IRFCA Mailing List Archive
Messages 6201 - 6220
From: John Lacey <>
Subject: FAQs
Date: 13 May 1999 00:13:35 -0500
Congratulations to all involved with the production of the FAQ. It is
wonderfully comprehensive yet succinct and, above all, very interesting.
Re carriage codes: I thought 'C' as in FC referred to carriages equipped
with Coupe compartment eg. FCS-Composite First and Second with coupe in
first.
Two items of levity, not for serious consideration:
Slowest Train:
Some trains in the public timetables are allowed a very long time in
their final section: one eg., almost at random, from 1982 SER - # 229
Durg to Waltair Pass 8 kms from Simhachalam to Waltair tabled for 1 hour
and 53 Minutes.
Greatest Number of Halts:
In 1987 I travelled from Ajmer to Secunderabad on # 581 Fast Pass.
During an idle moment (of which there were many on this train) I counted
the number of halts in the timetable: I remember the figure reaching
121. It was such a fantastic trip-all steam then for 1400 kms with YPs
and YGs in different liveries, and the SC YPs had extended bunkers- that
I later returned on 582 as far as Ratlam, and then repeated the whole
journey south six weeks later.
Once again, Many thanks,
John
From: Don Mills <>
Subject: Thanks to all who took time with Mill cove
Date: 13 May 1999 04:45:17 -0500
Thanks to the people who tried to get into Mill Cove. those who made it
should keep those fellas busy for a long time. The message I received
from
there this morning is that these children will be finding cities they
and
some people from Nova Scotia have never heard of for a while to come.
Don
in WV
From: C.L.Zeni <>
Subject: Re: sprags
Date: 13 May 1999 05:02:33 -0500
Tony Bailey wrote:
>
> From: Anne Ogborn
>
> >this from the new FAQ:
> >
> > Vaccum recreated on ghat section, remove sprags
> >
> > what's a sprag?
> >
>
> A piece of metal shoved through a spoked wheel on an unbraked wagon or
a
> vacuum braked wagon to stop it moving (or being moved) when it is
stored
> somewhere without a locomotive or brake van.
>
> You need to have had a railway system with, until relatively recently,
> unbraked or vacuum braked trains to know about that!
So I would gather from this that these wagons do not have mechanical
brakes that are set by hand when the wagon is parked to be unloaded etc?
--
Craig Zeni - REPLY TO -->> clzeni at mindspring dot com
<A HREF="http://www.mindspring.com/~clzeni/index.html">http://www.mindspring.com/~clzeni/index.html</A>
Kitty Haiku: Grace personified.
I leap into the window.
I meant to do that.
From: Shankar <>
Subject: Re: Image files on the IRFCA
Date: 13 May 1999 05:35:20 -0500
Hello,
I knew there would be war: severe unpleasantness with large files
blocking mailboxes:thats what I'd mentioned at the very beginning. It
has happenned before with the godrej pics,and has unfortunately happened
again.And I did it, quite unwittingly though.
Anyway, your mail did teach me a thing or two about scanners and the
nature of files produced by them.
I can assure you that my intentions were quite noble,and I did not mean
to inconvenience anyone in any way whatsoever.
It it will help in any way, my profound apologies to all those affected.
No that I've got that off my chest, I hope that that all of you dear
friends who have got over the initial exasparation and irritation did
find the information useful.
On another note, I intend investing in a scanner shortly, and I'll be a
bit more independent. I'll request you for some tips at that time, dear
Apurva.
Best regards.
Shankar
Apurva Bahadur wrote:
>
> Dear Shankar and all,
>
> Let me rephrase Anurag's earlier request. 'Please DO NOT post any
image files on the
> IRFCA' . There is no question of 'avoid'. This is just not done. It
has taken me 45
> minutes to download the morning mails ! We have tiny mailboxes and
limited bandwidth,
> so DO NOT post any pictures (TIFF files are also pictures) by email.
Everyone is
> forced to receive these large files.
> I can see that the intentions were good but when you hand over a paper
to someone else
> in the organization to scan and upload, they do not have an idea of
what the
> consequences can be. In case of the large mails from Godrej earlier we
had a set of
> BMP files and now TIFF files from Shankar. The same scanner could have
produced a neat
> OCR output in HTML or TXT which would have been much appreciated.
However to undo this
> damage I would try and OCR the TIFF files and post the results on my
website.
>
> Apurva
From: S Pai <>
Subject: Image files!
Date: 13 May 1999 06:00:57 -0500
I heartily second (and third...) the earlier appeals *not* to post
image files ever to the list. People with slow modem connections
waste hours on downloading large files like that, and sometimes there
is no option around this if one wants to check the rest of one's mail.
