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  1. Lucan

    2018 Barns Green crossing collision - RAIB report?

    A man (the driver) and his grandson were killed on 17 February 2018 when their car was struck by a train at the Barns Green level crossing between Horsham and Billingshurst. The inquest concluded that the driver had weaved round the lowered half barriers...
  2. Lucan

    Up-to-Date Pictures of Liveries

    Is there a website which simply shows up-to-date train liveries? Googling for it, all I can find are historic liveries, or lengthy discussions of how and why liveries have changed, very often with no pictures anyway.
  3. Lucan

    BT Copper to Fibre

    Maybe I'm being dense, but can anyone explain to me what BT will do, physically around my house, when the changeover from analogue to digital phones "by 2025"? The BT website is too vague and hyped to make anything clear, but from the Telecoms World website for example :- It seems to me that...
  4. Lucan

    Tesco Charging £120 "Deposit" on Petrol Sales

    Tesco are rolling out a scheme to take £120 from all Pay at the Pump customers, even if they buy less (there is a £100 limit anyway). They refund you "shortly afterwards". Their claim is to stop people driving off without paying. However, I don't get it - if they can charge you £120 if you...
  5. Lucan

    A Critique of Elon Musk's Hyperloop

    If anyone is interested, I have written a critique of Elon Musk's proposal for his Hyperloop, from the viewpoint of a former railway and power station engineer. I would have hoped that the Hyperloop idea would have died a death by now, but unfortunately it is still being pursued by some...
  6. Lucan

    Rolling Resistance

    To settle an argument, how far would a loaded eight coach train doing 125mph on level track roll freely if the traction were cut off? I'm guessing about 2 miles.
  7. Lucan

    Any remaining real PAYG Mobile Providers?

    What is the justification for standing or minimum charges for mobile phone services? Unlike a land line, there can only be a tiny amount of infrastructure dedicated to each customer (a few bytes of data) and all the rest of the infrastructure (masts, computers, telecommunication hardware, admin...
  8. Lucan

    Virgin Hyperloop One drops Plans for Passengers

    It has not yet been noted here that Richard Branson's Virgin Hyperloop One, the most significant Hyperloop company, has abandoned its plans to carry passengers. Half its staff were sacked in late February...
  9. Lucan

    Double Slips

    Are double slips ever used in new trackwork? At one time they were widely used at the throats of goods yards as the start of the fan of sidings, simultaneously providing the entry to the headshunt in the opposite direction. They save space compared wiith sequential points.
  10. Lucan

    Train Batteries

    On another forum (not primarily train related) someone claimed the London Underground was dangerous because the trains carried lithium batteries (with their reputation for bursting into flames for no particualr reason). When I worked for LU the train batteries for emergency lighting and control...
  11. Lucan

    Does LU need the Fourth Rail?

    I've been reading the Island Line Upgrade thread (re : the Isle of Wight line) in the Infrastructure forum, and a remark was made that it has been quite easy to convert ex-LU stock from fourth to third rail electrification : just a matter of removing the centre shoes and re-routing some power...
  12. Lucan

    Musk's Boring Tunnel in Las Vegas Demonstrated

    The media are underwhelmed, describing it as just Tesla cars used as taxis, being manually driven slowly in a small tunnel, which is exactly what it is. cnet for example
  13. Lucan

    Turnback Loops

    I was wondering how many turnback loops there are in the UK. The only ones I know of are on the LU at Kennington, the Romney Hythe and Dymchurch at Dungeness, and at one end of the Scarborough miniature North Bay Railway (keeping to public railways). There was one at White City when it was the...
  14. Lucan

    Signals in Tunnels

    There has been a reference to this old thread about the Woodhead Tunnel having a signal box within it to divide it into sections : https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/worst-job-in-history-woodhead.48451/ That thread is closed now, but I wonder about steam trains being stopped by signals...
  15. Lucan

    Green and Cream Livery

    In the toy section of a folk museum I noticed, in a glass case of model trains and cars, an OO scale carriage in green and cream livery, the green (a mid shade) being on the lower bodyside. The model looked authentic, and the style was of a main line carriage of the 1930-1960 period. What...
  16. Lucan

    A4s without Casings ?

    In another (non-railway) forum someone made the comment that some A4s would run in service in later years without the streamlined casing. I have never heard of this happening. Of course he may have been confusing it with the LMS Coronation class, or the SR Merchant Navy class. Does anyone know...
  17. Lucan

    cartometro Website

    Does anyone know what has happened with the cartmetro website? I often refer to it for its detailed map of London's railways, and have bookmarked it. But two days ago my browser (FF ver 68.3) came up with a full red-screen warning that the site contains malware. I clicked through the...
  18. Lucan

    Turn-back Sidings

    Looking at the Carto.Metro map of London's railways ... http://carto.metro.free.fr/cartes/metro-tram-london/index.php ... I am wondering what the reasoning is behind the location of turn-back sidings on the Underground. Some are at more significant stations like just south of Victoria, facing...
  19. Lucan

    Another Old Photo

    This might be a tall order. I have been sorting through old photos of my father's, and found this. Does anyone know where it was? I suspect it might be Thorpeness Halt on the GE Aldeburgh Branch, as my parents did holiday around there once or twice. I guess those coach bodies might have been...
  20. Lucan

    Microsoft moving towards Cloud Accounts Only

    Microsoft is arm-twisting new Windows 10 users into signing up for a Microsoft Account, by making it hard to set up a local one. From : https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/microsoft-wants-to-do-away-with-windows-10-local-accounts/ It is still possible to set up a local account...

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