big jim

The building bloke has been to see me, apparently the building doesn’t come under part P or something so doesn’t need thick floor insulation/wooden joists so I’m going to wood laminate it with appropriate insulation under that, (there is a damp course membrane) Wall wise I’ve been told 75mm thick insulation between 4x2 battoning set to 400mm apart to bring the insulation flush with the 2 brick pillars in the shed, (25mm gap between the insulation and the wall) as breathing space then another 25mm sheet across the front of the 75mm sheet running over the front of the pillar and plasterboard on top of that For the roof 7x2 beams on the new roof, again set at 400mm apart, 100mm insulation between those then 25mm across the bottom (below the Battons) and plasterboard over that No lintle needed above the bi fold doors but fill the void between the top of them and the roof with upvc panel, insulated inside and plaster boarded inside

Here’s a pic of it in he 70s when the mainline was closer than it is now http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/w/welshpool_1st/index2.shtml They must have shared the inner running rail!

That’s weird, when I walked to the Tesco in Welshpool from the station the other week I was going to photograph the old cattle dock and ask the question as to whether it was dual gauge as it was the first thing I noticed about it Regards the different arrangement on the top, maybe one was for welsh sheep and the other for English?

Ref my garage conversion the building inspector is around tomorrow for the initial inspection of the garage and advice so hopefully I’ll know what I need to be looking for insulation wise etc and get things kicked off

Saw it was back in action, not been near any IM trains for a couple of weeks and I don’t think I rostered for any next week so when I’ll get to have a drive of it again I don’t know

Some from this morning, 56s crewe to doncaster Not much moved from the yard since Sunday morning And away to Donny via Stafford, Lichfield, alrewas, toton, barrow hill and Rotherham Masborough where I had my usual photo stop! Through doncaster station to marshgate to change ends And into the carriage sidings And a few from the station Good old bendy bus These always seemed a strange thing to see in Doncaster! HST heading north Voyager back to Sheffield Where I got a 158 to Stockport Then was too cold for photos of the 175 back to crewe! Job cancelled tonight due to the weather so going to assess someone on the logs to carlisle instead

I’ve just spoken to my driver who informs me that.... A: the sighting speed restrictions over the various crossings are permanent speeds not temporary so appear in the planning area as reductions in speed but they still have the 100m approach and exit problem B: crossings AOCL and ABCL as you approach the crossing the DMI will warm you that there is a crossing aproaching which you have to acknowledge or the brakes will come on, it will then bring you down to a speed to be able to stop in case the white light doesn’t flash but once in the crossing the speed doesn’t increase straight away it will ‘open up’ a good couple of vehicles past the crossing C: arriva units can select 2,4,6,8 vehicles with degraded working for things like isolated brakes

So back to the 73, cut out holes for the wipacs, instead of sculpting plastistrip to the contour of the body I thought it would be a better option to glue/weld the rectangular blocks into the front of the loco as they will be more secure when I drill them for lights and it’s a lot simpler than trying to get the profile right And did the 2nd grille Then gave it a coat of grey primer The roof is so so where I’ve filled in the old fan and exhaust, I may revisit them and fill and smooth a bit more

Well I’ve had a nice week off and back into it again this coming week, should have been off today but got asked to pop down to Basford hall to download a 56 A lovely clear morning Freightliner 66 doing some shunting Gizza job Should be in at 02:00 but the job is cancelled so instead I’ve got to move those 56s over to doncaster in the morning instead

Being as I only sign to Machynlleth I can’t comment on open crossings as to whether the speed opens up straight away but I have asked the question of one of my drivers who does sign the coast bit Regards the comment a few posts back about ERTMS should prevent the driver making mistakes, it is still possible to have a SPAD under ERTMS but it would be a very slow speed one due to there being a ‘release speed’ for approaching block markers

off the top of my head regarding the above there are bridges on the cambrian which are restricted for locos, bridge 22 near hanwood for example, technically once the loco is over the bridge then there should be no reason why the restriction couldnt be cancelled down allowing the coaches/wagons/whatever to accelerate over the bridge but in reality you have to wait for the 12 "invisible coaches" plus the 100m beyond to pass the restriction before being allowed to speed up saying that even under RETB (or conventional signalling for that matter) i dont know of any restrictions that raise once the affected vehicle is past it, other than when approaching open crossings where you power up once on the crossing

Yeah, currently (on the 97s at least) you can’t input train length, ‘standard lengths’ were pre inputted years ago and have never been changed I’ll have to ask regards 158 as I’m sure you can put 2,4 or 6 car lengths in

Ive Just renewed my Murano and ended up sticking with the same company (quote me happy) as after doing a lot of shopping round on meerkat and the like the next cheapest was only about £20 less and I couldn’t be bothered setting up a fresh direct debit, cancelling the old one, sending off proof of no claims etc besides most companies wanted a deposit of 2 months premium then 10 payments whereas continuing he existing policy was 12 payments so it worked out the same in the long run, I probably should have called them to see if they could drop the price a bit more really but too late now It’s actually the first time in years that I’ve stuck with the same company for more than 12 months, Home insurance due next month so time to look round for that next