Disk consumption overflows quotas and sometimes other mail (even
non-IRFCA mail) can be lost as it starts bouncing back. So *PLEASE*,
do not put images in mail. Instead, post the image on a web site,
and send the URL to the list, so that whoever is interested can go to
the web site and look it up.
The same applies, of course, to sound files, animations or video
clips, even large text files, and certainly large files in proprietary
formats (wordprocessor output, spreadsheets, etc.).
I would propose as a rule of thumb that an attachment that is larger
than a few kiloytes (say more than 10K) should be posted separately to
a website and the URL sent to the list instead. In case you don't
have access to a web site, there are other options such as providing
an ftp site, or even offering to mail it to interested parties
separately.
Thanks!
--Satish
PS: All this having been said, I do want to get my hands on the station
and shed codes that Shankar posted, although not in image format. If
anyone managed to download the images and run them through OCR software,
please let me know -- I would be interested in knowing what the output
text looks like, and how big the files are; perhaps some of it or all of
it could eventually be posted to the IRFCA web site, possibly as part of
or pointed to from, the FAQ. But before that happens, Shankar, could
you
let me know what the status of the document is as regards the copyright
on it, if any? Thanks.
From: FyffesFL <>
Subject: Re: sprags
Date: 13 May 1999 06:17:52 -0500
sprag, a/k/a stop block, is a piece of steel jammed through the spokes
of a
wheel to prevent it turning. sometimes missused and applied to any solid
object used to jam ( or " scotch " ) the wheels
richard yudin
From: Shankar <>
Subject: Re: Image files!
Date: 13 May 1999 06:39:50 -0500
S Pai wrote:
>
> I heartily second (and third...) the earlier appeals *not* to post
> image files ever to the list. People with slow modem connections
> waste hours on downloading large files like that, and sometimes there
> is no option around this if one wants to check the rest of one's mail.
> Disk consumption overflows quotas and sometimes other mail (even
> non-IRFCA mail) can be lost as it starts bouncing back. So *PLEASE*,
> do not put images in mail. Instead, post the image on a web site,
> and send the URL to the list, so that whoever is interested can go to
> the web site and look it up.
>
> The same applies, of course, to sound files, animations or video
> clips, even large text files, and certainly large files in proprietary
> formats (wordprocessor output, spreadsheets, etc.).
>
> I would propose as a rule of thumb that an attachment that is larger
> than a few kiloytes (say more than 10K) should be posted separately to
> a website and the URL sent to the list instead. In case you don't
> have access to a web site, there are other options such as providing
> an ftp site, or even offering to mail it to interested parties
> separately.
>
> Thanks!
>
> --Satish
>
> PS: All this having been said, I do want to get my hands on the
station
> and shed codes that Shankar posted, although not in image format. If
> anyone managed to download the images and run them through OCR
software,
> please let me know -- I would be interested in knowing what the output
> text looks like, and how big the files are; perhaps some of it or all
of
> it could eventually be posted to the IRFCA web site, possibly as part
of
> or pointed to from, the FAQ. But before that happens, Shankar, could
you
> let me know what the status of the document is as regards the
copyright
> on it, if any? Thanks.
NO COPYRIGHT AT ALL: MY TWO PENCE WORTH FOR THE FAQ AND WEBSITE.
IN FACT, I;M GREATLY HONORED.
FEEL FREE TO USE IT IN ANY FORM YOU LIKE.
AND ONCE AGAIN, MY PROFOUND APOLOGIES FOR THE INCONVENIENCE CAUSED!
BES REGARDS.
SHANKAR
From: Vijay Balasubramanian <>
Subject: Re: FAQs
Date: 13 May 1999 07:08:52 -0500
>Greatest Number of Halts:
>In 1987 I travelled from Ajmer to Secunderabad on # 581 Fast Pass.
>During an idle moment (of which there were many on this train) I
counted
>the number of halts in the timetable: I remember the figure reaching
>121. It was such a fantastic trip-all steam then for 1400 kms with
Because of gauge conversion, the continuous MG link between Ajmer and
Secunderabad has been destroyed. Purna-Mudkhed in now BG. So, this
passenger train runs between Ajmer and Purna and has 99 halts.
I have checked quite a few passenger trains using my Bradshaw and none
have
come close to 115 halts.
