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Post by arun on May 12, 2015 14:31:27 GMT
If you want accurate drawings [suitable for modelling] of the 4-4-0 "A" tank, then look no further than "The Anatomy of the Metropolitan Railway 4-4-0 Tank Locomotive" by Peter Manning. This was published in 2013 and contains uncluttered drawings [of the complete engine as well as individual components] allowing you to make an accurate model in pretty much any scale you want. It is available from: Mr JW Lloyd 18 primrose Avenue Hyde Cheshire SK14-5BU 0161-368-4740
HTH
Arun
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Post by arun on Apr 24, 2015 20:16:55 GMT
I think I might have an answer to Whistlekiller's query. In medical note shorthand, elapsed times are generally written as fractions of obvious whole numbers e.g., 3/52 = 3 weeks, 3/12 = 3months, 12/7 = 12 days, 23/24 = 23 hours, 5/60 = 5minutes, 9/40 = 9weeks pregnant [since the [statistical] mode pregnancy generally lasts 40 weeks rather than 9 months]. Possibly someone peeking into hospital notes quite liked the use of the shorthand and thought 24/7 meant 24 hours {when in medspeak it means 24days} but didn't actually have any idea of what they were reading!
Arun
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Post by arun on Apr 5, 2015 19:03:44 GMT
As per SAWB's post above. Though I'm sure I'll bump into SAWB during the weekend anyway.
Arun
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Post by arun on Mar 26, 2015 11:18:11 GMT
C looks like Hillingdon
Arun
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Post by arun on Mar 5, 2015 11:32:26 GMT
Looks very rural for Kensington. I would've thought that the junction where central line trains from Chigwell and roding valley rejoin the southbound line to woodford was more likely. arun
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Post by arun on Feb 26, 2015 17:05:58 GMT
Brigham - Sorry poor choice of words. No, they wern't of course but with the railways based around a regional basis rather than a specific pairs of tracks going from A-B, multi-route/stock qualified personnel were much more likely to be easily found. Hence a potential larger range of alternatives routes than we have with the present arrangement of TOCs. Since we seem to be able to find route inspectors to accompany steam locos on routes that cross different TOC's stamping grounds, how is it we can't seem to use them to guide Cross-Country class 220 drivers [for example] over unfamiliar routes?
Arun
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Post by arun on Feb 25, 2015 23:19:32 GMT
According to "Rail", a diversion using the route from Birmingham to Oxford via Worcester rather than the OW&W route via Leamington would only be 12 miles longer. However, Chiltern's & Cross Country's drivers are not qualified on that route. Similarly, the FGW drivers who do have the route knowledge, aren't qualified on Cross-Country's class 220/221 [or Chiltern's] DMUs. It does seem that whatever we might have gained in splitting up BR, we have had significant losses in flexibility.
Perhaps Network rail [and underwritten by ATOC] should have a cadre of folk like our Battery Loco drivers who seem to be qualified to go anywhere [with anything?].
Rail also made the point that re-opening the [?6mile] link from Honeybourne north to Stratford and hence Birmingham might make considerable sense as a diversionary route given that the geological stability of parts of the Banbury-Leamington line are suspect. This wasn't the first landslip.
Arun
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Post by arun on Feb 19, 2015 11:03:42 GMT
Very nice indeed. Personally, not my preferred scale but still very nice.
Arun
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Post by arun on Feb 18, 2015 19:08:57 GMT
I imagine "Denham Golf Course" would also have qualified - especially as it very nearly became a Central Line Station.
Arun
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Post by arun on Feb 14, 2015 18:57:29 GMT
Thank you for those answers. It would be interesting to know the relative £M/mile of HS1/HS2/Crossrail/Jubilee Line Extn & the Overground linking bit between New Cross Gate and the Millwall Foootie Ground to name but a few.
Arun
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Post by arun on Feb 13, 2015 12:06:49 GMT
Melikepie quotes a cost of £230M - The 30mile Borders Railway comes in at £280M. Any ideas why the vast difference in £M/mile?
