grendel

well then - setting out to not catch it must be the answer.

why - we had a lovely log fire going in the middle of the floor

and just to prove it I have evidence - now this would make a nice teaching space, 30 odd kids at a time, and we bought it off with a budget of under £1000 by buying the 'thatch' from the film makers of Robin Hood (it had only had one of the stuntmen fall through it - it was in 3m wide panels held together with wire twisted through), now I reckon I could still knock up something similar under about £3000 for the Acle site.

well only in as much as it is long, a true longhouse would have crossed end beams, a lower pitch on the roof and either a thatched roof or turfs. how do I know - I once built a 32 foot viking longhouse for re-enactment that went to shows at Maldon and Lindisfarne.

glad you got it sorted, now take it easy and make a full recovery.

probably on ticky tack

but its the best time to go shopping - empty shops, quick service at the tills, empty roads to drive there and back.

missed what?

there was a song written many years ago, and that reflects my opinions on most architects plans I have seen - though there are a few exceptions. the lyrics of this song are as follows - though I may have a biased outlook on this as the area we are working is generally London, who knows, elsewhere in the country the aesthetics of the building may hold some sway, rather than just how many apartments they can cram into how small a space for the maximum return.

Except over recent years the frequency is hardly occasionally, its more like every other week in the summer, sometimes every day

its not true I tell you, I have never seen MM eating lettuce

It strikes me that forum members have forgotten that the sugar factory at Cantley still relies on being able to deliver new equipment to their factory by sea / river, most of these deliveries will exceed any air draft under the bridges, so at the very least Haven Bridge and Reedham will have to be kept operational, lets not get hung up on shutting the bridges for navigation, to my mind this is not an option, shipping may at present no longer trade up to Norwich and Beccles, but with the new green legislations being brought in - shipping by small coaster may well become a viable option again in the future.

the difference is during the winter when the river is frozen the bridge doesnt swing

right this moment on quest they are discussing changing out the winter rails on a swing bridge in Canada.

there is an interesting article here https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/63bc/a5bb34813f19ea20ce56121eed574624ed7a.pdf on the expansion of bridges with and without Continuous welded rail, this also allows for the expansion in the rails caused by braking and acceleration of the trains. I an not certain I understand all of it, or how it relates to swing bridges, but it was an interesting read.

there is a possibility that a worn set of rails was discarded alongside the track, which people now associate as an alternative set for summer use, but then the same could be said if they were a shorter set for summer use, they too would be stored at the location needed.

In reality the change is that in years gone by manpower to change out the tracks was cheap and plentiful, I surmise that they were only changed twice a year, for maybe three or four months over the summer months, the trains ran on looser tolerances than modern track, so a slightly larger gap between sections was not considered a problem. I have not worked on the track, but I do have family that do / have. my father worked doing time and motion study for british rail, I myself have worked in one of our offices trackside at lewisham where we were doing transformer replacements for national Rail, so I do have some understanding and have seen changes introduced that reduced the manpower available. Dont forget though, that the expansion will not just be the track, the whole framework of the bridge will expand due to the heat, this was why I posed the question, whether it was purely the rail expansion,that was the cause, not the expansion of other parts of the structure too.

qualified or not - we all have a right to say it looks good or it looks ugly - thats down to having an eye for things of beauty - one doesnt need to be an architect for that. having seen some of the monstrosities that come from architects (and I have to work with their drawings on a daily basis) they certainly dont win prizes for beauty in my book, or accuracy sometimes, when they cant even line up the electrical risers between floors.

I am certain you are incorrect there Marshman, there were several of us putting forth ideas for this proposal, despite the authority not actually owning all of the land shown in their proposal. did you put forward a proposal? they limited the competition to architects, so when I put forward a suggestion that we submit one we would have needed an architect to come forward to submit it. You seem to think everyone here dislikes the BA - not true, they do many good things, but they also excel at getting things wrong at times, and throwing away the toll payers money, its that getting things wrong that people dislike, not the dedicated staff that run things.

ok lets call them short rails then, we dont want to get hung up on technical names, but before we get too involved in the length of the rails, are we sure that this is the issue that stops the bridge opening, perhaps the locking pins expand and jam?

is the steel of all 4 pieces the same composition, there must be steels with a lower expansion coefficient.

get rid of the big locos, replace them with steam engines, replace the long weld rail wit 60 ft clickety clack rails and you have a grade 1 tourist attraction that can also be used to transport the local workers, better still get a steam enthusiast group to run it and maintain the bridges, it might not make a fortune, but it might just pay its way, the volunteers would get the bridges working by maybe replacing the summer rails twice a year as it used to work. you are then selling the route as a tourist experience, would probably be able to get lottery funding.

paint the whole piece white, not just the ends - better still polish them to a mirror finish.

I think it may be something added by the forum software developers to comply with GDPR, but I am not 100% sure on that (why would I be, I just implement the technical side of this place).