Satish, you may want to change the sentence "Here is a list of top
contenders" to "Here is a list of top contenders for express trains"
Also, the longest rail bridge (across a river) is over the Sone river
between Dehri-on-sone and Sonnagar and is 3.065 km long. This is from
<A HREF="http://www.historyofindia.com/moremod.html">http://www.historyofindia.com/moremod.html</A>
Vijay
_______________________________________________________________
Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit <A HREF="http://www.msn.com">http://www.msn.com</A>
From: Apurva Bahadur <>
Subject: Re: [Fwd: Re: Oddities]
Date: 13 May 1999 09:45:26 -0500
> Hello,
> Correct me if I am wrong, same goes for the Bombay-Delhi line:
> The sequence of stations after Delhi is:
> Agra(UP)-Gwalior(MP)-Jhansi(UP)-Bhopal(MP).
> Weaving in and out of UP and MP.
And Dhaulpur between GWL and AGC is in Rajsthan !
From: Apurva Bahadur <>
Subject: Re: Image files!
Date: 13 May 1999 10:34:47 -0500
> PS: All this having been said, I do want to get my hands on the
station
> and shed codes that Shankar posted, although not in image format. If
> anyone managed to download the images and run them through OCR
software,
> please let me know -- I would be interested in knowing what the output
> text looks like, and how big the files are; perhaps some of it or all
of
> it could eventually be posted to the IRFCA web site, possibly as part
of
> or pointed to from, the FAQ. But before that happens, Shankar, could
you
> let me know what the status of the document is as regards the
copyright
> on it, if any? Thanks.
I have already run the three large files through the OCR and would
upload tomorrow
after a check for typos etc.
From: Vijay Balasubramanian <>
Subject: Re: draft of IRFCA FAQ
Date: 13 May 1999 11:42:43 -0500
Dear Satish,
Here are some changes to the trivia section. Note that the Himsagar
Exp. now has the longest run BOTH in distance and time. I confirmed
this from the Dec. 1998 Bradshaw. -Vijay
**********************************************************
Longest run [3/99] The 6318 Himsagar Express (from Jammu Tawi to
Kanyakumari) has the longest run on IR, in terms of both distance and
time -- it covers a distance of 3751 km in 74 hours 55 minutes. The 5628
Guwahati - Trivandrum Exp. comes a close second (in total run time) --
it takes 74 hours 45 minutes to cover a distance of 3576 km. The Navyug
Exp. (between Jammu Tawi and Mangalore) is second in distance - 3645 km.
During British rule, there used to be a Mangalore-Peshawar train (the
predecessor of the Grand Trunk Exp.) which took about 104 hours (in
1930). This is longer than the Orient Express which took about 60 hours
between Paris and Istanbul, but pales into insignificance before the
Trans-Siberian Express which takes about 170 hours (even today) between
Moscow and Vladivostok.
The Himsagar express also runs between the northernmost and southernmost
stations in the country, and passes through 4 zones (SR, SCR, CR, NR).
It also crosses the largest number of states (TN, Kerala, AP,
Maharashtra, MP, UP, Rajasthan, Haryana, Punjab, Jammu & Kashmir) along
with the Navyug Exp.
The Trivandrum-Guwahati Exp. crosses 5 zones, as does the
Cochin-Gorakhpur Exp.
**************************************
From: Roger G. Morris <>
Subject: Re: sprags
Date: 13 May 1999 12:45:52 -0500
In article <373ABF59.5B4@mindspring.email C.L.Zeni
<clzeni@mindspring.email writes
>
>So I would gather from this that these wagons do not have mechanical
>brakes that are set by hand when the wagon is parked to be unloaded
etc?
Not so Craig. Several systems around Europe had "local" rules to cover
what were regarded as severe gradients. As well as hand brakes being
applied the wheels were required to be scotched (the term I am used to)
as an added insurance policy against runaways. I remember locomotives at
Tinsley depot in Sheffield, UK, being treated this way as the yard was
about 80 feet away - at least as the crow plummets! Somewhat longer by
the official approach track.
I think that the gradients on the Ghat sections would class as "severe"
in certain sections?
--
Roger G. Morris
From: Henry Posner III <>
Subject: Re: draft of IRFCA FAQ
Date: 13 May 1999 14:10:59 -0500
Satish, an excellent and useful site.
-----Original Message-----
From: Sridhar Shankarnarayan [mailto:msshanka@gsbpop.email
Sent: Wednesday, May 12, 1999 7:47 PM
To: S Pai; irfca@cs.email
Subject: Re: draft of IRFCA FAQ
Satish,
Great effort! A very comphrehensive FAQ indeed.
>Nilgiri Hill Railway (Ooty) steamers will be phased out by 2000, as
there
seems to be no easy way to get >replacements for the
>X-class locos dating back to the 1940s (the youngest is from 1956).
