What About The Bee

Here, I complete the survey of known second class carriages of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. These have either a simple drawing or text without any corresponding drawing. We know they existed. From the Southern Reporter and Cork Commercial Courier 1 August 1829. More than 1 year before the LMR opened. Quote: Near the entrance of the small tunnel at Edge Hill, the proprietors of the rail-road have erected extensive buildings in a spacious enclosed yard , for the construction of waggons for the conveyance of goods, carriages for passengers and other pieces of machinery. Several elegant machines of various construction are already built, and others in a state forwardness. Odds and Ends Number One The most simple machine, and that slated for the cheapest conveyance of passengers is neat and appropriate. Without any covering overhead, the passengers sit in two rows, (parallel with the road,)back to back : a common rail serving for support to their backs, their feet resting on foot-boards, in the manner of a double Irish car¹, the four wheels being under the seats. Odds and Ends Number Two The next machine is a long coach, with doors at each end. On the outside of the body, and overhanging the wheels, are seats for outside passengers, who will sit sideways: Irish car fashion, with a projecting roof over their heads. This coach will carry sixteen inside and sixteen outside passengers. ~~~ Odds and Ends Number Three Crane is a reliable first hand artist. He provides us with this unique image of two 2nd class carriages. The shape is reminiscent of the very early Booth 2nd Class carriage. We know that this is meant the way it is drawn, as the nominal blue 2nd carriages are shown with this one. The canopy and doors have a shape illustrated in no other aquatint. Of special note, the stirrups to mount the carriage are as Hornby have modeled! No text accompanies the image. Bee ¹reference: Irish Style Jaunting Car

Nothing to add about the Duchess, but good to see you back ThreeLink! Bee

From: https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co205956/16-ton-mineral-wagon-railway-wagon "Railway wagon, British Railways, 16T mineral wagon, No B227009, 1955 ... capable of carrying up to 16 tons of product." ~~~ With the standards portion of the question completely settled by Going Spare, the conclusion is simply to add 16 tons to the tare weight. Example: tare listed 7T 15cwt. Gross weight is 16T + 7T 15cwt = 23T 15 cwt Bee

Many software packages offer free trials. I know that SCARM does. Likely it will accomodate your desired plan, as the free version handles 50(?) individual track pieces. If it were me, I would put your desired plan in first. Then try the modification to see what else is forced to change with it. Bee

The heart wants what the heart wants. If your dream layout is presented in that kind of exquisite detail, then I say go for it. Be very mindful that most modern locomotives and rolling stock are spec'd to R2, minimum. But many will do R1 in a pinch. Smaller locomotives and rolling stock preferred. With the itch scratched, you may upgrade your track plan to R2 minimum. Most any track planning software can assist you in the feel of your choice, if not duplicate it precisely. Have Fun! Bee

Fair point @Going Spare

Hello Going Spare I have no technical discussion that can conflate your assertion. For 20th century England, what you assert is the standard. For my interest and era, many standards were not standard or were in the infancy of becoming a standard. From: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ton "Before the 20th century there were several definitions. Prior to the 15th century in England, the ton was 20 hundredweight, each of 108 lb, giving a ton of 2,160 pounds (980 kg). In the 19th century in different parts of Britain, definitions of 2,240, or 2,352, or 2,400 lb were used, with 2,000 lb for explosives; the legal ton was usually 2240 lb." [Emphasis added] From: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundredweight "The hundredweight has had many values. In England in around 1,300 different hundreds (centum in Medieval Latin) were defined. The Weights and Measures Act 1835 formally established the present imperial hundredweight of 112 pounds (50.80 kg)." Bee

The entirety of the problem is as simple as can be. Standards, as in, it would have been nice to have some. CWT is either 100 lbs or 112 lbs. This varied geographically within the UK. For the LMR this was 112 lbs. A ton has three definitions of measure. This makes the unadorned word "ton" to be functionally useless as a unit of measure. Long (Imperial) ton, short ton or metric ton; please be specific. As to the gross or tare weight, for the early LMR, the gross tonnage limit was 4 tons. I think that was a 2000 lbs ton but cannot be sure. It could have been the imperial ton at 2240 lbs. I know there was a railway scale near the pig station by Manchester. As specified, it was a gross limit. Everything was included. I think the question requires quite a bit more definition 81F. Just the arithmetic part of your question has 6 different answers, depending upon which ton and which CWT. Maybe you can dispense with a metric ton, but that merely reduces the quantity of solutions to four. When it comes to the limits painted on the side, you should know the exact railway practice for the era. Bee

