GoingUnderground

The Tay Bridge and Comet 1 were at the leading edge of known technology in their day and as such tell us nothing about the design process for HS2. i have no idea if it is true or not, but i did hear a story that the reason that the Chinese had problems with their high speed train was that the Germans hadn't given them everyrhing. They kept certain key details back so they were not available to the Chinese and so could not be cloned or reverse engineered. The Chinese alledgedly came unstuck when the tried to run the trains without these key features. There is an engineering process known as "Fast Track", you might call it "winging it", where you start building whilst other, and later in the build, minor features are still being designed. It is very common in the commercial world where the need to compress timescales is paramount as time is literally money, i.e. increased working capital and borrowing costs because of the time between starting the design process and receiving the first income from the project.

OK then let's call it the "Ashford" of HS2.

The "Ebbsfleet" of HS2. Males perfect sense to me.

So who do you blame for the destruction of the Chilterns? The Romans for building Watling Street? The promoters and builders of the Grand Union Canal? The London & Birmingham Railway (aka WCML)? The Metropolitan Railway for their line from Baker Street to Verney Junction and branch to Chesham? The Great Central Railway for their London Extension? The builders of the M40? The builders and developers who built homes, barns, offices, factories, pubs, hotels and every other building in the Chilterns since they were first inhabited by Man? You're at least 2000 years too late if you want to keep the Chilterns in pristine condition. It was these developments that allowed more people to live in and enjoy the Chilterns. I'm sorry, but for me all this talk of "the destruction of the Chilterns" is sheer rubbish ignoring over 2000 years of development, and is definitely a case of people pulling the ladder up after themselves.

And to hell with the rest of us, eh? It doesn't suit you so we can't have it, no matter how much it will benefit us. Don't you think you're being just a tad selfish? Just think about what you've said the next time you drive on a motorway or dual cariageway. Someone living next to that when it was proposed could and probably did say exactly the same as you've just said. As it suits you you're quite prepared to sacrifice their environment for your benefit. But when the boot's on the other foot you're not prepared to make a comparable sacrifice for someone else's benefit.

Me, as I now live well north of Watford, but was born and grew up in Greater London. I would happily use it whenever I go down to London on the occasions when I don't need a car. I'd use it whenever I catch the Eurostar to France, Belgium, Germany or Switzerland. You might have been serious but I really cannot take your question seriously. Perhaps we need HS3 to serve South Wales and the West Country. There would be a case for bringing that into Euston as well, which I thought I'd read somewhere was a certain Mr Brunel's original intended London terminus for the GWR. Euston & St Pancras are close enough to form a High speed Rail hub.

Thank you for the info about the book. I've now got it on order myself.

The timings are slightly different to last Sunday, but are not changed from the planned timetable. The big difference is the visit to Gloucester Road to reverse. This will put Sarah at the head of the Eastbound train, and No 1 at the Westbound end.

To have travelled on the Underground Pioneer was worth every penny! We were the only two people in our compartment on the final run of the night from Moorgate to Earls Court, and i suspect the train wasn't full. EDIT: I forgot to say this earlier, but would like to thank everyone who made it possible.

What a super collection of images. I'll be lucky to get anything as good as that later today.

The LT Museum web site now has this statement about access to platforms: "If I don't have a ticket can I still see the steam train on its journey? The public may be able to see the train along the route, if they have a valid ticket for general travel on the Underground and if safety allows. The safety of all our customers is paramount and therefore if Station staff or British Transport Police feel that the platforms or stations are unsafe or overcrowded, they may restrict access to the platforms or the stations. Please also remember that flash photography is not permitted on any part of London Underground." Sounds like they're expecting it to be popular. It might make actually getting to Moorgate to board the special trips difficult if using the northern part of the Circle line. I wonder how they're going to cope with people alighting from scheduled trains at stations between Olympia and Moorgate just to see Train "150" pass through.

