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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Heaven: The SoF Railway Enthusiasts' Thread
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Darllenwr
Shipmate
# 14520
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sober Preacher's Kid:
quote:
Originally posted by Darllenwr:
This is a complete non seq, but those of us who enjoy extracting the urine from our American colleagues may enjoy this story.
I gather that it has not been confirmed, so it may be a wind-up. On the other hand, it does seem to be a lot of effort to go to for a wind-up, so draw your own conclusions.
I am indebted to my sister for drawing my attention to this story.
(edited to correct screw-up code)
What's to get wound up about? And what sort of urine do you expect to extract?
An overheated journal bearing, or "hotbox" as they are known, is a common occurrence. Caboose crews were formerly charged with spotting them, today railways have hotbox detectors on the trackside to do this.
"Thrown into emergency" means that there was a break in the train air line, which caused the brakes to activate without the engineer's command. This is standard practice. Brakes are designed to work like that.
This incident happened to have the poor timing of occurring with coal hoppers while on a wooden trestle. There are lots of wooden trestles out West, especially on secondary lines.
It'll be a bit expensive, but that's life on the rails.
Oops! My bad. ![[Hot and Hormonal]](icon_redface.gif)
In the version I had through e-mail, there was no mention of the train coming to a halt thanks to the couplings parting. That variant said that the train was stopped thanks to vigilant train crew, who only reliased that they had stopped the train with the affected car on the wooden trestle once they had stopped, and then called Control for permission to pull the train clear of the trestle, which permission was refused because, so the story went, it would be in breach of The Rules. If, as we now hear, the train stopped because of division, then the crew didn't get much choice in the matter and there is no urine to be taken.
Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa
I fancy this is post #1000 on this thread ... ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
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If I've told you once, I've told you a million times: I do not exaggerate!
Posts: 1101 | From: The catbox | Registered: Jan 2009
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Zappa
Ship's Wake
# 8433
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Darllenwr:
I fancy this is post #1000 on this thread ...
Oh joy, oh happiness! Oh frabjous day, Kaloo kallay et cetera
![[Biased]](wink.gif)
Nah - we love it really. Especially when we learn that a B1a 4-6-0 will out-gradient a V2 No. 4771 when geared in a ratio of 4:6 with piston valves on the Dalrymple-Lexbridge line at 04.00.
Yeah. Love it. Really.
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and mayhap this too: http://broken-moments.blogspot.co.nz/
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Baptist Trainfan
Shipmate
# 15128
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Posted
Steam locomotives don't have gears (usually - unless it's something like a Shay or a Sentinel).
And (says he very suspiciously) how on earth did you know that 4771 is a V2? Sounds too well-informed for me ... a railway enthusiast manqué methinks.
[ 08. March 2010, 17:39: Message edited by: Baptist Trainfan ]
Posts: 9750 | From: The other side of the Severn | Registered: Sep 2009
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Darllenwr
Shipmate
# 14520
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Posted
And to think I was just about to congratulate Zappa on having learned his lessons so well.
Shows that somebody had been awake during class ![[Snigger]](graemlins/snigger.gif)
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If I've told you once, I've told you a million times: I do not exaggerate!
Posts: 1101 | From: The catbox | Registered: Jan 2009
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Sober Preacher's Kid
Presbymethegationalist
# 12699
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Posted
Just to further elaborate, because this is a Pond Difference.
In North America we are very, very enthusiastic about braking. Every rail car is fully equipped with Westinghouse Air Brakes. We consider train handling to be unthinkable without them. They are as necessary to run trains as tracks are.
As I said above as a safety feature when the train air line is broken, it throws the air brakes into Emergency, a special, stronger mode. This will force the train to brake, both the powered portion and the back section. This prevents a runaway.
The crew wisely moved the front portion off the trestle, the cars that were still controllable. The burning cars would be left braked and unpowered.
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NDP Federal Convention Ottawa 2018: A random assortment of Prots and Trots.
Posts: 7646 | From: Peterborough, Upper Canada | Registered: Jun 2007
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Darllenwr
Shipmate
# 14520
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Posted
Ay, it's a fair point. Automatic power braking of freight trains has long been a sore point in the UK.
I seem to remember that this issue came up for air earlier in the thread, and the point was made that the greatest obstacle to the use of continuous brakes on freight trains in this country was the existence of the Private Owner wagon ~ mostly 10 ton coal wagons. These belonged to the various collieries that were shipping coal by rail and, I would guess, constituted the bulk of 4-wheel freight vehicles between the wars. True to form, the owners were extremely reluctant to spend as much as a penny more on their wagons than they absolutely had to, so proper brakes and couplings simply didn't appear on the list. It would appear that the railway companies did not have sufficient clout to be able to compel the owners to fit out their wagons properly, so had to settle for what they got. A very curious state of affairs.
