Whats the highest railway drop in the UK

gopher · Post by **gopher** » Sun Mar 16, 2003 8:15 pm

Just to give you some idea of what I am on about. The landscape is in a very early state of development.I havn't tried a derailment yet

Click on the thumbnail

Click the image to zoom in

Gordon

alan2 · Post by **alan2** » Mon Mar 17, 2003 12:42 am

I'm sure I could try the Derailment.

Just stick an AI train on it for me Gordon.

qzdcg8 · Post by **qzdcg8** » Mon Mar 17, 2003 8:05 am

Steepest inclines - I believe there's a 1:25 or 1:27 on the ELR as you go south out of Bury Bolton St on a new bridge over the Metrolink onto the Heywood Branch.

saddletank · Post by **saddletank** » Mon Mar 17, 2003 11:20 am

The ECML goes pretty close to the Northumbrian cliffs near Berwick. This must be a pretty big drop. Thread on this subj on here recently.

gopher · Post by **gopher** » Mon Mar 17, 2003 5:08 pm

Alan wrote

I'm sure I could try the Derailment.

Just stick an AI train on it for me Gordon.

Don't think you would save the passengers this time Alan, unless they have parachutes

Private joke, I won't say any more to save him embarrassment.

Gordon

salopiangrowler · Post by **salopiangrowler** » Tue Mar 18, 2003 12:12 am

qzdcg8 wrote:Steepest inclines - I believe there's a 1:25 or 1:27 on the ELR as you go south out of Bury Bolton St on a new bridge over the Metrolink onto the Heywood Branch.

thats not a mainline

but i see your point, Heywood extention IS opening this year so mega thrash for diesel fans, i wouldnt mind the black5 up there either.

kevarc · Post by **kevarc** » Tue Mar 18, 2003 3:49 am

You going to have to help me out here. I am used to percent grade. Can you give me some rough estimates on what equals what?

saddletank · Post by **saddletank** » Tue Mar 18, 2003 9:54 am

Kev, 3% is 1 in 19 (ish), 1.5% is 1 in 38 and you can work out the rest!

BTW, Gordon, that terrain is looking very handsome. Any idea what the weight load limit for goods trains/certain engine classes up that line was?

kevarc · Post by **kevarc** » Tue Mar 18, 2003 3:27 pm

Thanks Martin.

The steepest regular grade here was a 6% monster in Ohio on the Old PRR. The PRR had some special SD9's bult for it. They were ballasted and special dynamic brakes built for them (this was before extended range dynamics).

saddletank · Post by **saddletank** » Tue Mar 18, 2003 3:42 pm

6% Ow. Some road lorries have trouble with a 1 in 10 slope!

gopher · Post by **gopher** » Tue Mar 18, 2003 7:29 pm

For Martin

Just gleaned this from a couple of books. No information as to goods operation is mentioned.

From Bala Jn to Trawsfynydd (17m 8ch) the route was classified blue. From Trawsfynydd to Blaenau Ffestiniog (25m 35ch)it was classified yellow. The section from Llan Ffestiniog (22m 23ch) to Blaenau Ffestiniog was originally narrow gauge and was later converted to standard gauge using the original formation so has very tortuous curves.

Most trains where in the charge of various tank engines but larger engines where to be seen along the branch as far as Trawsfynydd where there was an army camp.

The GWR service timetable states engines of classes 78xx, 26xx, 43xx and 51xx where authorised to work to Trawsfynydd and beyond this point it was mainly tank engines of various descriptions (mainly panniers) but Dean and Collet 0-6-0's where common as of course where 14xx and 58xx class tanks.

No goods details have as yet come to light but passenger diagrams of between 1 and 3 coaches where common.

Gordon

kevarc · Post by **kevarc** » Tue Mar 18, 2003 7:37 pm

Martin, there was an article about that after the PRR\NYC merger into PC.

It seems that the special engines for this were sent to a former NYC shop for overhaul. The NYC did not have dynamic brakes or the other special air brake equipement these engines had. Well, they removed the "extra" parts. The first trip down the hill, the brakes didn't work right and they put it into emergency. Flatspotted all the wheels, big time. Luckily the train finally stopped and only one person got hurt. He was the only one to jump. He was sore but other than that had no injuries.

gopher · Post by **gopher** » Tue Mar 18, 2003 11:54 pm

Just a few shot's of early days at who knows where. Ignore the goods shed, it was only for scaling purposes.

Click the image to zoom in

Click the image to zoom in

Gordon

saddletank · Post by **saddletank** » Wed Mar 19, 2003 9:42 am

Kev - thanks for that snippet. How stupid can workshops be? Lack of communication as usual.

Gordon - luvverly. Some hills there eh? Will the route CD come with one of those plastic bib things with the cup built in the bottom for feeding babies? I will need it to stop the slobber getting on my keyboard. Good to see NG and standard gauge runing side by side although it would be nice to have a better NG trackace.

gopher · Post by **gopher** » Wed Mar 19, 2003 5:57 pm

Hopefully this will be a download addition to Ruabon Barmouth thanks to the latest version of RouteRiter. I could never isolate the modified files for route extensions even using MS's Windiff prog. Probably going to be on the large side though. The dodgy bright track ace has already been tackled by John Wallwork who is doing all the modeling on the branch but I havenâ€™t got it yet. There are a couple of problems with UKNG which need sorting out. One is obvious from the screenshots, some curved pieces have the standard gauge ace, also the track database on buffers curves away behind them. I have not as yet been able to contact Tim Bridge about getting them corrected. Also as the track laying is not quite finished yet a track database rebuild has not been done yet so I donâ€™t know how the two gauges will react together.

Gordon