That's really good JJ! Well done! Bee

This is a multi-part update. The first part is how to engineer a wheel clip to hold a pinpoint axle. If that isn't your thing, feel free to skip onwards to Part 2. Part 1: Elongation at Break In a previous post, I discussed the the modulus of elasticity and other mechanical engineering criteria to determine if the yellow wheel clip block would break under the insertion force. Shapeways also offers a different data point, which represents a simpler way¹ to calculate if the wheel clip will break. The data point specified is Elongation At Break. For fine detail plastic, the EAB is a mere 4%. That is, if the material is elongated by 4% or more by bending, it ruptures. When you examine bending, one of the first things you will note is that the outside of the bend is elongated and the inside of the bend is compressed. The neutral axis is in the geometric center of those two. Material is neither elongated nor compressed at the neutral axis. It remains the same length. Fundamentally then, it is straightforward to obtain the arc length of the neutral axis (because it remains unchanged) and the arc length of the elongated surface (outside of the bend). Divide the elongated arc length by the neutral axis arc length to yield a ratio. Subtract 1 and multiply by 100 to get a percentage to compare to the EAB. This inevitably brings us to the hinge. Hornby Era 1 rolling stock has a very clear hinge. Look at your model from the buffer end, along the side. Notice that the spot immediately below the chassis is quite thin, with the horn block and horn block guides substantially thicker just below. The hinge is right there, in plain sight, but if only you know where to look. I've installed a hinge into my model. You can clearly see it just above the wheel set. It is the narrow section, with curves (fillets) above and below to eliminate stress concentrations. You will recall the insertion interference shown in this diagram. This interference forces the horn guides outwards. With the interference greatly exaggerated, we will get the horn guides to deform to the shape of the red lines. Take a moment to examine this diagram. As the axle is pressed in, the horn guide is forced outwards. Just as the red lines show. I have shown, in this diagram, both the arc along the neutral axis, as well as the arc along the path of maximum elongation, at the outer surface of the material. Given the amount of interference during insertion, I can obtain the radius and angle subtended for both those curves, and thus compute the respective arc lengths. With two arc lengths forming a ratio, the percentage of elongation is obtained. Voila! Compare the percentage of elongation to the percentage Elongation At Break, to see if a hinge ruptures, or not. I still have not presented my design numbers. Yet given my current parameters, and the analysis presented above, I obtain less than 1% Elongation At Break, and fine detail plastic defined as 4% EAB. In other words, the wheel set should insert without breakage. The predominant criteria are: 1) the insertion interference. This should be minimized. The smaller the better, accounting for axle length tolerance. 2) the hinge thickness. As the distance between the neutral axis and the elongation surface increases, the elongation ratio increases; without changing any other parameter. The thickness of the hinge should be minimized. Thick hinges are a no-no. The Hornby hinge thickness, as a point of reference, measures 1.3 mm. This makes the distance from neutral axis to elongation at 0.65 mm. I will update this with numbers when a complete solution, including successful empirical test, is found. Part 2: Current State of the Model Swingback chairs now have a functional swingback. To paraphrase the Liverpool Albion, the rail will turn over on my model, in yellow. I carefully examined the images for any evidence of the swingbacks. If the rail came up much above the top of the carriage's shell, we should be able to see the diagonal members supporting the rail. We do not. Thus, the swingback is fairly low relative to the shell. Further with the top of the shell at waistline, the swingback was only lower back support, it did not reach shoulder blades. The chair is pure speculation on my part. Based on the tops of passenger thighs, I have a seat height. How the swingback was made, the chair supports, & etc is all just guesswork. Many images of this carriage present the shell with frame and panel construction. Getting the concentric elliptical frames was an interesting challenge. Part 3: About passenger capacity. As this was a very early carriage, it was subject to the early weight limit. 4 tons. Even the locomotives were subject to this limit². Therefore, this carriage must have complied with the 4 ton limit. If we permit back to back seating, as some illustrations show, then the passenger capacity is 48 passengers. 5 benches of back to back, 4 abreast or 40 passengers plus the two end benches at 4 each, for a grand total of 48. The carriage itself was included in this weight limit. Assign an arbitrary weight to the carriage, say 1500 pounds. The remainder, therefore, is 3¼ tons. 3¼ tons / 48 passengers is 135 pounds each. A value too small for the average weight of a member of the public. If I restrict the passenger capacity to 28 for the swingback church pew carriage, as originally estimated, the average passenger can weigh 232 pounds.³ Far, far more reasonable. Part 4: But what about those images with back to back passengers? The 4 ton weight limit was only for the very earliest of days. The rail in use was of the fishbelly type, 35 lbs to the yard. This was clearly inadequate. As early as 1832, broken rails were reported throughout the LMR. By 1833, rail was 50 lbs per yard. Whilst fishbelly rail was judged to be stronger (and it was, with yet another nod to beam theory), parallel rail was far more convenient for curves, points & etc, not requiring chairs at specific locations. By 1837, rail as heavy as 70 lbs to the yard was in use in certain parts of the line. The Lime Street Tunnel, the main terminus in Liverpool, was laid in 60 lb rail. With the heavier rail came an increase in weight limits. Perhaps the 48 passenger was acceptable. Perhaps the swingback chairs became fixed, with a paltry 7½ shelf to rest passengers on, back to back. The images certainly suggest so. Which leads me to the speculative conclusion that there were two separate and unique carriages. The first carriage type being the one with the low canopy, definitely with swingback seating. The second appears to have dispensed with the swingback seating in favor of back to back seating, and a far more logical distribution of circular openings in the canopy, with one per door. Bee ¹does not require extensive knowledge of beam theory. It does involve fairly complex geometry, especially as the beam is to flex under various insertion interferences, so as to measure angles and radius. ²The concern was wear of wheels and rail. Further, rails deflect under load (more beam theory) leading to locomotive inefficiency. We even have Professor Barlow's "Deflectometer" for measuring the instantaneous and maximum deflection of rail. The thumb screw is brought into light contact with the underside of the rail. With zero established, any downward deflection of the rail is magnified on the scale, the maximum recorded by the sliding member. ³The ubiquitous blue 2nd carriages held 24 passengers. This permits 270 pounds a passenger, or far more likely, an increase in the weight of the carriage itself.