I am fairly sure that Nigel Gresley, at least, attempted to introduce a steel-bodied 20 ton coal wagon on the LNER. I believe it was vacuum fitted and would, if adopted, have enabled coal trains to be run significantly faster than they were. The coal owners couldn't see anything other than unnecessary expenditure (coal doesn't deteriorate by being left on a siding for a few days, so what difference did higher speed make to the collieries?) and so refused to co-operate. Gresley's iniative was dead in the water; end of story.
There was also the British approach to freight handling, the Pick-up goods train. Known on the GWR as the 'Fly', this was a local goods service that travelled from station to station, dropping off, and collecting, wagons at all the wayside stations en route. On busy routes, there might be as many as five of these trains daily. The locomotive men would be expected to shunt every wayside yard between the starting and finishing points, so the duty could be a long one. At the finishing point, the resulting train would be broken up and re-marshalled into trains to be despatched over longer distances. The point is that the whole system was based around the individual wagon, rather than the current block trains. It would seem to me that this engendered something of a philosophy of "We've always done it this way, why change it?" Downhill all the way from there.
Mind you, as I remarked to a friend of mine who works in the computer games industry, there would be an interesting challenge for Microsoft Train Simulator ~ modelling something like the GWR Long Tom, a 100-wagon loose-coupled coal train running behind a Churchward 2800 class 2-8-0 from Cardiff to London, with no brakes except on the engine and the Guard's Van. And each wagon has enough slack in its coupling that the distance between it and the next wagon can vary by up to a foot. Try getting that through the Severn Tunnel without either running away or breaking away.
Train Simulator may be fine, but the monolithic units that it reproduces don't really present that much of a challenge to the game players. With the Long Tom, when the driver opened the regulator to pull out of the yard at the start of the journey, the locomotive might pull forwards something like 3 times its own length before the Guard's van started to move ~ just imagine the fun you could have trying to stop such a train without injuring the Guard!
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If I've told you once, I've told you a million times: I do not exaggerate!
Posts: 1101 | From: The catbox | Registered: Jan 2009
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
That would be a simulator worth trying. Perhaps it would also be possible to emulate the effect of pinning down a few wagons as well.
BR did try running fixed loads of unfitted coal wagons with 9Fs at up to 45/50 mph in the late 50s, with some success - or at least there don't seem to be many records of them coming off and scattering coal over the adjoining fields. This was on the Great Central south of Nottingham where there weren't many junctions or other trains to get in the way.
It would have been much harder to do that on the line up from South Wales, which had a lot of other trains on it and quite a few junctions.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
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Horseman Bree
Shipmate
# 5290
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Posted
But the same sort of "wayfreight" (= pick-up goods) ran on virtually every line in Canada and the US as long as there was local business to be served (i.e. before paved highways and larger trucks - say, before 1960)
There are still some lines that do that kind of business - and, yes, with individual cars.
But they all have compatible brake systems. You can't put a car on the track in North America that doesn't comply with the wheel, age and brake regulations (and all sorts of other rules), no matter how private an owner you may be.
A lot of the local service is now provided by containers shifted from train to truck at central yards, so a lot of the branch lines have disappeared. The entire rail system on Prince Edward Island disappeared once trucking across a new bridge became possible, for instance.
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It's Not That Simple
Posts: 5372 | From: more herring choker than bluenose | Registered: Dec 2003
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Sober Preacher's Kid
Presbymethegationalist
# 12699
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Posted
While coal often moved on single line hauls in the US, it often as not was interchanged too.
The Pennsy and B&O, and even the New York Central moved coal to the lake ports in Ohio on single-hauls. The Norfolk & Western and Chesapeake & Ohio did the same to Newport News and Norfolk VA.
Either way, the rates were regulated by the Interstate Commerce Commission. Thus the railroads had an incentive to get as much business as cheaply as possible, so they went for moderate speed and massive trains for hauling coal, to cut down on crew costs. Drag freights would often average 50 mph tops, depending on the road in question.
Speaking of wayfreights, those tend to be the specialty of short lines nowadays. They usually have smaller management and looser rules, so you'll see things like a conductor chatting with a factory along the line for more business. There was a case on the Cape Breton & Central Nova Scotia where that line turned up at a NS Power plant it served with several locomotives during a snowstorm. Their shuttle-tractor was slipping. There was no charge for this service. NS Power was bowled over at the consideration they got.
