andyram

Video 8 was enjoyed via the luxury of the big screen tv last night whilst consuming my evening meal ahead of a night in the pub. The joys of having the house to myself for an evening! I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed the video and the scenics are progressing very well. I also liked the masking tape and PVA approach and may adopt it in the future should my current modelling block ever subside. I share your views on missing the sound Andy and the blue sound fitted diesels certainly add that extra effect that is missing from the silent steamers. I know you are not a fan of sound fitted steam in OO gauge Andy, although I quite like the ones that I have. Then again, steam is my preference anyway. Looking forward to video 9. It may just be the perfect accompaniment to the first coffee of the day in the shop on Sunday.

Two videos to look forward to this weekend. You are spoiling us Mr P.

The situation has already been fed back to Hornby and Peco and they are both aware of the situation. In terms of proof it is very much my word against theirs. I have the photo which the driver took showing the two boxes on the doorstep. I have the photo I took showing the one box that remained. The doorway used to be covered by CCTV from the shop opposite but this has been changed since the owner of the shop changed recently. I therefore have no proof which would make any legal challenge somewhat difficult.

Afternoon all and I hope you are all well. The sun is out and it has been lovely and warm in Matlock Bath today. A few tourists have been around but things have been rather quiet. I have kept myself busy unpacking the large Bachmann delivery which arrived on Tuesday. Some of the contents are for customer pre-orders so these will be packed and sent out over the course of the weekend. To add further to the DPD saga. The parcel that was stolen was from Hornby. To be fair to them they have been very supportive and have sent me goods of equal value as a replacement. Sadly, some of the missing items are also for customer pre-orders and these are so sought after they cannot be replaced. This will mean I will be facing a tab of about £500 in refunds. Nothing Hornby can do and, seemingly, nothing DPD are prepared to do either. The whole thing stinks a little. Stay safe Andy

Evening all and generic good wishes. It has been a skim read through ER’s today. Things have been very busy despite the day being one where the shop is closed. Part of the day has been spent dealing with the ineptness that is DPD. Last Friday I was due a delivery from Peco. DPD were due to deliver between 12.45 and 1.45. The arriving soon alert was received just before 2pm. With the shop being sadly quiet, I wandered out to the end of the alleyway to await the delivery whilst enjoying the sun. Ten minutes later I observed the van drive straight through Matlock Bath without stopping or making any attempt to stop. This was followed by the “driver could not locate you” message (he did not try!) Subsequent calls to DPD failed to get the parcel delivered and I was promised it would be sent Sunday. I arrived at the shop on Sunday and then received a message stating that due to a problem the parcel had not left the depot and would be redelivered Monday. Further phone calls resulted in the delivery being rescheduled to Tuesday due to the fact I am closed on Monday. This time the delivery was made before the shop was open and the driver saw fit to leave the parcel on the doorstep and depart. One of my customers discovered it before my parents had arrived for the day! Sadly this is not the first time it had happened. Three previous Peco deliveries have been dumped on the doorstep on mornings prior to the shop opening. Fortunately they have still been there when I arrived a short time later. I was less lucky with a Hornby parcel just before Easter. This was similarly left and one of the boxes had disappeared before I arrived. All of the previous deliveries were made despite me using the App to request a change of delivery date and receiving an email confirming the request. These requests clearly being ignored. What are DPD doing about this? Nothing! It has taken me since Friday to get to speak to the depot manager. A complete waste of time he turned out! Stay safe. Andy

Evening all. Good to see some other missing members make an appearance in the last day or so. I hope everyone is well. I noted @chrisfand his earlier comments about the lack of modelling inspiration. That is certainly something that is impacting on me at the moment. There may be many products half finished at the moment, but I just cannot bring myself to work on any of them. The black dog has had its moments today, although things got off to a good start. I awoke to the news that contracts have been exchanged for the provisional sale of Derby County Football Club. Hopefully, this is a major step towards avoiding liquidation. Some may say that it is only a game, but the social aspect of football is crucial to some people - myself included. The walk to the ground, catching up with a few friends, a few pre-match drinks with family members prior to the game are all part of the experience. Then, for 90 minutes, the problems of the world can be forgotten with all focus on the game. And, yes, a great result can even lift your spirits for a day or so. For much of this season, there was a strong possibility that those experiences could have been taken away thanks to the selfish and egotistical actions of a few, It certainly has done nothing for my own black dog situation, although it is not the only cause. it has been a pretty good day in footballing sense. My wife supports Forest and they have secured a place at Wembley for the Play Off final. She will be pleased when she finally arrives home following the extra time and penalties. Perhaps it will improve the mood and atmosphere at home somewhat! Take care all Andy

Hi Richard Many thanks for posting the video. It was great to welcome you to the shop a couple of months ago. I am sorry it has taken me so long to respond on here, I have been away from RMWeb for a while due to my equipment not liking the adverts on this site. Thankfully things seem to have settled down now. Although the video below is a little old now, I offer the link to the latest shop update video:

Great to see the latest progress. The cutting looks great already. As I have already said, another masterpiece is in the making.

