drmditch

RMWeb appeared to remove 'Wright Writes' from my list of followed content the day before yesterday. I became suspicious when 'WW' did not show in my 'Content I Follow' stream for two whole days. Obviously, everybody knows that 'WW' always has several new posts every day. I appreciate that the country/human race/planet is in a right mess at the moment, but to loose links to 'WW' would be a real disaster. Does anyone have an idea as to how this could happen?

My vaccinations and booster were all very efficiently administered. The 15 minute wait was no problem. (I always take a book anyway when I may have to wait anywhere.) Had a (very faint) LFT on Sunday morning. Sent of for PCR kit, received and returned it on Monday. Negative result back this afternoon. Very efficient work by the NHS and Royal Mail. Since I'm over sixty and diabetic I don't have to pay prescription charges anyway - but I'm full of admiration for the NHS. Now hope to have more unworried time for and with my railway.

Good article on the BBC News website this morning, although you have probably seen all the pictures already! The pictures were interesting anyway- even if there is only a brief glimpse of the N&C !

Should you have posted this on an open forum? There are nasty people about.

Standards change. I felt the article, although most interesting, was very condescending towards the cat!

In defence of 'tension locks'. I agree with Mr King. I also make use of the 'new style' small tension locks. The reasons being:- Tight curves on my railway risk buffer locking. Hidden storage sidings require ability to uncouple with (cheap) self-made uncoupling ramps. Reliability, including reversing (goods/mineral) trains into sidings. I should also say that vestibuled coaching stock rakes only have tension locks at the outer (usually brake) ends. Between vehicles I use buckeye mouldings from Keen Systems. For tension locks to be reliable they must be:- Mounted at the correct and common height. Positioned so that the bearing surface (curved end) is just outside a line between the buffer surfaces. All vehicles are adequately weighted. The 'end swing' on long, fixed wheelbase vehicles must not be excessive. Such vehicles may need 'swinging arms' or some kind of drawbar spring. My locomotives not likely to haul trains tender first do not have front TLs fitted. I once frightened myself with a train of NER coal hoppers with three-link couplings which buffer-locked and derailed in the most inaccessible storage sidings. I was experimenting with loose coal as well! Obviously, it must be 'each to their own', but tension locks work for me, and I see them as part of a necessary compromise to allow the operating moves I want.

Thank you for the compliments - I've been very lazy recently and haven't made as much progress as I should. Just at present things are a bit hard to photograph while I install the LED lighting, and rolling stock is all over the place. All of the top level is 'liftable'. 1. The terminal station board is hinged to the wall ...(see here).... This gives access to most of the storage sidings, and is quick and easy to lift. When down it is retained mostly by gravity, but it can be screwed down if required 2. The station approach/coaling stage/locomotive facilities and turntable board also tilts up in restraining brackets. One woodscrew holds this position relative to 1. This is not as easy to lift, partly because: 3. The cross-room viaduct (NE end) locks onto it, although it is itself liftable but quite heavy and lengthy. 4. There is also a provision for the mid-level station board in the SW corner to lift, but this has not yet been fully engineered. Power cables for 1 and 2 are permanently connected, with sufficient slack to allow the boards to swing upwards. The viaduct has a plug/socket arrangement at each end, designed so that unless it is in place the approach track at each end is not live! 1 has a strong wire cable that hooks onto shelving to hold it in it's raised position. 2 needs a prop to hold it raised. Track joins use my ugly wide strips of PCB, to which track is soldered and cut through. This seems (not wishing to tempt fate) to work reliably. Most regular maintenance can be achieved by lifting 1. The worst problem being removing all the stock! From the lower level cork tiles, the top of the cork on the mid-level is 4 inches high, and the top level is 8 inches. (although there are some small variations on the mid and top levels of 1/4 inch to improve clearances.) Perhaps I should also have said that my railway is 'built up from the bottom', rather than 'hung down from the top'. (If that makes sense!) Hope this helps

And don't forget clearance if you run cables and/or point control rodding underneath the higher level! (I write from experience.)

