Pacific231G

Hi Martin I do find the BRMSB standard rather strange. I'm looking at the 1950 version and it gives a sleeper length of 32mm for OO so 8ft but it also gives the same length for H0 which is equivalent to 9ft and 36mm for EM which is also 9ft. That does suggest that Maskelyne and co. were a bit steeped in pre-grouping practice but also that they believed that for best appearance the length of sleepers should correspond to the gauge. For some reason they also gave the same sleeper width of 3.5mm for OO, EM and H0 even though in H0 scale (which a good number of modellers of British prototypes were still using then) that's obviously too fat for a standard 10" wide sleeper. They also had a finer check rail clearance of 1mm for H0 and fine scale EM (EMF) than the 1.25mm they specified for OO and EM - In any case the BRMSB gauge for EM (and EMF) was still 18.0 mm rather than 18.2mm. Fortunately Peco aren't following the sixty year old BRMSB standards for their new track as those specify a rail height of 2.5mm for Bullhead which is code 100. Just for fun I had a go at working out the appropriate sleeper length for the 4ft 11/2 inch (1257mm) gauge that OO track is equivalent to as if it were a real gauge. . Taking the ratio of sleeper length to gauge and Interpolating between the standard sleeper lengths of 2600 mm (8ft 6ins) used for 1435mm (SG) in Britain and Europe and the 2100mm used by ZAR for their 1067mm (3ft 6in) gauge railways, I reckon that sleepers for a real 4ft 11/2 inch gauge railway would be between 2277 and 2476 mm. In 1:76.2 scale that would give sleeper lengths of between 30-32mm. That puts the BRMSB length at the upper end of that range and the nominal 30mm of Peco's FB track at the lower end. If the new Peco bullhead track has sleepers much longer than 32mm then it may look a bit narrow gauge. Since OO can never be accurate to scale what surely matters is whether it looks right with and without rolling stock - at least from the side at a reasonable range of viewing angles. BTW Does anyone know the tolerances that sleeper dimensions were ordered to from the suppliers a) by the pre war railway companies and b) by B.R. ? Obviously they weren't sawn to a few thou but was the allowed variation a few tenths of an inch or a couple of inches?

According to the June Loco-Revue they did succeed, just. It was a team from the Lille MRC working on one layout not the several I'd thought (I think it was an open challenge but they were presumably the only group that rose to it) Apart from water they were only supposed to use what came in the box (though I did spot a palette knife) According to the magazine's write-up, the only disappointment they encountered was ballasting with PVA without a wetting agent. Obviously every home has washing up liquid but clearly not the middle of a large model railway exhibtion when you're working against the clock.

Many years ago my father had a fairly large stamp collection that he was convinced was quite valuable though there were no rarities in it. After he died my mother gave it to me and I eventually sold it through someone I know to be utterly trustworthy and scrupulously honest (not a dealer!) To this day my sister won't believe that I wasn't cheated. I tend to think that one difference between a collector and a modeller is that the collector wants one of everything while the modeller wants batches of some things and none of others- particularly wagons but also coaches "You've already got a Great Western cattle wagon, why do you need six more of them!!"

I had a go with a pump trolley a few years ago. It was the most enormous fun and once you had it up to a reasonable speed it was surprising how little effort was needed to keep it going. Given the well known efficiency of the bicycle I'd imagine that a track cycle would be even easier for a longish inspection trip but probably carried less in the way of tools.

