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I think the reference to 3D was about the bricks being embossed rather than any that have been 3D printed. We were talking about Slater's embossed brick sheet. There have been many buildings illustrated on here over the years, often with embossed brickwork from Slaters and other sources. It just happened to be mine that you chose to comment about. You are quite right. It does have rounded corners when you view it on a screen many times life sized. When seen on a layout, you can see the colour and you might just pick what sort of bonding has been used but I certainly can't see rounded corners or closer bricks. The Slaters brick has been around for many years now and the tools for embossing it are clearly worn. As Tony W can't recall the box in question I will put a couple of photos up along with a close up of the brickwork that has rounded corners when you view it this big. Now imagine the number of hours that went into that, including scratchbuilding correct pattern furniture for the interior then putting photos of it up on here to be told by two people that I could have done better on the brickwork! Would that encourage anybody to put any more photos on here?

Well, I'm hoping you'll enjoy what comes next. I certainly did! There you go - bare boards awaiting track don't stay bare long round these parts. The double track formation is continued from the top of Shap bank, round the curve .... ... into a simple piece of trackwork to make use of three roads of the temporarily positioned Shap fiddle yard board. You can never have enough Duettes! Some simple, temporary wiring to get us up and running. Time to dig out some stock! 46206 'Princess Marie Louise' has the honour of hauling the first train and here draws forward to take charge of a shortened 'Royal Scot' rake - max length of this nearest road is nine coaches, so that's the limit for now. This should put it into perspective if you still haven't quite got your bearings. The loco is at the absolute summit, 150mm above 'ground zero'. And now on to a view you might recognise as we glide down the bank. Even at a reduced 9-coach formation, it still looks appropriate for the scene. Now at 'Grand Junction', joining on to the rest of the railway. And on to Bog Junction. Another Shap favourite can be seen here, Tebay's Fowler 4MT tank No. 42424. Any trains requiring banking up Shap will have the banker attached here, an extra litte bit of operational interest for the Bog Junction operator. And now the brakes go on as we approach destination ... ... past the 'work in progress' at the loco stabling sidings. Journey's end. But there's a problem! As can be seen, a train like this is too long for the platform and is past the intended pointwork for any shunting to be done. But we've been here before and there is a plan for the longer term so no worries really. For now, we can just reflect on a successful first run.

I should have included this one, just to raise a smile. The cat is carved from plasticard and the mouse is a blob of solder on a tiny bit of very thin wire.

This morning we visit the Stephenson Railway Museum at Middle Engine Lane, next to Silverlink shops and offices at North Shields. The last photo shows a train returning to Middle Engine Lane from Percy Main. Unless you know the area well you might have some difficulty finding the exact location today. Middle Engine Lane 60019 painted as 2509 Silver Link 1st May 89 C11874.jpg Middle Engine Lane Kitson ex Consett Ironworks Kitson A5 Aug 85 J8413.jpg Middle Engine Lane 12098 and crane 10th Oct 92 C18100.jpg Middle Engine Lane Sanspareil replica Sept 85 J8440.jpg Middle Engine Lane Stephenson Museum Kitson A No5 19th July 87 C8707.jpg Middle Engine Lane Bagnall 401 20th June 92 C16931.jpg David

