What About The Bee

Totally understood @LTSR_NSE Its just an estimate, like the expected 'season' is. Just an estimate with finer granularity and better definition. Bee

Makes perfect sense to me. The railways do not need to know the name of the things on the track, just that there is something there. Once a block is known occupied (or not), further movements can be permitted For the fuel optimization software I worked on, every piece in consist was known, including its mass / load. Where is was within consist. The distribution of locomotives within consist, not always just in front, they can be distributed throughout. The track, the weather, in fact, anything that would affect fuel consumption. All that was second order. Safety first. Is there a high railer there? Because that is a 'train' too. ÷÷÷ Yet this isn't what @JJ73was talking about. Different things have commonly accepted different names. The intricacies of how a modern railway operates is a different and still excellent topic. Thank you @LesXRNfor that insider information Bee

Hornby have updated the product availability date to 15 Nov, from 13 Nov. To my mind, a two day delay is so minor that Hornby should not bother, especially when the publicly offered specification is by quarter of year. This does speak to the granularity of tracking. It is going to be here quite soon now. A two day shift is oddly specific Bee

Happy Birthday @sir john!

Exactly @threelink So many non-period images do this, that I virtually discount the lot. Here is another non-contemporary image. It shows Active/Locomotion No.1 on Opening Day of the Stockton and Darlington Railway. Oh, it so wonderfully drawn! What a heroic day, complete with fanfare! Hoorah!! Except it is utterly and completely wrong. Active/Locomotion No.1 is drawn with parallel motion instead of slide bar motion. [buzzer sound] Relying upon non period drawings mean you are relying upon someone else's opinions and conclusions. Why do that (even for me)???? The original source materials are there, for your study. Bee

@John ScalespeedHooray!! And Welcome Aboard!! Bee

Hi @Rallymatt The issue with the copyright is that typically it ends 70 years after the death of the copyright holder. So if the artist lived until 1954, it is an issue. That might be too close to call, if, as you assumed, it was from the early 1900s. I searched in the British Newspaper Archive for the Northern Echo article of 1875. We have direct quotes from the article, so I thought it would be a doodle. No matter how I fiddled with the search criteria, I could never find it. Something is wrong. If the image was published in 1875, then I think the copyright expired. But add 25 to 30 years later, and it might just still be in copyright. Or the Northern Echo may have taken measures to extend the copyright. Too close to call for me. Bee

I've not put the image under discussion here, as it may be subject to copyright. You may see the image here Bee

Hi Three Link I tried looking that up too. It only traces back to a modern British playwright named Orton. From context, I assume it means portly. 19 stone is 266 lbs or 120 kg. That's a fairly round individual. Arthur Orton (20 March 1834 – 1 April 1898) was an English man who has generally been identified by legal historians and commentators as the "Tichborne Claimant", who in two celebrated court cases both fascinated and shocked Victorian society in the 1860s and 1870s. I'm going to guess they mean him. His picture may be seen here https://classic-literature.co.uk/bram-stoker-the-tichborne-claimant-arthur-orton/ Bee

0, 255,255? Thus linear below 255. If the mid cannot equal high, then 0,254,255

A positive note about the Northern Echo image. We have an excellent view of the engine house and its details. While I am always concerned about non-period images, the drawing of the building itself is a period drawing. That is, the engine house was still standing in 1875 and therefore, the details drawn are not imaginary. The still standing part of the old engine house could be matched up to the drawing, undoubtedly so. The iron bearing, that giant X, is fully anchored into the wall. On the other side of the wheels, the corresponding wall thickness is fairly stout. Hauling tons of chaldrons of coal up a slope would require that. The chimney for the stationary engine is filled with artful embellishments. Industrial chimneys are fairly stark, being built for purpose, not for style. Bee

Still on budget Trevor? Bee

Since 20 July 24, Locomotion has been marked as "Unavailable". Last night, the status changed to "Available to Pre-Order". Unknown how many units are available. Cannot be huge numbers. If you want one, and missed out, now is the time to pounce Product Availability date 13 Nov 24. Bee