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NDP Federal Convention Ottawa 2018: A random assortment of Prots and Trots.
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PD
Shipmate
# 12436
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Posted
J G Robinson of the Great Central Railway also had a go at introducing larger 25T capacity coal wagons c.1909. They were somewhat similar in design to the typical American gonola IIRC. The usual farce ensued. Only a few pits could handle the bigger wagons, and those that could took the attitude "we'll use 'em - if tha'll pay for 'em." They ended up being used for loco coal. They were scrapped in the early 1920s - just a few years before Gresley had a go on the same topic.
Given the tonnages and grades involved I am not at all surprised at the American obsession with brakes. One thing that is often forgotten is that when continuous brake was first introduced it was not automatic. During the late 1870s and 1880s, the D&RG was operating its narrow gauge trains over 4% grades with straight air, which must have been character building as a broken brake pipe meant handbrakes only. No wonder that pictures of the period show brakemen decroating the car tops!
Also, although American knuckle couplers are a deal tighter than the UK three link it should be remembered that there is a fair mount of slack in freight car couplers in the USA. Admittedly the pick up effect is less than in UK loose coupled freight, but it would be impossible to start heavy freight drags without some slack between cars.
PD
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
quote:
But they all have compatible brake systems. You can't put a car on the track in North America that doesn't comply with the wheel, age and brake regulations (and all sorts of other rules), no matter how private an owner you may be.
Ours had to meet compatibility requirements. It was just that continuous brakes was not one of them.
They also had to be transferable between companies.
Wagons did have manual brakes which could be pinned down manually. Also, there was a fitted head, which was putting 4+ fitted wagons directly behind the engine and fitting them up to provide extra brakepower. Thease had different lamp and bell codes.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
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PD
Shipmate
# 12436
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Posted
When my Dad was spotting back in the fifties freight trains came in three varieties.
Fitted Freights - usually fish trains would have continuous brakes and would go through Brigg at about 60mph. Until CWR became common in the 60s short wheelbase four-wheelers usually behaved at speed. These usually headed down the GCR mainline to Retford, then on to the London Extension for Nottingham and Leicester, and were handed over to the former GWR at Banbury for Bristol. Sheffield and Manchester trains kept to the mainline and handed over to electrics at either Sheffield or Penistone.
Semi-Fitted trains would marshall the waggons with continuous brake behind the loco, and were latterly restricted to 45mph.
Loose-coupled freight were restricted to 35mph and could create their own species of havoc when traffic to/from Cleethorpes was heavy. The signalmen at Barnetby could end up with a full house keeping empty coal trains out of the way of excursions, "fast fish," and express passenger trains, as there were no running loops or refuge sidings between Barnetby and Gainsborough Central. Such was the traffic density on that line that my great-grandfather could book over seventy trains in an eight hour shift at all-manual Brigg North signalbox in the 1930s and 40s. No wonder the old boy was built like an all-in wrestler.
PD
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Alaric the Goth
Shipmate
# 511
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Posted
PD, I would love to have seen such an intensity of trains passing! And all that freight- what was typically hauling it (apart from EM1 Bo-Bo electrics after Penistone!)? I’d guess B1 and Stanier ‘Black Five’ 4-6-0s, K3 2-6-0 s and perhaps V2 2-6-2s on the faster freight like the fish vans. GC O4 and Riddles WD 2-8-0s and maybe some Gresley 02s on the slower stuff, particularly coal trains.
[ 11. March 2010, 08:46: Message edited by: Alaric the Goth ]
Posts: 3322 | From: West Thriding | Registered: Jun 2001
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Darllenwr
Shipmate
# 14520
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Posted
As a matter of interest, PD, do you happen to remember the size of the frame at Brigg North? 70 trains in 8 hours would be a fair bit of work even in a simple passing box, but if there were loops and turn-outs as well ...
I reckon you had to be fit to be a signalman in a manual box. And, if you weren't to begin with, you soon would be!
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If I've told you once, I've told you a million times: I do not exaggerate!
Posts: 1101 | From: The catbox | Registered: Jan 2009
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Sober Preacher's Kid
Presbymethegationalist
# 12699
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Posted
All-manual, does this mean it wasn't interlocked?
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NDP Federal Convention Ottawa 2018: A random assortment of Prots and Trots.
Posts: 7646 | From: Peterborough, Upper Canada | Registered: Jun 2007
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FreeJack
Shipmate
# 10612
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Posted
Anyone in favour / against the new HS2 plans and route?
