The Greatest Small Train in the World (BLR) is the mileage (71 km) 1.25 in (32 mm) model O train from Fort William to Inverness City, the two largest settlements in the Highlands Scotland. It has been described as a frenzied project to run the Great Glen Way long train model by the mad crazy army, geeks, and engineers in the eccentric best English spirit.
Video The Biggest Little Railway in the World
Project
The project is headed by Dick Strawbridge, MBE. It is supported by television production under the same name as the train. Production teams and security staff are also required to assist the project.
Project management
The project takes months to plan. It is described as operating an evil complexity. Calls were made to 56 volunteers who were determined to be needed for the project. There are planning meetings at the beginning of each day. Some disagreements occur but are overcome by spirit and friendship.
Team
Engineers Claire Barratt and Hadrian Spooner who have worked on engineering projects such as Scrapheap Challenge and Salvage Squad also act as part of a credited professional team.
A team of 56 volunteers built and operated the channel with help from local volunteers.
Community engagement
The local community also assists companies at various points including the Inverness and District Model Railway Club which provides model stations and castles for train arrivals.
Related projects
The Invergarry and Fort Augustus Railway, opened by Victorians in 1903 and closed in 1946, have been connected to the main line at Spean Bridge. It speculates a final destination equal to the BLR, to reach Inverness even though the effort was abandoned. In 2009 James May attempted to beat the OO Gauge's longest record. while it was understood a team in Hamburg, Germany holding a record of almost 8 miles (13 km) from 2011.
Maps The Biggest Little Railway in the World
Route
The route starts at Corpach Double Lock near Fort William and tracks the Great Glen Way past Fort Augustus to Inverness which ends at Inverness Castle. The line and infrastructure has been revoked and little evidence remains.
Upon leaving Corpach Double Lock, the track follows the southern edge of the Caledonian canal for about a mile to the ferry pontoon in Banavie. A ferry crossing is required under a road and rail bridge to the first key of Neptune Staircase. The route continued on the southern edge of the canal to Gairlochy before crossing into the northern bank. Following the north shore of Loch Lochy through some winding and challenging terrain and forest, the line finally reached a good ground before just before the Arkaig River. After nearly ten miles of good fast lane, the line flashed into the southern bank at Laggan Locks over the truss bridge. The line joins the Invergarry and Fort Augustus Railway lines through the Loch Oich tunnel and along the coastline to cross the Calendonian Canal on the Aberchalder Hanging Bridge. Five miles of fast-paced lanes to Fort Augustus took place including across the spectacular Aberchalder Spillway Viaduct. After Fort Augustus the line enters the hills and mountains. The Inchnacardon Canyon sidewalk bridge leads to Inch Mountain's rising train by railway system. Trace the north west side of Loch Ness before rounding Mount Sron na Muic (pig snout), the line goes down to Invermoriston. Zig-zag on Mount Invermoriston is overcome by a rail system before running along with Loch Ness before descending to Drumnadochit. The original rack and pinion system used for the climbing of Creag Nay is discarded and the train must be assisted by temporary cranes. Ten miles farther along Loch Ness brings a close line to Mac Gruer Pond where Inverness Town first appeared. The line goes down past the Asylum, across to the helix spiral that raises it to the tunnel channel. The line finally passes through the Ness Islands before the last mile to Terminus in Inverness Castle.
Engineering
BLR must overcome the canal obstacles, fields, roads, lakes, drops, mountains, hills and obstacles.
The main challenge
Track
Find the appropriate path. The conventional track cost of about Ã, Â £ 7 per meter makes 70 miles unfeasible from a cost standpoint alone. Without a viable path solution, the project will become nonstarter. The suggestion for extruding the trajectory means 32 tonnes of recycled PVC can be driven through dies for 40,000 straights and curves that solve economically and effectively problems and allow schemes to go beyond the stage of the idea
BLR overcame the obstacles of the main railway bridge followed by a road crossing in Banavie with the construction and operation of a train crane and ferry to help overcome the water void.
Laggan Key channel channel
Trains needed to cross the canals in Laggan 57,033 Â ° N 4,813 Â ° W / 57,033; -4,813 . The A82 road at this point uses a swing bridge and is determined. The Greatest World's Greatest Railway will not use this. The solution is to use a truss bridge. The bridge was later reused at Caledonian Helix.
Aberchalder Spillway
Cross the Spillway Aberchalder 57.095366Ã, Â ° N 4.741556Ã, Â ° W / 57.095366; -4.741556 , which is bridged with viaduct 60 meters (200 feet). The team was furious when Dick Strawbridge confirmed that the Little John Electric Battery Locomotive was used for iconic junctions.
This feature initially seems to have a variety of terms called ford or weir by the project while spillway seems to be right, the weir becomes farther to the southwest.
Inchnacardoch Canyon
The railway has difficulty bridging the gap above Inchnacardoch Canyon 57Ã, Â ° 09? 14? N 4Ã, Â ° 41? 03? W to the north of Fort Augustus. The Great Glen Way uses a trail that is not feasible to train around this feature. A suspension bridge is not an option because a curve is required between the entry and exit points. Uneven soil contours increase the challenge. The preferred solution is the trestle bridge. The trackbed is secured to a series of pre-ordered a-frames that provide great strength when using wood in minimal quantities. The entry and exit points are at different levels with the required fine gradient throughout. The construction team uses the Archimedes principle and a long tube that clearly contains a liquid to form a datum height at every two points on the site so that a consistent gradient can be calculated. When construction is in progress, it is known that the exit will require a radius curve that is too tight for the train to surround. The solution is to extend the bridge further to a different point where the corresponding curve can be reached on exit. The resulting structure is a 905 inch (23.0 m) reversed curved sloping arch wooden bridge that is proven to be capable of even supporting 65 kilograms (143 lb) of humans. Silver Lady managed to negotiate the Bridge by driving carefully by Andy though the lack of a dividing wall could be a disaster in the event of a derailment.