As always with aerodynamics it's a lot more complicated than any simple explanation. While a jet engine does have a ceiling above which the air is too thin, that's a very long way above the altitude of around 30-35 000 ft that most commercial jets operate where the pressure is typically about 200hPa compared with the "standard" pressure of 1013hPa at sea level. Jets can and do fly much higher than that and have gone to edge of space. The U2 spy plane, now used for meteorological research can apparently cruise at 90 000ft . I'm not an aerodynamicist but my understanding is this: Jet aircraft are more efficient at high altitudes partly because the air is cooler. The theoretical efficiency of any heat engine is (Tsource -Tsink )/ Tsource where the temperature T is in absolute. Cool air expands more when heated to the exhaust temperature than warm air and it is the expansion of the air that drives combustion engines. The other factor is the lower density of the air at higher altitudes. That produces lower drag so the aircraft flies faster than at low altitude when it is given the same thrust. Effectively, the air speed (the number of air molecules the aircraft is passing per second) is higher than the actual speed through the air at higher altitudes. At this high speed, the mass flow through the engine is comparable to the mass flow at lower speed in higher density air at lower altitude. The amount of energy needed to heat the air to exhaust temperature is comparable between high and low altitudes. But since the aircraft at high altitude flies much faster the fuel it uses per average ground mile covered is far less. These factors are noticeable even in a light piston aircraft flying at comparatively low altitudes where performance is far better on a cold winter day than a hot summer day but taking off from an airfield 5000ft above sea level requires a far longer runway than is needed at more normal altitudes. There is though a limit to how high a propellor driven aircraft can fly due to the limits of speed at the propellor tips. Turboprops are more efficient than pure jet engines (even high by-pass turbofans) at lower speeds and altitudes but one reason why they were used less was apparently the preception of passengers who thought aircraft fitted with them "old-fashioned" not knowing the difference between a turboprop and a prop in front of a piston engine. .

There was a time (roughly when I was doing my engineering degree) when it seemed that every universiity engineering department had some kind of high speed transport system as somebody's pet project. It usually consisted of about twenty or thirty metres of very straight but very complex guided track, up which (and if you were really lucky down as well) a single vehicle would race. Points (or turnouts) were usually just an artist's impression. They all seemed to spring from an idea that railways- having been brought to full development in the early nineteenth century- must surely by now be obsolete and ripe to be replaced by something sleek and modern preferably striding across the countryside on slender concrete columns. All of them were vastly more complex than railways without offering enough real practical improvements. I particularly remember the maglev between Birmingham International and Birmingham Airport that, so far as I could tell, did roughlty the same job as the Ryde Pier Tramway but at umpteen times the cost.

ISTR being told of a known tendency in "collectables" from comic books to toys and models to reach their peak value when those who had them as youngsters reach the age when they can afford to be collectors but have far less market value, even though rarer, when they precede most living memory. What that can mean is that an adult collector may spend a small fortune on stuff that was in the mass market when they were young but find later on when they (or their executors) want to sell it that it's worth far less. The implication seems to be that it's worth collecting stuff for your own enjoyment but don't expect to get your money back.

You could just mention shoes but that might prove fatal . ISTR that the late and legendary John Allen of Gorre and Daphetid fame had a policy of never buying anything he didn't have an immediate use for on his layout. I wish I could be that self-disciplined but OTOH I have several SNCF locos intended for a long planned layout that only come out when we take our group layout to shows but that would be very difficult to get hold of now. I suppose that if you're a scratch builder then the must buy it now because it'll become unavailable thing doesn't apply at least not so much. .

It has been modelled by a few of our French counterparts but the metre gauge Tramways de Correze are very deserving and probably my choice for the lost railway I'd visit first if I could get my hands on the TARDIS just once. The TC was a bucolic roadside tramway that threw itself over a river gorge on the breathtaking Rochers-Noirs "Gisclard" suspension bridge. When its last line closed at the end of 1959 it had been the last of France's rural steam tramways in general public service thanks to the diffiulties of road transport in this part of the Massif Central. It had also been one of the last to be built, with most of its lines opened in the two years before the First World War. Until 1983 the viaduct was open to cars and as well as being dramatic it was a useful short cut. After 1983 It only open for pedestrians but even that ended in 2005. I did get as far as building an H0e (false metre gauge) model of one of the 060T Piguets that operated the line along with a few of its wagons but didn't get to see the one preserved example until four years ago at the Baie de Somme's 2013 festival of steam A surprising amount of the line's infrastructure has survived including many of the station buildings - several now restored- a stone water tower the main loco depot a Le Mortier-Gummond (now a garage) and two viaducts. There's film of the railway in action a coupe of years before it closed here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gt4EhfaMupc and here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ez4oIU67Z5E and there have been several good books about the line

That was Reading Central Goods Depot built in 1905 apparently to avoid goods having to move by road through Reading as Reading General was on its north side. Witney comes immediately to mind where the original branch terminus became a goods depot when the line was extended to Fairford. Eventually the line was cut back to Witney as a goods only line and that became its terminus again. We used to watch the Witney blanket train hauled by a very asthmatic pannier tank. ISTR that Fairford itself was a station where the platform was on one side of a road bridge on the single track and the goods yard and run round loop were beyond it. The line was going to be extended towards Cheltenham (AFAIR) but that never happened.

