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Captain Pegg

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Everything posted by Captain Pegg

  1. I find it strange that someone who avidly boats to all corners of the BCN worries about Coventry and Nuneaton. And if you worry about them you should really fear Bedworth.
  2. There’s a significant history of motorising boats built to be towed. The reality is that a much larger number of unpowered boats than have already would meet their demise if they weren’t converted in some form. Lesser of two evils perhaps. Boats are living things.
  3. In respect of the new build you refer to it’s probable that the paint remained properly adhered but to mill scale rather than the base steel and it’s the mill scale that has fallen off taking the paint with it.
  4. Sounds like he never entirely lost some Oxford from his accent. The issue isn’t the use of the name or the pronunciation though, it’s the way it’s written. I dare say my boating ancestors - with an almost identical family history to Mike - also used the name but I’ll wager they never wrote it. And I’d be certain if they could have written it they’d have been sure to spell it correctly. In any case I’d also bet that what boat people actually called it was a lot closer to “Wigrums” than “Wigrams” phonetically.
  5. My own dislike is the use of the name ‘Wigrams’. It’s a term that seems to have come back into modern usage probably via the books published by the wartime female trainees (themselves never called Idle Women in their own time). I don’t dispute that boaters once used this term but what they were saying was “Wiggerham’s” in the hybrid Midlands accent that boaters tended to have. It’s someone’s name so somewhere along the way somebody should have done some research and got the spelling correct, particularly for the marina which in my view spoils the look of the place to boot. How crap to be remembered by folk that never knew you and can’t be arsed to spell your name correctly.
  6. I doubt any of us here had heard the term until @IanD referenced it when describing his layout for Rallentando. I very much doubt any boater made the term up and Ian himself is avowed in his dislike of nods to tradition - real or faux - so I can’t see he would be guilty of using the term for the reason you suggest.
  7. Fore-cabins were for people, additional space for children to sleep. The term seems to originate in its modern (only?) usage with Tyler Wilson and I’d guess that’s from the part that’s from Newcastle-under-Lyme rather than the one from Sheffield. @David Mack, I think it’s pretty clear that I don’t know if the term has any true historical provenance. However looking through A Canal People the only fore-cabins pictured are over the bows. These being ex-FMC general cargo boats repurposed for the coal trade. Gifford being a Clayton’s tar boat also carried a cargo where mass likely governed over volume in terms of loading. So maybe there is something in it. Are there photos of boats in the Potteries with fore-cabins at the front of the hold? Just because we don’t know something to be true doesn’t mean it’s false.
  8. I’m pretty sure that @IanD picked the term up from his builder and the explanation was that the space in which it sits was available because the boats concerned carried raw materials of high density to the Potteries, i.e. clay, rather than finished products. Whether this is true, or if it is that the term was ever used historically, I know not.
  9. Assuming it even was a real thing once upon a time isn’t a potter’s cabin supposed to sit further back than a fore cabin, in the space where the cratch is on most carrying boats? And there’s another one, cratch instead of deck board.
  10. CRTs vegetation control contracts probably forbid it. There’s plenty of stuff that fire could spread to including the ground itself if the slope is dressed with ash, which is common at least on embankments.
  11. Morpeth - which is a curve with a 50mph speed restriction with a maximum permissible approach speed of 110mph - does have Train Protection and Warning System (TPWS). TPWS is a tertiary system, the driver being the primary system and Automatic Warning System (AWS) the secondary. On the approach to any speed restriction with a reduction of 30mph or more an advance warning board must be provided. This is an inverted triangular lineside sign displaying the speed ahead in black numerals on a white background with an orange border. The advance warning board is situated ahead of the commencement of the actual restriction at a distance that enables all trains to reduce speed suffciently. 180m in advance of this board will be an AWS magnet situated in the four foot space (i.e. between the rails so the train passes over it) that triggers both visual and audible warnings in the driving cab. The driver has 2.7 seconds to cancel those warnings by depressing a button on the control desk otherwise an uncommanded emergency brake application will be made. (Should this happen the train will also be de-configured in some way and possibly lose all brake pipe pressure meaning it will need to be re-configured before proceeding. It requires reporting to the signaller in all circumstances. It's more an immoboliser than an automatic brake). Once cancelled the AWS plays no more part and what happens next is entirely at the drivers command. However should the driver fail to slow the train sufficently by the time it reaches the TPWS overspeed sensors that are situated between the advance warning board and the commencement of the restriction and it is travelling faster than a pre-programmed speed the emergency brake will again intervene. Neither of these systems offers full protection for a variety of reasons it's probably not worth going into but it's principally because they are retro-fitted to a pre-existing railway rather than designed into a fully integrated system from scratch and are also provided on a cost vs benefit basis. It's entirely possible to drive a train through these warning systems and arrive at the curve in an overspeed condition. Only the European Train Control System (ETCS) provides direct full speed and over-run supervision; although tilting trains have a form of continuous speed supervision because of the increased overturning risk. Automatic Train Protection (ATP) only exists in isolation in two locations and is a more fully effective system than TPWS but obsolete. It offers protection against rear-end collision or level crossing incursion that is not provided by TPWS.