So this is where I’m at recycling two old Hornby Stanier carriages from the 1970s/1980s. In comparison to today’s offerings they are quite basic – not much is needed though to lift and improve them, which could range from a simple repaint through to ditching about 80 percent of it and replacing it with components or scratch building. I did some analysis and the only monetary difference in cost between doing what I do and buying a complete kit (VAT free for me!) really comes down to the cost of the donor coach. I buy them on ebay, usually heavily damaged for a couple of pounds each. If someone like me doesn’t buy them I figure they’ll likely end up as landfill… The main pleasure, that is hard to put a price on, is the enjoyment of the modelling. These now represent LMS D2161 Brake Third Corridor carriages. They have Comet bogies, Hornby wheels, scratch built underframes (Eileen’s Emporium 1mm brass angle) and Comet components; even after doing about 60 such builds I still haven’t managed to get the fit of the Comet LMS dynamos right! I cut away much of the carriage side and overlay Comet sides after fitting in door stops, hinges. (from ‘T’ door handles) and droplights (although etched on these sides). I file off the plastic roof vents and replace with the correct style dependant on prototype. I add various bits of detail (filler pipes, gangway suspension brackets, lamp brackets electrical connectors, etc.) from off cuts and leftovers. I have to thank Headstock (Andrew) for mentioning some pages back about the sides of these carriages being deeper/lower than others, as a result of the originals’ construction being welded. I did know this, but in my own mind accepted that I would be have been happy just to glue the sides on without modification. But in that spirit or idea of trying to get it right as best I can, and when I can, I did lower the sides. I liquid poly’d some .25mm x .75mm plastic strip below the cantrail and then glued on the sides. The resultant minute gap was filled/smeared with plastic filler and then sanded down. The black bits between the brass and white strip are where the epoxy oozed out of the gap. This was removed with a scalpel before setting hard and smoothed with fine wet and dry wrapped around a small block of wood. The finish looks okay at the moment – I’m sure the paint finish will show imperfections. The pictures are a bit cruel. They need a final wash and to have the guards duckets fitted. All the handrails (internal and external) have been bent up from .45mm wire and blackened where required. The window glass is cut and black paper folded for gangways. The bogies on the red roofed one are the wrong ends…. Most of Australia has Tuesday off, I don’t but have Thursday and Friday instead. The plan will be to get the roofs painted early on Thursday and mask them on Friday morning and primer the sides. Much of my painting is done early in the morning, while the family is in bed and its probably also as cool as its going to be. Will post some completed pictures. Wow, four posts from me in 24 hrs and three (almost!) in a row on the same page, I need to go and have a lie down…. Kind regards, Iain

On getting up today I note that WW had moved on about 4 pages since I posted my picture of a SR box van, and some very interesting discussion too, although I don’t recall any direct criticism of anything for some time now. I was a lurker here for many years and felt that my model making would be of little interest or meet the quality of what was being shown. And then I thought so what if they don’t like it. I don’t ask for criticism, but if someone wants to offer constructive criticism I’m more than happy to receive it; whether I act on it is another matter. To me, it’s about putting things in perspective. I had a boarding school education (for some of it), I did 23 years in the British Army (from the bottom to a reasonable way up) and have at first hand, countless times, seen the absolute worst of man’s inhumanity to man, on foreign and not so foreign shores. I would consider my skin to be reasonably thick but can still be hurt by many things, in my self-learning, its as much, if not more, about how I react that matters. I would implore people to contribute to this thread with examples of what they do. Personally I’m not a fan of pages of text nor equally one word responses. Pictures are interesting. In posts with pictures I would love it if the poster would tell us a little bit more about what they have made. I try and include a picture in as many posts as I can and as much text as I think is interesting (well it would be to me anyway if I was reading it….) but feel that I am becoming repetitive – especially when it comes to rebuilds of old Hornby Stanier coaches. Mind you only four more to go; maybe two today and two in Feb and then its onto other stuff. On the other hand, I put the information in because I have no idea where I wrote it first time in the previous however many hundred pages. I build really simple stuff and the aim of my posts is to put a basic story of what I did, how I did it and what I used, which will hopefully encourage others to think, ‘well actually, that’s not too hard, I can do that.’ Anyway its time to go to the beach…. But before I go, I’ll leave you with a picture, nothing to do with recycled Hornby’s or the ECML. It’s a Ian Kirk Maunsell Corridor Third. So why show it? Well it’s the first model carriage I made where I ‘really tried’ to get it right. It was originally built in 1991, straight from the packet and painted maroon, it ran many miles on a 10x6 layout in our back bedroom! In 2000 I stripped it and started again. Once rebuilt I thought it looked pretty good (and I still think it does) but it is riddled with prototype errors that would offend the purist. It’s the wrong Diagram to be in SR Set 398 (it should be a low window 4 compartment vehicle), it has the wrong running number(!), the bogie centres are wrong, it rides too high, I think it should have battery boxes on both sides, the roof is a less than perfect fit…and it’s the ‘wrong’ colour green! But I don’t care – I’m happy with it. Please just enjoy what you do and be kind to each other. Kind regards, Iain

