jonhall

I only paid a fiver per wagon including the wheels! Jon

+1 for the .45 handrail wire down the metal tube. keep it, because you will need to unblock after storage. You shouldn't need to take the yellow lid off. Jon

I acquired four of these, two of each type, for pretty much what the wheels are worth, no idea of the origin, but the W irons only had a small hole etched, and the general style Jidenco is a possibility. I've had to clean off a lot of stray solder, and a lot of corrosion, but underneath all that were some quite nicely built wagons. Drilling out the w irons allowed bearings to be fitted, and I'm now starting to think about sources of springs and axlebox castings - suggestions for a suitable source would be welcome, but I might just bodge them! Thanks Jon

I think the haus-zu-haus system was a slightly different thing. try this website https://eisenbahnstiftung.de/bildergalerie and use kübelwagen as a search term Jon

I had no luck with my personal PC on either Chrome or Edge, but just tried on the work PC and thats ok - not sure if that info helps, but at least its not just you! Jon

I was beginning to wonder if I'd written that in invisible ink. Jon

1/411 bogie slab coils - Appleby did a kit a long time ago. https://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/brcoilz Jon

https://www.interrail.eu/en/black-friday 25% off some passes, trips needs to be started before 1st june 2024 (but if you have a 3 month pass that could mean all of June, July and August away). I notice 10% off German passes, so there might be other bargains on single countries to be had as well, but I haven't explored all the options. Jon

The Vivat Viaduckt festival might be the right sort of time of year - when I last went I think I arrived on a special train behind a ?78? from Gutersloh https://www.vivat-viadukt.de/viadukt/index.php If of course it happens in 2024. Jon

Dresden as a base to do the Saxon narrow gauge lines (Zittau, Oshatz, Radeburg, and Freital) plus 'Saxon Switzerland' around Bad Shandau would still tick a lot of your boxes. You might hit lucky with a mainline tour from Dresden, Chemnitz, Löbau, Cottbus or Nossen who all have mainline loco's and occasionally do tours. Meiningen works does tours on a Saturday morning - albeit in German. https://www.db-fzi.com/fahrzeuginstandhaltung-de/Werk-Meiningen-6282258

also for Germany https://eisenbahnplaner.net/?page=&lang=en gives some of the events on in Germany, but can be a bit hit and miss - certainly dosn't cover everything, and not always early enough to book tickets from the UK, but might be worth a check in the week or two before travel. Good tours run (mostly) by societies - I've used all 4, slightly complicated by my lack of German, but I muddled through. https://www.lausitzerdampflokclub.de/ https://www.eisenbahn-nostalgiefahrten-bebra.de/ https://www.historische-eisenbahn-frankfurt.de/ https://www.stoomstichting.nl/ Dutch, but are proposing a Pentecost multi-day tour into Germany - probably with their 01 or 23 (or maybe even both?) IGE run commercial tours for a German market, but it might give indications where things are happening. https://www.ige-erlebnisreisen.de/start/index.php Bigger museums https://www.bayerisches-eisenbahnmuseum.de/index.php?lang=de large collection of locos - often run railtours and photocharters over local lines Darmstadt https://bahnwelt.de/ Bochum Dahlhausen https://eisenbahnmuseum-bochum.de/ Also consider the Technic museums at either Sinsheim or Speyer https://speyer.technik-museum.de/ https://sinsheim.technik-museum.de/

The two biggest German mainline steam events are the Dresden Dampfloktreffen in April, and the Meiningen loco works open day usually the first weekend of September. Those are guaranteed to get you mainline steam. The standard gauge preservation scene is rather different to the UK in Germany, many more roundhouses with a mainline loco, rather than a preserved line, and those lines that there are tend to be Sunday afternoon only events. Easier are narrow gauge, with 3 obvious concentrations, the Harz, the lines around Dresden, and the two lines on the Baltic there will operate every day most of the year. Jon

Thanks for bringing it! Jon

just a late change Kent Garden Railways has had to withdraw due to illness, which has caused quite a significant rejig. although actually 24ft less stands means it all actually fits a great deal better than it did! we had too much in the original plan! Jon

We are well on the way to having a full hall.

