The Night Mail

[PhilJ W]

12 hours ago, jamie92208 said:

Time for a Night Mail report on yesterdays activities.   It was the monthly Model railway Group meeting.   Started as usual with a nice lunch, we are of course in France.   The restaurant was called La Marmite, which I have been informed means Cooking Pot in French.  It's next to the local Hippodrome, but there was no sign of a muddy hollow.

After the meal we headed for Richard's house a few miles away. He has a lovely Gauge 1 garden track and a huge collection of stock, much of it scratchbuilt. However whilst essentials like tea and cake were being sourced and consumed one member ran this lovely little thing with some of Richards stock.

By the time I'd eaten the cake this magnificent beast had appeared and was raising steam.  It's an Aster, complete with all 4 cylinders working. It was Richard's retirement present from work.

Whilst steam was being raised a small misguided team was running this battery RC loco. One drive, the other had to constantly watch for conkers falling onto the track and remove them.

Then the main event. Off set 6233 with 7 coaches that Richard had built

As you can see it managed the load with ease and had steam to spare.

The above is a still from the video.    When I've edited the video clips I'll try and upload a link.  

 

After that I had a pleasant hour trainspotting, without any trips slips or falls.  I even got an hour in the shed later whilst Beth chatted to a friend. All in all a good day.

 

Jamie

 

1

 

Are those 'hills' part of the scenery?

[AndyID]

16 minutes ago, Northroader said:

Austria.

 

Yes, it's an Austrian loco (not Australian, Dave).

But the clock isn't.

[AndyID]

1 hour ago, AndyID said:

 

Alas, no. Never in the Soviet Block.

 

But I'll give you a "pass" on that

 

 

 

 

Quite a well known "pass" in fact.

 

[Tony_S]

33 minutes ago, AndyID said:

 

Yes, it's an Austrian loco (not Australian, Dave).

But the clock isn't.

Austrian clue, Germanic sign not Austria. This led me to think of places where German was used but not Germany. Now I have visited a few places that were  Austrian and are now Italian.  I recall Merano, Bolzano and Vipiteno. Though I don’t recall the clock. However a quick search did reveal a nice photo of a clock tower in Vipiteno aka Sterzing. I have been there twice and didn’t notice the clock. 
“Pass “ being the Brenner pass I suppose. 

Edited September 18, 2021 by Tony_S

[AndyID]

1 minute ago, Tony_S said:

Austrian clue, Germanic sign not Austria. This led me to think of places where German was used but not Germany. Now I have visited a few places that were  Austrian and are now Italian.  I recall Merano, Bolzano and Vipiteno. Though I don’t recall the clock. However a quick search did reveal a nice photo of a clock tower in Vipiteno aka Sterzing. I have been there twice and didn’t notice the clock. 
“Pass “ being the Brenner pass I suppose. 

 

Yes!

 

Well done Tony. It's Sterzing, aka Vipiteno.

 

The date was infamous. We were on a bus tour from Seefeld when the news came in about the massacre in Munich.

[Tony_S]

We once drove into Italy over the Timmelsjoch Hochalpenstrasse. The Austrian side was a fantastic road. The Italian road was awful. Austria wasn’t in the EU then and Italy wasn’t keen on improving that road when they had that nice Brenner Pass bridge and motorway. The descent into Italy was so stressful we went back to Austria on the Motorway. We used to watch the Austrian TV news and they still reported stuff from SudTirol even though it hadn’t been Austrian since the end of WW1. There was a lot of German language activism in the area at that time (1980s). 

[Florence Locomotive Works]

1 hour ago, AndyID said:

 

German OK. French not so much.

 

A photographic clue:

 

 

 

A bayou?

 

(someone will get this)

[Tony_S]

I can’t say I have visited what looks like the Sydney Opera House in Dave’s photo but I have been to another Sydney in Nova Scotia.

[jamie92208]

4 minutes ago, Florence Locomotive Works said:

A bayou?

 

(someone will get this)

But they have alligators not crocodiles.

 

Jamie

[Florence Locomotive Works]

5 minutes ago, jamie92208 said:

But they have alligators not crocodiles.

 

Jamie

Near enough…

[Tony_S]

34 minutes ago, jamie92208 said:

But they have alligators not crocodiles.