HS2
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Horseman Bree
Shipmate
# 5290
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Posted
All-Manual" means just that every movement of signals, turnouts or whatever was done by muscle-power. The interlocking, which was essential to saety, was done by a series of bars sliding sideways into specific slots on particular throwrods (or not, if blocked) - hence, "Mechanical interlocking"
I got a chance to look through a fairly simple set out at the crossing on the Cabot sub (CN) where the CP Carman line cut across. Just a ttop/go semaphore on each line, but fully interlocked so that only one "Go" signal could show at any time. This involved 5-foot-long hand levers, and what looked like about a quarter ton of brass and steel rods that were basically knitted together, controlling wires that pulled the signal arms. There would have to be inch-square steel rods to move a set of points back or forth.
I can't imagine the complexity of levers and rods that would be needed to make a serious tower functional.
Posts: 5372 | From: more herring choker than bluenose | Registered: Dec 2003
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PD
Shipmate
# 12436
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alaric the Goth:
PD, I would love to have seen such an intensity of trains passing! And all that freight- what was typically hauling it (apart from EM1 Bo-Bo electrics after Penistone!)? I’d guess B1 and Stanier ‘Black Five’ 4-6-0s, K3 2-6-0 s and perhaps V2 2-6-2s on the faster freight like the fish vans. GC O4 and Riddles WD 2-8-0s and maybe some Gresley 02s on the slower stuff, particularly coal trains.
Up to the late forties the line was a bastion of GCR designs - O4s, Imminghams, Fish Engines, Black Pigs, Sir Sams, Pom-Poms, and Jersey Lillies. They disappeared relatively rapidly 1946-1950 and were replaced by:
Fast freight (mainly fish), parcels and most passenger trains were in the hands of B1s, with the odd K1 or K3 to stop boredom setting in. There were still a few D11s around, but the Robinson 4-6-0s and Atlantics were gone.
The Cleethorpes - Sheffield - Manchester expresses were usually B1 powered. They would hand over to EM1s or EM2s at Sheffield Vic. The station stop at Sheffield was usually seven minutes, but I am told that the engine would be changed before the platform staff had finished handling mail and parcels traffic.
Unfitted freights seemed to be the hands of Robinson O4, and WD 2-8-0s, with the odd J11 and J39 for variety. The O4 was strictly a two speed locomotive - slow and stop - but could haul prodigeous amounts of freight. (To GWR enthusiasts it is the little loved 30xx or ROD.)
Excursion trains from the Sheffield and Leeds areas could throw up pretty much any medium power LNER design plus some of the commoner LMS types usually Moguls - mainly Crabs and Ivatt 2MTs - or Black 5s, and the odd BR Standard locomotive. ex-LMS designs predominated on excursions from non-LNER stations in Nottinghamsire.
Local passenger trains were mainly in the hands of B1s then Metro-Cammell (TOPS Cl.101) and Lincoln Heavyweight DMUs (Cl.114). DMUs were known as "donkeys."
My Dad used to have an uncomplimentry nickname for B1s due to their ubiquity. Unfortunately I have forgotten what it was. The 9Fs that eventually replaced the O4s on coal trains were usually referred to as "Spaceships."
Brigg North was a 40 lever frame (interlocking in American terminology). At the time it controlled a double track mainline, the level crossing for Bigby Road, and a small freight yard Down (north) side of the mainline. Great-grandad used to get his biggest workout of the shift when the pick-up goods arrived and departed. IIRC, the eastbound pick-up would switch the yard and leave the westbound traffic in the headshunt for easy collection. However, this still required quite a bit of shuffling to get it from the freight yard to the train standing on Up Main.
In later life GGF was offer New Holland Pier - a bleak little box controlling the small passenger terminal. Having joined the M, S and L in 1897 he had the seniority to tell the LNER where to stuff it. The last few years he worked for the railway he worked the "Beet Box" just south of Brigg station and retired just after Nationalisation. The Beet Box was less physically demanding than the main box as there were no level crossing gates to open and close. OTOH, it was no push-over given that during the sugar beet campaign there would be several block beet trains arriving and departing from the sidings each shift. However, for seven months of the year it was switched out except for the weekly coal delivery, and GGF would work as a porter at Brigg station.
PD
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Posts: 4431 | From: Between a Rock and a Hard Place | Registered: Mar 2007
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PD
Shipmate
# 12436
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Darllenwr:
As a matter of interest, PD, do you happen to remember the size of the frame at Brigg North? 70 trains in 8 hours would be a fair bit of work even in a simple passing box, but if there were loops and turn-outs as well ...
I reckon you had to be fit to be a signalman in a manual box. And, if you weren't to begin with, you soon would be!
