Friday 16 May 2014

Train manufacture in Derby

A chance Tweet on NSB's timeline brought the news that 2014 was the 175th anniversary of the start of Railway engine and rolling stock manufacture at Derby, and was being celebrated with the "Derby 175" programme of events.

Crikey, thought NSB, how interesting! And wondered what types of trains had been made in Derby, and of what types.

Surprisingly this information did not appear to be readily available on the Internet (although the Internet has been able to collect such lists as a full set of races featured in Star Trek ) - Go figure !

So NSB did some digging, the results of which is the (still far from exhaustive) list below of engines and rolling stock made at Derby over the decades.

(NB: "Year" is first year of manufacture, many series with 10 or fewer omitted from list)

0-6-0, 1875

MR 480 Class : 1863, 97 steam locomotives
MR 156 Class : 1866, 29 steam locomotives
1667 Class : 1876, 20 steam locomotives
MR 700 Class : 1869, 26 steam locomotives
890 Class : 1871, 62 steam locomotives
0-6-0 series : 1875, 160 steam locomotives
1377 Class : 1878, 165 steam locomotives
1667 Class : 1876, 20 steam locomotives
1377 Class : 1878, 165 steam locomotives
1400 Class : 1879, 30 steam locomotives

1377 Class, 1878

1532 Class : 1881, 65 steam locomotives
1562 Class : 1882, 30 steam locomotives
1738 Class : 1885, 20 steam locomotives
1808 Class : 1888, 25 steam locomotives
1823 Class : 1889, 50 steam locomotives
2203 Class : 1893, 30 steam locomotives
1121 Class : 1895, 55 steam locomotives
156 Class : 1896, 20 steam locomotives
60 Class : 1898, 40 steam locomotives
25 Class : 1887, 18 steam locomotives

Class 3 Belpiere, 1900

1853 Class : 1893, 42 steam locomotives
179 Class : 1893, 10 steam locomotives
115 Class : 1896, 15 steam locomotives
2601 Class : 1899, 10 steam locomotives
Class 3 Belpaire : 1900, 80 steam locomotives
1000 Class : 1905, 40 steam locomotives
2000 Class : 1907, 40 steam locomotives
3835 Class : 1911, 142 steam locomotives
483 Class : 1912, 157 steam locomotives
MR 5-ton and 10-ton wagons : 1913, 13,250 wagons

BR 108, 1958

BR Standard Class 4 2-6-4T : 1951, 15 steam locomotives
BR standard class 5 : 1951, 130 steam locomotives
BR Class 6 : 1951, 10 steam locomotives
BR Standard Class 4 2-6-0 : 1952, 45 steam locomotives
Derby Leightweight : 1954, 219 trainsets, 1-4 cars per trainset
BR Class 24 : 1958, ?? diesel locomotives
BR Class 108 : 1958, 333 cars (in 2-4 car trainsets)
BR Class 107 : 1960, 26 trainsets, 3 cars per trainset

Class 46, 1961

BR Class 25 : 1961, ?? diesel locomotives
BR Class 44 : 1959, 10 diesel locomotives
BR Class 45 : 1960, ?? diesel locomotives
BR Class 46 : 1961, 56 diesel locomotives
BR Mark 3 Carriages : 1975, 848 carriages
Sleeper Either Class : 1982, 208 carriages
BR Class 142 : 1985, 96 trainsets, 2 cars per trainset
BR Class 144 : 1986, 23 trainsets, 2-3 cars per trainset
BR Class 442 : 1998, 24 trainsets, 5 cars per trainset

Class 142, 1985

BR Class 158 : 1989, 182 trainsets, 2-3 cars per trainset
LUL 1992 Stock : 1993, 85 trainsets, 8 cars per trainset
BR Class 482 : 1993, 10 underground trainsets, 2 cars per trainset
BR Class 325 : 1995, 16 trainsets, 4 cars per trainset
BR Class 168 : 1998, ?? trainsets, 4 cars per trainset
Class 170 : 1998, 122 trains, 2-3 cars per trainset
Class 171 : 2003, 16 trainsets ,2-4 cars per trainset

