Fateful Trip , passengers of Destiny.

[Flintlock76]

Deggesty

 

 

Flintlock76

Crewe in England.  Interesting.  There's a Crewe here in Virginia, and it's a crew change point on the Norfolk-Southern line to Danville.  

Crewe must be a good name for railroad towns!

 

 

 

 

Wayne, Crewe is on what was the N&W's main line; you go west from there, and you go through Farmville; you go east, and you go by Petersburg. what have you been drinking?. 

 

 

Well last night only Coca-Cola, you know, "Southern Holy Water?"

I just dug out my ancient old (1991) Virginia railfan book and you're absolutely right Johnny, Crewe is on the old N&W (now NS) mainline from Norfolk to Roanoke. However the book does call it a "crewe" change point. 

If you work for NS and you're part of the crewe I guess that's what you dew.

Wayne

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

Are you sure that it wasn't Mexican holy water from Jalisco state?

[Overmod]

Miningman

I just knew this would start a riot. 

No, that was Heuston.  At least it got a rise out of you.

[York1]

And if it's around Fat Tuesday, you can be a member of a 'Krewe'.

[Flintlock76]

CSSHEGEWISCH

Are you sure that it wasn't Mexican holy water from Jalisco state?

 

I'm sure.  Definately from Hot-Lanta!

[Overmod]

CSSHEGEWISCH

Are you sure that it wasn't Mexican holy water from Jalisco state?

They do that differently now.

 

https://www.cbs17.com/news/check-this-out/priest-goes-viral-after-picture-shows-him-using-squirt-gun-filled-with-holy-water/

We are starting to confuse 'holy water' with 'water of life' with 'divine elixir'.  That's gonna get us in trouble.

[M636C]

 

Assuming this is Crewe (the one in Cheshire), It didn't look much like that when I las visited in 2013. I had also passed through Crewe at night in 1997 when I last travelled to Dublin by rail and ferry. That was also my last visit to Dublin Heuston.

I invite anyone to look at the aerial photo in google maps of the present Crewe station. Where the brick retaining wall stands in this photo, there are now six electrified main line tracks, two of which join the North Wales Coast line on the level and four of which tunnel under the junction, two each joining the line to Manchester and the West Coast main line. These bypass tracks are only for freight trains, since the non stopping passenger trains (all on the West coast) just run though on centre tracks away from the platforms. These are used by the Pendolinos. I tried to photograph these and the best technique is to set the camera on fast sequence mode and hope that one of the shots has the train in the right place.

Anyway assuming this is Crewe, the train is entering from the north on the West Coast Main Line, and the gantry only applies to that line. There would have been similar gantries on both of the diverging routes. These would have been contolled by Crewe Station "A" box which is currently preserved in it original location inside the Crewe Rail Heritage Centre, formerly part of Crewe Workshops (which would be behind the photographer on the right).

The carriage could be an LMS carriage of the type called "Period I" based on Midland Railway designs. For this to be true, the rectangular area above the windows would be a "Stones Ventilator" which consists of vertically hinged glass louvres, half each oriented foward and aft. I can't see how these would reproduce as a flat sheet, as they appear to do in this photo. This type of carriage had paired windows, one of which was a droplight. This does seem to be the case. On this car the photographer is leaning out of one of the droplights, and one ahead of him is also open. I assume this photo was taken during summer.

The windows of the Pendolinos are not as large and definitely don't open.

Peter

[daveklepper]

Haven't we established that it is Dublin-Heuston and not Crewe?  Or did I miss  somthingt

[scilover]

Oh wow, amazing pictures! He invented the first selfie while taking a haircut hahaha. What year was this?

[daveklepper]

The Leica M3 shown in the selfie and regularly used by Father Frank Browne, SJ, was introduced by Leitz in 1954, and is the camera I regularly use.

Father Frank Browne, SJ, past on in 1960 at age 80.

I've been cutting my own hair.  When the Coronavirus threat is ended, and I pay to have a haircut, should I take a selfie with my Leice M3 and have it posted?

[Flintlock76]

Why ever not?  There's certainly historic precedent for it!

[daveklepper]

OK   Will do.    May have to wait a while.

