phil-b259

They are however different. The bottom line is this - everything in China (including copyright law) is structured in such a way that, if it wishes to, the Chinese Communist Party (CPC) can step in and eliminate anything it sees as a threat to its grip on power. Thats why its illegal for foreign based companies to own factories or production plants - if they did then the CPC are worried that it would have no way of suppressing what it would consider 'subversive' activities, conversations or initiatives from emerging on the factory floor. Making sure a factory is under Chinese ownership allows the CPC to sack 'disloyal' workers or replace managers / owners who are not loyal to the party in ways that would be difficult to do if the factory was owned by foreign entities. Copyright laws are no different - yes they provide protection to individuals / organisations, but only as long as respecting them does not get in the way of the CPCs tight ideological control of the population. If that control is threatened then you can guarantee that copyrights will not be respected and ruled invalid in some way. Put it this way you try and copyright something which is perceived by the party to link to the Tianmian Square massacre by said CPC, however remote the link, the CPC will make sure the copyright will not be respected. In the UK by contrast copyright laws are not under political oversight and as such could be considered more robust / offer more protection as far as intellectual property goes....

You miss understand.... see the attachment. Remember that you have to consider protecting moves entering the siding from what is already in there deciding to move and colliding with it.... In general any point equipped with a point machine will need protecting with signals from ALL directions....

Correct - though the termination point for all external cables is located at the left end of the machine (which has two cable entry points side by side on the left hand end)

Don't forget that EMR are due to take delivery of a fleet of bi-mode IETs in the near future that will be able to take advantage of OLE where it exists.

Energy costs: Smart meter left woman, 87, scared to turn on heat - BBC News https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckk77v4wvr0o Older article Smart meters: Almost three million still not working - BBC News https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-67591320

Given this https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-26367160 And https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/england-met-office-worcestershire-worcester-wales-b2522182.html# I am not surprised…. And those who are trying to claim that it’s all down to inadequate maintenance need to take a reality check - yes maintenance has been neglected etc but it’s quite obvious that the volumes of rain we are getting now are a huge contributor to drainage being overwhelmed (however well the Victorians etc may have built it) and earthworks failing through saturation / liquefaction.

They suffer from extreme flange wear - if you actually bothered to do research rather than cheap point scoring you would know that British Rail found this out the hard way when the units were first introduced and the subsequent redeployment away from certain places which followed.

Or obsessed with short term returns... Never underestimate the influence of the money men and share traders.... Just look at the various privatisations - most of which have been judged as offering poor value for money over the longer term but at time of sale generated a nice tidy sum for the Government at time of sale. Porterbrook, like all private business, has to be sensitive to shareholder demands and if dividends are not felt to be high enough then long term thinking tends to go out the Window. In recent months there has been significant shareholder pressure on Unilever to dump what shareholders perceive as 'poorly performing' brands they own. (hint they are not that poorly performing, they just don't make as much profit as the other bits)

I was speaking on a general basis not about the West Highland line where Pacers are not permitted anyway.

You miss the point - thanks to increased environmental awareness scrapping things is actually pretty expensive these days as potential contaminants have to be contained and anything which cannot easily be recycled ends up being subjected to the landfill tax. Thus if you are a leasing company wanting to get rid of rolling stock then selling it on for a token amount or donating it will make the company accountants very happy. Selling it overseas (and leaving someone else to deal with disposal) is another tactic that accountants like and will have plyed a part in sending HSTs to South America.

But if the primary selling point is a ride through some pretty countryside then whether something is famous (or infectious) is irrelevant to most people. The LSL Pacers are very much a case of Hoskins wanting to play trains rather than them being ideal as the way forward while those which have entered Preservation on heritage lines is largely due to the owners selling them dirt cheap / donating them as a way of avoiding to have to pay to scrap them rather than them being ideal units for use on such lines* Pacers are also banned from some of the most scenic lines in the country - most 15X based units are not! * Restored loco hauled four wheeled coaching stock also tends to ride badly - the difference between that and a Pacer is that its (1) usually fitted with very comfortable and deeply sprung seating plus (2) its usually of the compartment format so there is no need to be stood up as it runs along.

Yes but ride quality cannot be ignored. From that point of view the Sprinter fleet are a far more sensible proposition than a Pacer when it comes to 2nd gen unit.

You seem to be lacking GPLs from some of your sidings In the 1960s the final signal on the approach to a platform was red / green not red / yellow, they also need route indicators. You don't have any call on facility which will prevent the attaching of trains in the platforms. Its unlikely that the approach line would be di-directionally signalled - the upper of the two signals on your gantry would in reality be a GPL for shut moves back into the station from the departure line.