At grave risk of falling out with the powers that be, would this topic not sit better in the London Underground special interest sub-forum where there was a parallel thread that has been merged with this one? After all it is a celebration of the founding of a system that is totally alive and kicking and, according to some sources, carries more passengers per day than all the other railways in the UK put together. Hardly preserved.

How many locations did you identify in the BBC clip? I got Moorgate, Earls Court, & Farringdon.

Happy 150th Birthday, Metropolitan Line. Heres to another 150.

The planned composition of the 150th Anniversary Train 150 is, so I have been told: Metropolitan Steam Locomotive No. 1 Ashbury's Coaches (Nos 387, 412, 394 and 368 ex Chesham Shuttle) Metropolitan Railway Jubilee Coach 353 Metropolitan Railway Milk Van No. 4 Electric Locomotive No 12 Sarah Siddons. Photo opportunities at Moorgate from Platforms 1 & 2 will be limited. Train 150 will use Platform 4, no surprise, but there is an additional 7 car S Stock train, Train 751, that will occupy Platform 3 at Moorgate from 10:17 on Sunday through to 22:55, i.e. it will arrive before the first timetabled arrival of Train 150 into Moorgate at 10:32, and remain there until the last scheduled departure at 22:38. There will also be two battery locos, Train 777, stabled in Farringdon sidings between 10:00 and 23:33. It would appear that in the event of the failure of Train 150, the battery locos will be used to move it, and the S Stock used to collect the passengers and take them to the original destination. The above timings apply to Sunday 13th. There are similar arrangements for Breakdown and Relief Trains, 777 and 751 respectively, for Sunday 20th.

Phil has both the white metal and resin bodied versions available on his web site. He also has the 1985 Battery locos as resin bodied versions only, These are from an Arun Sharma design.

I have a feeling that the Circle Line platforms are going to be somewhat crowded on the 13th and 20th, and getting photos of anything is going to be hard to say the least. But I'll be there as I too have tickets for one of the Sarah runs on the 13th. Yippee.

The LU 150 celebration train will comprise the recently restored Metropolitan Jubilee coach 353 plius the three Metropolitan carriages from the Bluebell Railway with lMet No 1 at the east end and Sarah Siddons at the west as there are no run round facilities. It will run as follows: Moorgate-Olympia: Olympia-Moorgate; Moorgate-Edgware Road-Moorgate; Moorgate-Edgware Road-Moorgate; and Moorgate-Earls Court. There will be further runs on 20th January, comprising: Olympia-Moorgate; Moorgate-Baker Street-Moorgate; and Moorgate-Earls Court, all via Kings Cross. Applications for tickets are by ballot, see the Vehicles on the Move section of the LT Museum web site for more details on times and prices

But the ECoS doesn't use either Loconet or Expressnet, so I can't see how ESU would benefit from a Loconet to Expressnet converter, it's no use to an ECoS as it has neither a Loconet nor an Expressnet port, just the ECoSLink CAN bus port. Uhlenbrock do list a Loconet to Multimaus adapter, Part No 63840 and I beleive this is a Loconet to Expressnet adapter ,ot the blurb implies it is. They are avaialble now from retailers in Germany at a street price of approx EUR 75.

I wouldn't be surprised if ESU weren't already working on just such an app for the ECoS. TouchCab has been around for some time and would be a good starting point for them, always assuming they could reach an accommodation with Jens Vesterdahl. It would save them having to develop the hardware for a new colour version of the ECoSControl Radio. One thing does interest me in the Z21, is its CAN bus port. They make no mention of it in the manual or what other hardware is compatible with it But I was wondering if it was there to tempt ECoS users away from the ECoS by still letting them use their ECoSBoosts and ECosDetectors.