ISTR that when it was first being preserved, the Chinnor and Princes Risborough had objections from a local landowner who claimed the railway would disturb the horses in an adjoining field. Some things never change!

I'd got with Mike's suggestion of a tuft of grass or something like a series of single bristles (possibly disguised as weeds) just long enough to act on the axles but light and springy enough to easily bend out of the way when pulled or pushed by a loco. That would be a simple and flexible solution.- you could have a few of them along the siding so that a cut of wagons will stay put wherever on the siding you leave them (Thinks..... I've got a couple of sidings that could do with that treatment and I'm sure I've got an old brush somewhere).

Hi Peter Both lines from Paris to Le Treport (via Abbeville and via Beauvais) were Nord and joined at Eu before going up the right bank of the Bresle. The terminus is called Le Treport-Mers but though on the Mers les Bains side of the river is actually in Le Treport. The Ouest just had a branch from its "new" Dieppe line to Eu. but I see no reason why, particularly if Le Treport had become more fashionable and grown to rival Dieppe, it couldn't have had its own line to Le Treport on the left bank. If that gave them their own route from Paris to Le Treport it would have needed a loco shed and, given how steep the river valley is, Eu would have been an entirely logical location for it. The Nord did have a loco depot at Le Tréport but I think quite a small one

Hi Peter I've PMd you a copy of the plan of the real Mantes depot. The original in the postcard look interesting and I assume it was disused because the much larger depot had been built half a mile or so to the West just after the junction between the lines to Rouen & Le Havre and to Caen & Cherbourg.

Hi Peter Wonderful project and do I detect echoes of Dennis Allenden's Ste. Colline? I have a copy of Les Depots Vapeur de l'Ouest published by Vie du Rail and that includes plans of a number of MPDs including Mantes. I think it's available in the French Railways Society library but if not I can always scan a couple of them for you. Loco Revue Hors Serie no 49 is all about building an MPD based layout and is definitely available from the library- I'm looking at it right now! As well as a number of plans it also includes quite a lot on the auxiliary buidlings and services associated with an MPD. .

Most preserved railways are (or were) single track branchlines and Google Earth generally allows you to trace the track layout of as many stations as you like. Preserved lines tend to acquire rather more trackwork, locos and coaches than ever existed on the original line and they might well have their loco sheds at what had been a minor intermediate station. Ropley in Hampshire comes immediately to mind and I assume the MPD there is more or less on the site of the original goods yard.From memory I think the same applies to the the West Somerset, the Kent and East Sussex and several others. On a working branchline a loco shed at a simple passing station would be very unusual without a particular reason In any case, Stephen Williams' books will probably tell you most of what you'll need to know.

I don't think that's quite true. According to the ORR http://orr.gov.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0017/17621/dc-electrification-policy-statement.pdf there is a general presumption against any further third rail electrification unless very good reasons can be demonstrated for its use. That has covered some minor extensions and its use on new tube lines (with a fourth rail as well of course) on the grounds of compatibility. Open third rail simply doesn't meet current safety rules which are there to avoid workers and the public from being killed or injured not to make the world more bureaucratic. According to the RSSB, fatal and serious injuries related to electrification are sixteen times more prevalent per mile on the traditional third rail network than on lines with OHE.

I see Micheldever station from the air every few weeks (Popham Airfield is just to the north east of it on the other side of the A303) and I think all the pipework for the oil terminal, which has been out of use since the mid 1990s but was kept in reserve for some years, has now gone and the access tunnels blocked off. The WIAs have been a frequent sight in the sidings there for some years. I quite often see freight trains on the line between there and Basingstoke but can't recall seeing anything recently that wasn't containers (which doesn't mean that's all there is as I've seen car trains in Southampton Eastern Docks fairly recently and assume they go that way) I can also recommend The Dove Inn behind the station

It can be done Preserved Sprague Paris Metro train at the Baie de Somme Festival a Vapeur in 2013 In the Sprague set (which has been preserved by enthusiasts not a public body) one of the driving cars has a silent diesel generator to power the train's electrics and the shoes are of course isolated. I don't know if this approach- possibly using a coupled generator wagon- would be too inauthentic but it avoids the need for a live rail. I'm ashamed to admit though that, until this thread appeared, I'd never even heard of the Electric Railway Museum. There was news this morning that the John Milton Cottage Museum in Chalfont St. Giles is threatened with closure so life isn't easy for small private museums. .

