The Night Mail

[jamie92208]

I had detachable scenic sections on the rear of Long Preston, they were the sides of a relatively shallow cutting. They did work and were quite substantial as the backscenes were bolted to them.  At the layout side the front edge was 1" vertical which sat nicely behind a shallow piece of scenery behind the goods/coal yard and the joint was almost invisible to the punters. The four sections all bolted into 1 crate.

They can be seen in this picture behind the O1a and the 9000.

 

Jamie

[Happy Hippo]

1 hour ago, bbishop said:

Richard, could you run fiddle yard - scenic boards at home and fiddle yard - scenic boards - fiddle yard at exhibitions.  The second small fiddle yard for the through passenger and local freight services only, the latter including the household coal.  A nice touch would be for the household coal to be in a side door wagon whilst all the wagons in the exchange sidings would be side & end for the bunker traffic.  My plan for the "last great project" is to have the operating positions at the juncture of the scenic boards and fiddle yard, would that help with the number of operators?  Also if you use cassettes, the fiddle yard boards are pretty much two dimensional.  Jamie has seen my Höchstädt boards, where the fiddle yard folds out, meaning a 7' usable length out of a 4' board.  Bit heavy though.   Bill

 

1 hour ago, bbishop said:

 

That's what I do on Höchstädt, but only at the front.  I have eight boards of 2'9" x 1', using a sort of sliding hinge.  Problem at the back would be tired operators leaning on them - insurmountable.  Problem at the front is tired punters leaning on them, despite the notices!  Not a problem with transportation but a bore to carry from car to layout.  Bill

In reverse order:

 

A good point about operator and punter induced damage It needs a bit more thought before comitting.

 

The fiddle/scenic/fiddle has been drawn up for one of my other schemes, with a home option for fiddle/scenic only to cut down on space.

 

Aberflyarff was conceived with Brian Rolley as a terminal freight operaton with a single car DMU/autotrain continuing up the valley.  The off scene traverser (at the opposite end to the main fiddleyard) also doing double duty as the  crossover to allow locos to run around their train.  this could still be on the cards, but we are being defeated on the length it takes to get in the crossover from the up main to the down yard.    We run run out of space for either the headshunt for the industry or the fiddle yard.

 

Again, either an L or U shape of the whole caboodle would solve the problem and add some welcome plain track running into the bargain.

 

Jamie and I have discussed off scene storage issues some time back, and a folding system such as yours did come up in the cross chat.

 

If using cassettes then. two short boards that fold out to create a much larger table would be a good idea, especially as there would be little in the way of height when folded.

 

I do like to box in the front and end of my fiddle yards.  Not so much for the mystery element but to prevent the possibility of sticky fingers getting lucky.

 

But they are just flat sheets of Suitably braced thin ply.

Edited February 17, 2021 by Happy Hippo

[simontaylor484]

How about extending the garage

[Happy Hippo]

50 minutes ago, simontaylor484 said:

How about extending the garage

The only flaw with that plan is I'd then have no where for the 45mm line to run!

[bbishop]

The one foot boards on Höchstädt extend in front of the fiddle yard and we put the information sheets on them.  This keeps the punter a foot away from the stock and has obviated against sticky fingers in either the actual or metaphysical sense.  We have the capacity to erect a screen, although we have only set this up at Warley, more to provide light for the fiddle yard operator.  Bill

[J. S. Bach]

11 hours ago, jamie92208 said:

 ...snip...

They can be seen in this picture behind the O1a and the 9000.

 

Jamie

I think that 9000 would tend to straighten most of the curved trackage in England!

[jamie92208]

2 hours ago, J. S. Bach said:

I think that 9000 would tend to straighten most of the curved trackage in England!

It did actually run on the main line but struggled on some of the pointwork. The problem was that there's a brakeman's shelter on top of the tender that wouldn't go under the bridges. It's nice to see the Gresley gear working on it though.

 

Jamie

[skipepsi]

It would be possible to fit a cantilever box on the end of the garage to take the 2ft of layout  as coachman did at the end of his shed. IIRC the biggest problem he had was keeping it watertight but the details disappeared when he left. It wouldn't block the 45mm line unless the elevations  clashed.  

[Happy Hippo]

2 hours ago, skipepsi said:

It would be possible to fit a cantilever box on the end of the garage to take the 2ft of layout  as coachman did at the end of his shed. IIRC the biggest problem he had was keeping it watertight but the details disappeared when he left. It wouldn't block the 45mm line unless the elevations  clashed.  

I am not punching holes through a double skinned brick wall.

 

Larry's exploits continued over on Western Thunder.  

 

He gave up on the 7 mm stuff, (I bought one of his panniers).  He then had second thoughts and went back to 7mm again.  

 

The last I had seen, he has decided to give up on it once more and is now back at the altar to 4 mm scale.

 

 

 

 

[Winslow Boy]

How about - dimensional shifting. You could create a dimensional porthole at the rear of the garage and pop the last couple of feet of the layout through it. 

[Happy Hippo]

The replacement latching switch for the electric fire finally arrived from Slovakia. (Ebay).

