Trains by suction - Model Rail article

The trains couldn't switch lines whilst under atmospheric power as the tube blocked the wheels path.

It was also criticised for:

Trains could only travel in one direction - so no shunting or reversing under atmospheric power.

Heavy trains would always run more slowly than lighter ones - double heading not possible.

To increase the power of the system you have to replace the tube with a bigger one, and increase the power of the pumping station to evacute the larger volume of the air.

Craig

Ummm... WHAT issue did you see that in?

Not April, by any chance?

Yes, I dont think that article is supposed to be read for another 26 days!!

I can see a major flaw with the system. The piston is supposed to be attached to the loco with a piece of raw spaghetti. If I do that with my layout, what happens to it when I get the munchies???

I thought the major flaw was that rats ate the leather seals; or so Brunell found.

Jeff

Exactly my point (as stated in the first line of his post...)

I think someone got their leg pulled long enough I can tickle their toes on MY side of the pond! ;)

Never heard of the Croydon Atmospheric Railway?....

I'm sure if people do a Google search many of the question will be answered. :~)

Reminds of the famous Panorama feature on the annual Italian spaghetti harvest - broadcast coincidentally on April 1st.

Last year, there was a whole spoof feature on the BBC website about "updating" The Archers theme music.

The first time 'Auntie' had done such a thing (plus the fact that spaghetti was still a specaility dish back then) and hence many people were takeb in, hook line and sinker!

The trouble with that one was it was all too believable, that some young up-start was actually getting their hands on it, like they have with so much in broadcasting....

I got caught out in the mid 1970s with an RM article on an under the floorboards london underground layout, glass panels set into the floorboards for viewing and a 'working escalator' - It was only when I started to explain it to someone I twigged, the photos were rather well done I seem to remember

I've wandered part way into this thread, and I think you are discussing the atmospheric experiments of the South Devon and London & Croydon railways.

But there was an experiment where the coach was puffed through a tube. It took place at the Crystal Palace (Sydenham) in 1864. There is a lithograph in A Picture History of Railways by C Hamilton Ellis (Hulton Press : 1956).

The coach is similar to the original City & South London stock but with a ruff to provide some degree of air tightness. No idea whether it's a bogie coach and the gauge could be in the order of 7 foot.

The principle is the same as the old department stores, which didn't have tills on the shop floor, but the invoice and cash shot off in a pneumatic tube with the stamped invoice and change re-appearing a couple of minutes later. I remember one in Medhurst's of Bromley (taken over by Allders and now presumably to be closed).

>

[ re UK April Fools spoofs ]

Heh heh, now you remind me I remember something about that, I don't think my brothers and I were taken in by it but it was something that an 'off the wall' person might have done back then - like all the best spoofs, it had a slight air of being possible...

Didn't the RM have a series of articles about people who had excavated holes under their homes to accommodate their layouts. In the end they had to cease because some devotees were in danger of undermining their property. Or am I just having (yet) another senior moment?

They actually did update the Archers sig tune some years ago and there was merry hell at the time :-)

Jim.

I remember that one- credible until they mentioned cutting through the joists.. Brian

In message , Piemanlager writes

It's also given away by the following acronyms: Glasgow Urban Layouts Limited Incorporating British Locomotive Engineering. Complete Layout Adaptable Patented Train Reversible Air Propulsion.

Wot? You mean spaghetti *doesn't* grow on trees??? :o)

I was at a cycle rally a couple of years back and there was someone wearing a T-shirt with "dum-di-dum-di-dum-di-dum" printed on it. I don't know what was sadder - the shirt, or the fact that I instantly recognised it as the opening bars of Barwick Green. Come to think of it, knowing what the tune is called is probably saddest of all...

Guy

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"To every complex problem there is a solution which is simple, neat and wrong" - HL Mencken