woodenhead

But you've nowhere to put your feet now 😄

Aye. It's hard enough to make people happy when you carefully wrap a boxed item and they complain about the number of layers of bubblewrap you've used, but an unboxed item means either purchasing boxes (a cost) or spending time cutting up cardboard to fashion one. If most of your items are loose like that it would be hell. Like I said, the video is of interest, the chap does not appear to be a gouger and whilst his mark up is nearly 50% on many items I get the impression some stuff has gone at a loss and his 50% mark up is not megabucks but like £20-£30 selling price which given the effort he likely expends is probably not a lot of profit. Mind, the tax people will be interested given the new rules Ebay has to follow, so his actual return may soon be even less for the effort put in.

Some might say an 'outbreak'

Was it the Dartmouth or South Devon where they had the MK1 coach toilets with no floors in them? Somewhat bigger risk that opening doors.

If you did lay a 36 road set of carriage sidings, then you have your fiddleyard sorted if you operate the Hertford loop as a sort of return line for the ECML north element of the circuit. Then another return loop at the southern end to represent Kings X. All you need then is a few sidings to represent a fiddleyard for any freight trains.

Added complexity of the Palace Heights line but a rather nice place to plonk lots of coaches and the carriage shed is a tad smaller perhaps.

1977 was electric, for suburban and outer suburban services This is Bounds Green when new

If I was looking at this model for the period of 1955-1970 I would be considering N gauge I think but your stock will look something like this perhaps listing N gauge manufacturer first then OO. But with your expanded period from 1955, there would be more available from the OO ranges in terms of variety as some key items are missing in N i.e. the 105 DMU, a class 23 and Gresley suburbans. You're going to need some tank engines for the suburban services too for the steam period but I'm not too up on what was used out of KX on suburbans. Once thing for sure, Bounds Green would not exist with a big shed, this might actually make life easier as you can focus more on running trains and less on shunting a shed designed for HSTs, but if you want Bounds Green as it is now you will be purely in the HST period and that also means OHLE with 312 and 313 emus, no dmus and no suburbans, motive power and loco hauled stock would be streamlined too compared to your chosen period J50 - Sonic / Hornby B1 Farish / Dapol / Bachmann A1 Farish / Bachmann A3 Dapol / Hornby A4 Dapol / Hornby Class 23 na / Heljan Class 24 Farish / Bachmann Class 26 Dapol / Heljan Class 30/31 Farish / Hornby / Accurascale Class 40 Farish / Bachmann Class 47 Farish / Bachmann Class 55 Farish / Bachmann / Accurascale DMU Class 105 na / Bachmann Thompson coaches Farish / Bachmann Gresley coaches Dapol / Hornby Gresley suburban na / Hornby Mk1 Farish / Bachmann / Hornby Mk2 Farish / Bachmann Mk1 Suburban Farish / Bachmann

At a recent show in Yorkshire I didn't approach the 2mm FS society and they didn't approach me, but in Glasgow I approached them and several of them all joined in to show me different elements relating to 2mm FS - the approach to track building, drop in wheelsets for diesels and some of the tools and tricks they use to help them model. At York I didn't approach them and they did not approach me. At Warley there was a chap showing models created by himself and his MR club, when I showed interest he reciprocated. I guess that in order to make these demonstrations operate one has to approach them first and then they come to life and are quite interactive. I don't think having people waving arms and beckoning people to their stands is going to work, I think most people are quite shy and don't want to be bothered un-necessarily at a show.

I am not Mr Crispin, but I thought people might be interested in following this chap, it's going to be a slow burn he's been building this for 14 years although to be fair he was at school when he started and then spent some time as a Rolls Royce apprentice.

This popped up on my feed this morning, gives some idea of the mark up for someone who buys and sells for profit over someone who is selling off items they no longer need. If you ask me it's a lot of work when it lots of individual items in constant dribs and drabs.