From east to west:
1. Up distant
2. Up home (two arms on the post; second arm controlled from Brigg sugar Factory Box)
3. Down starter
4. Bigby Road Level crossing
5. entrance to the yard on the right (down side) controlled with dolly signals
6. Main to main trailing cross-over with dolly signals
7. Down home signal for Level Crossing
8. Up Main to yard trailing connection with a diamond crossing across the down main controlled with more dolly signals
9. The end loading dock siding controlled by dolly signals
10. Down Home
11. Up starter
12. Down Distant signal
There were no facing points on the mainlines, and several sets of points were a long way from the box. The Up to Yard connection was a very heavy pull as the points were about 400 yards from the Box.
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PD
Shipmate
# 12436
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Posted
Correction:
The Sugar Factory Up Ditant signal was on the Up Starter signal's post.
PD
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Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by PD:
Correction:
The Sugar Factory Up Ditant signal was on the Up Starter signal's post.
PD
Actually, we all knew that. We just didn't want to embarass you by pointing it out.
Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001
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Wesley J
Silly Shipmate
# 6075
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Posted
And yet another grand British Transport Film on iPlayer, available until Saturday 20 March 2010, 7:09pm, link here. quote:
1962 British Transport film in which John Betjeman takes a trip from King's Lynn through Norfolk, visiting the royal station for Sandringham before heading to the coast.
Betjeman of course also did the - from what I hear, quite fabulous - 'Metro-Land' (option 2 on link), which I haven't found anywhere online, but which might still be around on DVD. Looking forward to finally watching it at some time!
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Be it as it may: Wesley J will stay. --- Euthanasia, that sounds good. An alpine neutral neighbourhood. Then back to Britain, all dressed in wood. Things were gonna get worse. (John Cooper Clarke)
Posts: 7354 | From: The Isles of Silly | Registered: May 2004
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
Wonderful nostalgia, from a time when diesels were running on what was still essentially a steam railway. Did anyone else notice that there were still a few wagons in some of the goods yards, and everything was still properly signalled? There's also somewhere a film on JB visits the Highbridge branch of the S&D across the Levels.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
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Horseman Bree
Shipmate
# 5290
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Posted
Not a lot of point posting those links on an international site, since you have to be within the UK to view them.
Since my interest in British trains stems from a summer visit in 1952 and a year at school in Bristol 1956-7, you can see I might be interested - I even recognise the linkage between John Betjeman and trains!
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It's Not That Simple
Posts: 5372 | From: more herring choker than bluenose | Registered: Dec 2003
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Wesley J
Silly Shipmate
# 6075
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Horseman Bree:
Not a lot of point posting those links on an international site, since you have to be within the UK to view them. [...]
Not true. The discerning rail enthusiast shall google 'Betjeman' and 'video', or go to YouTube and enter 'Betjeman', and lo, he shall find. So there! ![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
All the aforementioned eye candies are available now, with some only having been put up quite recently - he said with glee / to Steamman Bree.
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Be it as it may: Wesley J will stay. --- Euthanasia, that sounds good. An alpine neutral neighbourhood. Then back to Britain, all dressed in wood. Things were gonna get worse. (John Cooper Clarke)
Posts: 7354 | From: The Isles of Silly | Registered: May 2004
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PD
Shipmate
# 12436
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Horseman Bree:
All-Manual" means just that every movement of signals, turnouts or whatever was done by muscle-power. The interlocking, which was essential to saety, was done by a series of bars sliding sideways into specific slots on particular throwrods (or not, if blocked) - hence, "Mechanical interlocking"
I got a chance to look through a fairly simple set out at the crossing on the Cabot sub (CN) where the CP Carman line cut across. Just a ttop/go semaphore on each line, but fully interlocked so that only one "Go" signal could show at any time. This involved 5-foot-long hand levers, and what looked like about a quarter ton of brass and steel rods that were basically knitted together, controlling wires that pulled the signal arms. There would have to be inch-square steel rods to move a set of points back or forth.
I can't imagine the complexity of levers and rods that would be needed to make a serious tower functional.
There are still some big manual interlockings in the UK, usually Edwardian era installations where a fairly large area is controlled by one or two big manual signal boxes. The one I am most familiar with is Barnetby, Lincs, where the ex-GCR routes to Doncaster, Sheffied and Lincoln diverge. The two boxes have 70 and 96 levers and handle fifty passenger train and about 60 freights each day. The high density of freight being due to iron ore, oil and coal imported through Immingham.
