TheSignalEngineer

I've done a bit of measuring on some Comet sides I have made up for fitting to donors. The holes seem a bit variable even within the same etch but we are talking about very small measurements. The figures are based across a number of measurements on each etch.

Was up mountain biking on the Moors last week. I see that they are doing some work on the path between The Lion and Reeking Gill. Hopefully they will have it done to schedule so it is open for my next visit. I did it a few years ago but it was quite difficult on that section.

Up to the time that the DMUs were introduced and most non corridor stock was displaced the local trains through New Street were real Pick'n'Mix sets. There's a picture of one with a Period 1 Lav Brake, Period 1 Composite and Period 2 Brake. Another of a football special at Stechford had a mix of all three periods of LMS non-corridor stock.

Got rid of my unwanted Lima stuff this year. A couple of diesels and two railcars sold at between £20 and £35, all boxed. A couple of other things were recycled via the grandchildren for them to run, a shunter which cost me £5 and a Deltic at £10.

The 80% is mandatory for registered charities. The application of discretionary exemptions is open to interpretation, as is application rules for retail premises and non-profit organisations. Incidentally the current rateable value for IA in Birmingham is £44K approx.

City centre rents are killing shops like this. When IA in Manchester closed the landlord was asking twice the rent for less floor area. The charity shop a few doors down was being asked £98K per annum rent plus business rates on top.

I'm sure that the events of Whaley Bridge will raise a few questions in the area. There are numerous clay core dam reservoirs in the area particularly to the north and into the Pennines. These include the Longdendale reservoirs between Tintwistle and Woodhead. These are constructed in an area of unstable rock with many ancient (and modern) landslips. The Woodhead Dam had to be replaced not many years after construction and Torside has given continuous problems throughout its life. Rhodeswood suffered a landslip during construction and the level there is currently reduced. Extensive work was done on the chain in the 1990s, including extra height on the clay cores and improved wave walls, although I have seen waves overtopping Vale house on occasions. A problem at the top of the chain could be catastrophic as the chain of five reservoirs is about 15 times the capacity of Toddbrook. a large uncontrolled water release from Woodhead would potentially compromise the lower dams. Not only would there be extensive flooding through to beyond Stockport, but the surrounding towns rely on infrastructure in and crossing the valleys such as water mains, sewerage treatment works, transport for food deliveries, electricity supplies, etc ad inf, just to maintain daily life. Currently a new housing estate is being built below Bottoms dam at Tintwistle on the old Bridge Mill site. I don't think sales will be very good after this week's events.

I'm sure that the events of Whaley Bridge will raise a few questions in the area. There are numerous clay core dam reservoirs in the area particularly to the north and into the Pennines. These include the Longdendale reservoirs between Tintwistle and Woodhead. These are constructed in an area of unstable rock with many ancient (and modern) landslips. The Woodhead Dam had to be replaced not many years after construction and Torside has given continuous problems throughout its life. Rhodeswood suffered a landslip during construction and the level there is currently reduced. Extensive work was done on the chain in the 1990s, including extra height on the clay cores and improved wave walls, although I have seen waves overtopping Vale house on occasions. A problem at the top of the chain could be catastrophic as the chain of five reservoirs is about 15 times the capacity of Toddbrook. a large uncontrolled water release from Woodhead would potentially compromise the lower dams. Not only would there be extensive flooding through to beyond Stockport, but the surrounding towns rely on infrastructure in and crossing the valleys such as water mains, sewerage treatment works, transport for food deliveries, electricity supplies, etc ad inf, just to maintain daily life. Currently a new housing estate is being built below Bottoms dam at Tintwistle on the old Bridge Mill site. I don't think sales will be very good after this week's events.

There are certain people of whom I never ask that question unless I have time to listen to a four hour report on their medical history.

When I retired from full-time I went to the Jobcentre to check out the system. The paperwork to even get them to pay my NI was massive. As it was I got some consultancy jobs until such time as I could get my state pension and beyond, so I decided it wasn't worth the hassle of following up with them. The situation for others may be different but with no mortgage to pay, our occupational and state pensions we have ended up with as much disposable income as when we were both working.

Mine said one day "Why don't you get that stuff out of the cold garage and build a layout in the spare bedroom? Within two days board construction was under way. My photo kit and library also migrated from the room we used as an office and I put up a sewing workbench in its place so we both had room to work on our own projects. I would agree that hobbies are important. We grow vegetables and do a lot of off-road cycling. My wife still plays league tennis to quite a high standard. The other thing that occupies a lot of our time is two grandsons who live only 8 miles from us. For me the secret is keep busy and keep as active as possible.

I retired early after almost 38 years in the railway industry. My final salary pension scheme was boosted by the AVCs I paid when my children were at University. At that time students got grants depending on parental income. Pension contributions were deducted from your income so it meant that they qualified, if I hadn't paid the AVCs they got nothing and I had to keep them in food, etc. By 56 the AVCs had busted the Revenue rules, so I finished and paid off the mortgage. For 7 years of the next 10 I did some ad hoc consultancy work mainly for my old office drawing my last payday exactly 48 years after my first. Regrets? No. I still find it difficult to fit in everything I would like to do, so don't have time for boredom. Fortunately I have had good health and managed to stay active to the extent of doing over 1500 miles of off-road cycling last year. I have never missed the pressures of working on 24/7 projects, especially post-privatisation when you had a client who knew sweet fa about the job he was supposed to be doing. I enjoyed still being involved through the occasional work without the pressure, and the growth of social media means that I still have contact from a distance with several of my former staff and workmates, also some of my fellow commuters from my working days.

