Railways Blog

One of the more economically illiterate members of the Samizdata collective quoted this ridiculous passage from rightwing troll P.J.O’Rourke.

The Heritage Foundation says, “There isn’t a single light rail transit system in America in which fares paid by the passengers cover the cost of their own rides.” Heritage cites the Minneapolis “Hiawatha” light rail line, soon to be completed with $107 million from the transportation bill. Heritage estimates that the total expense for each ride on the Hiawatha will be $19. Commuting to work will cost $8,550 a year. If the commuter is earning minimum wage, this leaves about $1,000 a year for food, shelter and clothing. Or, if the city picks up the tab, it could have leased a BMW X-5 SUV for the commuter at about the same price.

With nonsense like that it’s hard to know where to start. Steve Karlson of Cold Spring Shops, who cannot be accused of being any kind of left-winger, but who does know a bit about economics, points out the obvious mistake.

This comparison is a common canard from the highway lobby, particularly from those individuals who perceive the trolley service as “public,” hence tainted with socialism, and the private owner vehicle as “private,” despite the public spending on roads, which are congested in part because there’s been little construction of new roads. The comparison presents the full cost of the trolley service, including some share of the spending on the permanent way (is it amortized correctly) with the incremental cost of another sport-ute, without contemplating the full cost of providing sufficient capacity for additional sport-utes.

Fortunately the Samizdata post is getting thourougly fisked in the comment sections the poster’s fellow Libertoids.

It’s actually very difficult to compare the economic efficiency of different transport modes because of the huge externalities, both positive and negative. The trouble with a lot of these externatilities are that they’re so difficult to measure that it’s tempting for those with vested interests or ideological axes to grind to pretend they don’t exist. I remember reading that the increase in property values along the corridor served by the new light rail system in Dublin was greater than the cost of constructing the thing. But good luck expecting the road lobby to admit that.

It’s also true that things are very different in most European cities compared with the suburban sprawls typical of large parts of America, a landscape created by and for the private car. The population density there is so low that it’s very difficult for any form of public transport to be economically viable. The consequence (which never seems to occur to many Americans) is that it’s simply not possible to survive in these sprawls without access to a car. That’s not true of any larger towns and cities in Britain.

I have to keep repeating this. Public transport advocates such as myself are not anti-car. We just don’t want them to be made compulsory, as has already happened in large parts of America.

Electric Nose has some new toys:

Every home should have at least one SD70MAC, in fact in some areas of Cornwall it’s believed that local bye-laws require you to own a couple of dozen…

I do not have any SD70MACs. I don’t intend to get any either; I have enough Kato quality with their SBB Re460s and Re6/6s. And if I started buying American stuff I know wouldn’t be able to stop with one loco! However, I do have a Danish GM Nohab, and a CJM class 66 (with a second one on order). Do they count?

And our friend Electric Nose is the victim.

Being cheeky counts for a lot these days, it would seem, whilst copyright counts for precious little unless you’re a large organisation with the financial clout to protect your interests. I’m well aware that making my copyright images available online for the benefit of fellow enthusiasts carries an inherent risk – a certain percentage will inevitably appear on other websites with some parasite claiming them to be all his own work.

More suprising, however, is the rapidly increasing number of established companies or multi-nationals who’ll rip-off copyright images without so much as a by your leave. I’ve lost count of the times I’ve seen my photos staring back at me, especially in adverts where they’re being used to make money for somebody else. There’s one of mine in a well-known model railway retailer’s long-running advert this month, in fact.

When faceless media conglomerates use heavy handed legal tactics to squash 12 year old file-sharers while ripping off the creative talent that created their precious intellectual property in the first place, it seem theres one law for those who can hire expensive lawyers and buy lawmakers. There’s another law for everybody else.

This 70s British Rail travel poster has got some members of one of the railway Yahoogroups nostalgic for their teenage years. It wasn’t all prog rock and blue and grey Mk1s in the 70s, you know..

Favourite quote: “There was one on the bridge next to York station; it was a serious distraction from the Deltics”

Over the years I have accumulated a vast amount of both Swiss and British N-gauge rolling stock.

Much of the Swiss outline stock from the likes of Fleischmann, Minitrix and Kato is still light years ahead in both detail and running quality compared with the available British outline equipment, even with Bachmann revamping and retooling their range. But with the amount of time I’ve spent researching operations in Devon and Cornwall, including several holiday’s worth of site visits, there’s no way I can abandon Britain completely, model-wise.

The problem is, though, in a relatively small house, I only really have room for one layout. I’ve toyed with having multiple portable layouts sharing components such as fiddle yards, but such things increase the complexity of construction.

So I’m intrigued by the idea of the layout “Doppelbahn” in this month’s N Gauge Society Journal. The concept behind this layout is to have the trackwork and basic landscape capable of representing either a British or (in this case) German prototype, then have two sets of buildings which can be swapped over. I also realised that in both the Swiss Alps and in Cornwall, the predominant rock is granite, so dual-use scenery might be feasible with a bit of thought.