The other well-known big manual installations is Shrewsbury, followed by Stirling, though I think the last named is due for replacement. The old LNER era installation at Lincoln went three years ago, mainly due to the large number of small signal boxes needed to control the lines through the city. Some of the boxes were so close together that there must have been a temptation to open the window and shout rather than use the block instruments to hand the train on to the next block!
PD
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Sober Preacher's Kid
Presbymethegationalist
# 12699
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Posted
Zoo Tower was among the largest interlockings in North America; it controlled the Flying Junction between the North-East Corridor and the Pennsy Main Line. It was Electro-pneumatic in the 1950's, now much of it is purely electrical. Amtrak's Harrisburg line is still controlled with Towers and interlockings instead of Centralized Traffic Control.
Zoo Tower had 227 levers controlling 454 switches/signals (each lever controlled a matched pair).
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NDP Federal Convention Ottawa 2018: A random assortment of Prots and Trots.
Posts: 7646 | From: Peterborough, Upper Canada | Registered: Jun 2007
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Zappa
Ship's Wake
# 8433
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Posted
*Sigh* My father was a signal and telecommunications engineer with the East African railways working in Sudan and Kenya from about 1932-1962. He would have kind of liked to have thought that some of the fruits of his labours were being lovingly restored and operational - and would have been I think mildly surprised to find that 'the natives' who had taken over were now operating fairly efficient rail systems on the lines he once loved so dearly.
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Baptist Trainfan
Shipmate
# 15128
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Posted
Definitely NOT! But we could take quite an interesting detour into the braking systems of 1950s Southern Region (UK) Electric Multiple-units ...
Posts: 9750 | From: The other side of the Severn | Registered: Sep 2009
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Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Baptist Trainfan:
Definitely NOT! But we could take quite an interesting detour into the braking systems of 1950s Southern Region (UK) Electric Multiple-units ...
It would certainly redefine 'interesting' for a start.
Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001
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Wesley J
Silly Shipmate
# 6075
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Posted
Give us a brake! But a detour? Due to the wrong kind of joke? Or is there a bus replacement service?
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Be it as it may: Wesley J will stay. --- Euthanasia, that sounds good. An alpine neutral neighbourhood. Then back to Britain, all dressed in wood. Things were gonna get worse. (John Cooper Clarke)
Posts: 7354 | From: The Isles of Silly | Registered: May 2004
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Baptist Trainfan
Shipmate
# 15128
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Posted
I obviously have to initiate you into the arcane delights of 4-EPB (not to mention VEP, REP, BEP and CEP) elecric units.
Posts: 9750 | From: The other side of the Severn | Registered: Sep 2009
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
I always preferred the 4-CIGs myself.
[ 18. March 2010, 14:49: Message edited by: Marvin the Martian ]
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Angloid
Shipmate
# 159
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
I always preferred the 4-CIGs myself.
That was before the universal introduction of non-smoking carriages, I presume?
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Brian: You're all individuals!
Crowd: We're all individuals!
Lone voice: I'm not!
Posts: 12927 | From: The Pool of Life | Registered: May 2001
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
Indeed!
Ah, happy memories of journeys home from Uni - a cross country service with eight on behind a 47, and you could smoke in the front coach. Wasn't so long ago, either.
Don't it always seem to go, you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone... ![[Tear]](graemlins/tear.gif)
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
Somehow I don't see "Eight On Behind A 47" storming the charts, however catchy the refrain is
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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LA Dave
Shipmate
# 1397
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Posted
I saw the Betjeman film last night on his journeys in Norfolk and it was wonderful. (Thank you, Youtube.) I think that I enjoyed his architectural musings as much as the railroadiana.
Was that a DMU that he rode? What kind of transmission was involved? I assume that the driver did not shift gears.
Posts: 981 | From: Take a guess | Registered: Sep 2001
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Baptist Trainfan
Shipmate
# 15128
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Posted
Looks like a Cravens DMU (later class 105/6). They were introduced in the late 1950s and had mechanical transmission which means that some kind of gear changing would have been involved - does anyone know how it was done?
One of these gave me a terrifying ride in the late 1980s. It was covering for an express train failure between Norwich and Ipswich. The driver just put his foot down and went for it! I think the units - notorious for bad riding - were limited to 70 mph, but this seemed a lot faster. We were jumping all over the place and I honestly thought we were going to come off the rails (but we didn't).
Posts: 9750 | From: The other side of the Severn | Registered: Sep 2009
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Darllenwr
Shipmate
# 14520
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Posted
If it was a DMU that Betjeman was riding, then the driver quite literally shifted gears. The DMU's used in the UK in the 60's and 70's were fitted with two 150hp diesel engines per power car, each driving through a 4-speed gearbox (Lysholm-Smith I think; I shall have to go and check that now!) to the inner axle of the adjacent bogie, where there was a reversing drive. There was no clutch, that function being performed by a fluid coupling between engine and gearbox.