It's been a month since I posted any modelling updates. Unfortunately, I lost the Teflon washer out of my airbrush, which brought everything shuddering to a halt. How something can theoretically land a foot away, yet never be seen again is one of the great mysteries of model railways. It was already a spare, that couldn't be easily replaced during the first lockdown, at least not at reasonable prices. No sooner was that fixed and painting restarted, my camera went on the blink. That is now fixed but I now have a backlog of things to photograph. Anyway, I shot the dia. 113 full brake this morning, it is now finished, though couplings are not present. More to follow. And especially for Tony, the back end, the Sheffield portion, of the Northbound SouthYorkshireman. That's all you going to get, it takes quite a bit of time to shoot even half a formation, without a TW set up and locked off camera.

Latest addition to the 'foreign' freight stock of Little Muddle brought for me by my son for Christmas. A 12 ton Wood/Steel van (D1663 - corrugated ends) by Cambrian Models waiting for paint/transfers to dry before getting a coat of Dullcote. S&W couplings to add when varnished.

I think I might have posted this before, apologies if so. I was taught to use one but can't for the life of me remember how to use it. I do have my Fathers slide rule that he used for his whole working life (57 Years) He was captured in 1941 and sent to Germany as a PoW (as a merchantman he was a captive) while there they had a rough time in the camps so the senior engineers held lessons in various subjects for the junior engineers. Dad took as many classes as possible to use is time up but really needed a slide rule. He wrote to Grandmother asking if she could send one to him which she did. Of the many parcels and letters she sent only a few got through, most didn't and those that did had the clothing or food taken out before reaching Germany. The parcel with the slide rule was treated very differently, when it arrived the Germans made a big presentation of it to Dad in front of lots of the other camp internees and read out part of the letter from Grandmother, in it she had written that she had sent him the slide rule as requested and had sought out and purchased the best she could.... the maker was F W Faber-Castell....German.... When he returned he had just 3 things, a plate, a spoon and the slide rule.As can be seen he used the world supply of sellotape on it during its life..

G' morning again. Started snowing a few minutes ago. To the health centre we have been and our arms have been punctured. Got there at 7.40 and the car park was locked. Four cars (Nurses etc) in front of us waiting to get in. One nurse came and spoke to us and said the manager was trying to get hold of the guy with the keys! He eventually arrived at 8.05 and we were then able to park easily. However instead of being near the front of the queue there were then 30 odd people before us. Had to wait outside in the cold (Lots of apologies from staff) for about 15 minutes but once inside it was very well organised. We had the Oxford/Astra Zeneca vaccine so didn't have to wait for 15 minutes to be observed. Incidentally we never had a letter from the NHS but got a text instead from our GP surgery with a link to the NHS site to book our appointments. Got a further text yesterday with a reminder. Just celebrated with a very nice plate of eggs and bacon etc and now ready to grab the carpet. Have a good one, Bob.

Poly: on package weights. Many years ago, our computing supplier told us that the size of continuous paper boxes would be reduced. Apparently, someone had noticed that most of the personnel servicing computers were or the female persuasion and females had a lower lifting limit than males. Saw a notice in the paper that a girl from my high school class has died (cancer). Someone that I was comfortable with. Had only seen her 3 times since graduation -- 25th and 50th anniversaries of the schools.

