Barry Ten

Tuesday at 13:56

On 22/04/2024 at 02:14, Ron Ron Ron said:

Some of you might remember stories about Concorde supersonic booms being heard in the West Country (Devon and Somerset) and the Channel Islands.

The supersonic shock wave would travel ahead of the aircraft and if the atmospheric conditions were right (or wrong, depending how you look at it), Concorde’s boom would continue forward towards landfall in the Bristol Channel (for London), or the Channel Islands and northern Brittany (for Paris ), even after the aircraft had decelerated through subsonic transition long before crossing the coast.

.

The "9 0'clock bump" was a well-known phenomenon in South Wales in the late 70s/early 80s - someone will correct me but I believe it was always around 9 in the evening. when there'd be a general muffled thud in the neighborhood. About a decade earlier, when we were living in Cornwall, we'd get a similar effect on garage doors during Concorde's test flights, but they happened at random times of the day.

Monday at 22:17

2 hours ago, Tony Wright said:

Good evening Al,

Seen before a few weeks ago, but maybe forgotten by now............

Is this the same diagram as one of yours?

Built by Peter Lawson from a BSL kit, I'd originally asked £50.00, but now I'm asking £40.00.

Another ex-GWR carriage from a BSL kit, also now £40.00.

I believe the brake is indeed to the same diagram as the Hornby model, Tony - and yes, you have a PM!

Monday at 13:44

These earlier Hornby Collett coaches are a good basis for budget modelling. They can be picked up cheaply - get the ones with GWR bogies, not the 1970s ones with Mk1 bogies - and they are not bad representations of bow-end stock. To improve them, the moulded ends are blended in to the sides with filler, then the whole lot repainted and relined. I added SEF flushglaze, separate roof vents, MJT corridor connections and moved some of the chassis details around on the brake.

The restaurant car can also be made into a good model in GWR condition, but needs more work for BR condition.

Posted Monday at 13:21 · Monday at 13:21

19 hours ago, Bungus the Fogeyman said:

Your Sheepness

All things being equal, Cath and myself are hoping to venture down from the badlands of the Midlands to this shenanigans next Sunday. We want to bring Ellie with us (who is 25% border collie and 75% twonk) and Cath is fretting about whether she'll be allowed in the hall......we promise she will behave and not nip Chris H on the ankle when he's not looking..............

Disgusting of Market Harborough

If Ellie wants a quiet lie down under Paynestown, she'll be more than welcome!

Monday at 10:17

I've shown this before I expect, but here's my J72 after a new chassis was substituted. I bought a part-finished Comet chassis and wheels from ebay, reasoning that the wheels alone were worth the punt. The chassis wasn't assembled very well (the centre axle bearings were just slopping around loose in the frames) but after some tribulations I managed to get something working out of it. I think I put a Branchlines gearbox in which is a bit noisy as it stands, but certainly gives adequate slow running and haulage.

The whirr-whirr either drowns out the hip-hop, or the hip-hop drowns out the whirr-whirr, depending on your tastes.

April 17

17 hours ago, maico said:

This is the P2 for you Tony that existed in a parallel universe...

April 16

1 hour ago, Tony Wright said:

Very nice Al,

Are we going to see anything from the big box I handed over to you at York?

Regards,

Tony.

Not for a week or two, Tony. Due to the logistics of getting back from York, I've left the box down in Cardiff with Dave for temporary safekeeping, although I hope to collect it soon. Not this week for sure! I'm in musical theatre all week, with three small parts in our local production of "Made in Dagenham"! Dress rehearsal tonight, then the first public performance tomorrow.

April 16

Here is my Mainline 4MT, purchased from (I think) a Carlisle model shop during a family visit to the Lake District in 1980. To put that into perspective, the other thing I bought that day was the special "Borchester Market" edition of Model Railways which I still have.

The 4MT is a bit noisy but it runs quite well apart from that, and for the hell of it I converted it to DCC (a bit tricky due to the way the motor brushes work) but not too bad.

The weathering was acrylics, brushed on not long after the model was bought.

April 11

10 hours ago, phil-b259 said:

WRONG!

Loco drive didn’t appear in ANY of Hornbys models until production was transferred to China in the 2000s!

The Battle of Britain/WC was always loco drive, as was the B12.

