Castle Aching

[Nearholmer]

Not derelict, but having a longer-than-usual rest, like an actress of a certain age, we all hope.

 

The Bachmann controllers are good: I got one in a G scale set that I bought because the set was cheaper than buying the loco alone, and the controller serves very well indeed when want to play trains all over the floor as part of one of my daughter's giant Playmobil set-ups (about the only good thing about the winter, really, making Playmobil set-ups on the floor).

[Buhar]

9 volt battery temporarily removed from the smoke alarm?

Alan 

[Donw]

The delay to Castle Aching is largely down to the contractor for the track not having had the space in which to carry out the work. The position has now eased and work is progressing.

 

Don

[runs as required]

Sorry James I posted you about a Duette before reading to the end of the thread

dh

[Edwardian]

9 minutes ago, Donw said:

The delay to Castle Aching is largely down to the contractor for the track not having had the space in which to carry out the work. The position has now eased and work is progressing.

 

Don

 

For which, Don, I am more grateful than I can say.

 

[Compound2632]

I understood the issue is with the bullhead pointwork - the flatbottomed sections are fine!

[sem34090]

2 hours ago, Edwardian said:

 

For which, Don, I am more grateful than I can say.

 

2 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

I understood the issue is with the bullhead pointwork - the flatbottomed sections are fine!

Well shouldn't be an issue then - There's no Bullhead in that photo!  

[runs as required]

Thank you for confirming (above) traditional timing methods for regulating tramway speeds. 

As I suspected, cumbersome.

On a quayside, a policeman (or BOT official?) could not do a Rous-Marten counting rail joints or passing signal sections but from timing the passing of points of known (much shorter) distances apart - rather a difficult thing to do.

When the grandchildren were still interested in our model railway, timing scale speed over a known length of the roundy-round was always a favourite activity. But we always had to average stopwatch times between at least 3 or 4 recordings. 

 

Alternatively might a quayside tram engine valve gear have struck a bell - so excess speed would have been much easier to perceive?

dh

 

Edited September 30, 2019 by runs as required

[webbcompound]

Looking at the photo, my analysis is that your tracklaying problem is that you are laying broad guage (there was a lot of it in the US before guage standardisation finally spread to the South in  1886, mostly 5', some 6', and the annoying Ohio at 4'10")

Edited September 30, 2019 by webbcompound

[Nearholmer]

RaR

 

Some later tramway locos had combined speed indicators and governors, but if the originating date for Southampton is correct, at 1865, I doubt the locos had such refinements.

 

It would have predated most ‘proper’ tramway legislation, and probably got tangled-up in the Locomotives on Highways Act 1861, and the Locomotive Act1865, which were really aimed at road traction engines, and which did indeed restrict to 2mph in town, relaxed to 4mph in the country.

 

What the BoT Inspector probably pointed out was that the Tramways Act 1870 allowed the highway authority to set a higher speed limit, even before The Locomotive Act was repealed.

 

They needed not only a chap with a stop-watch, but a person conversant with the 600 page legal guide!

 

K

Edited September 30, 2019 by Nearholmer

[Edwardian]

1 hour ago, webbcompound said:

Looking at the photo, my analysis is that your tracklaying problem is that you are laying broad guage (there was a lot of it in the US before guage standardisation finally spread to the South in  1886, mostly 5', some 6', and the annoying Ohio at 4'10")

 

No doubt that is the problem.  However, this train-set came with a free Claudia Cardinale, so I could hardly say "no" ....

 

 

[Edwardian]

Twenty years ago, but the memory s still fresh ....

 

"Waah! Steady your self by gripping the knee with the right hand, then slide the left up and squeeze!"

 

 

 

[sem34090]

That is very worrying...

I was wearing a very similar tie and jacket to our esteemed, illustrious, leader...

[Northroader]

I’m sure you have much neater shirt cuffs than him, though, Sem

 

anyhow, I’m sure our Claudia is 100% genuine, but I dunno bout that loco:

[Nearholmer]

Definitely a faux loco. Look at where the pilot is fitted - appears to be fixed to the face of the buffers. Buffers? Hold on, a Wild West loco ought to have no buffers!

[Compound2632]

Spaghetti Baldwin?