Looking good 81F! Bee

Kadee offers a dealer locator https://www.kadee.com/store-locator/ According to that, there are 26 dealers in the UK, sadly one is Hattons. Another 50 odd in other parts of Europe. Yes, there are bulk packs. And if all else fails, I suspect that you can order direct from Kadee. Bee

Hornby wrote: The Group's direct-to-consumer sales continue to increase strongly, at 18% ahead of last year I do hope that with this increase, the accuracy of on-line content improves, given that the on-line presence is the store. Bee

The wires from the controller to the track need not be heavy. For now, most anything will do. Just keep them reasonably short (under 2 feet or so). Extremely fine wires act like resistors. Check your guide for feeder wires. Those will do Your lad will want to be close to his locomotive anyway. So short wires aren't a problem in the early going Bee

Just a guess JJ, but possibly the base of a mile marker for the railway. The number being the mile number. Bee

Hello @DecemberWinter165432 Welcome Aboard! The manual 96RAF presented is comprehensive. It has the answers to your questions, but the answers are mixed in with all the other information. I will suggest you stay analog for the early going, as this is less expensive. Get the train moving and see how it goes. As the enthusiasm builds, you may wish to transition to digital, for better control. Or, its a flop and you kept expense to a minimum. Now for analog, or DC, two wires will go to the track, one for each rail. The track is therefore an extension of the wires. The motor in the locomotive simply responds to electricity provided in those wires. How much? The dial on the controller. This works just like an electrical fan you plug into the wall. You control the speed of the fan with the dial on the fan. In DC, the dial is on the controller, the motor is in the locomotive. Independent control of multiple locomotives in DC can be challenging. Two electrically independent loops means two independently controlled locomotives. That is the path most take early on. And then they want a cross over and the fun begins!! Do remember: we are here to help you. Do not hesitate to ask! Bee