April 9

3 hours ago, grahame said:

Can I claim anything for seeing Lemmy when in Hawkwind and Richie Blackmore in Rainbow. I can also claim seeing Ray Dorset in Mungo Jerry at Greenwich 😄 and the Temperance Seven on the Isle of Dogs.

I've been on the same plane as Mungo Jerry (aircraft, not astral).

April 8

30 minutes ago, Jesse Sim said:

Evening all,

Last week a friend from the UK visited, we spent the morning down at Thirlmere Railway Museum before heading home to run the sequence. Ashley has a decent fan base on Instagram and is fantastic at taking videos which just an iPhone, so whilst I operated the sequence he filmed some of the trains passing by. I have since edited that footage into one, added an intro, and some voiceover work.

I hope you enjoy seeing some trains run, the layout is still very much a work in progress, as is the stock.

Sorry for hijacking Tony.

Nice vid, Jesse (and Foo Fighters of course). Some friends of mine were at Thirlmere on Easter Monday.

Posted April 8 · April 8

A few shots showing Paynestown as it now stands. Over the last few weeks I've been adding some smaller details to try to bring the scenes to life, such as a telephone box, street lamps, greenhouses etc, from various firms (Langley, PD Marsh, Severn Models, Southwark Models, York Modelmaking etc). Still a lot more that could be done, but I'm trying to strike a balance between detail and open areas, so that it doesn't end up too cluttered.

Ta!

Posted April 8 · April 8

On 07/04/2024 at 09:18, NHY 581 said:

Morning all,

The Crack Catering Team are limbering up for what we hope will be a grand day out

Just the "Class B" drugs for me please.

April 3

1 hour ago, Tony Wright said:

Good afternoon Chas,

When you next see me, and I appear to be in deep conversation, please make your presence known. Mo is always telling me that I should look around more, and see those who might be patiently waiting. Then (tactfully?) say to those with whom I'm in conversation for some time that there are others. It is difficult, though I need to be more aware.

This year, it's my perception that York was busier than ever; quite rightly so. To me, it's a 'far superior' show to Ally Pally. By that I mean it's much more of a modellers' show, particularly with regard to the trade support. If I'm wrong, please put me right, but was any trader at Ally Pally selling wheels, gearboxes, motors, loco kits, carriage kits, fittings and all the necessary bits and pieces to complete models? York doesn't really have 'box-shifters' as well. Granted, the layouts at Ally Pally will be as good as anywhere and it's wonderfully well-organised. However, parking is no longer free, I believe.

To me, York is still one of the best shows in the calendar; it really caters for those who actually 'make things', and need all the bits to do so (similar ones are the likes of Aylesbury and Wells, as well as the Society shows; there are others).

Yes, the ex-GC RU I had on display was the 3D-printed one . Nobody has told me yet that it's wrong!

Regards,

Tony.

I went to Ally Pally a couple of weekends ago (I just happened to be in London) and spent three days at York as an exhibitor. York was by far the more interesting exhibition, in my view. Granted, one can't always see as much when showing off a layout as when one is just a normal visitor, but I felt I'd "done" Ally Pally after two hours whereas there was plenty at York I still hadn't seen properly by the time we had to leave. And, the trade support was far superior.

March 25

1 hour ago, 34theletterbetweenB&D said:

And it has probably been through a few variations in output since going on sale in the UK, and was notoriously 'flabby' in output when I first looked at one about twenty two years ago. That example couldn't get a Lenz decoder equipped WD 2-8-0 to reach scale for 30mph. On 12V DC the same model would run at scale for 60mph.

You might request that any visiting DCC systems have an adjustable voltage output. (The Lenz system I use is a good one, user adjustable voltage output to protect against N gauge burn out, and for O gauge traction to receive sufficient power, doubtless there are others.)

My Powercab was bought in the UK circa 2010 and didn't really work reliably until I swapped the power supply.

March 22

2 hours ago, 1471SirFrederickBanbury said:

It always brings me a slight chuckle when I remember how similar Hornby and TRS Trains smoke units to Thomas the Tank Engine toys! For the kings ransom that Hornby is selling the smoking locos for, I wouldn't bother. They should have used this as an opportunity to use something similar to whats used in the film industry for small fog machines, as the results should be realistic enough to sway people towards it, and there is no oil involved, being that its mostly water and triethylene glycol (I'm going to try to make a smoke unit to see just how dense I can get it). I would certainly hand over my money for that.