[M636C]

daveklepper

Haven't we established that it is Dublin-Heuston and not Crewe?  Or did I miss  somthingt

 

Firstly, I should apologise for taking so long to answer this. I am having an apartment renovated, and I have been tied up with contractors for much of my time.

I have been as confused as anybody.

However, when I looked at an enlargement of the photo in question, there was an overhead bridge over the station just at the (North) end of the overall roof. Having checked as much as I could, I haven't found any evidence of an overhead bridge at Dublin Heuston station at any time.

Also, in the enlargement it became clear that there was no road behind the retaining wall to the right of the photo.

So, on reflection, despite the view looking nothing like Crewe today, it seems likely that the photo was indeed Crewe. There are other relevant comments in my earlier post.

Peter

[daveklepper]

With a new thread devoted to Irish Railways, I'm booting up this thread to make some fine photos easily available and a liמk to more.

[Flintlock76]

I'm glad you booted up the thread David, it's a blast from the past and I'd forgotten how much fun it was! 

[daveklepper]

Possibly you have read reports about the danger to those exploring the submerged Titanic.  Here is an angle, edited and compressed from today's Jerusalem Post, that may be of interest.  Further info is on the website www,jpost.com.

Wendy Rush a descendant of two first-class passengers aboard the Titanic when it sank in 1912 after hitting an iceberg, the New York Times said on Wednesday.  The tragic tale of wealthy Isidor Straus, co-owner of Macy's department store and his wife Ida, is told in James Cameron's movie "Titanic."  Wendy Rush is their great-great-granddaughter

Stockton Rush,Wendy Rush’s,husband  is chief executive of the USA’s OceanGate Expeditions operator of the Titan submersible that lost contact Sunday while descending. He and four others aboard planned to visit the Titanic wreck off Canada's coast.

 

 

 

[Overmod]

Much has been made here in Memphis of the Isidor Straus history -- including the heroism they showed.

I still can't understand how someone with a MAE degree from Princeton didn't understand that carbon-fiber composite is not stable in compression as it is in tension (in wound pressure tanks and the like).

[Flintlock76]

daveklepper

Wendy Rush a descendant of two first-class passengers aboard the Titanic when it sank in 1912 after hitting an iceberg, the New York Times said on Wednesday.  The tragic tale of wealthy Isidor Straus, co-owner of Macy's department store and his wife Ida, is told in James Cameron's movie "Titanic."  Wendy Rush is their great-great-granddaughter

What a cruel irony. 

For those interested, here's a 34 minute video about the OceanGate's Titan and it's the best report on this tragedy I've seen, well worth watching.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4O5F4ZVlIac&t=14s

This is from the host's YouTube channel called "Oceanliner Designs," a VERY well done channel a quite interesting. The host, Mike Brady, is very personable as well. Here at the "Fortress Flintlock" we call him "That nice young Mr. Ocean Liner!"

And note, Mike has the class and tradition of wearing a black tie as a sign of mourning.  I thought I was the last one to do that. 

[Flintlock76]

Overmod

I still can't understand how someone with a MAE degree from Princeton didn't understand that carbon-fiber composite is not stable in compression as it is in tension (in wound pressure tanks and the like).

"Outside the box" thinking I suppose. Or something.

There's nothing wrong with thinking outside the box as long as you remember the box is there for a reason.  Probably a very good reason.

[Overmod]

As Steve Slaby, my drafting professor at Princeton, would say: You don't push on a rope no matter how cleverly it's embedded.

(He's also the one who snarled about 'postwar technology' and got me using the expression...)

[pennytrains]

In "Secrets of the Titanic", the National Geographic Special covering Dr. Ballard's explorations, they describe what was necessary to reach the wreck: "a sealed six foot titanium sphere crammed with equipment and three uncomfortable humans.". Why anyone would think a non spherical design would be ok I can't guess.

[Flintlock76]

pennytrains

Why anyone would think a non spherical design would be ok I can't guess.

I can't figure out that one either, the technology's been around for over 60 years, even longer if you conside the Bathysphere, and the reason it's still used is because it works. 

I'm no engineer by any means but even I know a cylinder's not going to withstand as much outside pressure as a sphere will. 

[BaltACD]

Flintlock76

 

pennytrains

Why anyone would think a non spherical design would be ok I can't guess. 

