Friday 2010-09-03 Dev. update and Discussions

[Igo kyu]

Originally Posted by Novotny

When members of the public post something they think is important they should remember that this is something they only think about in passing - it's not as if they earn their daily bread on this subject.

This might be news to many, but you heard it here first: Oleg's team are employed because they are experts in their field, with access to experts on WW2 flight.

Please read that again.

This might be news to many, but you heard it here first: Oleg's team are employed because they are experts in their field, with access to experts on WW2 flight.

So, could you all possibly just stop for a minute and ask yourself: hey, I think I know a lot: but am I actually paid for my knowledge? Is that a no? Then, perhaps is it possible I don't know as much as someone who is paid for their expertise?

Their expertise on WW2 Russian aircraft is probably irreproachable, and they are pretty good on the RAF.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: nearmiss has much more patience than me. I'd ban anyone making stupid remarks. You spoil this forum for everyone, as 1C become ever more reluctant to speak with the idiots who misunderstand their work and then post stupid criticism.

Stupid criticisms or not, I know more about UK railways than anyone who thinks that level crossings without gates or signals were common in the UK in the 1940s. The railways as shown in the image in the first post are knackered, useless, rotten.

Sure, in a flight sim the railways don't matter, trivia about head sizes is more important, that is at least fixable if it's really wrong, which I doubt.

Meanwhile, one of the world's great railway systems lies utterly broken.

There was a branch line, it barely survived the Beeching axe in the 1960s, do you know how the British got it across an inconvenient valley? We built a viaduct.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pensford

On the western side of the village is a viaduct on the disused Bristol and North Somerset Railway, built in 1873 but closed to trains in 1968 after the great flood of Pensford, after which it was deemed unsafe. The last passenger train had been earlier: the 9:25 a.m. from Frome to Bristol on 31 October 1959; after that there were only goods trains (mainly bringing coal from Radstock), which ceased in 1964, and very occasional excursion trains. Pensford viaduct is 995 feet (303 m) long, reaches a maximum height of 95 feet (29 m) to rail level and consists of sixteen arches. The viaduct is now a Grade II listed building.

It's not of itself important, or a significant target, but it goes to show how much money was spent in the UK to to make the railways efficient and therefore profitable. Cuttings and embankments were cheaper, and thus much more widely used.

The one thing there weren't, were unmarked unguarded level crossings, where a random car could destroy or delay an important train, or an unimportant train could delay an important car.

[JVM]

Originally Posted by Igo kyu

Stupid criticisms or not, I know more about UK railways than anyone who thinks that level crossings without gates or signals were common in the UK in the 1940s. The railways as shown in the image in the first post are knackered, useless, rotten.

It's not of itself important, or a significant target, but it goes to show how much money was spent in the UK to to make the railways efficient and therefore profitable. Cuttings and embankments were cheaper, and thus much more widely used.

The one thing there weren't, were unmarked unguarded level crossings, where a random car could destroy or delay an important train, or an unimportant train could delay an important car.

I agree wholeheartedly about train importance...The situation was quite different in France, not concerning the importance given to railways system (it must have been on par with the British one), but in the way it dealt with the environment: like in UK embankments and cuttings were largely used, but almost only on the main gauge network.
It was not so on the narrow gauge network, which was using occasionally embankments but few cuttings. Most of the time the train was going along the landscape, and this gives the narrow gauge network a very much different aspect from the main gauge one. These two networks were complementary and saw much use during all of the war as it was the only "mass" transportation mean left...as it was using coal, not fuel.

In opposition to the English system unguarded and unmarked level crossings were many (almost all of the narrow gauge system used them), and no fences exist on either network railroad, except maybe in large towns.

Like I said to Oleg railways are very much a structuring feature of the landscape as well as a great target. And this not mentioning other great targets like the so well recognizable steam depots and marshalling yards...and the very special network used by the Germans in Pas de Calais after July 1940 to move and fire the K5 and K12 very long range guns of the "EisenBahn Artillerie"...

JV