Today I turned off my woodworking head and turned on my tracklaying head for the first time in over a year. After painting the track base and letting it dry over lunch, I set out the five points on the new section of line. Porthmellyn Road 41A and 41B are the last points to be laid at the junction. They form the crossover for Up trains leaving the Branch to reach the Branch platform. There's no signalled move across them in the Down direction. At the other end, St Enodoc 7B and 7A points form a trailing crossover and mark the start of where the lines spread to pass round the island platform. 10A points give access to and from the Loop, which is used mainly by the short china-clay trains to and from Wheal Veronica. As you can see, 10A points bridge the join between the new section and the station boards, so I can't lay these until I've done as much work as possible under the station boards with them upright on the bench. Finally, I laid Porthmellyn Road 41A points. These form the start of the new Branch power zone that will extend all the way to Treloggan Junction.

Today's photos are between Newcastle and Hartlepool. The one I have captioned as Jarrow staithes was taken from a Tyne and Wear Metro train. I cannot remember much about the photo - but the area has changed a lot since then! Any more information would be welcome. Two of them are locations that not all of you will know. Jarrow looking towards Tyne Dock Aug 85 J8382.jpg Jarrow staithes Pontop and Jarrow Railway 31 Dec 84 C6679.jpg Brockley Whins 142065 Sunderland to Metro Centre 25th March 95 C20018.jpg East Boldon 158777 Newcastle to Sunderland 26th March 94 C19339.jpg Hartlepool 143006 Middlesbrough to Newcastle Feb 89 J9761.jpg David

Well , since the arrival of the more infectious virus I decided to wear both mask and visor when food shopping in Morrisons. Sadly, all to no avail as on Wednesday 20th Jan folllowing a few days of ` a bad cold` I woke to find I had lost all sense of smell and taste. So after poking a swab around my tonsils and up my nose , this email arrived ............................... At least I hav`nt got to worry about when I get the vaccine now.......

Morning. Dry and 2c sur le rock, and only tiny touches of frost despite having being one of the coldest nights so far at -1c ..... Ian busts out laughing. Mrs H's eye issue appearing again, may be a trip to A&E, buqqer. The lump in the middle of this rock has caused issues in the past, there have been several aircraft fly into it. Snaefell is a midgie's over 2,000 feet (making it officially a mountain). The worst crash was in to the second highest point at 1,842 feet, North Barrule, when a B17 US large transport plane in WW2 was flying from England to Ireland using the 'Bradford' technique, and flew into it - a 'stuffed cloud' moment, unfortunately it had 31 on board, going for a weekend leave - all killed. There's a memorial and some bits still up there from several aircraft.

No.8 Railcar arriving at Little Muddle

Ey up! This Covid malarky is getting more and more serious. Two of our club members (brothers) visited their mum in hospital as she was dying. She tested positive then they tested positive. One ended up on oxygen in hospital. Both are back home. Then yesterday, youngest Herbert let us know his lodger had tested positive so they are now isolating. I notice the Jonathan van Tam has fired a genteel bullet or two at the BMA...it is great for people to say "you must do X" or " you must vaccinate teachers/police/ or any one else of their profession".. the scientists have worked the vaccination levels and who gets them out. Of course if you shout loud ( and then underperform like the Met have) it begs the question.. "why are you in charge"? Baz

Baby Sir TH has learnt that he can walk! Still needs a baby zimmer frame thing to push but he's now charging about all over the house! Give it a month, I bet he'll be able to walk unaided.

Good morning from the Hill of Strawberries. All the children are out playing. So are some not-so-young-children-at-heart. Non-gender-specific humanoid representations are being created from crystalline dihydrogen oxide. Handfulls of the stuff in non-spherical shapes are being flung in mock agression. I dare say other places are far better endowed than we but size isn’t everything.