Davidhill: regards the inability to accept different length of train it’s certainly the case on the 97 but I have been told it’s merely a software upgrade that needs implementing, the daft thing is last week I had 2x97 and 15 auto ballasters so I inputted “air brake freight 60mph” And that must be set up for 10 wagons as the restriction ‘opened up’ long before the rear of the train had passed over it

The fact it’s a Europe wide standard system is another issue, it’s designed that so as long as a driver signs the various traction you could get from wick to Rome using one signalling system displayed through a standard DMI showing the same display regardless of traction So sticking to the UK my class 97 has the same display as a 158 and the same as a Eurostar so the speedo goes up to 240kph, all traction will have the same display so should they ever fit it to an 08 Shunter that would also have a speedo that went upto 240kph! Another flaw is also despite me inputting at the start of the journey that my train is say a 60mph freight (which i’ve Just this second have realised is a bit odd as it’s in mph!) the speedo will where the line speed is more than 100kph (60mph) still show me the top line speed as my ‘ceiling speed’ rather than 100kph so you have to remember to keep to 100kph, very easy to see the outer speedo ring ‘open’ at 120kph and forgetfully speed up to it (especially light engine) although technically the info you have inputted into the system regarding the train configuration should in theory safely brake you down from the higher speed without issue (obviously the rule book and train list say different so you keep to the correct speed) Phil: if you too want to come out for a ride get in touch and we can arrange something officially

Junctionmad, as it happens one of my ERTMS trained drivers also runs a very successful IT company outside of the railway so when it comes to ‘solutions’ he has actually come up with some by removing his train driver hat and putting on his nerd glasses for an hour When we did the ERTMS course we were lucky to get to see the signalling control centre computer room in Machynlleth signal box, my colleague was like a kid in a candy shop when the door was opened, he and the server room bloke were talking ram this, rom that, patch cord this, modem that, I think the box guy was glad to have a fellow nerd, sorry IT geek to talk to!

Simon, you say you haven’t seen ects or ERTMS for real so if you can spare some time over the next few months (even just one night) I’ll arrange for you to come for a ride out on one of the ballast turns down the Cambrian with me so you can see just how the system works from the front and discover it’s flaws etc More than happy to arrange it You can come and experience ‘the tallerddig triangle’ aka the twilight zone, where anything can happen, and probably will!

Thank you russ, you have once again put it better than I possibly could! Edit: thank you 4630 too, you can see where I’m coming from too

The link is on page 2 but here it is again http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/69543-big-jims-roundy-roundy-shed-layout-trains-running-again/?p=983753

Chill out Simon, you are probably very good at your job, you certainly don’t listen to or respect the opinion of people on the front line so your certainly management material

Simon: How can you say the benefits can’t be seen by the driver? From what I can see from the pointy end of the ‘goods and passenger carrying railway’ you talk about there aren’t any As an idea I needed to do a shunt the other night which involved passing a block marker to set back out of the siding in Machynlleth and I couldn’t as once the route was set out of the sidings and my rear wagon passed the block marker the route would have been’ locked in’ with no way of the signaller cancelling it off, you wouldn’t believe the hassle we had to get that train it of the siding, at 2AM, in the snow, written orders, coupling, uncoupling, setting back and drawing forward all because the train needed 15 ft more room that the system wouldn’t allow. No joke a 10 min shunt took us over an hour This is the future

Yep, I can’t wear orange pants down there either due to the reflective strips on them And no im not stripped down to my under crackers Russ has described the system very nicely in one word Inflexible

I don’t want to sound like I’m ganging up on you Simon but have you actually seen ects, ERTMS from the front end on a day to day basis? Ok I’m new to it myself but having worked the Cambrian under RETB and ERTMS I can honestly see no advantage or advancement in the system, if anything it’s a backwards step in so many ways, the biggest advance is the use of gsm-r rather than NRN but beyond that, nope can’t see any advantages at all Dave: it’s all very well russ having experience to comment from, it means dip s**t in this day and age, as he says he’s been to meetings and been laughed at, no doubt by someone who most likely hasn’t actually seen the job from the front end but feels they know best as the ‘computer model’ says something can be done, I’ve seen it with things like signal sighting comittees, try and get a point across and your largely ignored

I’ve just costed insulation for my garage conversion and I’m looking £500+ from the likes of b+q or £350 from the factory second shop (100mm thick, 2.4 x 1.2 size), then there’s the cost of the battoning too, (I knew I shouldn’t have bought that phaeton!) I was lucky with the shed when I did that as I got it from eBay from someone who had surplus sheets of 30mm thick stuff which I only paid £5 a sheet for

I can reverse in shunt mode but it’s only 40kph max, it’s what I use in possession’s (obviously not at 40kph!)