HW1000 point machines are a late 1970s / 1980s invention - but in the absence of the Westinghoues M3 (which is more in keeping with the 1960s) they will do - just pay attention to how you mount them far too many modellers get this completely wrong (the sticky out bits on the sides cover the rods coming out of the machine and align with the spaces between the sleepers!) Concrete trunking does not run right up to each piece of equipment - think of it like a trunk of a tree, not individual branches. It is there to protect large quantities of cables and thus runs alongside the tracks linking location cases - individual cables to pieces of equipment (known as 'tail cables') would simply be laid on the surface and only enter a toughing route after running under the tracks. Tail cables are thicker than line side multi cores and you may well have more than one feeding equipment. Points machines will typically have one cable carrying the operating circuits (those which get it to move) and another which carries the detection circuits (which report back the points status). Signals may well have separate cables for their main aspects, route indicator, etc. Location cases are there to hold relays and terminate cables - you can fit a good number of relays and terminations in a single case so a single case could quite easily deal with two more 3 ends of points and a similar number of signals. Its positioning would probably be roughly in the middle of all the equipment it controlled so no one tail cable was excessively longer than the rest.

The ORR enforces (via regulation) what THE UK PARLIAMENT) has decided should apply. Why do you think the Heritage Railway Association holds events, seminars and lobbies MPs? It is THE UK PARLIAMENT which has decided that Heritage Railways can be exempted from certain things which PARLIAMENT has decided will apply to the national rail network. Whether thats for commercial reasons, safety reasons or because they think that their local Heritage Railway closing may threaten their parliamentary majority is irreverent to the ORRs work. The UK Parliament could, if it wanted make WCR operations exempt from ORR oversight if it wished - all it takes is a parliamentary bill or two.... If the ORR was supposed to care about commercial matters with respect to safety regulations then it would have been instructed to do so by the UK Parliament - but it hasn't! Therefore any attempts to use that as an argument why regulations don't apply etc can be thrown out. I know that there is an aversion to Politics on this forum but I really wish people would wake up the reality that the majority of decisions made by Government bodies are directly due to the polices and instructions handed down by those who inhabit the Palace of Westminster! If anyone doesn't like the rules / priorities / etc the ORR applies then its the politicians you need to be focusing on!

I'm sure there are those within Whitewall (plus certain political parties) who would love the opportunity to turn it into a pioneering self driving EV motorway instead.

The same reason why you need to go a working at height course when your employer wants you to climb ladders but DIY stores can quite happily sell you a ladder to use at home without the need to seeing proof that you have undergone training - name practicality and voter backlash as stores shut, jobs are lost and people are directly impacted if you can no longer go down B&Q and buy a ladder or a power saw.. Outlawing the purchasing of ladders and many DIY tools would do wonders for A&E as it would significantly reduce the number of 'DIY gone wrong' incidents which cost the NHS large sums of money to sort out. As would mandatory re-testing of motorists every 5-10 years...... As you correctly note the consequences of falling out of a Heritage railway carriage going at 20mph are not materially any different to a national rail train doing the same speed* so yes, in principle there is certainly a strong case for various regulations to be applied to Heritage railways, particularly those with restricted clearances or tall bridges etc. However extending all ORR regulations to Heritage Railways would be just like banning the sales of ladders and DIY tools to the general public - the fall out would be widespread and voters would not tolerate it. Heritage railways carry many more passengers, employ many more people and generate far more economic benefits (not to mention tax revenues) across the UK as a whole than charter operations do in each calendar year. Hence the solution of effectively having two regulatory regimes (be it with respect to ladders or railways) with different regulatory requirements for both and a clear dividing line between them. Charter trains, because they straddle this line unfortunately as is always the case the most stringent standards have to apply so as to be conversant with the law. *though it should be noted that injuries / the likelihood of death from an impact does not rise in a linear fashion with impact speed (hence the "hit me at xx mph and there is an 80 % chance I will die, hit me at xx and there is an 80% chance I will live" type adds you used to see on the TV)