My railway (link below) has two levels of storage beneath the top (terminus) level. Gradients are 1 in 45. Everything is now operational. One thing I got right was to test for clearances at every stage of construction and assembly. What I failed to do was to allow for lighting in the resultant complex covered spaces. I have now managed to install some LED lighting strips, but it would have been better to have planned these from the start!

Not so much of a problem for electrically powered railway models, but since water and air molecules don't scale down there can be big problems for model sailing vessels. (I did try once!) I suppose it might show in the size of the meniscus in a model water tank. using real water ?

I would certainly not watch anything, but it might be time to read LTOR again. (It's on a three/four year cycle.)

Thank you - have now found out how to do it! Thank you very much for your help.

Thank you. I am indeed a NERA member, but I haven't worked out how to view items in the archive. Help!

Please excuse an appeal for help. One of my current projects is a former NER Dia 85 six-wheeled Inspection Saloon, as drawn in NERA's 'Diagrams of Passenger Train Vehicles' Book No.2. I have described this ....here....which also links into my modelling thread. In the absence of more detail, I think I may have to make a 'reasonable guess' as to it's heating, lighting, and braking arrangements in the early 1930s. Would you have any better information?

Re: Accuracy and research. One of my current projects is a former NER Dia 85 six-wheeled Inspection Saloon, as drawn in NERA's 'Diagrams of Passenger Train Vehicles' Book No.2. I have described this .....here... which also links into my modelling thread. In the absence of more detail, I think I may have to make a 'reasonable guess' as to it's heating, lighting, and braking arrangements in the early 1930s. I would be very grateful if any of the knowledgeable and competent modellers who read this thread could help!

It was bad enough on land last night.

I live near here, and use the old railway routes now comfortably converted to Paths by Durham County council quite frequently. If you perform a search on Relly Mill Junction, you will find more material. By the way there are variant spellings - Relly/Relley/Deerness/Dearness - just to confuse search engines! It is not 'an ECML Diversion'! It was and is, since 1872, on the ECML itself. There was a post on RMWeb - ...here... There was an article in British Railways Illustrated for March 1996 (Vol.5 No.6) by 'MB'. Pictures are from 1955 to 1963. If you are unable to locate a copy let me know. Several of the pictures are listed as from the Neville Stead collection. I can't place my copy just at present; I was using it in my Railway Room a few months ago and it may have got buried under other projects. Your Diagram, at the bottom left, appears to miss the junction (Bridge House) between the ECML and the Bishop Auckland line. (The latter was the original line here by the way) As others have said, do join NERA. The Signal Box is probably a Northern Division type, although the border between the divisions did change several times.

I think you may be slightly behind the times. I usually (ie pre Covid) go to the Farnes at least once a year, since it is a very good place to take visitors. Many of the tour boats now seem to be purpose built. The last time I went out (I think probably 2019) the boat was a rugged catamaran, with all the good handling needed when in close to the islands. The ride took a bit of getting used to though! I like and admire Terns, both Common and Arctic (and therefore sometimes known as 'Comic Terns'. They are superb aeronauts, and feisty enough to attack any creature they see as a potential threat. When I was working on the Tyne a few years ago, we had a tern colony on a disused jetty. Visitors had to be issued with hard hats. I will always remember one summer dawn when a pair of Terns (one would like to think of them flying a 'dawn patrol' and they may well have been doing just that) intercepted a large gull, either a big Herring Gull or an LBB., flying towards the colony. One Tern came in from ahead taking the Gull's attention; then the other Tern attacked from astern and the Gull got a sharp beak just where it didn't want it. A strange noise resulted! Then, and this is the potentially nasty bit, while the Gull was thus distracted, the forward Tern came in straight for the larger bird's port shoulder muscle, damage to which of course for any bird might prove ultimately fatal. After this the Gull gave up, and side-slipped away. Back to the Farnes, when the good folk there were still sometimes fishing for a living, one of the boatmen pointed out how much fish an adult Grey Seal would eat in a day. I was also once told by one of the wardens, that the Eider had changed their nesting habits. They now nest close to the footpaths, because they don't mind humans but their predators especially GBBs are more distrustful. Not that I would suspect a GBB of that. On occasion I have encountered them both out to sea and in the estuary, the last being a grey October day with a grey swell rolling, the gull took off, and flew round the boat. Then it took advantage of the wind over the jib to hover quite close. A powerful bird, thick-necked and large beaked. It looked at me and I looked back. It certainly didn't seem to be worried by the humans or their little boat. Of course you might have a different view with all your freeboard and engine power!