Arun
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Post by arun on Jan 31, 2015 12:31:59 GMT
The inset looks like Mid-Hants Rly - Arlesford I think
Arun
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Post by arun on Jan 20, 2015 13:22:05 GMT
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Post by arun on Jan 18, 2015 14:12:34 GMT
Greetings All- Photo 26 in "Branch Line to Ongar" by JE Connor pub. Middleton Press 2007, ISBN 978-1-906008-05-5 shows, in closeup, the church road entrance to the subway. There are a whole series of photographs of the station and its trackwork in this book. Well worth a read and well up to the standard from this publisher. Alan Simpson also published a short history, "How the Railway Came to Leytonstone" via the Leyton & Leytonstone Historical Society in 2006 -ISBN 978-0-9553729-0-2 which has fewer pics but is also a worthwhile read.
Arun
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Post by arun on Jan 14, 2015 11:29:32 GMT
Edgware road I think
Arun
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Post by arun on Jan 13, 2015 15:37:42 GMT
If it is indeed closer to Woodside Park than somewhere in the USA, perhaps it could be Regent's Park [ZSL] - or is that too obvious?
Arun
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Post by arun on Jan 8, 2015 11:53:41 GMT
Hi there - I can't give you definitive answers to all your questions but a "shed receptacle box" is a box fitted to a car's solebar or underframes that allows it to receieve line current whilst in a depot without people working on it running a risk of electrocution from the presence of live rails. The box receives two or more power cables that are usually dangling from an overhead trolley that runs the length of the depot shed. The box's actual appearance varies depending on stock but as often as not will have a red and blue coloured plug connection.
There used to be a downloadable pdf of tube and surface stock [and some engineer's stock] on the TfL website but I don't know if it is up to date at present.
Hope that helps.
Arun
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Post by arun on Jan 2, 2015 1:38:15 GMT
The donkey/ass/mule or whatever is I think at the kiddies farm at Surrey docks.
Arun
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Guards
Dec 25, 2014 21:58:29 GMT
Post by arun on Dec 25, 2014 21:58:29 GMT
Whoops - sorry about that Piers
For your convenience [not you Piers] I have included part of Piers's coments on the value of guards et al as Piers explains it far better than I could:
"A few years ago, the Underground tried an experiment in recruiting drivers "off the street". A 22-week training programme was devised and a batch of hopefuls was put through it They were called "DROPS" (Direct Recruit OPeratorS). It was not a roaring success. The failure rate was high and subsequent performance was not always as good as hoped for. Now they are trying again. With over 200 new drivers needed to cover the training and expansion associated with new train delivery and line upgrades, a recruitment campaign started in March was overwhelmed with 10,000 applications. Needless to say, they had to close the campaign rather quickly and they are still trying to process the applications. By all accounts, the recruitment process is complex and counter-intuitive. In one case, a former driver of good standing was turned down after waiting 6 months to hear the result of his application to rejoin.
Why do I say "counter-intuitive? Well, not unreasonably, the modem focus is on "customer care". New station staff are recruited on their willingness to deal with people and help others in trouble, plus an apparent ability to sooth angry or puzzled passengers, not get upset when abused and to cope with various forms of safety and evacuation processes. Most train staff are recruited from "Customer Service Assistants' (CSAs). This is not usually the type of person who is happy to sit alone in a cab, content amidst the flashy control technology of the train, testing his braking skills at each platform, watching the road ahead for hours on end in the dark and generally waiting long periods for something unusual to happen. From this, it might be thought that people inclined towards train driving skills would not necessarily be the same sort of people who would be happier coping with hordes of lost Eurostar tourists at King's Cross, helping people with white sticks up the escalators at Oxford Circus or coaxing drug users out of the toilets at Baker Street.
This paradox might explain the increasing number of strange incidents of the past few years, where trains have been driven in the wrong direction, lengthy train failures have disabled services and train operators have made errors which are completely at odds with their training and with railway operation generally. Mindful of this problem, a possible solution presented itself to me after a conversation with someone working for c2c -the London, Tilbury and Southend Railway to you and me.