I well remember the fun that the DMU's used to have climbing Old Hill bank on the line from Kidderminster to Birmingham. They used to struggle a bit getting away from Cradley Heath, but pulling away from Old Hill itself could be very, well let's say, 'sedate'. The driver would put the train into first gear and haul the throttles open, and then we would just wait. I cannot remember ever being on a train that 'refused', but there were several occasions when I wondered if we would ever get moving.
I can also remember the occasion when there was a class 47 sitting in the Yard at Stourbridge Junction that was wanted urgently in the Birmingham area. The signalman decided to tie it to the front of the train I was boarding, a 6-car DMU. For those who don't know, that meant 4 power cars and 2 trailers. The acceleration from station stops was most interesting and I cannot remember ever climbing Old Hill bank as quickly as we did that morning. Pity it was only the once it ever happened to me ...
E.T.A. X-posted with Baptist Trainfan
[ 18. March 2010, 17:55: Message edited by: Darllenwr ]
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If I've told you once, I've told you a million times: I do not exaggerate!
Posts: 1101 | From: The catbox | Registered: Jan 2009
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Darllenwr
Shipmate
# 14520
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Posted
Apologies for the double-post, but I have had time to look it up.
The DMU's used the Wilson pre-selector gearbox, which was a multiple cycle epicylic gearbox. What this means is that it changed gear by applying brakes to parts of the gearbox, using compressed air actuators. The gear changing was controlled by compressed air as well, using different pressures in the air line to indicate which gear was to be selected. This may well explain why the indicators in the driver's cab only allowed (from memory) for a 9-car set, though I can remember seeing 12-car sets being used to clear the crowds after the steam gala at Rainhill in 1980.
Quoting from one source book ("The British Railcar ~ AEC to HST" by R.M. Tufnell) "The final drive from the gearbox was by cardan shaft to the driven axle through one of two bevel pinions selected according to the desired direction of travel. This was achieved by a driving dog moved by a fork which in turn was actuated by an air cylinder. There were a number of weaknesses in this system which were the cause of not a little trouble."
The gearbox was not attached directly to the engine, being driven by a cardan shaft from the fluid coupling (which was attached to the engine). There was also a freewheel between engine and gearbox to allow the vehicle to travel faster than the engine could allow.
Where it came to driving the beast, amongst the driver's controls was a rev counter which was clearly marked with the change-up and change- down points. The procedure was, with the throttle closed (it had, I think, 4 notches) engage first gear. Open the throttle. The train would start to move (OK, you took the brakes off first, I know) and revs would build up. When the needle reached the change-up point, close the throttle and allow the revs to fall to idling. Then select 2nd gear, pause, and re-open the throttle. Follow the same procedure going up through the box.
I'm sure you can work the rest out for yourselves.
As a footnote, except on the Southern where the engineers insisted firmly, the DMU's all had vacuum brakes.
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If I've told you once, I've told you a million times: I do not exaggerate!
Posts: 1101 | From: The catbox | Registered: Jan 2009
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LA Dave
Shipmate
# 1397
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Posted
Thanks. Since DMUs historically have not been that common in North America (other than the Budd RDCs), I was curious how they worked. The Budd cars used a torque converter for transmission, and were considered diesel hydraulics. Diesel hydraulic locomotives were a rarity in the US, with the only examples that come to mind were some Kraus-Maffei units that the Rio Grande and the Southern Pacific tried out in the early 1960s, to little success.
Posts: 981 | From: Take a guess | Registered: Sep 2001
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Baptist Trainfan
Shipmate
# 15128
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Posted
The Rolls Royce (class 127) trains I swent to school on in the 1960s were, I believe, diesel hyraulic. Certainly their sound was quite different, with no obvious luch on gear-changing.
The Southern used much larger, slow-running diesel engines mounted in separare compartments above the underframes, with electric transmission. I believe the idea was so that they could run in multiple with some EMUs. Some similar units just about exist still in Northern Ireland.
When I lived in Portugal in the late 1970s a lot of the coaching stock was Budd-inspired, including some diesel units very like RDCs.
Posts: 9750 | From: The other side of the Severn | Registered: Sep 2009
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daviddrinkell
Shipmate
# 8854
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by jedijudy:
quote:
Originally posted by Sober Preacher's Kid:
It was Electro-pneumatic in the 1950's...
