Trog

It is just a coat of paint which will serve to keep the rust down until it is redone. Nothing worth getting excited about. In fact I would suggest those that don't like it just ignore it, as the less notice it gets the less likely someone else is to spend their money doing something similar in the future.

I thought that there was a video about this by a Mr Shifter, I seem to remember something about can you wire a tandem.

This maybe something where there was some variance in details of the terminology as you moved about the country, as the names of many things changed from area to area and region to region. But in my experience the three brake classes were referred to as fitted, piped/blow through and unfitted. With us not referring to piped vehicles as being either fitted or unfitted, although as humble PW minions what would we know. Brake vans are of course a special case as even without automatic power brake cylinders the brakes can be applied while the train is in motion you just have to do something that persuades the guard to apply the hand brake and or lift the handle on the air/vacuum brake pipe.

Another reason why adhesion is perhaps more of a problem these days is the improvement in the ride of modern vehicles. Rail head wear on straight track (not side wear) is apparently only about 10% of what it was in steam days. The shuffling and scuffing about that used to wear the rails would also have tended to clean them. The other great unintended consequence of the improvement to vehicle ride was gauge corner cracking. Apparently it had always existed but was not a problem as the rail heads were wearing down at about the same rate as the cracks were growing so they never got to a critical depth, then those pesky chaps from the CM&EE made the trains shape up, roll straighter and stop hunting about wearing down the rail heads.

That really sucks, for him.

I think that the S1/ AS1 type of chairs reach their 100th anniversary next year certainly I think that 1923 is the oldest date I have seen on them.

The bullhead panel is sensible as that means that you can weld the joint where the flat bottom and bullhead rails meet. (A closer view will probably show that the first two sleepers under the flat bottom rail are also hardwoods as you should not change the sleeper type within two sleepers of a rail joint.) So avoiding the risk of some poor having to find a pair of new flat bottom to worn bullhead lift and junction fishplates at 3am on a rainy February morning when the things decide to break. The plates between the buffer and the new bullhead panel can then just be a worn to new set with the appropriate step for the difference in rail head wear. Which being less exotic would be easier to find in a hurry, and being that near to the buffer a straight pair would do short term in an emergency as they should not often get run on. Especially as the most likely reason for that set to get broken is a train hitting the stops, and a driver who has just been taking the pee out a a colleague, for hitting the stops is likely to be on the alert not to fall into the same error. Not sure why they have installed the adjustment switch though as it will do nothing that the rails just ending at the buffer would not do anyway. Just seems to be an expensive maintenance liability to my mind.

Fitting steel sleepers when relaying ordinary plain line track on branch lines is a cost saving measure, as while steel sleepers cost more than concrete. The fact that they are hollow and sit on top of the ballast means that if the existing worn out track is sitting on half way decent ballast, the existing ballast can be scarified to break up the beds, dozed level and the new steel track laid on top of it. Thus reusing the old crib ballast which is generally in a better condition than the deeper ballast as the top layer of what is now the ballast bed. This saves the cost and time input of a full reballast allowing more to be done in a given amount of time giving a double cost saving in that you are doing less work and so spending less on trains and materials while still getting more track relaid per shift for that effort. This more than pays for the extra cost of the steel sleepers over concrete, there is a slight downside in the height of summer, in that the steel track is a little less resistant to heat stress so your hot weather precautions kick in a few degrees lower than the would for concrete. But this temperature will probably still be higher than the ratty old bullhead that got taken out, so a not a great problem. I would suspect that concrete sleepers were used in the stations as the ballast may have been in a worse condition there and that there may also have been concerns about the spades on the ends of the steel sleepers hitting the platform footings. There has also been a tendency in recent years to use shallow depth concrete sleepers in platforms so as to avoid having to dig as deep, out of a fear of under mining the platforms even where the previous track was full depth concrete showing that BR had managed to do it successfully. Some of the modular level crossing systems are also shaped to fit particular types of concrete sleeper, so that would be one reason why the sleepers change to concrete at the crossings. Also steel sleepers cost more than concrete so if you are going to reballast fully to remove detritus from under the crossing surface, and install the cill beams that edge the crossings concrete is cheaper option. With public roads there is also the matter of road salt, this is a big problem as in the damp under a crossing surface corrosion runs rampant. Both paints and aluminium coatings have been applied to rails in recent years but the protection offered appears to be limited. I have seen flatbottom rails with most of the rail foot gone in just a few years. Using steel sleepers under such a crossing would just be adding another such problem, which can be avoided by using concrete sleepers with sheradised rail clips instead.

Could it be something to do with the direction of travel with the draft set up by the passage of the train through the bridge opening, causing more smoke to flow up the side of the bridge in the direction of travel?

I think that the cutting slopes at either end of Linslade Tunnel at least at the lower levels are cut through sandstone perhaps one bonded with iron based minerals, certainly I have read that the older middle twin bore tunnel was at least partly created by blasting with black powder. However tunnel hill is capped with a layer of the most sh**y slimey clay in creation. This appears to be almost totally impermeable as any rain just sits on the surface and the paths in the wood above the tunnel become so slippery that it can be hard to walk without your feet sliding out from under you. I suspect that the work in recent years above the DF northern portal may have been to stop some of this clay from sliding off the underlying sandstone and into the cutting. Also when the WCML was first tripled then quadrified it was done on the cheap with land take reduced by steepening the sides of embankments etc to get some of the extra width rather than buying more new land than they had to. This has caused problems at times with the newer parts of the embankments sliding off the old. It can also be interesting to look at the underside of brick arch underbridges, where seams in the brickwork tell how the line was widened, one each side, two new together or one then a second extra on the same side.