It’s in the details where the problems start coming out. I have managed to come up with a trackplan, which, while it doesn’t resemble any specific place in either Cornwall or Switzerland, doesn’t look ridiculously wrong for either. But I realise that the complete station platform have to be swappable, since a compromise height between high British platforms and much lower Swiss ones will only succeed in looking wrong for both. Not only that, but I’ll also have to work out a way to make the Swiss-style overhead catenery removable, and the same for the WR lower-quadrant signalling.

Doesn’t make the plan a complete non-starter; if I spend my modelling time making the buildings, the effort won’t be wasted if those buildings ultimately end up on separate layouts.

Ever wondered what a class 50 might have looked like in ‘Deltic Style’ green? Or a Deltic in Virgin “Thunderbird” style with Dellner couplings? Or a Peak in Midland Main Line tangerine and teal?

Someone from the The AC Locomotive Group shows us what might have been! (Link from a post by Andy Gautrey on the Demodellers mailing list)

Our transdimensional scientists have managed to retrieve some publications from various parallel timelines. Unfortunately, the only publication they’ve managed to find is Modern Railways

1997, Cornwall: Imerys take delivery of the fifth and final GM-built diesel for the 2’6″ gauge Cornwall Minerals Railway. These machines now work all china clay traffic between Rocks mill at Goonbarrow and the port of Fowey, including the standard gauge wagons on transporters to Par. Imerys plan to retain two of the Hunslet Bo-Bos dating from the 1960s for shunting at St Blazey and Fowey, but the other two operational machines are to be sold to the Newquay Steam Railway, who will used them both for works trains and for some off-season passenger work.

1977, North America: Following the successful trials over the past three years, Amtrak place an order with English Electric for a further 35 5000hp locomotives, based on the successful British Rail class 87, for use on the North East Corridor between New York and Washington. English Electric beat off strong competion from AESA of Sweden with the Rc3 derivative.

1971, Wessex: A Great Western turbotrain breaks the world rail speed record, reaching 352 mph on the racing stretch between Didcot and Swindon, demonstrating Brunel’s foresight in choosing the 7′ gauge.

1973, BR Western Region: In a change of livery policy, BR begin outshopping main line pacifics in BR blue, replacing the unlined black used since 1966. First locomotives outshopped in the new colour scheme are Britannias 70012/4 from Swindon and Rebuild Bullieds 34013/5/22 from Eastleigh. Both classes will continue to work the cross-country Reading to Birmingham services until the electrification is completed in 1976. Meanwhile Toton recieves an additional ten air-braked 9Fs to cope with increased East Midlands coal traffic resulting from the current the oil crisis.

1981, BR Midland Region: After closure for conversion work, the Woodhead line reopens under 25kv electrification. The Godley Junction to Warrington electification was switched on at the same date. The first train was a westbound MGR from Barnsley Junction to Fiddler’s Ferry power station, hauled by class 88 No 88122. The conversion brings to an end the dual-voltage switchable tracks at Tinsley Yard.

I am not at all sure what to make of this latest product from Märklin. It keeps reminding me of an infamous Dutch TV advertisement featuring an Inter-City 125 and Parson’s Tunnel in Devon. (Link from Martyn Read).

After far too long an absence, Unbiased Al-Freebie Information Minister, Muhammed Saeed al-Shergar is back at Electric Nose, with advice for his fellow minions of mediocrity. The infamous Baseball Cap Western shows us just what his minions have been up to. Westerns of mass distortion indeed.

I’m not sure quite when Continental Modeller jumped the shark, but it has. The magazine has completely succumbed to the ‘narrow gauge disease’ that has afflicted it’s parent magazine.

If you’re interested in standard-gauge mainline modelling, especially with modern diesel and electric operation, January’s issue is very thin indeed. They’ve gone into obscurity in a big way, the railway equivalent of the John Peel Show on an off-night. We have the following:

• Six pages of Peruvian 3′ gauge, with all photographs of the same class of loco.
• Six more about narrow gauge line in Germany, 100% operated by railcars.
• Four pages of scale drawings of a Bosnian Klose articulated tank engine (last one withdrawn in 1967) with an absurdly complicated system of connecting rods. Only a skilled engineer working in a large scale could hope to build one.
• Four more pages of Cumbres and Toltec (3′ again)
• Four pages of a Dutch 60cm diorama.
• Another couple of pages on a narrow gauge layout set in Cuba.
• Another page wasted on a stupid 15″ gauge tourist railway in Tasmania.

This has gone beyond parody. I’m beginning to think we’ll be seeing more D&E era continental stuff in MRM!

Why are Peco Publications so obsessed with narrow gauge? The Railway Modeller often gets criticised for too much emphasis on narrow gauge, but recent issues of CM seem to indicate it’s getting even worse. Not that I’m against narrow gauge in small doses, it’s just that I object to two-thirds of what was once a worthwhile magazine to be taken up something that represents a tiny fraction of the world’s railways.