JimC

We really need a horse traction enthusiast on this thread, because I wonder if we could be recycling received wisdom. Horses are very variable in size, and sometimes used two abreast, but 4ft6ish seems quite big to me. Horse width seems not to be widely published on the net. 

On loading gauge, my guess is that it was realised fairly early on that the GB loading gauge was too small, but (again my guess) I wonder if high platforms are part of the story? Platform to vehicle clearance is a major limitation on the GB loading gauge, and seems to have been standardised fairly early. Once there are high platforms (how early did they come in?) expansion of the gauge is pretty much stuffed. 

Slaters have confirmed that this is a possibility, due to acid formed from reaction with atmospheric water.

3 hours ago, Northmoor said:

George Stephenson had settled on 3ft gauge as adequate for the traffic around the Durham coalfield

My understanding is that the existing plateways etc round the NE coalfields were around 4'6, 4'8. Around the SW/S Wales, apparent;y, they were typiczlly around 4'0, similarly the Surrey Iron Railway and Pen Y Darren. So a 4' gauge could have easily happened. 

Well, passengers are roughly as dense as water and have a very low packing rate. The extensive internal planking must surely weigh at least as much as the seating, so I should have thought the springs at least must be upgraded. Even if the turf has been dried, rain is not an unknown phenomenum in that part of the world... 

There were a few, I'm away from references ATM, but I seem to remember a MSWJR type as well. It depends on one's aims. A pastiche of a Swindonised absorbed type is fairly readily

managed - a 48xx chimney, a safety valve cover and a pair of whistles gets you a long way, and with a little more work an upward and rearward bunker extension is very characteristic. If one wishes to model a prototype its a lot more difficult, but a J72 seems to me an intrinsically better starting point than the ex midland types which have a very long wheelbase. 

On 10/11/2022 at 12:05, drduncan said:

where were the Armstrong/Dean period 2-2-2 and 4-2-2 single wheelers (those that had survived) and what were they employed on?

Isn't the 'when in doubt' location for anything weird, old or unusual on the GWR 'somewhere in the Chester area' ? Especially odd 2-4-0s?

At this date I suggest it's still worth considering the north/south divisions, and which your line is in.

With wagons from other lines, in pre pool days wouldn't they tend to reflect specific traffic flows rather than a random collection from multiple lines? 

Hmm, if your cat's litter tray smells like MEK your cat has a serious metabolic problem. If it smells like the chlorinated aliphatic hydrocarbon version of MEK-PAK  then something very unusual is happening. 

Checking my back email I ordered that can in Apr 2017. So date it, and if gets to more than say 3 years old consider decanting it.

20 minutes ago, Dave John said:

On a practical note is it one of the self assembly type bookcases? 

Sadly its part of the carcase rather than a loose shelf. 

To put a little more meat on the above, this only applies to MEK Pak with the "contains halogenated aliphatic... " text on the safety label. 
It will eventually corrode tin containers from the inside out, but it take years. One precaution would be to sit the tin in a suitable ceramic or glass vessel so if it does escape its contained. Moving it to glass vessels will also be effective, but they do need to have lids without plastic that is susceptible to the vapour. 

On 12/11/2022 at 22:34, BWsTrains said:

 The HCl will corrode the seam leading to eventual failure

Yep, makes sense. Now I only have to deal with a book shelf that will be emitting chlorinated hydrocarbons for some considerable time...  I should have known it was a chlorinated hydrocarbon, but carbon tetrachloride and methylene chloride were the ones I've had most to do with, and it was neither of those. Nearly all evaporated from the tin now before I could find a suitable container, so it must have been a very fresh leak.
 

Nail varnish not a feature of my house, so that strategy would be doomed to failure!

Thanks all for contributions.

The rust ring is strange. I would surely have smelt the stuff if it had been leaking for any length of time. I think it must have developed quite quickly, days rather than weeks. I was once an industrial chemist, and like to think am still reasonably aware of solvent smells. 

Yes, a vinegar bottle would probably be best, but at the moment I have nothing suitable so it's relegated to the yard and I'll see if any is left when I can find a jar. 

Walked into the room I keep modelling stuff this morning to be greeted with a strong smell of solvent. Seems my tin of MEK has rusted out and sprung a leak. B******d up the bookshelf too. Is this a thing I should have been aware of. Going to get grief from SWMBO if the solvent smell doesn't clear too. 

I suppose if we want to imagine super power freight locomotives, we also have to imagine that in say 1890 RCH/Board of Trade mandating that by say 1931 all freight wagons were to be railway owned with continuous brakes and safe to run at 50mph.

Sadly I can't help thinking the actual result would have been roads jammed with coal lorries by the late 1920s. Mind you we can then continue imagining utterly different tax regimes for road repairs etc. 

I submit that another factor in bringing about the end of steam was cleanliness. With more and more jobs being indoors and clean passengers were increasingly moving away from the perceived - and actually - filthy railway in favour of transport where you didn't get soot smuts. To my mind 'self-cleaning' smokeboxes were a major own goal. 

I have a vague recollection - so don't place much value on this, I could be wrong - that they might have been occasionally used for delivery of sand to sand furnaces.

Its by no means unknown for a management that is faced with evidence that a grand plan is not financially viable, to hurtle along regardless and make sure there is little evidence of its problems to be found.

A cynic might consider that a management which considered dieselisation inevitable/unavoidable, but knew that the cost would be unacceptable to their political masters, might decide to head down the road regardless, carefully avoiding the sort of extended evaluation and testing which might demonstrate the financial problems to come, and rely on sunk costs and propaganda to get them through. Not, perhaps, realising that the financial problems might result in the political masters imposing a even worse result a few years later.

5 minutes ago, WM183 said:

A copy could be gotten from the NRM though?

Oh yes, no problem, They'll do you a scan by email. The 1366 GA comes as a 8MB 21200 x 14800 pixel image. Not small but not particularly cheap either , but then archives cost a lot to run. Look for the section making and ordering copies.
https://www.railwaymuseum.org.uk/research-and-archive/further-resources/copying-and-copyright

3 minutes ago, WM183 said:

Thanks folks! Might I inquire... where did the GA drawing come from??

NRM.
There's a contractual restriction on distributing copies of NRM drawings, but I figure a tiny extract like that ought not be a problem. Unfortunately like most NRM scans its in black and white, not grayscale, which means fractions are pretty much unreadable.

1 hour ago, DenysW said:

However, this is the thinking that compares continuous output as the strategy for parity, which Rugby and Vitry could measure. But if you are comparing against steam that can give you 30-50% more for long enough to get up most inclines, it isn't just continuous that matters, it's reasonably-sustained peak as well.

That's true of course. But dynamometer testing should have been telling them exactly what power the steam engines were actually delivering to get up the hills. And given even a half **** prototype testing it should have been obvious from the LMS twins and the SR prototypes what could actually be delivered. Of course its never been a problem for management to fail to hear the unpalatable.

The GA Drawing shows angle brackets from the frames, but the outer face does appear to be in contact with the back of the steps. I don't see anything connecting to the footplate.

If I read RCTS correctly I think they all started life as Peckett's  E Class. Once they were with the GWR they were all classed under the same diagram, but over time there were minor differences - not all received GWR chimney's for instance. So by the time they got to BR there were certainly variations, but I don't think the variations related to who owned them 30 years before.

Are you sure it's of railway origin? Sometimes a summerhouse is just a summerhouse! 

Rail 254/365 is at Kew, not York. The other registers up to 1951 seem to be there too. 

https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C4350208

Description: Register of condemned wagon stock

Date:1924-1929