Older cuttings and embankments also tend to have steeper slopes than more recent ones, and as stated above cuttings through stiffer materials such as chalk also tend to be steeper sided. One access point into Tring Cutting in the 1980's consisted of a length of rope tied to a fence post, so you had something to hold onto while climbing in or out of the cutting.

There was a worked catch point in the Down New line just on the north side of the crossover at the Rugby end of the slow line, at Northampton (No5 Junction?). I think that has also gone now.

There was one on the north bay at Wolverhampton Queen Street, at least until a few years ago.

On a smaller scale one of the bay platforms at Northampton was higher than a normal platform so it more or less matched the floor level of rolling stock to ease the loading of BRUTES etc into vans.

Also known as eutectic strip after the alloy used, which I think was originally intended for welding armour plate. Applied in a zig zag by arc welding often with the welders initials at the end as if you just put a straight line down the middle of the rail the strip would be hard enough to make a groove in any wheel sets that often got run onto it to often. Originally to ensure the track circuit detection of a loco waiting for release or a van, horse box etc sitting on the rusty or greasy rails at the stops ready to be added to a train as tail traffic. So the driver of an incoming train would not find the available platform length was shorter than he had been led to expect after it was too late to adjust his approach.

I think that wagon length is only a direct clue to rail length if they don't think to put a runner wagon each end of the bolster wagon a 60'-0" rail on a 45'-0" Macaw B would only have a 7'-6" overhang each end. I have also personally seen rails 720'-0" long delivered on a rake consisting of 4 wheel single bolster wagons. A supervisor I knew once also moved two 720'-0" rails for nearly three miles with no wagon at all just a loco, although I should perhaps not go into any more detail just in case the S&T work out how all their track end cables got cut. OK I am a bit young for the period discussed but the only 45'-0" rails I ever saw in track were 1923 ex LNER material and were still insitu in an ex LNER line when I retired in 2016.

There were some short rails laid during the war imported from the USA there was a length restriction on them imposed by either the length of the available wagons state side or the ships hatches/holds.

Most likely 60'-0" almost everywhere, the 45'-0" rails on branches was I think something of an LNER speciality. Although you might find rails up to a couple of feet under 60'-0" where battered rail ends or dipped joints had been cropped off and the rails re-drilled, depending on how it had been done. There would have also been some shorter rails adjacent to S&C and where two previous rerailing or relaying jobs had met up. If so it would be good practice to fit two somewhat short panels/rails rather than one very short one. So end a job with two 45'-0" panels rather than a 60'-0" and a 30'-0".

The closure order has already been renewed several times since 2019, but as Martin W. pointed out the closure is stated to only run until the earlier of the set date or when the when the declared inspection work was finished. As I doubt that even Network Rail are still on site inspecting a bridge they removed three years ago therefore the footpath must have been open but illegally blocked since the inspection work was finished, as that was when the closure orders would have expired. The renewed closures having expired as they came into force as the work they were stated to run only for the duration of had already finished. As for disabled ramps there is not much space on the downside, to the extent that the top part of the stairs on to the old bridge which were quite steep were part of the bridge deck but hung below the rest of the bridge deck level over platform 1 DF.

Had not thought about it that way, might be interesting if cruel to the Signalman to ring up and ask for a margin so as to be safely use the footpath. As signs directing people not to use or untruthfully putting people off using a footpath ie Bull in Field when there is not or verbally telling people they can not use a footpath are also an offence. I would also expect that doing something like running high speed trains or other machinery across a path you have deliberately degraded so that members of the public using it are endangered is also probably legally dubious.

Also for buffers adjacent to running lines where a red lamp could be mistaken for a tail light, a white lamp could be used to avoid the risk of a driver needing to do a laundry stop.

Vinegar rings a bell I think that was the one I was trying to remember, well done that man.

I think he legally counts as a pedestrian as I believe that you can use a Public Footpath while pushing a wheel barrow or pram. I think mobility scooters also count as they are how disabled people walk, although good luck getting one of them down most footpaths I have used.

One interesting one may be footpath 68 that crosses the WCML in the middle of Leighton Buzzard station, the closure order to allow for an inspection of the footpath footbridge has been running for several years now and the current iteration expires at the end of this month. When Network Rail eventually forget to renew it as they no doubt eventually will, presumably it will be legal if darn right dangerous to cross the line by jumping down off the platform onto the Down Fast crossing the fasts then climbing up onto the Up Fast platform then repeating the process with the slow lines. What signs do you think will be required for this crossing to ensure public safety in addition to whistle boards and a 10MPH PSR through the platforms on all four roads.

Another some what odd looking one. Do I also remember reading of there once being a lower quadrant road signal guarding a level crossing in I think Reading once upon a time? Can you imagine the fun there would be with that if it was still there probably as a listed structure, perhaps updated with a flashing red/orange light behind the spectacle plate. The locals would probably be fond / proud of it, but a sign explaining how it worked would be needed for non locals.