. Hornby cannot now simply say they have changed their mind and want something different, instead they will have to book a new production slot in the future. Hence why have Regional railways & Network rail class 31s in stock, but not any Dutch liveried examples.

From what I can gather all you need is a simple sprung loaded push to make button. One press makes the signal go one way, a second press reverses it (hence all the complaints about the signals not being DCC friendly). From this I would imagine that if you continually supplied the signal with voltage or you waited to the arm had finished moving before letting go of the button, the signal would assume you wanted to change its state and start going the other way again.

Just to point out that in the real world where a single AWS installation is provided for two signals on a bi-directional line (e.g. a platform line with starting signals each end and a common AWS installation) the exact arangement is as follows :- Ramp, electromagnet, Permenant magnet, Electromagnet, Ramp.( i.e. remove one of the two central magnets shown in the pics). Also where AWS is installed on bidirectional lines, to avoid drivers of trains traveling 'the wrong way' getting an AWS indication which doesn't apply them, It is common to provide suppressor magnets rather than bog standard permenant ones (the elctromagnet remain unchanged). A suppressor magnet is basically a permenat magnet with two smaller electromagnets bolted to each side (in the manor of pannier tanks). When a 'wrong way' train is signalled, the mini electromagnets are energised and 'suppress' the magnetic field being generated by the permenant magnet, thus making the installation non exsistaant as far as the train is concered.

FIrst thing to say it depends on the specific signalling requirements rather than any mandated distances. Location case placement is determined by need alone, so it is entirely possable for a set of signals to not be immediatley adjacent to a case if the designer has decided that another place may be more benifical. For example on lines worked by track circuit block, in plain line areas, the track circuits do not start and finish adjacent to the signal because the standard 200 yard overlap is simply a continuation of the track approching the signal (giving rise to the sittuation where a signal stays green even after a short train has gone past it). Thus the designer may decide it benifical to put the relays controling the signal with the track circuit equipment and feed the signal by a long tail cable for example. In other situations it might be reversed and it is the track circuit equipment that gets moved to locations close to the signal. Another thing to consider is that in some places the distance between consecutive signals may be too long to be covered by a single track circuit. Thus what appears to the signalman as "AB" track actually consists two seperate tracks (i.e. "AB-1" & "AB-2") which will naturally result in a location case appearing at the join between the two and not asociated with signals. Regional practices and date of the installation can also produce variation the placement of location cases as can the technology used in the signalling scheme itself. For example axle counters can be employed to get rid of long multi section tracks and SSI based signalling has reducded the number of lineside multicore cables, but may end up requireing more location cases as the SSI modules themselves are not small. All rather complicated however I'm sure that others on the forum will be able to provide more details

To a great extent direct HS2 - HS1 trains will still depend on the UK government being willing to change its stance on UK border controls. At pressent all trains to / from Europe cannot be used by UK domestic passengers and can only stop at stations with extensive Passport and imigration facilaties. (Note that the reverse is not true in France - hence the seasonal services starting at Avignion & the in Alps can get away with tempory facilaties)