I've seen it said that the Hamburg app will also allow you to buy effectively a month by cancelling before the 10th, but not tried it yet https://www.hvv-switch.de/en/landingpages/deutschlandticket/?fbclid=IwAR0KCv_jfjpmZ8Drgu0fchPTC5iJor65h3uKQPAzD2QyEBIG5RrLUzf7K8M Jon

Yes, we took both cards and cash at the door last year very successfully. We usually run two box-offices in the morning to handle the volume of sales, and last year we ran one as card and one as cash for much of the morning, because the cash queue moved a little quicker. We *might* have slightly different arrangements this year as the leisure center were slightly twitchy about us using their box-office, but I've been a little disconnected this year as I've moved away from the area, my membership has lapsed, and I'm doing domestic duties elsewhere both Saturday and Sunday mornings this year, so my information is somewhat out of date. I did look more closely at the list of visiting layouts this year, and was really quite pleased with the list I saw, it looks a really good show to my somewhat biased eyes. As ever, running a show this size, in this area, and with a very small membership (rather fewer members than either Woking or Epsom clubs who have both stopped their exhibitions recently) is a precarious thing, and the club needs your support to keep visiting and making it worthwhile for them to continue. Jon

I'm doing a little more laser cutting and would like thinner sheets and ideally a better material than Rowmark. Can anyone recommend sheet material of 0.5-1.5mm thickness. I don't like Rowmark because it doesn't bond with my preferred solvent (DCM) and smells particularly nasty when cutting, and feels rather sticky/waxy after cutting. Thanks Jon

Mention of the ULEZ elsewhere has reminded me that TRC is within the ULEZ zone (in blue on this map) First, before you panic, please check your vehicle here https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/driving/check-your-vehicle/ A surprising number of vehicles are compliant (including my petrol-turbo Subaru, much to my relief) . You cannot get off the A3 at the Hook junction if coming from outside London, and the little cut into Red Lion Road (that I've always thought was a bit dodgy) will take you into the zone, but you CAN come off the roundabout at Tolworth, and go around to rejoin the A3 to come off at Hook without entering the zone, provided you don't stray from the roundabout. As you can see the A243 that passes close to the venue is the border of the zone, if you don't mind parking on the street and a 5-10 minute walk there might be a solution? There are also 7 or more buses an hour down this road. We would encourage you to come by public transport, and as usual are running a free shuttle bus from Surbiton station. Trains from London and the Guildford direction seem to be running OK, but there seems to be engineering work between Weybridge and Woking https://www.southwesternrailway.com/plan-my-journey/~/link.aspx?_id=7DD3A3CBEE24423F8B1973A9CCD4BBD4&_z=z

Well I gave up the journey by train this morning after an hour and a half on Euston station with no trains arriving or departing! I should have gone by car. The issue of park and ride was always going to be one of capacity, 2 or 3 buses combined give a capacity of what? 175-ish per round trip, call it 350 per hour, and I would guess Saturday morning could reasonably have expected a couple of thousand visitors? therefore GETS should probably have laid on 9-10 buses, they will have had the visitor data from last year to base their numbers on. Jon

I think I'll be using the M3 from Sunbury Cross! Jon

I notice that the Dresden Dampfloktreffen and Intermodelbau Dortmund are only a week apart next year, so 10 days in Germany could see both. https://www.igbwdresdenaltstadt.de/ https://www.intermodellbau.de/ Although it looks like Dresden may be cut back to only two days, which might be due to (I presume) losses sustained this year when an un-exploded WWII bomb was dug up about 400m from the event and they lost almost all of Saturdays opening hours. Jon