 

It was posted out, according to the postmark, in January and has just arrived.  Held up by petty bureaucrats en-route.

 

Of course, although it fits and works, the self tapping screws from the original are a loose fit in the new fixing holes of the replacement.

 

6BA nuts and bolts now have to be sourced as I know they will do the job.  trouble is, I need to find the box of BA stuff in the workshop.

 

I may be sometime.

[Happy Hippo]

As a matter of interest, does any one else have issues with posting onto RMWeb?

 

I've tried to put a couple onto ERs today with no success.

[PhilJ W]

Several fellow members of SEERS (South East Essex Railway Society) have garden railways. One chap has it running from inside his garage through holes cut in the (single skin) brick wall. Not only that he has a lean too next to the garage which also contains model railways. Several scales/gauges are in use running at different levels and many are linked together running between the garage, the lean too and the garden. As well as the holes cut through for access to the garden there are holes cut through the wall between the garage and the lean too at all sorts of angles and heights. I wonder what the new owners would think if he ever sold up.

[Happy Hippo]

1 minute ago, PhilJ W said:

Several fellow members of SEERS (South East Essex Railway Society) have garden railways. One chap has it running from inside his garage through holes cut in the (single skin) brick wall. Not only that he has a lean too next to the garage which also contains model railways. Several scales/gauges are in use running at different levels and many are linked together running between the garage, the lean too and the garden. As well as the holes cut through for access to the garden there are holes cut through the wall between the garage and the lean too at all sorts of angles and heights. I wonder what the new owners would think if he ever sold up.

A really bad case of woodworm?

[PhilJ W]

7 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

As a matter of interest, does any one else have issues with posting onto RMWeb?

 

I've tried to put a couple onto ERs today with no success.

I've had no trouble posting on any thread. Though sometimes it freezes when I click submit and I have to reload. when I do it often remains in the editor and has to be cleared before I make the next post.

[PhilJ W]

Having said that I'm having problems posting on ER's. Every time I post it now freezes and to post I have to reload. Its also repeating a lot of posts.

[Tony_S]

35 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

Having said that I'm having problems posting on ER's. Every time I post it now freezes and to post I have to reload. Its also repeating a lot of posts.

Try another browser.

[PhilJ W]

Seems to have resolved itself now.

[br2975]

On 13/02/2021 at 22:28, Dave Hunt said:

Some bad news that I've recently put on other forums - my good friend and well-known modeller Bob Essery, who has done so much for this hobby of ours, is now in a nursing home suffering from advanced Alzheimer's disease. What a bl**dy awful thing to happen.

 

 Agreed,  a horrible disease....aka 'the long goodbye' - suffered by an aunt and uncle on my maternal side, in both cases accompanied by Parkinson's.

.

I have followed Mr Essery since CJF issued his ultimatum, which resulted in the RM publishing the LMS Society articles of the mid-1960s, which to me ( a non-LMS modeller ) are still a benchmark by which other, subsequent articles are judged 55 or so years later.

.

Such sad news.

.

Brian R

[Happy Hippo]

Welcome Brian, 

 

We've got enough Welsh for a choir now!

[Florence Locomotive Works]

Afternoon all,

 

 

Still very cold here, and thankfully they haven’t cut our power, we seem to be out of the rolling blackout now. It’s supposed to rise above freezing tomorrow for the first time in a week. 
 

I’ve been away as school has just gotten very busy, and many other things needed doing. 
 

Douglas

[Danemouth]

Count me out of the choir HH even though I am Welsh. My singing voice has been unfavourably compared with the sound of a rusty hacksaw blade being drawn over broken glass

Edited February 18, 2021 by Danemouth
spelling mistook

[tetsudofan]

6 hours ago, PhilJ W said:

Several fellow members of SEERS (South East Essex Railway Society) have garden railways. One chap has it running from inside his garage through holes cut in the (single skin) brick wall. Not only that he has a lean too next to the garage which also contains model railways. Several scales/gauges are in use running at different levels and many are linked together running between the garage, the lean too and the garden. As well as the holes cut through for access to the garden there are holes cut through the wall between the garage and the lean too at all sorts of angles and heights. I wonder what the new owners would think if he ever sold up.

 

 

I've got holes in the end of my outdoors sheds

 

 

 

......... but not boring any holes through the side of the house!!

 

Keith

[bbishop]

23 minutes ago, Danemouth said:

Count me out of the choir HH even though I am Welsh. My singing voice has been unfavourably compared with the sound of a rusty hacksaw blade being drawn over broken glass

I'm another Welshman who can't sing.  Apparently 100 years ago my maternal grandfather had the best voice in St Thomas, Rhyl.  One gene I didn't inherit.  Bill

[br2975]

1 hour ago, Happy Hippo said:

Welcome Brian, 

 

We've got enough Welsh for a choir now!

Only takes two of us !

.

I see Danemouth has dropped out of rehearsals, just as we were perfecting Handel's "I know that my redeemer lives".

 

"Ev'ry Valley shall be exalted" looks to be a no no then !

Edited February 18, 2021 by br2975