The coffee shop shown in the video is no longer there. The picture is quite an old one. The cafe that can be seen is now a brand new restaurant called the "Seafood Bar and Grill". It is not cheap, but has consistently good reviews and the food smells delicious. It is worth a try. The best cafe in the area, by far, is the "Forget-Me-Not" tea-room which is a few doors down from the parade of shows where I am located. The food is delicious, the people very friendly and the home made cakes are a meal in themselves. There are many days where I will go and order a sausage cob for breakfast prior to opening and one of the friendly members of staff will deliver it to the shop when cooked. I cannot recommend them enough.

Morning all. Thanks for the kind words. I see that Andy.P has already posted the link to his very inspiring videos. I cannot wait for the next one. Next to his efforts, my recent return to doing the shop videos is pretty poor by comparison. I have attached a link so that you can get some kind of amusement if you wish although much of the content is a little out of date now:

Business is steady at the moment, but we are doing ok (or as well as some suppliers allow us to!!) As for Kings Moreton, I have not seen the new owners for some time so cannot offer an update.

Nice to see updates on this layout.

Evening one and all. I sincerely hope this post finds you well. It has been a very long time since my last posting on this site and these pages. There have been many reasons for that, one of them is the fact my IPad did not seem to want to load the site now it is littered with so many adverts. Whether that is a common problem, or one with my particular device is unknown. Thankfully things seem to be working and loading better today. The ongoing visit from the black dog has been another reason for my absence. Things have been tough for pretty much the whole of this year. Some of the causes have been work / business related, but much more of it is of a personal nature. I will say no more on that for the time being. I have to admit I blame Andy.P for bringing me back to these pages. His YouTube videos detailing his latest build have inspired me to find out more and this led me back here to locate and read the layout thread. I am looking forward to reading more and maybe catching up on other stuff assuming my digital equipment permits. Best wishes. Andy ps - belated birthday greetings Gwiwer

Not been on RMWeb for a while, but been quietly watching your YouTube channel Andy. As I mentioned in a recent comment on there, I am very much enjoying this build. There are definitely shades of Pencarne here.

The layout looks good. Hope to see updates on SMS too.

Just stumbled across this thread. Great to see the developments on the former Bench Road. I will follow with interest.

Hi Jim Love the pics. It was good to see you today. A shame that, due to the the zoom meeting I was doing at the time, I could not stop for a long chat. Proof that you can never predict what a day is going to be like. I agreed to the meeting because I expected it to be a quiet day. Andy

Evening all and generic greetings. Thanks to those who have sent good wishes. Today has been a day a very hectic day with a Teams meeting first thing in the morning prior to the shop opening. That was followed by a busy day in the shop with plenty of visitors and sales. Marking was completed in-between the customers and I completed a fair amount of work. The "paid by pass" procedure certainly is an odd one. I admit that there were some days where I would work all day in the shop and then until midnight just to make sure I passed enough to allow me to hit my weekly money target in order to pay the bills. This was because there were days when so many would fail and I would not pass them for the sake of the money. As Lurker has mentioned there are some less scrupulous assessors and, as Curriculum Lead, it is my job to monitor such practices. There are a couple of assessors who are already on my radar. Stay safe Andy