>The Coonoor steam shed is still working -- perhaps.
The above should go into the MG section and not NG.
Also, reading the January issue of the Indian Railways magazine I came
acorss this on an article abot the Vadodara electric loco shed which
talks
about the WAM4-6P locos.
"The shed has converted 33 WAM4 locos from 2S-3P combination to 6P
combination". I am assumimg that they are talking about a
series-parallel
to an all parallel combination (or am I totally off on this?). And what
is
the advantage of such a setup?
_Sridhar
At 10:07 PM 5/12/99 -0400, S Pai wrote:
>
>Hi, folks,
>
>I have put up a draft version of the FAQ that I have been working on
>for this list, at <A HREF="http://meltingpot.fortunecity.com/syria/716">http://meltingpot.fortunecity.com/syria/716</A>. Check
>it out, and feel free to send me feedback on it. Corrections to
inaccurate
>information in the FAQ is especially appreciated, as also additions to
>flesh out the (many) incomplete sections. Also welcome are comments
>on the format and layout, although please bear in mind that when the
>FAQ is hosted in final form on the real IRFCA website that Shanku is
>working on putting up, it will probably be reorganized quite a bit.
>
>The site with the draft FAQ is a free webserver, and "you get what you
>pay for" with a free site, and I have found it sometimes goes down
>unexpectedly. But unlike some other websites, it doesn't have too much
>advertising on it. There is a contact address on the FAQ pages, but
>I would prefer it if you replied with your comments directly to me
>at this address that I am mailing from: s_pai@bigfoot.email.
>
>Reminder -- this is a *draft*, a work in progress. Go easy on the
>flames. :-) This really should have been out much earlier, but
>various other commitments kept me from getting this out sooner. But
>better late than never.
>
>Thanks.
>
>--Satish
>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sridhar Shankar
GSB MBA'99
The University of Chicago
1616 E. 50th Place, Apt. 13A
Chicago, IL 60615
(773) 752 1131
From: S Pai <>
Subject: draft IRFCA FAQ
Date: 13 May 1999 15:25:17 -0500
By the way, if you have straightforward and simple additions,
corrections, typo fixes or suggestions, etc. it's better to send them
to me directly. If you feel there are any points in the draft FAQ
that are worthy of discussion before amendment, by all means do post
to the list.
I'll try my best to incorporate fixes into the FAQ as soon as I can,
but if you don't see changes in the FAQ right after you send me mail,
please don't be upset. :-) It may take me a few days to get around
to making changes.
Also, if you recognize something in the FAQ as being something you
posted to the list earlier, but you're not mentioned in the credits,
drop me a note and I'll take care of that. I've tried my best to
acknowledge everyone whose posts I have pillaged to make up this FAQ,
but I might have missed a few persons.
--Satish
From: Dr. K.J. Walker & Mrs. M.E, Heath <>
Subject: Re: [steam_tech] Fwd: MLRs locos diverted to DHR
Date: 13 May 1999 18:15:11 -0500
To Nick, Apurva and everyone,
The announcement that 2 x 250hp Bo diesels from a batch intended for
Matheran would be diverted to Darjeeling was made at the Fourth
Darjeeling
Himalayan Railway Conference in Delhi in mid-April. It came from a very
senior member of the Railway Board, and may be regarded as
authoritative.
It should be remembered that the DHR is in a motive power crisis.
Only
a few of the 14 extant steam engines are serviceable at any one time,
all
work at reduced boiler pressure, and time is regularly lost on the daily
services. At least the diesels will resore punctuality, assuming they
don't
break down or collide with any structures. (The DHR's loading gauge is
restricted by comparison with other Indian 2ft gauge lines, and on an
earlier trial, an engine DID collide with a station canopy!)
Railway Board is committed to steam power for tourist trains and
would
probably be sympathetic to economical forms of steam power. But
platform
costs are 80% of the expenses of the line, which costs ten times as much
to
run as it gets in receipts, so let's hear no nonsense about low labour
costs
meaning that crewing expenses don't matter.
Cheers
Ken Walker
-----Original Message-----
From: Dipl.-Ing. Nikolaus Sbarounis <sbaros@excite.email
To: steam_tech@egroups.email <steam_tech@egroups.email
Date: Wednesday, 12 May 1999 9:27
Subject: [steam_tech] Fwd: MLRs locos diverted to DHR
>Hi, folks!
>I just got the following e-mail from the Indian Railway newsgroup. Does
it
>mean partial dieselization of the Darjeeling - Himalaya railway? If it
>spreads, it may become a disaster for our plans. Below is the report's
URL:
><A HREF="http://www.expressindia.com/ie/daily/19990512/ige12018.html">http://www.expressindia.com/ie/daily/19990512/ige12018.html</A>
>Who can check it out?
