Ian J.

57s in Freightliner and 66s in EWS...?

Due to sources of information coming from the works of Gould and King, etc, and those being in copyright, I don't think it would be wise for me to make the Access file publicly available. It would be more like I'd have the file on my PC, and could use it to look up information based on requests. How much detail could be included in a request output I'm not sure at this point. There's a long way to go before I need to worry about that though.

I like to try to have a context of authenticity to my 'rule 1' scenario in S&P, so having some actual historical information to guide me helps. I thin Freightliner might be likely, as they operate in Southampton now and I think did so in 2005, and Penmouth is essentially a kind of 'overflow' port for Southampton when it comes to containers.

Well, I've ordered the standard and revised blue releases. They seem like they might be selling quite quickly going by stock levels on some sites, so I didn't want to hang around and miss out.

Are we going to have a third release at some point, with specially-made 'dented' boxes to commemorate this event...? 😉

12 minutes ago, Barnaby said:

Hello.

While searching the www for some information I was directed back to here, [seems many modelling roads lead back to RMweb].  Unfortunately, the very important part of this information a photograph was missing.

Where the photo should be was something like this>>> post-2973-0-68031900-1338290280_thumb.jpg and a little white box.  Is there any way I can get these details to resolve into the photo it previously had displayed.

It does seem that this info is directly related to the photo but I don't know how to resolve it.

If there is a way, can it be made into a sticky for future ref.

 

Thanks

 

RMweb had issues earlier in the year where images were lost by the internet hosting company of that time. The provider has since been changed.

Unfortunately it has not been possible to recover the images in their entirety and many are now missing. It will be up to the original creators of the threads, posts, blogs, etc, to re-upload their images. In some cases this will not happen as the creators are no longer on RMweb, either through leaving the site or passing away, or the creators no longer have the images.

Your first position on trying to see a lost image will be to message the creator of the relevant post and see if they are still around, and if so would they be willing to re-upload the image, if they still have it.

The problem is I don't know what container wagons were around in 2005, let alone which would be the best candidates...

Hi all,

What would be suitable wagons for carrying containers circa 2005, out of a fictional South Coast port? I've done a little internet searching but I'm not coming up with anything informative.

TIA,

Ian

OK, with a little help from a friend who had a suitable engineering tool for holding things, I have been able to reliable file down the foot of a check rail, keep the edge 'pointed' and fit it to the turnout. That reduced the check rail gap from 1.2mm to very near 1.0. That was then glued in place with a two part epoxy (B&Q's 'finest') and that seems to have held well. I'm not going to break the join deliberately and I have used enough pressure to feel confident that it's holding. Testing with a Hornby wagon with wheels at pretty much the maximum gap (14.75mm back to back) has the wagon running through the check rail cleanly and not hitting the V point.

The beauty of this way of narrowing the gap is it's probably easier to do once the turnouts are laid. This means I can get on with fiddleyard track laying for S&P and can worry about narrowing the gaps at a later date once everything's running well in 'coarse' mode.

To my eye that lower band looks off-white. But that would still be wrong of course, as it's definitely supposed to be darker than that by a few 'shades'.

I still prefer the front-of-cab footsteps on the old Lima model to the new Bachmann one. There must be something wrong with me, I suppose, but just having separately fitted footsteps in order to have that as a selling point, when molding them on actually looks better, seems daft.

Not very good pics, I haven't been able to get decent light onto them, but the BR(S) Green ones are here:

The green still looks a little too dark to me, but otherwise they are nice 🙂

2 hours ago, Oldddudders said:

Do you have the Longworth volume? I can't recommend it as a general intro to Southern coaches, as it lacks the photos and drawings of King, the compactness of Gould, but it has a comprehensive listing of vehicles and sets.

I don't have it, but it sounds like it could be very useful.

I have the feeling this is going to be quite a big project, as it's looking likely that I'll have to do quite a bit of digging into resources to check and straighten out the data. To some degree, that makes the SEMG file moot, but it's still a good starting point. The next thing on the agenda will be acquiring copies of Gould's Oakwood Press books beyond the one I already have (Maunsell's SR Steam Carriage Stock), so that I at least have the resources to hand.