Ken Hoole in 'An Illustrated History of LNER Locomotives' has several illustrations of Cs (and C1s) from NER days, and including engines with (apparently) no train braking , but with external pull-rods. The drawing provided (from the Engineer of 18-2-1887) of a compound engine also shows the external rods. This class has a long and complex history. I suspect that the pull-rods inside the wheels were introduced when steam brakes were provided. The RCTS history , Part 5, lists those with Westinghouse or Westinghouse and Vacuum at the time of grouping. To quote Mr Hoole, 'Originally intended for goods and mineral work, automatic brakes were not fitted until the last 30 engines appeared in 1892-5, but from then on their suitability as mixed traffic engines was realised and by grouping 136 (out of 201) engines had automatic brakes......' As far as I can see, any model needs to be based on a particular engine at a particular time in it's history. That is why I chose No.5033 and a picture in Yeadon (which although in LNER livery must have been taken sometime in 1948!)

As I understand the brake linkages, (and I have only really researched the J21s in late LNER condition), those locomotives which were fitted with 'passenger' brakes, either Westinghouse or Vacuum, had the pull rods outside the driving wheels. The rods were linked to a cross-shaft underneath the rear of the cab. Otherwise for 'unfitted' engines the brake rods were inside. The following pictures may be of use:- I was concerned with No.5033 in 1947 condition, using a re-worked Nu-Cast kit. I am sure that Arthur's kit and your modelling skills will produce a much superior version! However, to ask one slightly cheeky question - does the kit allow for the piston valve version, with the valves beneath the cylinders? So far, mine is the only model that I have seen with this feature. Not liking to boast of course, and I do really need to correct that dropped 5! I have another J21 in hand, using a Dave Alexander kit. This one is to be in earlier condition with Joy gear.

This is all getting serious and depressing. It is time for a reference from the works of the late, great, Sir Terry Pratchet; from I think 'Thud'. It concerns the pole dancer who changed her name from Candee to Brocolee. because she had heard it was better for you. Slightly more seriously, a short while ago I observed a battle at the bottom of my garden between a rather prosperous looking Magpie and quite a large Rat. They appeared to be competing for food spilled from the bird-feeders. So some questions:- Which of these two animals would you prefer to be the victor? Which of these two animals do you think could develop into a successor species to Sapiens as the dominant life-form on the planet? All answers to kept brief and to-the-point.

Thank you for the reference, but I am finding it difficult to enough to avoid getting too worried and depressed anyway. How many (within the rich world) of our current problems are actually being amplified if not actually created by the focussing and distorting mirror of 'social media'? And in the meantime the pressure of eight billion humans to find better lives continues and will continue. Pressure on the Polish border - BBC On my bad days I see no future but a wrecked and overheated planet with humans involving themselves in wars of extermination.

Is that a Worsdell-Von Borries compound? (As being used .....here..... ) I don't know whether any such were used as ploughing (and depending on date 'anti-Uboat') engines?

On a smaller scale, I did once lose an anchor (a grapnel of about 2kg or so) presumed eaten by a crocodile. At least that's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

Ah ha! - Dangerous looking model. Very Germanic looking for what in 1905 was a four-funnel armoured cruiser.