Class 482, 1993

Class 357 : 1999, 74 trainsets, 4 cars per trainset
Class 375 : 2001, 140 trainsets, 3-4 cars per trainset
Class 376 : 2004, 36 trainsets, 5 cars per trainset
Class 377 : 2003, 203 trainsets, 3-5 cars per trainset
Class 378 : 2009, 57 trainsets, 4 cars per trainset
LUL 2009 Stock : 2009, 47 trainsets, 8 cars per trainset
LUL S7 and S8 Stock : 2009, 191 trainsets, 7-8 carriages per train
Class 379 : 2010, 30 trainsets, 4 cars per trainset

Class 172 : 2010, 39 trainsets, 2-3 cars per trainset
377 Class, 2003


Related Content
Coal Mining in Nottingham
Mining Memories
History of Coal Mining in the East Midlands
From the Tate Modern to Lanarkshire

(NB: This Wiki page also used extensively in this post.

Image Sources:
1377 Class, Class 3 Belpiere, BR standard class 5, BR 108 , Class 46, Class 142, Class 482, Class 377 , 0-6-0

Wednesday 14 May 2014

PubhD in Nottingham

2014 has seen the arrival in Nottingham of the "PudhD" format of public speaking events.

The format is simple : The three PhD student speakers get 10mins each to talk about their subject area to an audience in a pub, with 20mins of Q&A afterwards. In return, they get a free drink!

You can find out more about the Nottingham events at www.pubhd.wordpress.com

Winningly (and rather unusually for organisations that hold similar events) PubhD actually go to the trouble of writing a little summary of what the speakers said, so those (like NSB) who could not attend are able to get at least some of the benefit of the talks.

Links to the reviews are shown below, together with a few comments on the items that particuarly caught the attention of NSB.

[more shortly]

2nd Notingham Pubhd,
Featuring talks on Literature for Empathy, Cell Signalling in Roots and Simulations of Galaxy and Star Development.

NSB particularly noted the comments from Stephanie Smith (who talked about root signalling) about Norman Borlaug, the plant expert who developed high yield, disease resistant wheat varieties, and introduced them to Mexico, Pakistan, and India - dramatically increasing production.

And Julan Onions talk on the research into the the way the universe was created made NSB think of interview given by Prof Aragon-Salamanca on that same subject. (see also reports on related public talks/interviews by Dr Mark Wilkinson, Dr Haida Laing, Chris Lintott, Prof Aragon-Salamanca (again) , Chris Lintott(again) and Prof Farouk El-Baz).

1st Nottingham PubhD Event
With talks on Pompeii, Thin Film Sensors and Support Groups in Prisons.

Sunday 11 May 2014

May Fest 2014 in Pictures (Part 2)

May Fest is the University of Nottingham's annual open day for the local community. It is an awesome event, with plenty to interest adults and children alike. Much like the Science Museum in London, there is simply so much stuff going on that you cannot see it all in the one day!

This, Part 2 (Part 1 here)of a report on the 2014 Mayfest, has a few picturesfrom the various talks that were held on the day...

The most poplar talk, buy far, is the "Thunder and Lightning" show held by the Chemistry department. It is very loud. Kids love it! (and there was some really entertaining patter from the presenters too!)

Bit of a queue forming for the legendary, and spectacular, Chemisty Lecture

The "Extreme Materials" talk about how materials can show extreme propeties looked good from the outset...

Always a good sign to see one of these at the start of a sciency talk...

... because there is a good chance that it will be needed !

Showing how a composite of glass and glue can be very strong indeed

Meanwhile, the Physics Department had a very well attended talk, passionately presented by Dave Farmer, that explained a little about electricity and magnetism, and included a (genuinely useful) analogy to the "Gauntlet" game in 1990s show "Gladiators" - and showing how electrical resistance in very cold materials is lower as the atoms will be vibrating less.

