Martino

Thank you very much Nick and Stationmaster. That’s perfect info in both cases. Looking at a period between Sept ‘63 and around ‘66. That’s corresponds with my early years at Licensed Victualler’s School (shown on the map) and before all Steam was gone, and everything was painted blue! Once again, very many thanks.

Thank you very much Simon. Of course, as soon as I re-read my post I realized that I meant the EAST end of Slough station! Your suggestion is very useful as it has the adjacent box’s diagrams. Dolphin is helpful as is Slough Middle. Regrettably the S-R-S don’t have the box between them, Slough East, so it’s back to the drawing board. Many thanks again.

I’m about to launch into 4mm/00 modeling again after probably 55 years, having been doing 15mm in the garden for the past 15 years. My plan is to do a section of the GW main line that I could see from the playing field and classrooms of my school during the early/mid ‘60s. That would be the east end of Slough station. In fact you couldn’t see the station from the school just the main and relief lines plus the sidings etc. Thing is, I can’t find a track plan of that piece of railway. Can anyone point me in the right direction? It’s essentially the bit in this awful photo taken by my teenage self back in the day. Many thanks in advance.

The ‘problem’ is not SUVs, but trucks. It would seem that the possession of a an increasingly huge truck is some sort of masculine right here. A bit like possession of various firearms. My experience of friends and acquaintances is that 50% say they ‘need’ a truck to transport and tow stuff, however they rarely do either. The others 50% use trucks as the US equivalent of the UK white van - a general purpose work vehicle. The problem is that they are getting bigger and bigger and their front ends are increasingly unfriendly to other vehicle and of cours e pedestrians. Regrettably many SUVs are based on the truck chassis (or frame). Again, people buy these because they apparently need an off road or 4WD vehicle. But they are generally lacking in off road capability, even if they were taken off road. The smaller SUVs have taken over from the estate car or even commodious hatchbacks. Me? I live 1900’ up a mountain in Georgia, so we genuinely do have snow and other conditions that need a 4WD. Hence the ‘small’ Range Rover with a small engine. Often referred to by the locals as either a British Jeep or a truck (the insult!) We also have minivan for transporting ‘stuff’ and our two Collies. I live in fear of being T boned by a big truck which always seem to take up three quarters of our mountain roads. Even worse are the ‘Dualies’ with their flared rear arches!

I’ve used these - https://www.nocsprovisions.com. This is a US site, but I would assume they are available in other areas.

I’ve been watching F1 since the early ‘70s and indeed was a marshal at Silverstone from ‘72 to mid ‘90s, including the F1 races there. The way the FIA are managing these races now is deeply disappointing. The issue over the the deployment of the Safety Car to day was awful. Stroll’s car was clearly not a danger to the competitors and the most it needed was a VSC. Then the matter of Alonso’s penalty was deeply odd to say the least. One wonders what advantage he could have obtained by being to one side of the grid box in today’s race. Then to let him take the 5 second penalty during the SC stop was questionable. That it then took the rest of the race to decide a jack ‘may’ have touched the car, and to increase the penalty to 10 seconds after the podium ceremony, was amateur. And then to reverse that decision ….. well words fail me. Drivers will be liked and disliked. All drivers have egos and are by essence aggressive. That’s part of the sport. I’m not a Verstappen fan, but, hey I wasn’t a Piquet, Schumacher or Senna fan either. But that’s just personal likes/dislikes. That the FIA are constantly and continually bad at stewardship decisions is very worrying and challenges my continuing support of the Formula.

My feeling is that graffiti is just vandalism, however…. In Pensacola, Northwest Florida, near where I used to live is The Graffiti Bridge. (https://thegraffitibridge.com/) which has become something of a place where social comment can be made. It’s regularly updated and has become a celebrity location. It’s also a bridge that is regularly hit by truck drivers who cannot read height restriction signs. I remember graffiti on an old pillbox at the end of a siding, north of the Great Western mainline, around Langley I think. It was there in the early ‘70s when I was commuting into London from Slough. It said ‘ Tex Catty Cat’. I recall that it was still there many many years later. Is it still there? When did it first appear?

It gets even worse with the larger scales/gauges. I model in 16mm or 15mm/ft but on 45mm gauge. That gives me a 1:1 gauge of 3ft. However so much of this is lumped into G scale. That of course means different things to every manufacturer. LGB for example has rubber ruler and produces stuff in anything from 1:18 to 1:29 and everything in between. It seems that stating you model in 16mm/ft means that people automatically assume that you run on 32mm gauge. G scale means different things in the UK to the USA. I find it frustrating to say the least.

Oops the photo of the Tri coloured didn’t load (‘cause it was a RAW file!).

….and talking of Collies. Here’s two of our Tri-Coloured Smooths. Jack, the big boy who is now 11, and Roxy, my little girl who unfortunately passed on last year, too early at the age of 4. Also, our 1 year old sable smooth, Zac - my best mate!