No i was not confusing it with that very unique railway the Berninabahn, just relying on my memory, which was faulty. I should have looked at my own reference books first. Having done that, I see that the Biasca-Acquarossa line was originally intended to terminate further up the valley at Olivone, not Acquarossa. There is apparently a PostBus service between Acquarossa and Disentis. So for anyone wanting an RhB inspired "Mytabin" they could always pretend that there was a line built from Dienstis to Oiivone via the Lukmanier pass which was either built by the RhB or taken over by them in the early 1940s. I am not aware that there were ever any plans for such a line, it is just a pipe dream of an idea if someone wanted their own RhB lbranch line that was not based on an actual RhB location.,

Bemo locos come in two ranges, the ordinary plastic bodied ones, and the much more expensive metal bodied ones - their "Metal Collection". The Metal Collection locos tend to be much smaller runs and I think I'm right in saying that Bemo don't repeat a loco if it is a Metal Collection model. So they are hard to find secondhand and because of the shorter runs and no repeats they tend to hold their prices very well.. For example, you can get a new RhB "Croc" 0-6-6-0 on ebay for about £220-£250 these days from dealers in Germany and Austria and they are a current model. You will have trouble finding the Metal Collection RhB/Berninabahn Bo-Bo "Croc" as that was made about 10 years ago and whenever they come up on ebay, which isn't often, they tend to go for around £500. I have bought locos from Winco in the UK, as well as via ebay. So pick your loco and era with care. If you want OHLE equipment, Sommerfeldt do some for the RhB. As regards branch lines and extensions, there were very few simply because of the cost of building lines in mountainous terrain. There was a plan to extend the RhB from St Moritz to Chiavenna in Italy, and to build branches from Zernez to Schluderns and Merano in Austria (Italy from 1919), (the "Ofenberg" railway), and from Thusis to Mesocco, (the "St Bernhardin" railway,the latter would have connected with the Misox line. There were two smaller lines that were controlled by the RhB, the Misox line from Mesocco the Bellinzona, and the Acquarossa-Biasca line. These were in the Canton Ticino (italian) / Tessin (German) area unlike the rest ofthe RhB which was in Graubunden (German) / Grisons (French). These were never connected to the main RhB network, and I think both are now closed, at least to passenger traffic So you could base your line on one of these planned extensions, but cut short like the "Inn Valley" line to Scuol-Tarasp which was planned ro reach Landeck in Austria, but never got that far, or use one ofthe closed lines, or invent one of your own. A good reference book is "Metre Gauge Railways in South & East Switzerland" by John Marshall, published by David & Charles, ISBN 0715364081. It is out of print, but you may be able to find one at one of the second hand book web sites like this http://www.abebooks.co.uk/book-search/isbn/0715364081/ to name but one.

If the UTA planners had got their way there wouldn't be any railways apart from the Belfast-Dublin line in Northern Ireland. They wanted to close the whole lot down and rely on buses. They almost managed it as well. I should have said before, I do think your model looks excellent, very reminiscent of Belfast as I knew it as a boy visiting relatives, and as much if it still looks, I was there last week. The DMU reminds me of the stock that was used on the only surviving remnant of the B&CDR line out to Bangor, but it was in green livery in the '50s if I remember it correctly. Would it have been the same stock?

My family always referred to the station at Gt Victoria Street as "the GNR". I can just about remember it from the 1960s. I think that I only travelled from there a couple of times with my aunt. As you say, it's all changed with the old station demolished to make way for the Europa Hotel and a shopping centre. .

I believe that the current Radley Models A60 stock is a resin body on a white metal chassis with white metal bogies. Not exactly what I'd call heavy, but you would probably need 2 SPUDS for a 4 car set. They run much better than the EFE stock as the A60s have pinpoint axles in top hat bearings on the non-motorised bogies as standard. If you plan to use them on a gradient then you may need to add some extra weight over the motor bogies to improve the adhesion. I think that Phil now supplies them with a TensionLok style couplings instead of his previous fixed "hook and eye" style design. I think there might have been an all white metal version in Harrow Model Shop days which would have been somewhat heavier. For me they capture the A60/A62 look.