Big crowd at the Phyics lecture on electricity...

..which began with the handing out of balloons...

...yes, balloons. Which the audience rubbed on clothing
and then used to make peoples hair stand on end!

Dave moving easily through "Cold" (i.e. still) team members
(you can see him as a ghostly shadow between 2nd and 3rd person)

Lightning! That can play tunes!

May Fest 2015 - Bring it on!

May Fest 2014 in Pictures (Part 1)

May Fest is the University of Nottingham's annual open day for the local community. It is an awesome event, with plenty to interest adults and children alike. Much like the Science Museum in London, there is simply so much stuff going on that you cannot see it all in the one day!

As has often been the case, NSB visited the event with No1 and No3 Sons. The latter described the event afterwards with the single word "Indescribable!"

May Fest 2014 - What an event!

Incidentally, you can click on the following links to read NSBs reports on the 2013
and 2012 May Fests - they are certainly worth looking at as quite a few of the exhibitors are May Fest stalwarts and this 2014 report is focussed on things that were new to NSB:

One of the first things that attracted No3 Son was the "Little Bits" components that could be joined together to quickly make circuits, a bit like Raspberry Pi for electronics.


Click together "power sources", "inputs" and "outputs" to make citcuits !

While NSB and No1 son had a bash an naming different types of brassicas. NSB asked the researchers what the "heart" in a cauliflower was and was amazed to learn that it was a set of mutant flower heads (although a few flowers were still produced to allow the plant to reproduce). Apparantly, this mutation ocurred sometime in the last few hundred years, so William the Conquerer could not ever have had the pleasure of eating dished like "Cauliflower Cheese" or, indeed, "Keema Ghobi".

Many types of brassicas on display - can you guess their names?

The researchers also explained that the plant Aradopsis is used a lot in plant research, and one of its mutations is similar to that shown in the hearts of cauliflowers. You can read more about this here.

It turns out that the The Nottingham Arabidopsis Stock Centre (NASC), based at the Sutton Bonington Campus, provides seed and information resources to the International Arabidopsis Genome Project and the wider research community!

Arabidopsis - a useful plant in research

Something else that NSB thought was pretty cool was a display allowing children (and the occasional adult!) to make circuits using conductive ink "wires". NSB went all-out and made a circuit with a switch!

NSB make a circuit with a switch and everything!
(love the conductive ink "wires")

Oculus Rift. If you know what that means, then you know what that means! No1 Son was very impressed. NSB needed to use it sitting down....


Oculus Rift - the future, here today!

Interesting to talk to researchers about immunisation, and learnt that drugs like "Tamiflu" are "anti-virals" which are a different thing entirely.

Explaining immunisation

May Fest also has a "Community Section", where NSB spent some time talking about Foodbanks and how people could challenge local councils etc on the issues that they were having to deal with.

The Community section of May Fest

This made NSB chuckle....

Academics have their own jokes...

Whilst talking to the reserchers who were investigating the characteristics of proteins, found out that anyone can download protein structures from the "Protein Data Bank" and then visualise them using the Pymol sofware. Wow!

Proteins are awesome!

One of the most entrancing displays was this set of pendulums and lights in the Physics building. As the lenghts of the different strings were known, the students knew in advance where each light would be at any particualar time. They had programmed the lights to glow in different ways depending in which pendulums were in synch. After two minutes, the pendulums were all in in phase again and the display could be restarted.

NSB wonders whether he could program something similar in Excel......

Very clever stuff involving pendulums and lights !

Worth mentioning that there were whole sections of the event, especially those related to history and the social sciences, that NSB didn't get the chance to visit - there is simply too much stuff for one day!

Click here for Part 2 to read about the May Fest talks that NSB and co attended...