Tallpaul69

Glad you enjoyed your visit to Leighton Buzzard.

Good Evening everyone, With Easter having come and gone, we are a bit nearer returning to normal, but there are still a number of things to sort before we can move on. On the plus side, we managed the first day out for ourselves yesterday. Aylesbury is easy to get to on public transport and one of our favourite towns to visit, so we thought it a good choice for a first trip of the year. We had a good day, there were a few showers, but we managed to avoid them. However, on the minus side, when we went to our favourite café for morning coffees and slices of their glorious cakes, we found that the lady who had run it for many years had retired before Christmas, and that it had "had a makeover". The coffee was up to standard but oh dear, the cake! Choice, quality and price had all gone the wrong way, and the new manager's story that there would be a new set made tomorrow didn't help. So next visit we will sample the other non chain establishment. On the railway front, I have a stack of jobs to attend to, hopefully tomorrow I will get to compile a list! Hopefully too, I will get the time to post a regular report in the coming weeks. Best regards to you all, Take care, Paul

Hi There, Stephen Freeman (who has a topic here on RMWeb), is a specialist in signal construction. He made the GWR signals for my GW&GC layout, and I can highly recommend him. Don't know about signal boxes, but Stephen may know someone? Cheers Paul

Hi Folks, Apologies for the "Radio Silence", Things have been a bit tricky for us in the last couple of weeks and still will be for a while yet, which is why I have not posted recently! We have been busy supporting my brother in law who although coming up to his 89th birthday, has lived on his own just outside Northampton, with some support from us, his only relatives, and friends local to him. Unfortunately his health has deteriorated and he has been in and out of hospital and his mobility is now poor. So we have been up there sometimes at short notice to support him. We are currently trying to find him home help that he will accept. Up till now he has resisted such a move, and to be fair, a month ago we did not think it necessary. Hopefully he will improve in the next couple of weeks and we can find someone as a home help that he can get along with. So I think it will be after Easter before we are back to normal, and I will then update you further, and hopefully be in a position to give railway matters some attention. Best regards Paul

Hi Tony, for various reasons, mainly outside the railway, that I won't bore you with, this problem has been parked for some time while other matters are resolved. I hope to get back to railway matters after Easter. Cheers Paul

Good evening everyone, I am trying to decide appropriate liveries for Freightliner containers for my GW&GC line model set in 1990-2. Did substantial numbers of the containers carry the original red and grey livery until that period? If not what livery were they in then? Many thanks Paul

Thanks, I cant find anything. In the "Bad old Days" each Hornby loco instruction leaflet used to have stamped on the top front, the locos R number followed by the sequential identification number for the individual loco. Off course, I understand such an approach is far to "low Tech" for the current era, but didn't it make the customers life easy if there was a query? Never mind, thanks for responding quickly, Paul

Hi All, I have got stuck with getting the HM7000 app to work. It is installed fine on my I phone. The screen seems to be showing as described in the leaflet supplied with my new Loco with a HM7000 factory fitted chip. When I run the scan, In the "Ready to Link" box I get one item under "Resettable Devices" with the identification "HM7000_C9F1" and 15 items under "Unfiltered devices" , mostly with the label "Name N?A but including one I can identify as our television! Concentrating on the "HM7000_C9F1" item under the heading it shows "Reset device>". I f I click on this I get a box which says "Reset Passcode" "To reset this device please enter the reset passcode. This can be found on the device manager screen. If you have lost this please contact Hornby Support". Below this is a box with a flashing curser (For the passcode to be entered?). there are also cancel and ok buttons. My problems 1) I have no idea which device this is. I have three locos with HM7000 chips in, is it one of those? none are currently on a track or powered. 2) I have no idea where the Device Manager Screen is or how I access it. Can someone please help me, preferably in plain English not techispeak! I have gone through the HM manual all 166 pages of it, but cannot find anything to help! Many thanks Paul Many thanks

Afternoon All, Greetings from a (once again!) wet and soggy south Bedfordshire. No venturing to the railway room today, which is a pity as it is the first day since they arrived that I have time free to play with set up and test run my first Hornby 7000 fitted diesels. Also, my BR liveried Toplights arrived today. Have yet to open and inspect them, but am expecting a real treat! my first Hornby 7000 fitted diesels to I have committed to a 3D printed 12 ton Rail mounted Diesel crane. It looks splendid, and hopefully my mate Malcolm can do the works on assembly and weathering. I am also debating upgrading my Bachmann Classes 31 and 69 orders to SFX specification to give the new DCC uncouplers a go. Cheers, Paul

Afternoon All, My BR liveried Toplights arrived today. Have yet to open and inspect them, but am expecting a real treat! Cheers, Paul

That makes two of us!

You want the bell to ring??

Glad I am not the only one running their layout in multiple eras although my dates ate a little wider spaced being 1962ish, 1992ish, 2006ish, and 2019ish. I say -ish because I do tend under Rule 1 to allow items I like from a year or two each side of the date. So just this week, after being fairly strict on the 2019 date, I have pre-ordered 69001, which of course is a 2021 product! Yes, I know the infrastructure and areas outside the railway fence (and the fence itself!) have altered from 1962 until now, but with careful choice of prototype area and a little Rule 1 I think things are manageable!

Nick, Glad to heart your positive progress report, hope you can soon get back to modelling and the reporting of your structural efforts! Best regards Paul

Things are on the up (a little!). Our decorator finished tonight, a day early, so tomorrow we can get the house back to normal. As a result of today's Bachmann announcements I have lined my wallet up for a substantial hit later in the year with three sound fitted items. So there are pre-orders for a Bachmann class 31 (Mainline livery), and an Accurascale 31 (Intercity livery). These are backed up by taking the plunge on a pre-order for 69001. Yes, I know the 69ers didn't arrive until 2021,and my modern rendering of Bradenham is supposed to be 2019, but I decided that the 2019 dateline could be a little elastic as I thought the 69er sharing the 56 bodyshell would make an interesting comparison with my Cavalex 56. I will now take a more leisurely look at the Mk1 releases. Cheers All, Paul