I think the difference in the bogie frame is to help factory identification, as the brake end has step boards and the inner end doesn't. I was having another look at them after RFS posted his pictures and wondered if the close coupling mech was the problem as they didn't move 100% freely on any of the bogies. will dismantle one tomorrow and see if cleaning up the contact faces improves the situation.

It's a bit like 100% mainline steam I suppose. What was there 60 years ago is gone and can never be brought back in its old form. Life moves on, not back to what people think it was like before they were born. Rationing of food / clothing / petrol, walking four miles from the gas works with a bag of coke for the fire anyone?

The problem is not so much between coaches although this can happen, but the leading coach of the shunt wanting to follow the straight rather than the turnout. I wondered if it was a weight issue but they are almost identical to the other recent types.

A photo to show the difference between the Bulleid and Maunsell bogies. You can see the difference in size of the curved part of the frame that pushes the close coupling across. The smaller width and shorter sides seem to be causing something to catch when propelling and restricts the bogie movement.

Plastics will change over time, especially through atmospheric factors, such as early grey plastic drainpipes turning to dust through UV exposure. Different plastics in close proximity will also suffer from polymer migration. the result of this is usually one going brittle and the other soft and gooey. We had a number of serious problems with this where synthetic rubber and PVC cables has been run in the same trunking. I've even seen cable sheathing go soft when in close proximity to some types of emulsion paint.

I haven't got an accurate measurement but from calculations and Jenkinson's drawings the size over the frame would be approx 230mm high by 625mm wide, or 3mm x 8.2mm at 4mm scale. The holes in the Comet sides would make it difficult to get an accurate size for the vents. The size of the rotating vanes including the metal carriers top and bottom is approx 190mm, so 2.5mm at 4mm scale. The holes are 2mm high by 8mm wide, although some are probably only 1.9mm as they won't take a piece of 80 thou plastic. the other difficulty is that they don't all lie in the same place on the etch. On my coaches the space from the top of the window to the roof line varies between approx 3.5mm and 3.8mm. There needs to be approx 0.5mm space top and bottom to allow for the coach framing in the prototype. I'm beginning to wonder if there were actually different heights or whether the Comet etches are slightly at fault in the sizing of the window frames. As said in one of the other posts all of the vanes in the set worked together. They could be angled to get air in or take it out by the passengers, Which way they were angled depended on the direction of travel and the required air flow. I've seen pictures with all vents open, all vents closed and a mixture of the two. Eric

I went to Crewe at the last Saturday of August 1964 and saw Duchesses running with yellow stripe cabs. My **** camera jammed a few days earlier so didn't get any pics. Going O/T I had an EE Type 4 back to Birmingham, non-stop Crewe to Walsall via Rugeley and Cannock then on via Perry Barr and Soho.

My boss early in my career had been one of the senior S&T men on the Euston - Manchester - Liverpool electrification. Besides being an excellent signalling engineer he was very financially and politically astute person. His opinion was that if wiring and signalling work had been started at Euston they would have been lucky to get it past Rugby. As it was the job was a political embarrassment as long as there were trains starting off from Manchester and Liverpool behind nice fast shiny blue electrics then changing to dirty steam and failure prone diesels to run into London.

Didn't notice any scruffy old BR 20t Goods Brake bouncing along in the middle. Must have been a warm summer day.

Due to the inclement weather I have had a look at the problem this morning. It looks like a design fault in the interface between the bogie and close coupling mechanism. It doesn't happen when the mechanism is removed. Will take some measurements later and post details, but I can see this being an ongoing problem shunting into sidings etc.

Any complex layout will have a few ugly ones. I think some of the worst at Severn Bridge Junction were from the Up side platforms to the Hereford line and vice versa, for instance 96 Up Hereford Home to Platform 5 needed 178 FPL then 80, 83, 86, 94, 95.

Where possible levers would be arranged in the most convenient way for the signalman. This would be starting from the last points in the route back to the signal. The things to avoid were walking backwards and forwards along the frame and 'pull between' which would be something like pull 5 points, pull 7 points then pull 6 FPL. Not only is it more convenient it usually gives the best layout of the interlocking bars.

Probably not high speed in continental terms as the centre to centre distances are only just over 30 miles as the crow flies. The running time saving between stops when you get over about 110mph is not worth it for that distance. For example the difference between 125mph and 140mph for 20 miles of constant running would be about 1 minute. The Pennine weather can make as much difference. Back in the days of West Coast Route Modernisation a review was undertaken on the effects of maximum speed on journey times in connection with the cost of providing cab signalling at 140mph against lineside signals at 125mph. I don't remember the financial side (several £bn) but given the proposed stopping pattern and likely attainable speeds the time savings from Euston were 4 minutes to Birmingham, 8 minutes to Manchester and 11 minutes to Glasgow. The biggest benefits of a new line(s) would be getting rid of rail bottlenecks and having a route capable of piggybacking lorry trailers from an east coast port to a west coast port and linking say Hull / South and West Yorkshire / Manchester / Liverpool. That would free up capacity on both the local rail network and the M62 / A628 roads. There are questions being asked about the desirability of providing expensive extra capacity on those at the moment because air pollution is already above the maximum safe levels and more traffic will make it worse.