OK, an example of having data in a better, more structured form, means transcription compromises can be found:

• Mike King's book 'An Illustrated History of Southern Coaches' has a table on page 14, Table 1, noting the stock from pre-grouping as re-numbered by the SR in 1924.
• Mike King's book 'Southern Pull-Push Stock' has a table on page 70, Table 3, noting ex LSWR non corridor Pull-Push sets.
• The SEMG spreadsheet has as its first set number 1, noted as ex LSWR non-corridor Pull-Push, as a BT-C formation with vehicles 2620 and 6488 respectively, matching the Table 3 entry from MK's Pull-Push book.

That Table 3 has column headings for the 'BT' and 'C' vehicles of the sets listed. Taken literally, you'd think 6488 was a 'C', but it's not. The cross reference to Table 1 from MK's Southern Coaches book puts 6488 as a 'BC'. Checking the Pull-Push book in more detail on the chapter for LSWR non corridor sets, it turns out that the diagram for 6488 was 419, the drawing of which is of a 'BC'. So, presuming that the drawing for diagram 419 is correct, the way Table 3 has been laid out causes an interpretation error due to the 'C' column not differentiating between 'C' and 'BC', and leads to a mistake in the SEMG spreadsheet where the listing for Set 1 is as BT-C, when in fact it should be BT-BC.

Ideally, the column heading 'C' in Table 3 should have been 'C/BC', then for anyone checking, it would be apparent that it was necessary to do a bit of further reading to know exactly what the type of vehicle 6488 was.

That reminds me...

7 hours ago, Wickham Green too said:

David Gould's SECR book provides loads of information on that railway's sets into SR days and beyond then there's Weddel's series on the LSWR and Ian White's new LBSCR series .................. how many lifetimes were you thinking of spending on this project ?

Fewer than one... 🤣

We shouldn't forget that the HO manufacturers also have to make compromises for their 'scale' stuff going round radius 1 and 2 track. Proto87 isn't, as such, a commercial scale as far as I'm aware, and for pretty much the same reasons P4 isn't.

Due to an issue with NFL GamePass not working properly tonight, I've had a bit extra time on the data.

It looks like there are quite a few carriage type conflicts between sources in the spreadsheet, so I'm going to have to resort to checking them against what I have in the Mike King book I have. I have another book on Maunsells that may also provide some extra help. Whatever is left I will post back here for a crowd source check 🙂

I wonder if there was only one driver/unloader, for what looks like at least a two person job. Delivery companies these days are trying so much to save on personnel costs it wouldn't surprise me if there was only one.

New thread here:

Hi all,

I'm starting a project to 'clean up' the Coach Sets Excel file from SEMG (link on this page https://sremg.org.uk/coach/sets.html) to make it easier to interrogate the information.

I will eventually put the data into an Access database file, where, if the data can be structured well, it should be possible to enter a set of parameters (one or more of set; dates; locations; services; etc.) that should allow for understanding what ran where at a given date (possibly not to the day, more likely the month).

Any help in understanding the data would be gratefully received, as it's in a bit of a mess. I'm currently just looking at the 'Area' column, and there's lots of variants, typos, etc, and abbreviations that aren't explanatory.

I'll reply here as and when I make any progress.

TIA

I am going to attempt to 'clean up' the Excel file from sremg.org into an Access database, in order to make it easier to do interrogations of the data as to sets, dates and services*. I may need some help as even on my initial view there are oddities just in the services (as well as rather a lot of typos). I'll probably create a new thread for it so as not to overload this one.

*services are called 'area' in the file.

I'm presuming, and I could be wrong here, that this set 69 could be in any formation that went to the West of England, most likely beyond Exeter. In terms of actual other sets likely to be in such formations, I'd need to consult the Excel list as per https://sremg.org.uk/coach/sets.html, and Mike King's book on Southern Coaches.

I've just ordered the two BR(S) green ones on Rails where they are now (21:00, 22/10/2022) showing stock available, so it looks like they're here 🙂