I fear not - there are far too many railway enthusiasts stuck in the 1950s / or who fail to appreciate the difference between a real railway and a train set. The statistics make it clear - far from everything being 'fine' in the 'olden days' the real railway has a long history of killing both workers and passengers through a lacklustre / penny pinching approach to safety. The fact that we have robust regulation these days is something to be celebrated - and unlike the doom mongers on here I'm quite sure that what with Harry Potter being the worldwide success it is that in time someone will come up with a complaint product offering which works* *Note - most Harry Potter fans are NOT train enthusiasts! Providing its got a steam loco on the front and vaguely 'old fashioned' looking coaches (which basically means anything pre-dating the Mk2 aircons) on it they really won't care. They basically fall into the same category as folk who say they have 'seen ' the Flying Scotsman at York when whet they have actually seen is Mallard with a 'Flying Scotsman' headboard

Indeed so - but as this case demonstrates its not the regulator which is 'overexerting' - a UK Judge decided on the basis of the evidence put before them the regulators reasoning and demands were sound. If the ORR was somehow acting well outside what the law thought was proportionate it would have something to say on the matter. Which means that any change has to start with a fundamental rethink of UK law - including a conscious decision to junk several centuries of case law / legal prescient - maybe even as far back as 1066. Somehow, I suspect the chances of that happening are sim....

You are aiming at the wrong entity! The ORR does not write UK law - which is what the regulations are there to protect operators against transgressing and as such contravening UK law. If someone feels the ORR have got things wrong they can, as with WCR, go and put the matter before a Judge. The Judge will then examine whether the ORR regulation being contested is deemed an appropriate way with complying with UK law! If as you contend, the ORRs regulations are 'over the top' / excessive then the Judge has the power to rule against the regulators requirements as going beyond what the law requires (and case law will in fact reveal cases where Judges have taken such action in the past). The fact that organisations generally don't go round challenging the ORR is thus because professional legal advice (not the views of an armchair lawyer looking through rose tinted glasses) will conclude that the ORRs regulations are likely to be proportionate to what THE LAW requires where they to be tested in the UK courts.

All this does is highlight that humans are fallible - and those humans which inhabit the USA are just as likely to make mistakes as they are in the rest of the world. Had you felt like it then I'm sure you could have sued the operator and got compensation. In fact being the US there probably would be many law firms keen to sue as that seems to be default approach to ever single thing that annoys however trivial. Just because something happens overseas does not mean it is considered acceptable practice were it to be tested in a court of law... Plus as law differs considerably between nation states trying to use what a foreign court may / may not do as what would happen in UK courts doesn't wash.

Because when hauled up in front of a judge in a British court practices which would be tolerated elsewhere are JUDGED ILLEGAL UNDER UK LAW! Moreover the ORR (and other regulations) do NOT write the actual laws which the regulations are based round. The ORR (and others) draw up regulations based on the simple premise that if entities follow the regulations then the UK legal system will not find any laws have been transgressed. And thanks to the UKs use of a 'common law system - once a judge in one case finds that a particular law has been transgressed then it gets entered into 'case law' which sets the benchmark for subsequent cases. For example the ORRs regulations which are all about preventing access to the trackside (and taking action against companies which do not proactively try and stop such things) are not something they came up with because they felt like it - the regulations are a symptom of the fact that Parliamentary legislation has required railways to be fenced off from adjoining land etc. Another example would be the use of High-Visibility clothing - again its the fact that we have legislation called the Health and Safety At Work Act enforced by the UK courts which frames the regulations the ORR issue. It would be interesting to stick you in front of a Judge - because they I suspect they would very quickly get you tied up in knots and demolish all the points you raise very quickly!

Generally speaking within Grater London generally speaking there is very little need for the use of a private motor car - and those who continue to selfishly use one deserve everything they get in terms of delays. If there is congestion to public transport then the solution is more bus priority measures etc, not rolling back restrictions on selfish motorists!

Which is exactly the strategy I am employing.

You are confusing two seperate things - braking and CDL Although on trains fitted with power worked doors from the outset the doors are interlocked with the brakes there is actually no specific requirement for a retrofitted CDL system to do the same. Nor is there are requirement for the system to prevent the brakes being released and the train moving off or even that all doors are detected closed before the system can be activated. in essence CDL is something operated by the train guard AFTER all doors have been confirmed closed by them / platform staff to prevent them from being opened again. As such the only relevance to the braking system is that the air pipe running the length of the train provides a source of air which can be used to power the CDL mechanism. Electric power supplied from Batteries / ETS or a vacuum from the vac pipe can also be used a ‘power source’ for the mechanism if so desired - it’s just that nobody has invested/ designed a backlog powered system yet while the ex BR air operated system (which could be retrieved from coaching stock being scrapped or an electromagnetic based solution as pioneered on the Hastings diesels / CIGs used on the Lymington branch are ‘off the shelf’ solutions and are thus relatively cheap.