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The camera never lies :)

mp55aec

Entry posted by mp55aec

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blog-0425802001347887299.pngAbout thirty years ago I had a 'Saturday" job in specialist model railway retailer in Birmingham namely called Just Continental as simply they only sold at that time 'Just Continental", in fact to this day i still keep in contact with the owner who has moved on to other aspects of model retailing. At the time I was gradually building up a nice collection of French HO items and began to construct a small terminal station layout, unfortunately due to discovering 'females" the layout never got completed and i sold the finished four boards to Totally Trains in Ross on Wye.

At the time besides odd trips to France, Continental Modeller and the old Euro Model Rail magazine you were limited to a phone call to a fellow modeller to get advice on infrastructure and other railway methods used in continental Europe. 'God save the World Wide Web".

On construction of my SNCF layout I had it stuck in my head that as they drove on the right in France they must surely drive on the right on the railways too so duly placed working colour light signals on the layout accordingly, it was a later conversation with a member of the SNCF society that I discovered my mistake,,,. I didn't fancy up routing all the signals and filling in the baseboard holes where wires were meant to be cabled and asked, what he would do?. Well in the Alsace region they do run on the right as when the region became part of France after WW1 there were already railways operating to German right hand running so it was adopted for the region for the same reason as my HO blunder, infrastructure demanded it.

 

So with the construction of my Norwegian layout, I have the best information highway anybody could ever want, the internet, youtube is simply a god send for information, train formation, infrastructure, station and building architecture, everything, you can actually travel for five hours in the cab from Bergen to Oslo and this gives all information that I need, no expensive flight, books etc etc

 

Part one is here for your pleasure--

(P.S. my blog picture above is 'Dag H" the poster used on 3/9/67 when Sweden changed the rule of the road from left to right)

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7rWhCqsh2I&feature=plcp

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Mikkel
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I've heard these videos have been a huge hit in Norway. Thousands watch them, it seems. I'm not sure it would work anywhere else in the world (except among enthusiasts of course). Very Norwegian :-)

 

I can see how it must be a great source of info for your project though. I look forward to following it, as I like what little I know of Norwegian railways.

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SNCF stephen

It is interesting stuff. There are some videos on youtube of the trip from Pairs to Limoges in the cab. They are quite interesting. I am a bit sad that the Just Continental shop is gone as that would have been very interesting to have visited. However times have moved on again and while we have the internet for information and the like we also have it for better prices and easier access to a wider variety of goods than most shops could hope to provide.

 

Can you tell me where the shop was once located?

 

Stephen

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mp55aec

The shop was in a rather savory area,,the main A34 in Newtown about 2 miles out of the city I worked there from 1984 until 1988 to fund my college but also enjoyed staff discount :) he gradually changed over to Die Cast models when he relocated to Staffordshire in 1990 but unfortunately the business became insolvent.

 

I remember when a roco electric loco like the BB15000 was

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czetie

I'm a couple of years late to this thread, but I had that Saturday job too! This would have been around 1980. At the time, there was no shop. We did exhibitions and "swap meet" type events (and he also sold through mail order, with ads in the magazines of the day). Most weekends it meant an early start on a Saturday morning to load up the van, drive to the venue, and set up. Work all day, then break down and load out. Often, fish and chips in the van on the way home. Easily the best times of my teenage years.

 

And then my family moved away and I had to give it up. Our new house had no room for a layout and I drifted away from the hobby, and lost contact. And now, randomly googling, I find two people who had that same job after me!

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