It was more likely an attempt to cut down the amount of injuries and deaths caused by the brakeman having to walk up and down the train whilst in motion. I walked down a roofwalk once on a parked car and felt really woozy. I can't imagine how someone could do it whilst the car was moving and not fall off. And it looks so easy when Wile E. Coyote does it! Then again, walkways still exist on covered hoppers because they are necessary to the loading process.
Your transients are probably on their way to work at a Walmart or Swift plant. ;)
A Deltic wasn't so much a locomotive as a torpedo boat mounted on rails. It had a cockpit at each end, twin marine diesels and was built by an aircraft company!
But not easily captured in smaller scales. For realistic loco motion you need at least 7mm/ft scale or bigger.
Same as always, 1/48 Boeing XB-15 & Douglas XB-19. Yeah I want that promised 1/48 P-61 too! I would like to see japanese multiengine types circa WWII. Tony
I think that Deltics were one of the main causes of the bad reputation that British Railways gained in the late 1960s and early 70s.
Deltics were so successful and reliable that they lulled BR into a false sense of security. BR thought that *every* class of diesel would be like that. The problem was that English Electric had a massive case of beginner's luck and got everything just right. Follow on designs from EE and other manufacturers were nowhere near as reliable. For instance, the Class 23 was a smaller version of the Class 55 Deltics. It was even known as the "Baby Deltic". However, despite using the same engine and similar running gear, it was hugely unreliable for some years. Other classes were similar. They were all purged in the National Transport Plan in the early 70s, but by that time the damage was done and BR had an exceptionally bad reputation. Admittedly there were other factors in that bad rep, such as low morale amongst staff leading to abysmal customer service (the early 70s included the Winter of Discontent) but even if everything else is just peachy, if your locomtives don't work properly, you're never going to get a good rep.
Sadly by the time this was realised, BR had got rid of their steam motive power. Some of the BR Standard steam engines - such as the later 9Fs - had been in service for less than eight years!
The initial plan was to build just ten of each type of what were still considered "experimental" diesel designs and see how they performed. (That was despite diesel already having been standard in the USA for the previous ten years). Following the departure of Robert Riddles as chief mechanical engineer of British Railways, that number was suddenly increased to 200 of each type which had yet to be tested.
Deltic power packs were no more reliable than any other diesel-electric generator of the period but each locomotive had two of them so if one failed the other could still be used. Plus, the power packs could be easily removed for servicing at English Electric's, not BR's expense.
Sorry to hear of your damaged railway . But you know the old say ,,, "you can choose your friends ,but you can't choose your relatives"
One reason I choose to live in outback Australia ,it's too hot and far away enough from the comfort of the cities where my relatives live for them to bother with me. You might say I'm a "relative hermit".
yeah, welcome to the mojave desert. i know that the people who come to visit really want to see me. i'm not a convenient place to crash on the way to somewhere.
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