Inch Mountain
Mountain Inch is the name of BLR for climbing the Great Glen Way to a height in the Inchnacardoch forest. 57Ã, Â ° 09? 14? N 4Ã, Â ° 41? 03? W The climb exceeds even the 17% maximum gradient of Silver Women. Since the route can be divided into a relatively small number of relatively straight sections, the balancing train solution is selected. This is a form of cable cart with a train that weighs about the same as dropping on the parallel path mounted by the cable through the pulley at the top of the climb. In this exercise, Silver Lady II's sister locomotive is used as a counterweight and locomotives attain sufficient adhesiveness to carry the Silver Lady up the hill.
Invermoriston Mountain
Challenges at Mount Invermoriston 57 Â ° 13? 03? N 4Ã, Â ° 36? 24? W is to overcome a series of zig-zag gradients. The preferred solution is to build a hand-held winch that can be mounted to the locomotive via cable. The navvies find an efficient pathway construction method on this site by obtaining a quad bike to drop a track bundle at the top of the slope that allows the navvy to merge only with the length of the trajectory above in a sitting position and gravity feeding the trajectory down the slope. In practice, the winch system proved to be very effective.
Creag Nay
Climbing Creag Nay 57Ã, Â ° 22? N 4Ã, Â ° 25? W presents the issue of the spinning track, bad terrain and steep climb. It was decided the rack and pinion system would be most effective. The flexible cogged belt is attached to a wooden stick attached to the center of the track. This is involved with the gears mounted on the axle of the Silver Lady . The navvies completed the construction successfully, despite wet climatic conditions disrupting the adhesive. Testing with the gear wheel provided proved successful but unfortunately there was no testing with the real locomotive before the first train took place. When attempted operationally it was found that although it succeeded in causing the locomotive to climb the gradient, the center belt of the tooth was mounted too high which meant the locomotive did not rest properly on both rails and had an extreme tendency to roll over. Therefore the belt is unplugged and the winch system improvised based on the electric drill used to help the locomotive up the slope.
Caledonian Helix
At the point of Great Road Glen rejoining Caledonian Channel on the outskirts of Inverness there are 5 meters (16 feet) near the vertical climb in limited space. This is solved by a spiral loop solution that corresponds to the minimum 2ft Silver Lady curve radius and limits it to a maximum gradient of 8%. The solution also reuses the truss bridge from the Laggan Locks canal crossing.
Rolling stock
Silver Lady's Class
The Silver Lady Class locomotive is the development of the Lady Anne Class but it features emerging chassis, top up water system and other detail improvements.
Silver Lady
Silver Lady finishes running from Fort William to Inverness while being relieved by Little John for several sections.
Silver Lady II
The additional Silver Lady grade locomotive is used as a support. It's equipped with the patterned wheel required for extreme climb performance. As well as use on an offsetting climb it is used as an aid locomotive on the hillside section and where urgent repairs are needed for the main locomotive.
Lady Anne's class
The Lady Anne Class is a classic design and a precursor to the Silver Lady Class. Lady Anne
Lady Anne
The Lady Anne is used for driver training and evaluation at the main depot. It also participated in evaluating prototype design testing for Caledonian Helix and stood for Silver Lady on shooting from Aberchalder Viaduct. Little John John
The Little John Class is a 0-4-0 electric locomotive that is modeled on a diesel shunter.
Little John
Little John is a yellow class leader who replaces the Silver Lady when she is serving or when a steam support technician is unavailable at an additional delay in the night. Little John is also involved in special ops support operations such as filming from locomotive driver eyeline. James
This class locomotive Little John gray is used to test the Inchnacardoch Canyon tralis.
Coaching Stock
Wood-style coaching stocks are operated near Fort William only. At least one coach was built by Paul's volunteers. The trainers were easily blown away by throwing the whole train to the side. The weight of an additional ballast placed under one coach may have caused the dislocation of the shaft and the trainer to be irreparable..
Operation
The support staff needed to keep the project going and the train operation mean the total number of people involved outside the local community volunteers around 171.
Track
The tracking team is challenged to try to put an average of 5 miles (8.0 km) of tracks daily.
Train operations
The original scheme is to share driving locomotives among volunteers, but as the Silver Lady is starting to fall critically behind the schedule it is deemed necessary to be dominated by a top-link team consisting of people people experienced with steam that can operate the locomotive smoothly and efficiently. These include Alan, a professional rail driver, model and volunteer train enthusiasts at Severn Valley Railway, and Cameron, an engineering ambassador from St Helens College, a miniature steam train driver, and founder of her own heritage heritage engineering business at the age of 17 years.
Train schedule
Only one trip has ever been made at The Biggest Little Railway in the World, and when the train was delayed on the final arrival trip in Inverness Castle was roughly on time.
Incident
A number of incidents occurred during the construction and operation of the railroad:
- Muliple separator.
- Train Ferry upside down while crossing the first key on Neptune's Staircase.
- Widespread midge attack due to more than 49 million over-pest repellent near Lochaber
- Track deformation due to temperature expansion.
- Loss of the last working quad bike on the Caledonian Canal.
- Two serious dry boilers where the boiler is left empty with heat still used by unattended crew, one after Anchnacarry and one after Fort Augustus. It can weaken or damage the boiler permanently and it may take two to three hours to let cool cool down and get back into the steam after such an event.
Health and safety
Health and safety is a key consideration in this project.
Television series
This project is recorded and supported by television production of the same name. Love Productions was commissioned by Channel 4 to produce the series.
References
External links
The World's Largest Smallest Railway on IMDb
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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