Apart from the odd mast, power lines, tall building etc. that is.... All the white stuff hereabouts has retreated from the roads and paths and there isn't much left on the grass. Instead everything is extremely muddy and soggy (good Hippo conditions) but at least we aren't baling out flood water like some poor people are doing. On the the subject of broadband, we have been with BT for many years now and they have been pretty good. Even when I inadvertently signed up for TV provision that we didn't actually want, when I realised what had happened outside the legal 'cooling off' period they agreed to let us go without penalty and refunded the initial payment. Muggocoffee 2 consumed and now for some bacon and eggs - no toast though as I am trying to reduce the strain on my undercarriage due to excess payload. Stop press. It's snowing again - that'll teach me to open my big mouth! Dave

Another monochrome morning, as Doncaster arrives with the 1040 KX-Grantham stopper.

Good evening everyone It stopped snowing just after my post this morning, after which it slowly started to melt. It’s now almost gone, but the puddles left by the melted snow was starting to freeze over when I left the workshop this afternoon. The cork sheeting offcuts have now been glued to the scenic board of the turntable. I cut 2 panels, each just over 10 inches x 20 inches, with a half circle cut out to go round the well of the turntable. It is now under pressure from several pieces of wood and clamps to ensure it stays stuck down, I’ll trim all the edges tomorrow when it’s fully set. I then turned to the turntable control panel and I must admit that I much prefer the printed versions of the lettering, particularly the size, for the control panel. However, I’m not at all happy with the font that I initially chose, so I’ll have another look at the different fonts I have on the computer, to see if I can find a better alternative. Once I’d finished in the workshop, I finished making the spiced fruit tea loaf that I started last night, leaving the fruit and most of dry ingredients soaking in spiced apple tea and freshly ground cardamom. All I had to add was the flour, give it all a good mixing then pop it in the oven for a couple of hours. The aroma as I was cooking tea was delightful. The evening was rounded off by sitting down to watch a couple more episodes of a French drama that were in the middle of, but only after opening a nice bottle of Shiraz first.

Yeah, this is the standard of driving we have to put up with. When I was in the young offenders team it cracked me up to hear the excuses for young drivers crashing (you can drive at 16 here), sort of 'how was I supposed to know it was wet' kind of comments. Unfortunately they sometimes couldn't tell us what happened, had a couple of fatalities - rich kids (lots of those here) with powerful cars bought for their 16th birthday type of thing. Audi TT turbo in one case - had it two weeks.....spun, hit both banks either side of the road, barrel rolled.....dead. Its about time learning to drive was taught, not learning how to pass a test. /steps off soap box.

Well as predicted Mrs H spent most of the day in A&E getting her lookenpeepers looked at once again - same issue recurring, needs some other approach we're thinking. Seeing the top guy tomorrow afternoon as an emergency appointment so hopefully some progress then. When driving back from the hospickle in the Big City it was notable all the usual scenic places to go for a walk were heaving, far more so than on a normal winter's afternoon. Why do people who don't normally exercise, feel the need to do so when there's a lockdown? Weird. No thought process involved, all going to the obvious places where you just know there will be others. Plenty more out of the way places to go to, but they were empty....numbskulls. Temperature soared up to, er, 2c, and is back at zero now. A very still afternoon and very sunny, the sun felt warm on the legs when we walked around the village after getting back late afternoon, maybe because the air was so bloomin cold.

Oops. Forgot the photos....

Thanks for the kind words. I don't intend building many more 4mm layouts so it may be the last time I build a signalbox in that scale. So as the footballer might say, I left it all on the pitch. I did actually try scribing the bricks but after spending an hour or two and making a mistake that meant I had to start again, I decided that the commercial product was good enough. I will tell a little story about criticism and then I will say no more. The story involves two modellers who are both now no longer with us. Many years ago, a superb modeller named Joe Rowe used to have a demo stand at EXPO EM events. He used to model every detail to perfection. His teak carriages had every underframe detail and the bodies were real varnished wood veneer. His locos were scratchbuilt, with his frames having correct overlapped joints secured with actual rivets. I was in awe of his talent. One time I visited EXPO EM with the late Malcolm Crawley. Joe Rowe had just finished his latest loco, the Gresley "Hush hush" in original condition. There were quite a few people around the stand when we drooled over it. Malcolm said "Remind me to go back later", which I did. Malcolm very quietly had a word with Joe later to mention that the loco never hauled trains in LNER green livery and that it should really be grey unless Joe wanted to run it in a fictional livery. I recall it may have been green for a short while in the works but didn't run like that in traffic. I hope I have that correct but it was 35 years ago when I was told. He could have broadcast it in front of several people, or he could have done it discreetly and he chose the latter. That was the day I decided that there was a right way and a wrong way to tell somebody if you see something that a modeller has missed or got wrong. Next time we saw Joe, the loco was grey and he thanked Malcolm for his advice and for the way he delivered it. And I thought it was the perfect example of how to give constructive criticism. Give it to the modeller, don't tell the world.

