Recliner wrote:
Guy Gorton wrote:
On Thu, 25 Jun 2020 18:28:36 +0100, Peter Able wrote:

On 25/06/2020 17:40, Guy Gorton wrote:
On Thu, 25 Jun 2020 16:19:37 -0000 (UTC), Recliner
wrote:

Guy Gorton wrote:
On Wed, 24 Jun 2020 10:43:25 +0000 (UTC), wrote:

Don't know if this has already been posted:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...nched-commuter
-train-going-wrong-way-London-Tube-line-nearly-crashes.html

How on earth can this happen? Surely the chiltern driver knew what side of the
line he was on? And why didn't the tripcocks work or have they been removed
from that section of line now?

A lot of interesting history of the line at
http://www.metroland.org.uk/cheshamflyer/


I think that, thanks to the misleading Tube map, a lot of people wrongly
think that Amersham is the most distant LU destination, when it's actually
Chesham.


Certainly since the Met stopped going to Aylesbury. (Change loco from
electric to steam at Rickmansworth).

Guy Gorton


Which was well before the present majority were born !

I know it was probably only a threat, but how different it might be now
if the Chesham line had extended on to the LNWR.

PA

The first 4 slides I ever took with the camera my father-in-law threw
at me 'cos he couldn't work it were of the last electric to steam
handover in 1961.
Extending to the LNWR would have been quite a geographical challenge
with both lines being in steep sided valleys. Lots of higher ground
between.

How long did the trains stop while the locos were swapped? Was it really
as little as four minutes?

It would probably take at least 20 today, if it were allowed at all. Can
you imagine them allowing the crew to be working on live fourth rail
tracks, with steam and dripping water all around?


There is a short clip on you tube which shows part of a change,

https://youtu.be/tIZ1OvYxFFk

You would have thought that with the change taking place in the same spot
every time
the crews would have been well practised at stopping in just the right
place a short gap in the conductor rails could have been left to minimise
any risk to the shunter, instead the arrangement
was protection boarding each side of the conductor rails and wood
infilling between those surrounding the negative rail and the running
rails. When dry I suppose the wood would have been a fairly good insulator
and if thick enough probably was even when the surface was damp.

GH