  12. I believe Forget Me Not was built by Sephton’s in 1928 for John George Grantham. According to Narrow Boat magazine It was acquired by Samuel Barlow Coal Co Ltd in 1940 from a Joseph Grantham. John George Grantham had a son of that name so assuming both of the above pieces of information are correct that’s likely to be the connection. There were multiple boats in the Grantham family called Forget Me Not. Forget Me Not is of course the butty of the hotel boat pair and is the one on the outside with the hold full of weeds in the above picture. Its cabin was removed (or perhaps disintegrated) many years ago now. Mabel still has an extant cabin.
  13. If you’re referring to Wootton Bassett what was notable about that incident was that the driver’s inappropriate response to failing to clear the Automatic Warning System (AWS) horn relating to a speed restriction lead to them both missing an adverse signal indication and failing to trigger the Train Protection & Warning System (TPWS) that should have prevented the train from passing a red signal. What it shows is that all safeguards have their limitations and that driver behaviour is the primary factor in maintaining safety. I don’t doubt that the driver was highly competent in the mechanics of operating the train’s controls, but they were totally lacking in other key skills required to do the job.
  14. OK. Very different rules and requirements on tramways hence it didn’t occur to me that’s what you were referring to. Sorry. Similar situations have occurred on railways historically and as a result are in general protected by warning systems. Mistakes that lead to uncommanded brake applications will soon lead to a driver being removed from driving duties. They are an indicator that the driver concerned isn’t actually capable of driving a train to the required standard which I thought is what we were discussing.
  15. I think you mean Clapham not Croydon and in any case the functioning of the automatic warning system was not a factor. The use of the engineered safeguards to protect the train is not part of driving a train properly which is the task being discussed. It’s quite the opposite. But apparently it’s a wind up so I’ll leave you and your mate to glory in your own ignorance.
  16. The emergency brake will be activated. That’s done by venting the air pipe to atmosphere meaning the driver has no immediate means of releasing the brakes. It’s very much not the same thing as applying the service brakes.
  17. Trains don’t have automatic brakes. Stopping a body with huge momentum and very little friction between the wheels and what they are rolling on is arguably the most difficult aspect and one that’s very much more difficult than stopping a car. Learning and retaining route knowledge is a key factor as is the behavioural response to adverse signal indications. A sizeable proportion of people actually don’t have the necessary cognitive and behavioural skills required for the job. You don’t properly understand what you’re saying.
  18. The bit about the carriages being shorter does not appear to be true. It is in any case a little irrelevant because overall train length is key. And therein lies an issue which may have rendered the message you relayed a little lost in translation. Interoperability requirements for new build high speed railways require the operation of 200m or 400m long trains whereas existing trains serving the conventional route are up to 265m long. Configuring the conventional network north of HS2 for 400m trains (which would be 2x200m trains) is particularly problematic hence the possibilty that trains north of Birmingham may end up being exclusively 200m long trains. That’s a particular problem for Manchester - by far and away the largest market north of Birmingham - as the new station alongside Piccadilly would have been configured with 400m long platforms and there is likely a demand for such trains. The inability to operate them would reduce line capacity between Birmingham and Manchester to less than it is today. The alternative is a hugely expensive set of works to accommodate them which in itself would probably reduce station capacity along the route, particularly at Manchester. What the Government don’t tell you - possibly because they don’t understand it - is that for every £1bn they save on HS2 they will need an awful lot of it to reconfigure the conventional network for the operation of the new trains and providing on board equipment on trains that they wouldn’t otherwise have needed since many would have been captive to HS2.
  19. Well if they did mean International the same applies but the current normal journey time is less than 1 hr 30 mins. And the airport/NEC will have a dedicated HS2 station. The options in future will be fast trains on HS2 and distinctly slower trains on the old route. Presumably the prices will reflect the level of speed and comfort.
  20. That’s hardly representative since a journey from Euston to New Street (which I’m sure is what it should say rather than Birmingham International) isn’t particularly relevant to HS2. A far better representation of conventional versus high speed would be a centre to centre journey such as Nelson’s Column to the Floozie in the Jacuzzi. You can go from Euston to New St in 72 minutes non-stop on the current infrastructure with the current trains but there isn’t capacity to do that three times an hour plus serve the intermediate stations and all the other destinations the WCML serves.
  21. The thread was never about the Grand Union at all. What we will be left with as a legacy is that the Trent & Mersey canal between Shade House and Wood End locks forms the boundary between the bit that was built and that which never will be; at least for now. On one side of the canal is the embankment that forms the first section of the Manchester phase but was constructed with Phase 1 and which presumably will never get any track laid on it, and nothing on the opposite side of the canal. ETA - and because the link to the GU was tenuous at best the thread probably should not be in the General Boating sub-forum.
  22. You probably could drive a train after training. Not a hope otherwise. And don’t be blasé about suicide. It renders some properly hard characters unable to carry on with the job that provides their livelihood.
  23. The principal reason for that is entry into the driving ranks takes substantial training and is expensive. In itself that tells you something about the complexities of the job. Train operators have historically had different attitudes to training drivers - for many there was a financial disincentive - and that created an internal market. Today the DfT are effectively in direct control and aren’t interested in training any new staff to critical jobs which means the railway is absolutely dependent upon overtime working with long and unsocial hours simply to operate the basic timetable. That’s a large part of the train crews’ grief. It’s them that suffer the reaction to cancelled and late trains from the public while possibly working additional shifts out of a sense of duty rather than choice.
  24. This one doesn’t contain actual footage of the land slip.
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