bignosemac went on a train today!

[whole diary]

[JayMac]

After selling my car in Yeovil today (socially distanced of course) I had to take to public transport to get home. I took the bus out to Yeovil Junction to catch the train back to Templecombe.

I sold the car to realise some much needed funds. And to save on the tax and insurance costs of having it sat doing nothing during lockdown.

As expected, Yeovil Junction, the train and Templecombe were all very quiet. Only myself boarding at Yeovil, just one other person in my chosen carriage, and three of us alighting at Templecombe.

My return to the rails wasn't without hiccup though. SWR^» (South Western Railway - about) welcomed me back with a delay. Multiple axle counter failures between Templecombe and Sherborne. This lead to us being talked past signals and running at reduced speed. My journey time was 29 minutes instead of 14. So, my first rail journey in many months is eligible for Delay Repay. I've done that claim online and donated the payment due to charity. Despite some financial straits I can get by without the ?1.43, 25% of the cost of my ?5.70 single.

It was nice to have a ride on the rails, albeit just a short journey. Thankfully I wasn't going the other way. Flooding has now closed the line between Yeovil Junction and Axminster.

Some pictures.

[Bmblbzzz]

Slightly envious. 

Hope your new funds tide you and [embarrassingly I've forgotten the name of your dog  :-[] over for a while.

[JayMac]

Finn.

I wisely left him home today. He can't hold a brolly!

[Gordon the Blue Engine]

I don't know who the preserved blue ICI tank belongs to, but they need to correct "MAX WORKING PRESSURE 15LBS".  Pressure is Force /Area, so I presume they mean 15LBS/SQ. INCH. 

[JayMac]

I don't know who the preserved blue ICI tank belongs to, but they need to correct "MAX WORKING PRESSURE 15LBS".  Pressure is Force /Area, so I presume they mean 15LBS/SQ. INCH. 

The ICI wagon is in the Yeovil Railway Centre opposite Yeovil Junction Station.

[Red Squirrel]

I don't know who the preserved blue ICI tank belongs to, but they need to correct "MAX WORKING PRESSURE 15LBS".  Pressure is Force /Area, so I presume they mean 15LBS/SQ. INCH. 

A quick google suggests that the working pressure of these wagons was stated without reference to squinches. Maybe they were taken as read?

[Oxonhutch]

Now I am a mere geologist, but I have handled nitric acid in its fuming form, and which when mixed with hydrochloric acid makes aqua regia that dissolves metallic gold.

Top tip: don't splash yourself with this stuff as your fingernails turn brown and the stainless steel crash sink that one emergency rinses oneself in, will immediately rust and rot away!  It was many years ago ...

Do we have any chemists amongst us? As nitric acid is a liquid, why - and indeed how - would it be transported under pressure? Or is the 15 lbs(/sq. in.) 'absolute' and therefore at atmospheric pressure only?

[grahame]

I don't know who the preserved blue ICI tank belongs to, but they need to correct "MAX WORKING PRESSURE 15LBS".  Pressure is Force /Area, so I presume they mean 15LBS/SQ. INCH. 

Ah - preservation (as it was in when in real use) or heritage (old fashioned but good for current use)

Unless there is a requirement to ship acid around the yard at Yeovil, I suggest it's best as it as.

[stuving]

Do we have any chemists amongst us? As nitric acid is a liquid, why - and indeed how - would it be transported under pressure? Or is the 15 lbs(/sq. in.) 'absolute' and therefore at atmospheric pressure only?

Nitric acid has to be transported in sealed tanks to prevent any of the oxides of nitrogen (generically called NOX because they are noxious, at least in the wrong place) getting out. So the headspace, and the air and fumes in it, would be pressurised. There will be a stipulated maximum filling level to stop the pressure in this headspace going too high as the temperature varies.

[Red Squirrel]

...generically called NOX because they are noxious, at least in the wrong place...

They're NO_x, where x can be 1 or 2. 'Noxious' has its roots in the Latin word for 'injury'. Air pollution buffs talk of both SOx and NOx.

Apologies if you were joking! 

[JayMac]

I never expected a chemistry lesson when I started this thread. 

[stuving]

...generically called NOX because they are noxious, at least in the wrong place...

They're NO_x, where x can be 1 or 2. 'Noxious' has its roots in the Latin word for 'injury'. Air pollution buffs talk of both SOx and NOx.

Apologies if you were joking! 

I was and I wasn't - whatever the origins, the reason for the term becoming popular was the coincidence. And 'x' would not otherwise be the only or most obvious one, particularly as nitrogen doesn't confine itself to integer values. Atmospheric chemists do appear to have adopted a more restrictive definition, which is their business I guess.

[Oxonhutch]

At a molecular level, I would expect nitrogen, like other good atoms, to react in an integer sort of way. But variable mixtures of NO, N20, NO2 and even N2O5 add up to various values of 'x' in NO_x.

[Oxonhutch]

A nice little aqua regia tale: Niels Bohr, Danish physicist and Nobel Prize winner, 1885-1962.

From Wikipedia:

In April 1940, early in the Second World War, Nazi Germany invaded and occupied Denmark. To prevent the Germans from discovering Max von Laue's and James Franck's gold Nobel medals, Bohr had de Hevesy dissolve them in aqua regia. In this form, they were stored on a shelf at the Institute until after the war, when the gold was precipitated and the medals re-struck by the Nobel Foundation. Bohr's own medal had been donated to an auction to the Fund for Finnish Relief, and was auctioned off in March 1940, along with the medal of August Krogh.

[JayMac]

One thread drift already. So here's another.

As I post this the time is 2121:21 on the 21st day of the 21st year of the 21st century.