The L T&S operates trains of 4, 8 and 12-car formation. The routes are all equipped for DOO (Driver Only Operation) for up to 8-car trains but they have to employ guards on 12-car trains because of their length. My friend was engaged in a plan to get rid of these guards because of the expense of keeping them. I told him I would keep them. "Why?" he asked. "Because: I replied "You have a pool of new train drivers there. The guards get train operations experience, they will develop some experience of the technology and of rules for train operations, they will understand the issues which occur during disruptions, they will understand depots and how they interface with trains. They will learn something of signalling and control issues and they might even learn a bit about train failures and how to help handle them. You keep your guards" I told him, "It will ultimately be cheaper and safer than recruiting and training people off the street"."
This comes from Chapter 40 of "The Underground Electric Train" published initially [around 2008] in Underground News - The monthly journal of the London Underground Railway Society.
Arun
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Guards
Dec 25, 2014 13:53:00 GMT
Post by arun on Dec 25, 2014 13:53:00 GMT
Piers O'Connor made the point [in one of his "Underground News" articles [though it related to use of guards on C2C Fenchurch Street services]] that increasingly drivers on DOO trains felt isolated from their passengers and, perhaps consequently even alienated from them. By employing guards who might one day "progress" to being drivers, it ensured "down the line" that drivers would always retain some concept of what it was they were being employed to do i.e., move passengers rather than just moving rolling stock. Whilst therefore employing guards might not immediately be seen as cost-effective, over time it does make considerable sense in maintaining staff-customer rapport and even self-respect.
Arun
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Post by arun on Dec 10, 2014 13:55:20 GMT
That's rather nice. However, Leyton is derived from the old norse, being a "tun" or settlement by the [river] Lea so Lea Tun might be more accurate.
Arun
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Post by arun on Dec 2, 2014 12:34:04 GMT
4 is Mystery Train by Junior Parker - Elvis did it a couple of years later
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Post by arun on Dec 2, 2014 12:28:49 GMT
Rather than edit the above, I'll add this as it might be of wider usefulness. It isn't [currently] possible to scan a set of 2D drawings showing different views of an object and expect a computer to reconcile these and output an accurate 3D image [or more accurately, a 3D solid object file with wall thickness]. It is possible to do this reconcilliation very easily if you scan a 3D object from different angles and then combine the scans into a single 3D object file. Possibly that is where the belief that producing 3D objects from 2D *.jpg files being easy arises.
Turning a series of 2D images into a 3D model normally involves inputting the measurements by hand [or via digitiser] into a 3D software package [such as Inventor, Blender, Space Claim, Catia, Parasolid, Solidworks] and then carring out extrude/revolve/trim & merge/loft etc., actions on the 2D sketches and any zero thickness surfaces and /or solids generated. In other words, it is a highly time consuming process requiring [to some extent] a knowledge of the prototype as well as experience of the software.
Having said all that, the results can be brilliant!
Arun
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Post by arun on Nov 30, 2014 20:32:24 GMT
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Post by arun on Nov 17, 2014 1:05:39 GMT
inset 5 in A looks like Hampton Court Palace and inset 1 in Image D looks like the Horsted Keynes carriage siding on the old Ardingly branch. Inset 1 in B rather looks like the old Rewley Road station now moved to Quainton Road. The inset in C looks like the new grassed over roof over the crossrail workings at Canada Water. Inset 2 in D is, I think, Portsmouth Harbour Station.
Arun
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Post by arun on Nov 15, 2014 19:24:46 GMT
putting my distorting world-view glasses on , it looks like Aldgate in the rain
Arun
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Post by arun on Nov 15, 2014 19:20:22 GMT
inset 3 is Bath green park and inset 1 is one of the old fertility symbol "Green Men" as in Gwaine and the Green Knight"
Arun
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Post by arun on Nov 15, 2014 19:15:20 GMT
Jtuthill There is indeed a memorial to fallen members of the LGOC at Leyton Garage but it takes the form of a stone panel on the right hand side of the main [bus] entrance. As far as I know, a wreath is still placed there every year.
Arun
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Post by arun on Nov 4, 2014 13:43:02 GMT
Perhaps Embankment - stairs down to SSL platforms
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Post by arun on Oct 24, 2014 12:17:37 GMT
OK - I give in - Please Sir, where is the obsolete pattern bus stop in inset 3?
Arun
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