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47137

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  1. Yes, I pulled the plug on it. "Shelf Island" kept me happy for many years, and the blog worked for me as a way to share my efforts. When the blog was young, I was pondering whether to put it on its own web site or on RMweb. I had created a web site for my company and I knew how to buy a hosting package and create and maintain a simple web site. Around the same time, the RMweb "Gold" membership was offered, and I decided the £50 a year I would spend on hosting was better spent here, where it could support the site and allow better integration with other topics. I think the project suffered because a great deal of the effort was a proof of concept of one kind or another, which usually worked out for me and I shared hoping this might be for the benefit of others. This caught the attention of some of the more vocal members of the community, who responded as though I was trying to challenge the domination of 4mm scale. I also think, I tried to gather up and work up too many different RTR models, and some of these I have sold. During all of this, the hosting software changed, needing me to prepare a new index and new subject tags from time to time. The upkeep of the blog was taking more time than preparation of new posts, and this got worse as I extended the layout around the hobby room; I found it quite difficult to integrate the extensions into the blog in a coherent sort of way. Curiously, the extended layout did not satisfy me. I now had most of half a scale mile of track, enough to keep a train in motion for a couple of minutes, but the siding accommodation was now nowhere near sufficient. "Wellwood" never really got off the ground and was broken up, and "Shelf Marshes" was hived off to make the basis of a preservation society one day. "Shelf Island" is dormant (and terribly dusty!), with the extension to "Fairport" remaining as the only scenic development. The blog had received a decent number of views and I felt it had achieved all I could expect from it, and so I deleted all of the posts. I think an account of "Shelf Island" could reappear one day, but after the core baseboard has received some scenics, and on a dedicated web site where I have control of the software and the backup regime. I do have pdf copies of most of the posts on the blog and I can send a few files on by email or whatever if anyone would like to ask - a PM would be best. - Richard.
  2. Andy I am so glad the loco still runs well after all of the dismantling and reassembly you have had to do, and it looks excellent in its new livery. Well done. - Richard.
  3. I think, my best starting point is Grace's Guide. I know a bit about E H Bentall, but not enough to make a "truly correct fiction" in terms of the way my imaginery railway served them. So for example, Motor tyres from the East London Rubber Company, arriving in a GER open wagon Leaf springs from Jonas Woodhead and Sons of Leeds, arriving by the Midland Electrical parts from Bristol, arriving well-wrapped in a 4-plank open or possibly an iron mink. and so on. I can make a decent variety of wagon kits and if I have one or two red GWR wagons, these won't define the time period exactly(!) but they will provide a clue to the 1890s. I can have a MR D299 too. These wagons can appear on the layout one at a time, and the operating sequences (this are probably a year+ ahead!) can represent interesting days in (say) 1893 and 1908. I have something to aim for. - Richard.
  4. I am sometimes unsure how specific or general to make my posts in this sort of thread. As it happens, I am thinking of an agricultural engineers who tried to make cars (E H Bentall) for my layout, so the products coming in might be raw castings up until the time when they had their own foundry up and running. Garretts would have been a competitor. I am not familiar with London or its railways. Essex is divided by the River Crouch and at the moment, trying to compose a fiction involving routing via London is too difficult. I hope this doesn't sound disingenuous. Perhaps really, it is too uninteresting. - Richard.
  5. I agree entirely. Bearing in mind the layout represents a limited period, the replacement boiler could arrive once in every complete operating sequence. The sequence can also have a delivery of lead from Shropshire dispatched via the GWR, a ploughing engine arriving on a distant railway's machinery wagon, and hopefully a couple more items. I have never had my Modeller's Licence taken away from me, but it has picked up a few endorsements for what are I suppose the broad equivalents of speeding; or as the Officer would say, "it's a bit much". - Richard.
  6. What I am trying to say is, for my project as an offshoot from GER territory, the products of heavy enginneering would more likely come from the Black Country via the Midland, or from the North East via the NER or coastal shipping. - Richard.
  7. Suppose so . . . I was thinking of Wiltshire to Cornwall. Could have been phrased better! - Richard.
  8. Pig iron is a particularly good example for me. My intended layout is supposed to have a foundry off-scene but nearby, and I'd forgotten to include it on my list. Moreover, there was little heavy industry in GWR territory, nor indeed in GER territory. The wagon needs to be something from the Midlands or the North. - Richard.
  9. I has occurred to me, some 'foreign' wagons, carrying a specialised load, might have been destined for a private siding. As such, they wouldn't stay long to be photographed in the nearby general goods yard. - Richard.
  10. I have added "before 1916" to the title of this thread. Partly because this might help to focus the discussion on the periods of interest to me (1889 to 1913) and to other contributors, but mainly because operating patterns changed so much after pooling. I hope this helps. - Richard.
  11. This is very important to me. I was confusing 'joint' lines with 'running powers'. Thanks. - Richard.
  12. I have just bought myself a copy of Ian Allan's reprint of the 1904 RCH maps. At first glance I realise so many small towns with more than one railway company had more than one station. Looking at the railways in and around Rutland, I wonder how freight consuming a single wagon was sent from (say) Rockingham to Ketton. I am going to go back to the main topic, https://www.rmweb.co.uk/topic/159248-foreign-wagons-how-many-would-you-see/ I really do need to read it from end to end. - Richard.
  13. I think we have identified some of the answers. 1) A load needing a special wagon, like a gun barrel 2) A load needing particular care, like a show animal 3) A load being awkward or laborious to tranship, like a ploughing engine There ought to be others. The load nagging in the back of my mind is an entire wagon filled with a product bound for a single destination. There must have been specialised loads like particular grades of coal or tar or timber, sourced in unique localities and finding markets far afield. I want to think, there were so many pre-grouping railway companies, then without through workings they would have spent more time doing transhipment than running trains . . . and of course, this gives me a justification for through workings on a layout.
  14. So - I have make a post, intended to help or reassure another member of the site: https://www.rmweb.co.uk/topic/171078-rmweb-change-of-hosting-missing-images-april-2022/?do=findComment&comment=4901593 Someone picked up on my use of one word ("site"), and less than a day later, a member who I have always respected to the highest degree seems to be slamming me down. I am sorry for the obvious annoyance I have caused to all concerned. Please accept, this was not my intention. I will return to my blog, to rebuild it as well as I can, and I won't post here (on this topic) again unless someone asks me to. I hope this sounds fair. - Richard.
  15. To my mind, RMweb is a web site and for convenience I call this a site. The site holds promotional material for its owners, announcements by model train manufacturers, diary information and public discussion; and the owners of the site accept payments from users for 'premium' levels of membership. Trying to break this service down into elements such as the sub-contractors responsible for particular aspects of the service such as provision of software and web hosting does not alter this. If I hire a car and the thing conks out a few yards down the road, my business remains with the company I hired it from not the garage which forgot to put oil in the engine at the last service. The root of the problem will always lie with the owners of RMweb - they choose how to run their business and their business decisions have put themselves and the users of their site where they are now. It's not personal, it's business.
  16. The hard part to me is the scale of the loss. For example, for my blog I printed each new post to a pdf file, and for all of my posts I kept the original RAW files. But my backup strategy was designed to cope with the loss of a blog post, or perhaps the loss of a whole week's posts and updates. I never imagined that the site could allow such a catastophic loss to happen. Today I have restored images to a dozen or so of my blog posts. Each image search runs through thirty Apple 'Photos' image libraries. Where I have deleted the original RAW file I am resorting to PDF Candy to extract images I can post. This is not a trivial operation, even for a blog where I am the only person who posted images. For a topic with many contributors, it will be a nightmare to bring everyone on board.
  17. Jamie I have found your post helpful and I remembered the gist of it but I couldn't remember where it was: https://www.rmweb.co.uk/topic/171078-rmweb-change-of-hosting-missing-images-april-2022/?do=findComment&comment=4778414 A similar approach works for blogs. - Richard.
  18. As OP I have gone quiet because this thread is giving me ideas but I don't have fresh prototype information to add. Slightly OT, but it occurs to me an agricultural show would need some additional passenger services too. Could be a really nice 'special day' on a layout. - Richard.
  19. I have a parcel coming with a courier.