Thanks Gary I've still got a couple of TT-3 wagons and a Jinty lurking around somewhere but nothing from the same era from Tri-ang in OO to compare them with so it's interesting to see them together.

Interesting Gary. It was Edward Beal who said they were the same in the first of his "Modelling in TT Gauge" articles in August 1957 MRC "One of the useful features of the Tri-ang engines is that the wheels- also like those of the rolling stock- are made to OO gauge tread and flange-widths.Stated in writing this may arouse a sense of antagonism in scale fans, but really on the actual model it is not any drawback. On the other hand, this means that the full range of existing OO gauge wheels in all diameters is at the disposal of the locomotive department." I would have expected a modeller of Beal's distinction to have got his facts straight but there were suggestions from Bryant that his knowledge of TT at that time was theoretical rather than practical. Bryant worked simultaneously in 3mm scale for Grassington and in TT-3 for his Pint Pot layout so he did have practical knowledge and it may be telling that MRC ended Beal's articles rather abruptly after the first four which were immediately followed by Mike Bryant's totally practical series on building the 4x2 Pint Pot layout. What a lot of people were saying at that time was that the BRMSB had totally missed the bus by not coming up with standards for TT earlier and so again leaving it for a toy train manufacturer to set them instead. I think though that there was a general misapprehension that the BRMSB was a permanently established fully staffed standards body rather than an ad hoc committee. David (Il Griffone) You've mentioned the BRMSB standards for TT. Do you happen to know when these were published and how close they are to the 3mm society's current standards? I only have the 1950 edition of Standard Dimensions published by META for the BRMSB several years before TT surfaced in Britain.

Long enough at 681 metres to justify a parallel tramway at one time. I did get to use it once when I was very very young and we had a family holiday on the IofW staying in a guesthouse on Ryde seafront. I vaguely remember the tramcar being crowded and to get to it we passed Pierhead station where I remember being very impressed by the four trains lined up on the platforms. The tramway presumably avoided the trains from Pierhead being crowded with arriving visitors going to Ryde at the expense of those travelling further afield. I'm afraid though that my only other memory of that holiday was the rain pouring down the windows of the steam train from Esplanade to Shanklin. apparently it was that sort of week in August. The 640metre (32 chains) Pier railway at Hythe is still running and providing a useful service and that's 40 metres shorter than Ryde Pier.

Though the distance between platforms is very short, the distance between the northern entrance to City Thameslink and the entrance to Blackfirars is much greater.. I've used City Thameslink to get to to various stations on the Brighton Line when walking to Farringdon or Blackfirars would have been a bit of a schlep especially with luggage.

People were clearly attracted to the scale and, as you say, several were working in it; however the lack of trade support, even for basic products such as brickpapers, did mean they were on their own so it was very much a niche rather like S scale. Trade support did come for TT after Tri-ang introduced it but it was all for the Tri-ang scale of 3mm/ft hence Mike Bryant's championing of "TM" scale and the huge feeling of disappointment amongst TT modellers (actual and hopeful) that the more compatible 12mm 1:120 gauge/ scale combination hadn't been chosen. What I hadn't realised until going through the 1957 MRCs was that Tri-ang simply used the same check rail clearance, wheel profiles and tread widths as for OO with no scaling down of anything apart from the gauge- handy for anyone modelling 00n3 needing to build mixed gauge track but increasing the scale/gauge compromise ever further. . For 3mm scale modellers that did mean they could use commercially available wheels of appropriate diameters but even as a youngster totally ignorant about the scale/gauge argument, I do remember thinking that something looked wrong about my rolling stock when viewed head on.

Oops, Typo well spotted and corrected -yes 1/9th inch to the foot. as opposed to the 1/10th inch to the foot introduced by Hal Joyce (H.P. Products) in the U.S. in 1945. Presumably, one reason why that didn't get adopted here was the extreme restrictions on imports at the time that seem to have continured into the 1950s.