There's no oil involved in this either, it just uses ordinary water.

March 21

2 hours ago, thegreenhowards said:

Personally the only sports I bother watching on telly are F1, tennis and my beloved QPR. I find the commentary excellent in all three, but particularly for football where it now seems to be possible to have dedicated commentary for your own football team, certainly in the Championship - I can’t speak for the money pit division above us! I rather enjoy the combination of a commentator who’s also a fan paired up with a former player, in our case, Andy Sinton. The scream when a goal goes in is worth the money alone!

Andy

Only F1 and tennis for me, and not much of the latter since Federer retired (in fact it's my wife who was the main tennis fan, but I used to absorb a lot of it by osmosis while she was waching). I find Sky's F1 commentary team to be excellent across the board, with Martin Brundell's observations a particular highlight, combining technical insight with wit and passion. I'm not sure if it's a Brundellism but I particularly like "enthusiasm exceeded adhesion" whenever someone spins out.

March 20

11 hours ago, davefrk said:

At the risk of saying 'me to', here is my newly done Midland signal box in the NE regional colours as done when the NE region took over the Wharfedale line in the fifties and repainted everything.

Churchward etched brass kit modified and detailed, painting style copied from photos of boxes on the line.

Dave.

That looks very nicely done, and I've always liked that regional livery.

March 19

After a busy couple of months I was able to get back to some modelling over the last couple of days, starting with this laser-cut kit for an LB&SCR signal box which I found to be a very enjoyable little project. Still a few things to be done on it, of course, as well as an interior.

The kit is from railmodel.co.uk - worth looking at their range as they have some nice items in 4 and 7mm.

Cheers, Al

March 12

On 06/03/2024 at 10:17, Northmoor said:

SNAP!

It took me about two weeks in January, a bit at a time; agree about the black areas, I think that's what I finished with! I think we actually have two of this puzzle - accidentally bought a second at a charity shop - so one will go to a friend. It is a lovely pair of images with lots of little indicators of the beginning and end of the war.

Done that one as well, very challenging in places!

March 6

On 04/03/2024 at 23:08, SHMD said:

17:40 This time, though, something more interesting was on the apron - an Airbus Beluga. (I call them Guppys for some reason!)

Like me you probably remember the Pregnant Guppy and Super Guppy aircraft which performed a similar role to the Beluga?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aero_Spacelines_Super_Guppy

I've seen the Beluga flying north over Aberdare a few years ago. Pretty hard to mistake for anything else, even at altitude.

March 5

13 hours ago, Woodcock29 said:

I don't know anything about the range of couplings (if there is more than one?) that might be available for smaller knuckle couplers from Sergent but have had experience here in Adelaide with using Sergent scale buckeye couplers on a South Australian P87 layout. I operate on this layout once a month and we mostly find they can work well or be quite awkward. The buckeyes need to be seen from above to use them as you have to line them up perfectly if using them in shunting operations which we do. If they stick either open of closed they need to be tapped with a magnetic stick - we do this from above also but it seems that can be done from the side. In my view they're ok for small layouts where you can get the above access required.

I don't think Sergent couplers are being made any more.

March 1

I've finally got around to weathering the Nu-Cast 2021 I started a year or two back. Just a few small bits to add and then I can start another loco kit with a clear conscience.

Here's a short clip of the 2021 on a test train of 19 wagons.

March 1

2 hours ago, jwealleans said:

There were very overt campaigns to induce Barclays to disinvest from apartheid South Africa and in support of the Miners. I have to say my innate cynicism just made me wonder how much of it was trust funded posturing.

In the 80s, at least in Newcastle, it would have been a brave student who attempted to open an account with Barclays. I think there was a kind of picket-line you had to cross. I went with Lloyds, much easier.

March 1

Just my minor contribution to the chassis topic, but I don't (usually) bolt them on at each end. I fix one end tightly, but arrange the other to be retained, but allowed some slight give (both lengthways and sideways). Often that retention is achieved by just sliding the front frame spacer beneath the back of the screw-link coupling.

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