A little bit better lighting this afternoon allowed a bit more detail to show on this Thompson T (8). It was original going to be painted teak but a photograph of a dirty crimson one at rugby, allowed me to clear the decks faster, as there is still much to catch up on from 2020. There is always something to do, fag signs in the widows, I will have to check back with the photo to see what type they should be.

There are some ex-Virgin Atlantic Airbus A340s doing almost daily Bournemouth-Xiamen flights. Two of the re-registered numbers give a clue as to what they are carrying. 9H-PPE and 9H-NHS

Morning all, I has been snowing for almost 2 hours but is currently falling away to very little and it seems to be melting a bit. But it has achieved a depth of c.2.5" in that time (by observation, I'm darned if I'm going out there with a ruler).. For once the garden looks rather neat and tidy. I can tell it is definitely easing off as the oligarch's palace is now almost in view. A number of birds looking for sustenance and a murmuring (well 5 of them if we are being pedantic) arrived at 09.30 frightening off the smaller species who arrived full of hope of a repeat of the fresh breakfast they'd had before the snow came along. We might send the lad out for some 'papers although I expect bribery will be involved as he has mentioned the test track. So that is all the important news, I think, - have a good day and stay safe.

Good morning all, Dry but very frosty here. Up early as we’re due for jabs at 8.00am. Will report back later. Bob.

We are not in our first flush of youth, but with the arrival of snow this morning, my wife decided that a snowman had to be built. By herself.

‘ee’s still snawin’ About three inches settled. Aussie Akubra hat. Cornish Everyday tartan tie. A small child had stolen his carrot-nose and was nibbling it

Afternoon All Much skipping. as I am just so lacking in mojo at present - it's cold, and it's been snowing, but like others hereabouts, it has quickly melted, and depending on which forecast you believe, there is none exepcted (BBC says none, Met Office said 40% chance of light snow early hours of tomorrow). At least with the new boiler and the remote control thermostat, we are keeping the house at an even temperature, and not, as last year, switching the boiler manually, and relying on the TRVs - mucho satisfactory. Back another time. Regards to All Stewart

Morning from a rather chilly and overcast patch of the far south east corner. Not wanting to have done something that I should not have done I decided to dial 119 this morning and after a short wait talked to a guy in the Covid Jab booking session explaining to him what I had done and should I cancel the appointments if I had done something that I should not have done. He took down all my details (with the exception of the booking reference numbers) and came up with the details of the first appointment due on Tuesday. He then went on to say that due to my age I was entitled to make an online booking for a jab without having to receive a communication from the NHS. To be honest I still have my doubts but I'll have to wait until Tuesday morning to find out whether or not I'll get the jab. I've kept a note of when and why I made the call this morning so I can refer to this if there are any problems. When I made the booking yesterday the system came up with a list of available sites which did not include the site (in the Civic Centre car park) used by my GP surgery so maybe getting eligible people to book online is a roundabout way of trying to reduce pressure on the GP surgeries. Keith

Very heavy snow in Basingstoke from about 7.15am - very frosty before that. Now just gentle flakes coming down - it has almost stopped.