[Nearholmer]

By the lack of all-round  delight, I'm assuming that this link got lost in my tram ramblings http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-52019982/view;?partId=nla.obj-52020890#page/n9/mode/1up

 

Charles Rous-Marten, giving an overview of railways in Britain, and what amounts to a very early version of "locomotive practice and performance" in the 1880s.

 

Interesting in light of the 'City of Truro' debate to read him dismissing accounts of very high speeds, and talking about back-pressure being the limiting factor. I won't spoil it by saying which railway and locomotive type he'd credits as being the fastest to date, or what speed he cites.

[Compound2632]

Ah, but Rous-Marten himself was to record 90 mph with a Johnson Spinner - No. 117 of the 115 Class of 1896 with piston valves - the fastest authenticated speed with a service train in the 19th Century and equal to the speed attained by one of T.W. Worsdell's Class J two-cylinder compound bogie singles No. 1517 under test conditions. Plus of course he got that 92 mph over two miles coming down Ribblesdale with No. 2632 on an up Scotch Express in 1902. (W.M. Smith is the common factor here.)

 

Ahrons explained the increase in maximum speed from the 75 mph of the 1880s as being due to the introduction of harder steel rails and tyres.

 

That 75 mph limit, translated as 120 kph, was institutionalised in France by a law of Napoleon III that remained in force throughout most of the Third Republic, only being increased to 130 kph in 1930. That, coupled with the geography of France (Paris in the middle, other principal cities at the periphery), had a big influence on French express passenger locomotive design - the need being for engines that could run with heavy loads at constant speed over long distances - ideal conditions for compound engines. 

[runs as required]

46 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

By the lack of all-round  delight, I'm assuming that this link got lost in my tram ramblings http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-52019982/view;?partId=nla.obj-52020890#page/n9/mode/1up

You'll be pleased to hear I'm still with you K.  The rambling tram link is something I've been promising myself to read at bedtime.

Not like that other faction on the Parish Council all hot and sweaty and pawing at their collars.

dh

[Hroth]

6 hours ago, runs as required said:

Alternatively might a quayside tram engine valve gear have struck a bell - so excess speed would have been much easier to perceive?

I'm sure there should be a music hall song which includes the refrain

 

"But 'tis the Drrring A Drrring A Drrring as catches the Tram Inspectors Ear"

 

Of course, the verses describe how the inspectors other senses are attracted by the young lady singing the song....

[Annie]

2 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

By the lack of all-round  delight, I'm assuming that this link got lost in my tram ramblings http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-52019982/view;?partId=nla.obj-52020890#page/n9/mode/1up

 

Charles Rous-Marten, giving an overview of railways in Britain, and what amounts to a very early version of "locomotive practice and performance" in the 1880s.

 

Interesting in light of the 'City of Truro' debate to read him dismissing accounts of very high speeds, and talking about back-pressure being the limiting factor. I won't spoil it by saying which railway and locomotive type he'd credits as being the fastest to date, or what speed he cites.

Fascinating reading.  Thank you very much for posting the link Nearholmer.

[Compound2632]

13 hours ago, webbcompound said:

Looking at the photo, my analysis is that your tracklaying problem is that you are laying broad guage (there was a lot of it in the US before guage standardisation finally spread to the South in  1886, mostly 5', some 6', and the annoying Ohio at 4'10")

 

Come to think of it (I am slow), given the provenance of the still, 5'5 1/2" or thereabouts - six Castillian feet, which fortuitously was within a few millimetres of five Portugese feet.

 

Bother you all, I'm now reading up on Iberian customary units...

[Joseph_Pestell]

2 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Come to think of it (I am slow), given the provenance of the still, 5'5 1/2" or thereabouts - six Castillian feet, which fortuitously was within a few millimetres of five Portugese feet.

 

Bother you all, I'm now reading up on Iberian customary units...

 

I had never noticed that Portuguese folk had size 15 feet.

[Compound2632]

1 minute ago, Joseph_Pestell said:

 

I had never noticed that Portuguese folk had size 15 feet.

 

King Manuel I (reigned 1495-1521) was the fellow with the big feet. 

[Joseph_Pestell]

6 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

King Manuel I (reigned 1495-1521) was the fellow with the big feet. 

 

Yes, back then the toffs were much better fed and therefore taller than the hoi-palloi.

 

We have a lovely letter from a Mr Whitbread to my grandfather saying how difficult he had found it to get round the cottage that my family lived in (rented from the Whitbreads who owned large swathes of Bedfordshire).