Evening all. I hope this post finds you well. It has been sometime since I last posted on ER's and there has been plenty of reasons for that. I will not bore you with all of the details, but will provide a snapshot of one or two things. Firstly, I am pleased to say that things have been busy at the shop and I have also been discussing some new product ranges. There remains many challenges with running a, relatively new business, but I am very happy with the progress that the shop has made during the first three years of its life. When you consider I have faced an online fraud attack, flooding and then Covid, to have seen such progress despite the challenges is very pleasing and I remain hopeful that I have made the correct decision. Things are never dull and today has seen a large delivery of Thomas Minis advent calendars! During the recent weeks I have taken business out to a couple of local shows at Cotgrave and then Mickleover. After a slow start, Cotgrave managed to break my best ever show takings records. This was topped by the Mickleover event a few weeks later! Alongside the business, I continue to work on the online marking. The earnings from this means I don't need to stress about the business and can allow it to grow naturally. The job has been a case of "pay by pass" which means each assignment has to pass before I can invoice for the money. I have spent a couple of years working on marking assignment after assignment between customers and working on these until I have passed enough to hit my daily target to ensure that, by the end of the month, I have earned enough to pay all of my household bills. Recently that has changed and I have been offered a permanent paid position with the company as a Curriculum Lead. This means I will be overseeing a team of assessors and checking that their marking is up to standard, conducting training and re-writing new units for some of the courses. It comes with a regular wage. The great thing is, it is still a "work from home" job and I can continue to work on it in the shop. This means I no longer have to worry about end of month earnings and have a fixed contract of hours. I can work on this, whilst continuing to grow the business. It is the best of both worlds. There has been a bit of a busy period whilst the self employed assessor and the new role cross over. But things are settling down and I am enjoying it. The boss is fully aware of the shop (I did my Teams interview in the shop on a closed day, stood in front of my layout Skaleby West) and they are very supportive of the situation. On Saturday, as I drove to the shop, I passed a certain ex-headteacher who was out walking. For the first time there was no anger and no regret. Maybe, just maybe, I have started to emerge from the other side of the battle I have had. Hopefully the shop will continue to grow and, thanks to the new education role, has more time to develop into something much longer term. Sorry for the lengthier than planned post, but I wanted to update you all. Andy

Looking forward to attending the show with my A2B Model Railways trade stand and getting to a chance to catch up with some old friends. Always a good show and well worth a visit.

Lovely pic. Nice to see the layout again. I hope things go ok for your Dad and he is able to enjoy the layout again soon.

I know I posted yesterday, but I wanted to just follow up and congratulate @Les1952 on winning the best layout vote. I would also like to congratulate him, the new show manager and all of the team on an excellent show. As I have already alluded to, the show contained a good mix of layouts which I was able to view prior to the show opening each morning. From my stand I got a good view of arrivals and departures on the Boghampton layout and probably appreciated this model much more than I have ever done before. I also was able to see the constant procession of trains on Newton's Folley which was next to me. I was also opposite "Cumanavago" and it was a delight to see so many youngsters enjoying operating the model. Food was excellent and the trader's lunch a very nice bonus and also very enjoyable. The show was well organised and the safe Covid practices from one way systems, entry and exit points, ventilation and outdoor seating were all well thought out. I cannot fault it. After a very quiet Saturday I think there were a few worried faces amongst organisers (and traders). Sunday definitely picked up and I am so pleased it reached a break even figure. It deserved to. There was a lovely buzz in the room this afternoon. It is great to be back at a show again. From my point of view as trader, I was concerned after a very poor day of sales on Saturday. I had fairly low expectations for the weekend since this was the first one back. I am pleased to report that it was definitely a show of two halves, Sunday more than made up for Saturday. Congratulations to all. I look forward to April!

Definitely a nice show with a good range of layouts. Bacon cobs were welcome and delicious. Definitely well looked after as a trader today. Looking forward to tomorrow.

Evening all and generic greetings all round. Tonight I sadly have another pub nightmare to report. This time a different location which happens to be a little closer to @leopardml2341. I had my reservations about this establishment, but Sarah chose it because they did a vegetarian carvary and an offer where children eat for £1.00. The meals were ordered yet one of the two veggie options were not available (typically the one Sarah wanted). Fortunately she was happy with the alternative. Sarah was the only one who opted for the carvary with Amber choosing a meal off the main menu, and myself likewise. The order paid for, but I thought it was strange that no ticket for the carvary was given out. I assumed it was different for the veggie option. Twenty minutes later the meals were delivered, but Sarah's was missing. When we queried it the waiter abruptly stated "you can go and collect it when you like". We asked about the missing ticket which we were then told we should have had. He went and printed off a receipt and Sarah went off to collect her food. Five minutes later she returned very upset. The queue was very long and not moving. She had got herself into a bit of state. The result was that she decided to leave the pub. Amber had eaten enough and followed her leaving me to pick up the pieces. To be fair, the manager refunded the price of her meal and, eventually, agreed to refund the cost of the other meals because I had not had chance to finish mine. There was limited apology and excuses about the delays due to the Covid screens preventing self service on the carvary. Not a good day and not the first time this place has given us bad service. I will not be going back! Stay safe. Andy

Evening all and best wishes to Rik (Gwiwer) who has had plenty to deal with recently. I am now home after our weekend in the West Midlands. Sarah has enjoyed her birthday treat which was the reason for the weekend. The lodge was relaxing and peaceful and I definitely needed it. As I mentioned before, the black dog is running amok and definitely made an appearance on a few occasions. Maybe a few days away are needed! Stay safe Andy