Liam

For some reason I am reminded of the episode of Only Fools and Horses where the Trotters go to court to pursue a fraudulent claim. When a judge says how he doesn’t regard the Isle of Wight as being overseas, Albert replies, “You want to try walking it pal!”

Phenomenal work Phil! I am currently picturing green and blue diesels traverse the undulating landscape of Worcestershire from the centre of Reims, where earlier today it was 27C - almost 10C warmer than in Redditch!

Just come across this thread - the layout sounds fantastic. I have a family connection to Beattock in that my dad lived in the station house there between around 1965 and 1970, when my grandfather was area inspector. In addition, we have a holiday cottage in Moffat. 🙂

I had seen the face in publications and heard the name from the same provenance many times over the years, but I had the opportunity to meet Simon last year when he came to the Severn Valley Railway with Montana to film a section of Hornby: A Model World with purple Taw Valley. At the time, I was doing a university placement and was mainly based at Comberton Place, but I was honoured to be introduced to him by my supervisor. I shook his hand, he said it was nice to meet me, and then after he and Montana had done a bit of filming we had a more lengthy conversation about model railways - in particular, the two attempts at constructing one between Barnstaple and Bideford, as I am now a part time resident of that area and know the Tarka Trail very well. He kindly accepted my request for a photo with him! One of the things he mentioned during the course of the dialogue was that he hasn’t actually got a model railway of his own! But he is still clearly very passionate about them, alongside railways in general - while at Bewdley, he went off to see some of the other restoration projects, such as the GWR buffet coach. I then bumped into him several more times after that at the Great Dorset Steam Fair, Milton Keynes and Warley. The first meeting with him was in a professional capacity, and so that prompted me to connect with him on LinkedIn. If you told the 10 year old me that he would one day be professionally connected with a senior figure from Hornby he wouldn’t believe it! I genuinely believe that Simon is a really nice chap that practically anyone can warm to. Enjoy your retirement Simon, and allow me to buy you a pint should our paths cross again!

It’s unlikely I’ll be able to offer a layout, but I’m interested in turning up to show my face as a (semi) Midlands based RMwebber, even if by that point I’ll be primarily living and working within the Noble Realm of SWAG. 😀 Glad that efforts are being made to create a Midlands group though!

For me I’d say it’s the escape from the tunnel with the criminals inside in Oh, Mr Porter. While I would put that as (one of) the best, there are a few other quality railway sequences from more recent films. If we don’t let quality be totally defined by accuracy, I offer Paddington 2... (Tornado was taken by road to Leavesden Studios and filmed along a short section of track there. Apparently the actor who plays Jonathan Brown, Samuel Joslin, was genuinely at the regulator - then aged 15!) ...and the tube scene in Darkest Hour. I also enjoyed (but some other members of this parish begged to differ) The Railway Children Return, and I also thought the climax there was very well done.

Still makes me chuckle today!

It is, but it also addresses the safeguarding issue.

Yes, I’ve car shared a few times on my way home from my second club in Barnstaple (who slightly confusingly meet in Bideford). At the time this happened I was yet to pass my driving test, and realistically I could have waited an extra 20 minutes or so for the bus back to Barnstaple, but that’s the nature of model railway clubs; if a clubmate is able to help you, they will.

Yes, for us in Redditch MRC we have a unit in an industrial warehouse, and it is strictly no under 16s allowed - that’s the rule of the premises which every tenant must follow.

Norton Bridge? Although I think the main concern was the speed of non-stopping trains.

The first time I went to Warley was when I was taken there by my parents aged around eight or nine. I remember seeing an N Gauge layout that had a stream with running water. Name escapes me but I think it was modern image as it had a Voyager and IIRC 66 on it. Miniatur Wunderland in Hamburg also has a large inlet for the Scandinavian section of real water, which the model ships navigate through.

The O Gauge layout at the NRM York?

Yes, it was bad enough for this human being while cruising along the Trent & Mersey!

First house martins of the year spotted near Penkridge, Staffordshire.

I met him when I paid a research visit to the NRM back in February. Glad that he’s been preserved in his original livery!

The picture and your words sum up a wonderful way of life in England which sadly now only exists in small pocketed areas today.

Unfortunately not, but we did see the new tramway. That looks very smart and I was told upon returning home and down at the model railway club for the first time afterwards that the trams in Mauritius are the same design as those on the Midland Metro.

I hope you don’t mind me bringing this thread up. We went on holiday to Mauritius for Christmas and it’s a fantastic island. On one of the days just before Christmas, we hired a driver and car to do a whole day excursion around the island and one of the places we stopped off was a tea plantation. There’s a museum there that explains all about Mauritian tea, and in this museum I was astonished to find a steam locomotive boiler. There was a technical drawing next to the locomotive and this said the builder was Bagnall, Stafford. The railway on Mauritius closed in 1962 and then this boiler was purchased by the tea plantation (a company called Bois Cheri) and used IIRC in the tea leaf burning process.

Same with Worthing Beach (or A N Other beach along the South Coast) due to the water companies releasing raw sewage into the waterways which then flooded into the sea and washed up on the beach. Despicable.

I’ve always called any sleeper train ‘the sleeper’, although GWR call the Paddington to Penzance one the Night Riviera, and in a film I saw last year someone called it the Stella Express! Also, I believe the Euston-Fort William sleeper is sometimes unofficially known as the Deerstalker Express.

You can hear the trains on the West Coast Main Line from our cottage in Moffat, Dumfriesshire. And even at the university campus at Northampton can a train sometime be heard, even though there’s a mile between the locations and there’s much more in the way of settlements there than up in Moffat/Beattock.

You’d hear me singing all the way!

I hope people don’t mind me briefly resurrecting this thread. I’m off to Boat Life at the NEC on Saturday, and I was wondering what the Spoons is like there? I’m looking to go there for my lunch. Now that I think about it there are two Wetherspoons at the NEC. Hopefully they’re not too expensive? I’m conscious that the Wetherspoons inside Birmingham Airport is very pricey, practically double the prices of a normal Spoons.