From the "Northern Echo" 2014 The most famous rope breakage came in 1832, involving a wagon containing the Pease brothers, Joseph and Henry (Joseph is on the statue in Darlington's High Row and Henry founded Saltburn). Timothy Hackworth was also in it, as was William Kitching, the founder of the Whessoe foundry. When the rope snapped, three of them managed to scramble clear. "The unlucky man who did not jump was William Kitching, a man of Ortonian dimensions, weighing some 18 or 19 stones who was by no means so spry in the legs as his younger companions," said The Northern Echo in 1875. "Perceiving his danger, Mr Kitching clutched hold of the long brake and laid his whole weight across it." A gang of youths, led by John Summerson, jumped aboard and helped. "Thanks to their united exertions, the wagons were only going at the rate of eight or nine miles an hour when they reached the bottom of the incline, and in a few minutes they were brought sharply up by running into some other waggons. None of them happened any injury, but Mr Kitching, purple in the face and streaming with perspiration, received a shaking for which he was entirely unprepared." Mr Pease gave young Summerson a shilling for his efforts. ÷÷÷ Cannot find the earlier reference. Likely not searching for it properly. A Kitching was on the Board of Directors, as was a Pease. Plenty of notices of board meetings. Not so much in the way of an accident.

🤣 How to tell if an object is a train? See if it kills you. I hereby declare the definitive train test. Bee

I am extremely leary of that illustration. I tried to reverse search the image, and nothing returns. Just links back to the Brusselton page. The image has all the trappings of a children's illustration. Artistic license The incline is drawn as if it abuts the winding engine. I recognize that the artist needed to show the engine house and the run away wagons in the same frame. Still, the image is wildly inaccurate. Adults might notice this, but children never will. The individual in the foreground is running towards the loose chaldrons. For those who have never been around large industrial accidents, that never, ever happens. Only a fool attempts to stop tons of out of control kit. You get out of the way and let it wreck. Heroic portrayal for the children? Yes. Realistic? The brakeman jumping off the chaldron in the background is more like it. Train crews do that to this day. Individuals are shown riding in a chaldron. Other than on Opening Day, individuals are noted riding in horse drawn coaches on the S&DR. Even Experiment went horse drawn after Opening Day. There is no record of a run away chaldron consist on Opening Day. The individuals in the chaldron do make for drama, so as to play up a story. I cannot find mention in any newspaper of any incident of any kind about the Brusselton Incline. I carefully note that this doesn't mean wrecks didn't happen. Rather, it means that what ever run away did happen, likely did not involve loss of life. Loss of life on early railways often did get mention in the press. Careening wildly down a hill in a chaldron is very likely to result in injury or death. Yet, no mention?? So while it has all the trappings of the heroic individual who saved the frightened passengers on an out of control consist; caution is advised. The image doesn't make logical sense. I cannot trace the image. Bee

Yes please, sounds good. Please provide your answer in Sumerian Cubits 🙂 Bee

I thought to look at the Ordnance Survey maps of the area. Fortunately, we have a 25 inch to the mile map which includes the old engine house. Moreover, the survey date is 1856, well before closure. At this scale, individual rail can be seen. Both the left and right hand rails of a track are visible. Here is a link to the relevant map. Zoom in to the upper left hand corner to see the infrastructure. https://maps.nls.uk/view/120937998 What struck me was that there were a large number of tracks and in particular, there are sidings on either side of the engine house. Using the scale on the map, the siding on the right is ~300 feet long. Now it occurs to me that parked chaldrons would be situated on near level or actually level track. They would not be on an incline. So there must be a near level pad around the engine house. In a modern satellite view, we have this Superimposing the images by aligning the reservoir, we have this The 300 foot siding ends around here About to that clump of trees @Rallymatt, should you get up there, this is on the unpaved side of the engine house. Street view does not provide views in unpaved areas and the fleeting glimpse does not give enough information to say if it is near level. Bee