This bit of East Devon much as the description of North Somerset, the stuff on my roof is audibly melting as the drainpipe is gurgling merrily. Sky here looks full of it, though, so I doubt we've seen the last deposit. John

We have a covering (just) of snow in North Somerset, but it has stopped now. Rather grey and miserable skies as is often the case here. I have just discovered the curious case of someone called Chan Thomas, who wrote a book in the 1960s called the Adam and Eve Story, but it was banned by the CIA. Allegedly it was about the reversal of the earth's magnetic field causing a cataclysmic event. Oooo-er, that all sounds a bit scary; so I will go and do me a fry-up.

Greetings one and all I spent yesterday morning watching episodes 2 to 5 of "It's A Sin". I found it as compelling a TV drama as there has been for years. There is love and heartbreak, joy and sorrow, laughter and tears, surprises and shocks, all in rapid succession, and people die. The period in the 1980s when AIDS arrived and made its unpleasant presence felt has been largely consigned to imperfect memory, until now. Someone had to write about it and I can think of no-one better qualified to do so than Russell T Davies. I expected to feel uncomfortable. I was not disappointed. Meanwhile, back in the present day, I could easily be wasting a lot of time sitting by the letterbox awaiting the invitation or summons to have vaccine stuck in my arm. Where I live is not exactly in the forefront of the process. It is all very well for those who rule us to proclaim with joy how many of those eligible have received their first dose but it will be a remarkable achievement if the target of dealing with all the over-70s, care home staff and NHS workers by mid February is actually met. On current form I am not holding my breath. On the last fodder run I allowed myself to be impulsive. As a result, I will be enjoying lamb shank for lunch. Even I have to live a little sometimes and hang the expense! Best wishes to all Chris

Evening All, Not a great deal to report but MY team did win and Syds here for a sleepover so spirits lifted. Been trying to find a bit of shed time that coincides with the appearance of mojo but haven’t managed to for a long time now. I seem to spend too much time on here rather than doing anything constructive. Goodnight, Robert

Mornin' Very frosty here, about -4°C, with snow forecast later. I have to 'break into' SWMBOs car later to fix the boot lock - that's gonna be cold. Hopefully it's just the pushbutton. Cuppa being drunk and then something for breakfast, but as yet I don't know what. Broadband; I've been a customer of Post Office Broadband for a while now. Their standard copper returns on average 12Mbit download, but I am quite close (about a mile) to the exchange. It's perfectly adequate for my needs, i.e. no massive film streaming or interactive gaming. Handles multi channel 'meetings' perfectly well, keenly priced 12 month contract with incentives if you pay the lot up front. Anyhow, hope all are well and make the most/best of the day whatever it might bring.

Mooring again. I think flight level to / from the Urals would have been more likely 30 plus years ago. Its exceedingly white outside, but that's all frost. Its very cold, but I'm getting a cuddle from Ben lying alongside, that helps. The trailer trough problem has been solved, I just need to get about 3m of angle iron, and cut some lengths of steel from the old flatbed. There will be lots of cutting and drilling. The earths magnetic reversal, is fairly regular, but there is dispute of the period of reversal. By some accounts it's due anytime, and there have been reports of the current position's movement has accelerated. A silly from the USA, the police in Arizona arrived to break up a meeting during the stay at home order..the meeting? People queueing for vaccinations..

Over to you, Dave.

I've heard that phrase a few times. My first posting in the force covered the village of Thorpe which us between Leeds and Wakefield. It had a Trig point nearvit and My partner used thatvPhrase about nothing higher between us and the Urals. In 1974 the view was dominated by the 3 Aire Valley power stations and several pits. Anyway good moaning to all. It's still dark here but the house is warm. The decorating got done yesterday and after the 2nd coat looks OK. A presentation was then put together forva zoom meeting in April. Not a lot else got done. This morning the market will no doubt be visited and then some unspecified potterring in the shed. Regards to all. Jamie