Re the Challengers…….it would appear that the Royal Jordanian Army are selling their whole fleet of Challenger 1 tanks (about 300) and that’s the number of tank the Ukrainians need. It would be cheaper for the UK to ‘buy’ the Jordanian arms for the Ukrainians. Also the Challenger 2s have what is still top secret armour that would be awful if it got into Russian hands. The Challenger 1s have an older armour that would be OK.

Thanks for the temporary fix Andy. Much better.

I can’t imagine how many times during my ‘career’ as a DJ I played Hi Ho Silver Lining performed (but not written by) Mr Beck. He was a virtuoso guitarist. Part of the soundtrack to my life. Very sad to lose him.

I think our guys would be up for that. They’re pretty good. Trouble is my drive is firstly downhill, then steeply up hill and on a curve. I’d definitely need a rack system. I’ll keep dreaming.

I think I’ve been through this many times. Had a triang and Hornby set up as a kid. Sold most of it in teens but kept some bits. Then started collecting stuff from jumbles in the late 80s for a layout that existed only in my head. Moved to the US in my late 50s and decided to build a garden railway, which I did and lasted a good 10 years. Early this year we decided to move from flat Florida to the North Georgia mountains. The garden railway and heaps of track is packed to move. I have the feeling that no matter what, the garden railway will NOT work up the mountain! So, we revert to planning the 00 layouts in the basement. But sourcing reasonable UK based stuff in the US is difficult, if not impossible. However, throughout the past many years since my childhood 00 gauge train set, I’ve dreamed, played, researched the prototype, joined clubs, done heritage stuff and generally kept an interest bubbling. I’m not sure where this will lead in the future, but I’ve kept the interest going. Don’t suddenly sell everything (unless you really need the money) and keep your mind working on all the possibilities. Even giving your past knowledge as advice to a new generation. The imagination is a wonderful thing to keep your interest.

I need one of those!

My understanding, and experience, is that the F35 is no noisier than the F15 or the F22 (which we also have). We’re talking the Air Force variant rather than the Marine version. However the sheer variety of types coming in here from B52, B1, through C5s, C17, KC125 and everything else means that the they really can’t be identified. Also, the aircraft don’t flash past anyone’s gardens here. The base is just too extensive. There are routes that the inbound and outbound aircraft use and they do avoid some areas, but it’s a huge base and and also cover the ranges out over the Gulf of Mexico. There’s more noise disruption from the Navy EOD school, the Air Force Test Center and the AFSOC guys who tend to blow stuff up fairly spectacularly. We also have the AFSOC base at Hurlburt (just down the road and part of Eglin) who charge about in CV22 Ospreys. Everyone knows that the area is a major base and has been for 80 years. The military friendliness and lack of NIMBY persuasion in Northwest Florida is well known.

Three quick stories. My later Father in Law, a USAF three star General was the Boss at a B52 base in the US. He received a call from a local lady one day complaining that an aircraft had passed low over her house. “Did it have a red star on its tail?” He asked. “No” she said. “Thank God, it’s one of ours” he replied. In the ‘80s and ‘90s I was involved with a company that sold holidays in Australia to Brits. One set of prospective tourists rented a Campervan with the intention of driving from Adelaide to Alice Springs, a distance of some 1530 Kms. We were obliged to tell them they shouldn’t drive at night as animals in the outback unexpectedly crossed or stood in the road. They felt it would be OK as they’d see them in the street lights. Lastly, we currently live near Eglin AFB in Florida. The largest USAF base in North America and home to the Airforce Weapons Development section, plus squadrons on F35s, F15s and virtually every type of aircraft in the USAF inventory visits regularly. The base has been here since the 1930s. We’ve had a local mayor who challenged the deployment of F35s as he felt they were too noisy. Also a recently moved-in local complained the he’d lived near Atlanta airport but the military aircraft here made too much noise. You can imagine how that went down with the locals who celebrate The Sound of Freedom!

Couldn’t agree more Johnster.

My Lady Wife constantly surprises me. She has in the past surprised me with a table saw and various other tools -none of which I had hinted at, and indeed hadn’t even thought of buying myself. For my birthday this year she found a VCG copy of The Official Guide to the Great Western Railway dated 1888. Today (Christmas Day) she presented a Railway Calendar (that’s a regular gift), a Lego I.K. Brunel figure (see photo), a 1991 edition of George Behrend’s Gone With Regret (which on opening revealed that it’s a signed copy, which neither she nor the seller knew) and a 1940 stamped T.E. Bladon & Sons Ltd., GWR guards handlamp. No input from me. I am a lucky man.

60K new Range Rover! Where do you find those bargains?

It’s not getting the trains up and down the slope, it’s getting me up and down!

I have, genuinely, considered that! However the slope is so steep I may have difficulty in just getting back up, once I’ve gone down. It requires exploration with a rope and a Sherpa in the spring ;-)

Thank you both. Great suggestions.

Thank you. That looks like a good contender. I found copies available at a good price. It was written, I think in ‘85 and unlisted in ‘88 around when I last did any 00 stuff!