I can't figure out that one either, the technology's been around for over 60 years, even longer if you conside the Bathysphere, and the reason it's still used is because it works. 

I'm no engineer by any means but even I know a cylinder's not going to withstand as much outside pressure as a sphere will. 

How big does the sphere have to be to permit FOUR or more PAYING 'passengers'?

I am not an engineer either - however, from my racing experience I have learned a 'little' about carbon-fiber construction.  What I saw of Titan's construction was the carbon-fiber we being applied in a continuous fashion around the form for the passenger compartment.  The little I know is that the carbon-fiber hast to be laid in multiple intersecting angles to develop strength, if what is being constructed is expected to be strong. How you accomplish that on a cylinder I will leave to legions of engineers that know much more than I do.

If we always do what we have done in the past - we will never get beyond where we were in the past.  Only 120 years ago, mankind's feet were firmly planted on the ground - then came the Wright Brothers and Kitty Hawk, NC to challenge that concept.

The one thing that cannt be said about the Oceanscape owner - he put his money and mouth and body at risk in his beliefs.  He paid the price for his failures.

[pennytrains]

I agree, but from what I've heard the sub wasn't rated for that kind of depth.

[Erik_Mag]

I saw pictures of some of the larger pieces of the Titan that have recovered. The hemispherical ends appear to be pretty much intact, though the viewport on the front seems to be missing. Obvious take-away was catastrophic failure of the carbon fiber cylindrical section, which looks to have sheared any attachment with the carbon fiber cylinder.

I've come across numerous comments about not expecting much compressive strength from carbon fiber composites.

In the early streamliner era, there were a number passenger trains built with all-aluminum construction, but the requirement for yield strength to be 80% or less of ultimate tensile strength led to to steel underframes. Carbon fiber composites are even more brittle than aluminum.

[Flintlock76]

BaltACD

If we always do what we have done in the past - we will never get beyond where we were in the past.  Only 120 years ago, mankind's feet were firmly planted on the ground - then came the Wright Brothers and Kitty Hawk, NC to challenge that concept.

Quite true, but remember the Wrights didn't operate in a vacuum, they made use of knowledge of experiments in fixed wing flight going back to the mid-19th Century like the works of Henson and Stringfellow, and then the glider experiments of Otto Lilienthal and Samuel Langley in the 1890s.  Others in Europe were following the same path but the Wrights got there first. The Wrights had a good idea of what worked and what didn't work and built on that.

Remember what I said about "The Box."

 

[timz]

Erik_Mag

In the early streamliner era, there were a number passenger trains built with all-aluminum construction, but the requirement for yield strength to be 80% or less of ultimate tensile strength led to to steel underframes.

How all was the all-aluminum? Did any get built with aluminum underframes? I assume the wheels and axles were steel -- how about the rest of the trucks?

[Erik_Mag]

Timz: The trucks and wheels were typically steel, but several of the early aluminum passenger cars did have aluminum underframes.

Balt: Carbon fiber solid rocket motor casings are usually filament wound with the filaments wound at an angle with the circumference of the motor casing. IIRC, the winding is done in such a way that each layer is wound at the opposite angle of the layer below it. Since the motors have end caps, there is a longitudinal stress and well as a hoop stress placed on the case wall.

One possible no-no occurred to me about the Titan: The overall elastic modulus of the cylinder may have been different then the modulus of the end caps. This would translate the cylinder and endcaps shrinking differently and thus putting a lot of shear stress on the joint between the cylinder and the caps, which might exlain I don't recall seeing any part of the composite cylinder attached to the front hemisphere.

[pennytrains]

Flintlock76

The Wrights had a good idea of what worked and what didn't work and built on that.

And I've heard it said that the Wright's should be more remembered for making flying a verb.  They really went a lot further than anyone before in the science of aircraft control.  That's why our Ohio license plates say "Birthplace of Aviation" rather than "First in Flight".

[Flintlock76]

pennytrains

That's why our Ohio license plates say "Birthplace of Aviation" rather than "First in Flight".

And rightly so, North Carolina is where the Wright flew em' but Ohio is where they built 'em.

And as far as controllability is concerned when Wilbur Wright demontrated a Wright airplane in France to their pioneer aviators one turned to another and said "Monsieur Wright has sent us all back to school!"