>
>> From: Apurva Bahadur <iti@vsnl.email
>> To: IRFCA <irfca@cs.email
>> Subject: MLRs locos diverted to DHR
>> Date: Wed, 12 May 1999 13:24:57 +0530
>> Message-ID: <373933D1.912C772A@vsnl.email
>>
>> Gang !
>>
>> There is an article in the Indian Express today which says
>> that 2 of the 6 new locos (NDM 6 ?) meant for the
>> MLR have been diverted to the DHR so the MLR is still stuck
>> with the ageing NDM 1s.
>>
>> Apurva
>
>
>
>
>
>________________________________________________
>Visit my rail website:
><A HREF="http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/7209">http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/7209</A>
>
>
>
>
>_______________________________________________________
>Get your free, private email at <A HREF="http://mail.excite.com/">http://mail.excite.com/</A>
>
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From: Dr. K.J. Walker & Mrs. M.E, Heath <>
Subject: Re: sprags
Date: 13 May 1999 19:06:41 -0500
Dear Richard and Annie,
Usage often varies from place to place, so Richard's definition of
"sprag" may be quite correct.
HOWEVER, I spent most of my teenage years in Victoria, and VR
usage
was different. A SPRAG was something -- generally a steel bar or the
like,
in the USA it would have been one of those brakemans' clubs -- which was
shoved THROUGH THE SPOKES of a wheel in order to inhibit rotation.
(How's
that for posh, eh?) A SCOTCH BLOCK I have always understood to be a
block
placed UNDER a wheel (not under dead-centre, of course, but just to one
side) and between it and the rail, to stop a vehicle rolling. Scotch
blocks
were often made of wood with an iron covering, and were typically a
concave
wedge shape. There was also a hinged scotch block, generally a steel
casting, which could be placed over a rail, or hinged back to allow
passage.
These can still be seen on some lines, and were typically used on minor
sidings or other places where the expense of catch- or trap- points was
not
justified. Modern Indian practice would permit them only in
non-interlocked,
minor stations without full signalling.
Hope that clears things up a bit
Cheers
Ken Walker
-----Original Message-----
From: FyffesFL@aol.email <FyffesFL@aol.email
To: anniepoo@netmagic.email <anniepoo@netmagic.email irfca@cs.email
<irfca@cs.email
Date: Thursday, 13 May 1999 11:39
Subject: Re: sprags
>sprag, a/k/a stop block, is a piece of steel jammed through the spokes
of a
>wheel to prevent it turning. sometimes missused and applied to any
solid
>object used to jam ( or " scotch " ) the wheels
>
>richard yudin
>
From: Vdate <>
Subject: Re: FAQs
Date: 13 May 1999 21:25:50 -0500
A section of Ajmer-Secundarabad MG track is of historical importance.
Soon
after independence, that section was built to connect MG railway tracks
of
South and North India. I can't recall the exact section. Historians,
please
help.
From: Jayant S <>
Subject: Double-decker query
Date: 13 May 1999 21:45:18 -0500
Browsing through the FAQ (Excellent job,
by the way !), I read that there are only
three trains on IR running with double
decker stock.
What is the reason for the low utilisation
of this high-capacity stock ? Loading
gauge restrictions ? Or are they not
really operationally suitable for IR
needs ? I remember the Pune-Mumbai
Sinhagadh Express being a DD train
until a couple of years ago, now it
is run with conventional stock.
Any musings would be welcome......
--
Jayant S
--
From: John Lacey <>
Subject: MG link
Date: 13 May 1999 22:26:31 -0500
Vdate@aol.email wrote:
>
> A section of Ajmer-Secundarabad MG track is of historical importance.
Soon
> after independence, that section was built to connect MG railway
tracks of
> South and North India. I can't recall the exact section. Historians,
please
> help.
Construction of the Khandwa-Hingoli Rail Link was sanctioned by the
Railway Board on March 1, 1954 ( various proposals had been considered
starting in 1882). The enire link was opened to goods traffic on
November1, 1960.
>From M.A.Rao Indian Railways ( Delhi 1975) p101-103.
-John
From: Jayant S <>
Subject: Wheel chocks
Date: 14 May 1999 03:17:38 -0500
<A HREF="http://web.ukonline.co.uk/c.baker3/rail/pics/steam_1.html">http://web.ukonline.co.uk/c.baker3/rail/pics/steam_1.html</A>
There is a picture of BR71000 here with
orange wheel chocks (sprags ?) in place.
JS