JeremyC

According to his biography, the author Terry Pratchett was at one time a press officer for 4 nuclear power stations with the CEGB. A quote attributed to him says "Eight years involved with the nuclear industry have taught me that when nothing can possible go wrong and every avenue has been covered, then is the time to buy a house on the next continent."

I find the comment re spares interesting as I was discussing this with a former colleague at the weekend. In 2016, just before retiring, I did a dry docking in the UK aboard my last ship. Towards the end we found we required a main engine spare part in a hurry. I phoned the engine manufacturers 'out of hours' spares line in the late evening and arranged for the spare part to be ordered. The part had to be shipped from their central stores in Rotterdam, but it was onboard the ship by late morning the following day. I had wondered if or how this sort of service had been affected by Brexit.

I am looking for some information regarding the number 'typefaces' used on the '08' shunters in the 1950s, being mainly a steam modeller I have little knowledge about diesel liveries. From photos it seems: In the early 1950s these locos were painted black and the numbering has 5 digits and looks to be steam style Gill Sans. There then seems to be a period where the number was reduced to 4 digits preceded by a D which is smaller than the numbers, the letter and numbers still being Gill Sans. It would seem that this style was used with the early green livery, but when did it come into use, was it widely used or only used on a small number of locos? What size was the numbering? Later the Dxxxx number style was changed to a 'squashed' typeface. When did this come into use? Thanks for any help on this

In the 1950 rule book the rule that covers this is 123 which states: 'Engines employed exclusively in shunting at stations and yards must, after sunset or during fog or falling snow, carry one red and one white light, both at the front and rear, one over each buffer.' There is no indication of which side the white or red light should be. If there were requirements on that it's surprising it's not stated, especially given the fact that the same rule book is quite explicit on the display or removal of brake van side lights in various situations.

It is possible the holes are the correct size when moulded and the reason they're under size is they're partly blocked with paint.

From what I've read Haymarket A3s didn't normally work beyond Carlisle. However Harry Knox mentions in one of his books on Haymarket that there was a standing instruction at Haymarket that the A3 working the 'Waverley' should be 'Coaled for Leeds'.

The year being correct doesn't necessarily mean the site is being looked after as the date can be updated automatically by using a 'Script' on the page. e.g. date_default_timezone_set("Europe/London"); echo date("Y");

Living across the Forth from Rosyth we can see the 'Prince of Wales' in Drydock. I recently found this article (https://www.naval-technology.com/news/prince-of-wales-repair-spring2023/ ) and was intrigued to read: "An undisclosed RN spokesperson told BBC: “Repairs to HMS Prince of Wales’ starboard shaft are expected to be completed by spring 2023. The ship will then return to Portsmouth for a pre-planned maintenance period.” One wonders why with the ship in drydock for an extended period the planned maintenance can't be carried out in Rosyth at the same time as the shaft repairs so as to speed up the ship's return to service.

I have been doing some research on the one coach St Boswells - Kelso branch trains as I'm building the DJH Standard 2MT kit to represent one of the locos used on these trains. Photos indicate the coach was a BCK. The coaches used varied, but I've seen photos showing: LNER Gresleys (dia 175 No E10079E [Last Years of the Waverley Route - David Cross Pg52] and dia 314 No. SC10148E) LNER Thompson BR mark 1 with a number ending 1116 (A look at the Parkin MK 1 book suggests this would be E21116).

I would say you should buy the best tools you can afford, though I will buy cheaper tools if they are going to see infrequent use. A skilled person can often get good results from poorer tools because they know how to compensate for the deficiencies. I have two lathes. One is a very old Unimat which I got free from my brother-in-law, but I've never used it because it needs overhauling and I have never found anything I think it would do better than my Myford ML10.

Another user of Libre Office which seems to do everything you need for home use. Apparently Libre Office and Open Office are very similar because the former is a development fork of the latter. It appears that Libre Office is more actively supported. https://www.libreoffice.org/discover/libreoffice-vs-openoffice/ https://itsfoss.com/libreoffice-vs-openoffice/#:~:text=LibreOffice is an easy choice,in their 32-bit systems.

Some years ago I read an article that argued that the most important factor in the advance of aviation was engine design rather than aircraft design.

I think that was the EMI Music Express to Gleneagles. I've got some video of that somewhere.

When it comes to WW2 British aero engines it's noticeable that almost the only engine that most people seem to know about is the Merlin. While it was a good engine it seems (from things I have read) that Rolls Royce had enough political clout to persuade the Air Ministry not to invest in some of the alternatives. The Napier Sabre (which later powered the Tempest and Typhoon) seems to have had its development delayed by this. Other engines that don't seem to get much publicity were the Bristol radials e.g. the Hercules, which powered the Halifax, Stirling and many other aircraft.

I don't know if that really means anything, I can remember the latest Terry Pratchett books being sold at half price on publication day and he was one of the best selling authors in the UK.

I have one loco that lives in a similar type box made by SM Kit and Box. Although it's a well made box I've never really trusted it because there's a danger of the catch opening and dropping the loco. (I keep an old belt round the box as a precaution). The rest of my 0 gauge locos are kept in the boxes sold by Ellis Clarke. Personally I would not keep 0 gauge locos on their sides as I think there is too high a risk of damage to steps and valve gear.

What steps would you take if the next train does not stop? F***ing big ones😀.

Locomotives similar to the Snowdon ones have been done in HO https://shop.ferro-train.com/hallingShop/product/home/zahnradbahn Not cheap though!

Might be a true story or one of those [insert name here] tales 😀. A similar story is told in Edinburgh of Americans asking why the castle was built so near the railway that runs through Princes Street Gardens.

This is similar to what happened in Leith docks some years ago. New flats were built about a 300m from the berths at the corner of the entrance basin. As soon as they were occupied the port started to receive complaints about the noise of ship movements at night. The residents claimed they'd been told before buying the flats that the dock wasn't operational. Admittedly at that time it wasn't being used very much, but it was never closed and traffic increased. I don't know what the final outcome was, but the berths are still used! (My ship made itself very unpopular one night as we had to leave one of our main propulsion generators running due to a failure of the Harbour genset!)

The story of these locos can be found at https://sremg.org.uk/steam/gclass.shtml https://www.lner.info/locos/D/d40.php

I couldn't remember the name of the unit, but Hansa rings a bell. The unit was kept in a box and could be fitted to any of the main generators which had Paxman 6RPH engines. Thankfully the ship was later fitted with an emergency diesel air compressor so we wouldn't have needed to use the Hansa unit.

I haven't voted because my interest is South East Scotland, mainly LNER with a little bit of LMS and no interest whatsoever in GWR or Southern.

No. It looked like an electric starter motor except it had a spindle onto which a crank handle fitted. You wound the spring up then pulled a lever which 'fired' it. Its a different make (I think), but the principle is the same.

The last Lister emergency air compressor I saw on a ship was fitted with a spring starter which had to be wound up first. You were lucky then, we had a Gardener 6 cylinder emergency generator on one ship, on a few occasions surveyors insisted we hand started it, a real pain if it was cold. After the first time if we knew a surveyor was coming it would be given a test run before he arrived. However that was an improvement on the ship where the first start arrangement was a 'cartridge' starter that could be fitted to one of the main generators (it actually used a coil of cellulose film as the explosive).