Wet and windy in Manchester, decided not to go to the gym today, seems to getting too easy to avoid the gym. Spent the week so far reaquainting myself with web development, got to add some new functionality to a web application I developed 12 months ago. Everything going to plan so far but I've yet to get to a point where an actual user has to test it and come up with 1000 other things it could do. I am being fuelled though by a rather nice home done salt n pepper chicken fried rice (the rice comes from Aldi in a useful pack I just fry it after doing all the other ingredients). Tis rather yum - onions, chilli, chicken, an egg, Aldi fried rice and soy sauce plus salt and pepper of course.

@GraemeWatson Are they not different trains though, the Mk3s being used for their Management exec train whereas the Mk2s are for the charter services?

I would say at a minimum I would hope to see the following societies at York each year: 009 N gauge 2mm 3mm EM/P4 O Plus people to represent loco construction, track building, buildings construction and scenics. York to me is a like a bridge between rtr and finescale so demonstrations and society stands are important in helping people over that bridge.

It looks resolved, if I select N gauge now as starting point for Rail, the manufacturer list does not include obvious exclusions like Accurascale and Heljan. so I would not be able to replicate what happened before. And where there is no product I now get However, this loco is mis categorised, it's not Hornby: 371-064 Graham Farish N Gauge Class 03 Shunter 03170 BR Blue Weathered (Pre-Owned) (themodelcentre.com)

I'm somewhere in the middle but the original plan was for a bigger railway but was put off by the challenge of building one so I've more stock than I realistically need even after a large trimming of models. I can certainly appreciate how a stable of 2-3 locos and a small amount of stock is a lot easier to maintain with less rotation required.

The hard bit is putting them on sale. Had a couple of class 26s and a couple of class 27s and despite not using them I kept them as with my other locos I could easily do a highland layout but in the end I pushed myself to pick a period and a location which is Northwest England late 1960s. With that focus I then set about selling my steam engines of GWR and SR heritage, Scottish diesels and associated stock leaving just standards and ex LMS locos plus a lot of EE diesels and a smattering of hydraulics. The steam engines still don't get a look in as I have more than enough for the size of layout even now (and truth be known I stretched the ex LMS envelope a little as a Royal Scot and a Jubilee would not see 1968). On the other hand, I now find myself with 'enough' trains so I don't find myself yearning for new models and suchlike and going to exhibitions had gotten a lot less expensive! Still I yearn to try something different and I did pick up code 40 N gauge track gauges recently and I plan to try also a bit of 2mm as well.

It should just happen, not sure what went wrong in your post @AY Mod might know more.

My class 25s and 24s are my smoothest runners though one of the 25s is sometimes sticky after a lack of use so I've had a pick at the accumulated 'Bachmann' goo on the worm. I also find that Dapol bo-bo locos are also smooth, even the older 26/27 models with dodgy circuit boards were also silky running. It feels to me that actually the more wheels a loco has the less well it performs, which is odd really as all those extra pickups should have the opposite effect.

Embedded them for you

Well it launched, but it didn't go to plan - first the bottle did not fire into the ship when she cut the rope, and when someone did something behind the curtain it simply hit the boat without breaking - a bad luck omen if you believe such things. However, it floats like a ship

Delayed launch due to wind. And 5 minutes ago they were still painting it 😮 To be fair, they had just removed chocks from here in readiness for the launch.

When I worked for a bank I had to purchase a couple of projectors for meetings in the office. We had preferred suppliers so I obtained a list from procurement and set up a meeting with one in Northampton whom I visited and was given a thorough demonstration of several models. A model was chosen, a price agreed and back to work I went to put in the order. A couple of weeks later a call came from the supplier, where was the order? I don't know I answered and I made enquiries only to find that the procurement team decided to place the order with another 'preferred supplier' for more than the cost I had been quoted. We had to pull rank on the procurement team to get the order back with the people who'd actually invested time in us.

Ship due for launch today - bit worried about those two condemned symbols above the bow thrusters 😄 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-scotland-68765167

Hybrid? Is it a boat bus or a bus boat? Or a bus bridge - seeing as the doors both reach each side.