Are you sure you aren't talking about pipe organs all of a sudden?
If you want to link the two interests, I learned Bach's St. Anne Fugue on a DMU between Frome and Bristol one evening in the seventies. I was the only passenger, which was just as well.
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David
Posts: 1983 | From: St. John's, Newfoundland | Registered: Dec 2004
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Horseman Bree
Shipmate
# 5290
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Posted
And just what were you playing at the time?
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It's Not That Simple
Posts: 5372 | From: more herring choker than bluenose | Registered: Dec 2003
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Darllenwr
Shipmate
# 14520
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Posted
According to the book I mentioned earlier:
quote:
the other Rolls-Royce engines of the 8-cylinder type (C8N FLH) rated at 238hp were fitted in the Class 127 sets built at Derby and in the single-engine cars built by Craven Ltd.
This 8-cylinder version, which weighed 4800lb (2178kg) including the torque converter, was used in conjuction with a Lysholm-Smith torque converter built by Rolls-Royce under licence from the Twin Disk Clutch Co of the USA. [...] The torque converter was a model 10000 Ms500 hydrokinetic 3-stage with a torque potential of 500 lb/ft. The operating clutches were multi-plate oil-cooled and actuated by oil pressure from the lubricating oil pump which gave up to 150 psi working pressure.
An unfortunate aspect was that the chosen hydraulic oil was the diesel fuel from the main tanks. 'Unfortunate' because it could reach 220 degrees F (peak of 250 degrees) which is well above the flash point for diesel. There were quite a number of fires ...
There was thus no gearbox, and therefore no gear changes.
You would note that these cars were considerably more powerful that the more common DMU's with just 300hp per power car. Having said that, the current 142/143 Class DMU's have only 225hp per car, albeit significantly lighter cars than the 1950's units. Even the Class 150's only run to 280hp per car.
The significant difference is that the modern units have torque converter transmissions that allow the engines to rev (and thus develop full power) as the units get away from rest, something that the older DMU's precluded, hence their relatively poor acceleration.
You might note that latterly (ie in the early '80's) the 1950's DMU's were run without trailer cars on the Valley Lines services in South Wales, thus improving their power to weight ratio and their acceleration on the interesting gradients we have around here.
By the way, just in case you should wonder, I grew up in Stourbridge, on the Kidderminster to Birmingham line, then moved to South Wales in 1983.
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If I've told you once, I've told you a million times: I do not exaggerate!
Posts: 1101 | From: The catbox | Registered: Jan 2009
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jedijudy
Organist of the Jedi Temple
# 333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by daviddrinkell:
quote:
Originally posted by jedijudy:
quote:
Originally posted by Sober Preacher's Kid:
It was Electro-pneumatic in the 1950's...
Are you sure you aren't talking about pipe organs all of a sudden?
If you want to link the two interests, I learned Bach's St. Anne Fugue on a DMU between Frome and Bristol one evening in the seventies. I was the only passenger, which was just as well.
One evening? I'm impressed!!!
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Jasmine, little cat with a big heart.
Posts: 18017 | From: 'Twixt the 'Glades and the Gulf | Registered: Aug 2001
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
DMUs were very slow, JediJudy .
As others have noted, the Class 127s were extremely unreliable. An additional flaw was that they were incompatible with any other DMU class, and had their own unique control system. IIRC they were confined to the London to Bedford run; running from St Pancras station in London, this was dubbed the Bedpan service.
Other DMU clases did use a fluid coupling and Wilson pre-selector epicyclic gear box. This gearbox was devised by Major Wilson, of WW I tank fame. It was manufactured by a subsidiary, called English New Valves, of Armstrong Siddeley, the famous car and plane manufacturers. It was used in their own cars, and sold to many other manufacturers, including Daimler. It was Daimler which had the idea of marrying the Wilson box with a Fottinger fluid flywheel, a combination used very successfully by Daimler until the mid 50s in cars, and later still in buses. GM took up the concept to produce the Hydramatic, the first completely automatic transmission. The rest is history.
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
Posts: 7028 | From: Warrawee NSW Australia | Registered: Jun 2008
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
A lot of buses used to have pre-selector gear boxes. A conventional crash gear box with a conventional clutch as in a car gets a bit heavy and difficult to work on a bus. I've not thought about it before, but I'm not aware of any diesel that had a gear lever and crash change. Some other system would be essential to be able to couple units in multiple.
North American shipmates may not know that automatic gearboxes in domestic cars have never really caught on in the UK. Most UK drivers are used to manual gearboxes.
I hope Firenze has accepted our redefinition of interesting?
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
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