Mooring Awl, Inner Temple Hare, 5 hours sleep followed by 1.5 hours sleep, not bad for me. I was just considering more when... Ben the I want out Collie was very insistent on going on patrol. So now I'm cold, very cold, Its very crunchy out there, the car and landrover look like ice cubes. It's also very misty with a slight north easterly breeze. I've not surprisingly never been to a school reunion, but searching online, none of the 5 schools I attended seem to have them as a general rule. The nearest thing is is an annual sports / open day. But these days that is limited to current parents and children due to child protection. Whereas in my day "old boys" and girls would attend. More thoughts on the trailer keel "trough" appeared in brain during the awake period, I'm still trying to find a satisfactory design, that supports the boat, holds the keel from slipping in any direction, and while strong isn't too heavy.. Time to try for more sleep.

For Polly (Southern 42)......

Bear has been with Plusnet since Day One - the service has always been very good (though the new super duper fibre b/b has yet to kick in, according to a speedtest website thingummy, even though the contract supposedly started on the 20th). Trouble is my main email address is linked to Plusnet, so swapping would be a pain (must start doing it - I have outlook and gmail alternatives now) which makes changing from Plusnet fiddly. Apparently they do have an "email only" service for such scenarios, so you can keep your email address if you leave (though one of their cockwombles lied to me a couple of weeks back by telling me that service had been discontinued last September). ISTR the Ombudsman is acting to stop people losing their email addresses if they switch - is Bear correct? Does @BSW01 have an anti-Awl protection system by any chance? Such mention of objects closely linked to model trains is surely very brave...or very reckless.... It's snowin' like a good 'un here. I feel the creation of a snow bear coming on....on second thoughts, that would mean cold paws.....and I'm very, very busy you understand.....

I found myself thinking about the discussion on criticism, less work being shown and peoples' reactions to other folks' projects this morning when I got up, and something occurred to me: might this perhaps be - in part at least - another effect of all the lockdowns and isolation we're enduring? Face to face reactions are generally easier to accept because they can be accompanied by friendly body language and surrounding conversation; without that - especially over a long period - I wonder whether we're becoming more highly sensitised. Forum posts are like texts and emails in that tone can be difficult to judge without those visual clues so it's entirely understandable. Sometimes, when I've wondered how an online comment was intended, I've imagined the person who wrote it standing at a railway show, hands in pockets, twinkle in eye, making the same comment but with a smile, followed by some general encouragement and an offer of a cup of tea: it works for me! The reason I haven't shown anything lately is because I haven't finished anything since the Mousa GNR coach I showed a while back and while it's one thing to fill my own build thread with 'in progress' shots, I tend to think it best to wait until I have something 'substantial' to show on here... but, as there's less on show than usual, I hope this will be of interest: It's an LRM C12: chassis largely complete (bar brakes) and currently being worked on to improve the running - it's my first non-rigid build, using a compensation beam on the front driving axle and bogie; body in sub-assemblies (boiler, side-tanks, main cab, bunker etc), some of which are shown here in the process of being taped to the footplate while I experiment with weighting... Hope everyone has an enjoyable Sunday

"Does @BSW01 have an anti-Awl protection system by any chance? Such mention of objects closely linked to model trains is surely very brave...or very reckless...." I thought he was building a state of the art record deck.... We had a light dusting of snow this morning, plus a very loud clap of thunder just before 7, I think. The snow has now mostly melted. I don't usually go anywhere on a Sunday but I did contemplate going for a short walk. As soon as I thought about it my dodgy foot reminded me of its dodginess. If I take some parrot food and wear the right boots I might still do it. We started out with AOL broadband which was then switched to TaskTalk. Their service was never very good and got worse to the point it was useless, so we switched to EE. We still have our email accounts with AOL wih no problems. There are adverts if I open in Edge but I normally use Firefox with an ad-blocker.

Reminds me a bit of Sheffield Tigers rugby ground, flippin' bleak place that is to visit in winter time, the ground was either like a swamp or concrete, neither conducive to playing on.