    They have sent me an email telling me the parcel is at their sortation facility.

    1. Show previous comments  5 more
    2. Compound2632

      Compound2632

      sortilege the practice of foretelling the future from a card or other item drawn at random from a collection.

    3. sir douglas

      sir douglas

      i was in abit of a panic 3 weeks ago when i got an email saying my package had been delivered (3 days earlier than expected) but it hadnt, turns out it was a mistake at the warehouse someone pressed the wrong button for "delivered" rather than "despatched"

    4. 47137

      47137

      I wanted to hit the funny button but I know how disheartening these things can be. I've had a packet of face masks left at the post office needing a signature and a medium-format camera dumped beside the front door step.

  20. A Record 'Imp' might suit. These were well-made and an ancient and secondhand one might be just right. - Richard.
  21. Pretty much exactly 42 years ago I completed a simple traction engine with a reciprocating cylinder. This was the practical part of A level metalwork (EWTP), I was allowed to do this but not the theory lessons because they clashed with physics! The boiler is a length of copper tube. The ends I cut from an offcut of the same tube, flattened out and flanged over some kind of former (forgotten what - probably a round bit of wood) to make two caps which fitted snugly into the tube. This all silver soldered together and then pressure tested with water i.e. a hydraulic test. I misread the pressure gauge and took mine to 150 psi, should have been 50 psi but nothing went amiss. Imagine being allowed to do this sort of thing without supervision in a school nowadays! There is a boss for the safety valve and I recall this had a bolt inserted in place of the safety valve for the pressure test. Outside is a larger tube made from tinplate to take the paint. - Richard.
  22. The lack of H0 chassis might be a problem to you as a vendor of body shells, it is of no consequence to individual modellers. Sorry if this seems a bit abrupt but to my mind the whole point of using British H0 as a hobby is to be able to buy a few RTR models to get yourself started and then make your own models. There are numerous 16.5mm gauge chassis from British manufacturers. In particular, when we seek out 4mm scale models of prototypes with the running plate offset below the tops of the buffers we often find a suitable starting point. Trying to use H0 mechanisms to create freelance models seems fair enough to me for the right person. If there is a "big problem" here then I respectfully suggest this problem is simply yours. - Richard.
  23. I don't know the dimensions of the 56xx, but if a 4mm J72 chassis has the wanted dimensions I would look at the kit by Comet Models, available from Wizard Models: https://www.wizardmodels.ltd/shop/locomotive/lcp33/ This might give you better value for money over buying a Bachmann J72 for only its chassis. - Richard.
  24. Imagine building a simple branch line layout on an 8 x 4 sheet of board, with the railway on the diagonal and the show set out beside it. - Richard.
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