 

Jamie

I didn’t know until this evening but according to one source the German crocodile locos were called alligators. Something to do with shorter noses. 
 

[AndyID]

Bet nobody knows where this one is.

 

[Florence Locomotive Works]

Evening all,

 

Some pretty hefty modifications were done to the engine today, resulting from a dream I had last night, which was about me in some sort of manor house fixing a 3 1/4 inch gauge brass PLM Coupe Vent locomotive. So after muddling this over in my mind, I ended up converting my engine into one. 
 

Funnily enough, I’m probably one of the few people in America who have actually seen a Coupe Vent loco, I saw the (I think) last survivor at Cite Du Train in 2017, a really great museum. 
 

Here’s the progress so far, and a photo and link to the prototype.

 

 

 

 

Photo credit: https://www.cparama.com/forum/locomotives-et-trains-du-p-l-m-t21240-60.html

 

 

About Coupe Vents: (not written by me) http://www.douglas-self.com/MUSEUM/LOCOLOCO/bec/bec.htm

 

Douglas

[SM42]

1 hour ago, AndyID said:

Bet nobody knows where this one is.

 

 

Is it Gas Street Basin in Brum?

 

Andy

[rockershovel]

4 hours ago, AndyID said:

Bet nobody knows where this one is.

 

 

Spalding? 

 

Interestingly enough, Spalding appears to be the only town in Lincolnshire not to have somewhere named after it in either hemisphere, even Canada. 

Edited September 19, 2021 by rockershovel

[rockershovel]

3 hours ago, Florence Locomotive Works said:

Evening all,

 

Some pretty hefty modifications were done to the engine today, resulting from a dream I had last night, which was about me in some sort of manor house fixing a 3 1/4 inch gauge brass PLM Coupe Vent locomotive. So after muddling this over in my mind, I ended up converting my engine into one. 
 

Funnily enough, I’m probably one of the few people in America who have actually seen a Coupe Vent loco, I saw the (I think) last survivor at Cite Du Train in 2017, a really great museum. 
 

Here’s the progress so far, and a photo and link to the prototype.

 

 

 

 

Photo credit: https://www.cparama.com/forum/locomotives-et-trains-du-p-l-m-t21240-60.html

 

 

About Coupe Vents: (not written by me) http://www.douglas-self.com/MUSEUM/LOCOLOCO/bec/bec.htm

 

Douglas

 

It's that chimney again....

[Oldddudders]

4 hours ago, AndyID said:

Bet nobody knows where this one is.

 

Hamster Jam

[AndyID]

33 minutes ago, Oldddudders said:

Hamster Jam

Where they have two lips.

[pH]

1 hour ago, rockershovel said:

Interestingly enough, Spalding appears to be the only town in Lincolnshire not to have somewhere named after it in either hemisphere, even Canada. 

Sorry - not so:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spalding,_Saskatchewan

[jamie92208]

5 hours ago, Florence Locomotive Works said:

Evening all,

 

cparama.com/forum/locomotives-et-trains-du-p-l-m-t21240-60.html

 

 

About Coupe Vents: (not written by me) http://www.douglas-self.com/MUSEUM/LOCOLOCO/bec/bec.htm

 

Douglas

I wish you luck with the exterior piping.  It loks like a plumbers nightmare.

 

Jamie

[Happy Hippo]

It's granddaughter #3's  first birthday today so we are going for a walk around Attingham Park (NT) by way of a celebration.

 

I have been promised cake.

 

Yesterday afternoon was spent flitting between tasks in the garden and trying to finish off the cutting for the cassette tables.

 

I though I was being efficient and had cut all the small  fixing blocks and was busy gluing them to the end boards.

 

All went well until I realised I'd only made four end plates instead of eight. Yet there was me twenty minutes earlier wondering why I had too many side pieces?

 

Fortunately, they'll only need a couple of seconds on the chop saw to create them, and then I can fit the rest of the fixing blocks prior to making up the ply rectangles that will make the main frame of the table.

 

When it comes to the tops, I think I'll make then up per board as opposed to putting all the frames together as a batch and then putting all the tops on together.

 

Ideally I'd like them finished by Monday evening for the next OFMG meeting, although that might be pushing it a bit as I have to fit the work in around other more pressing domestic tasks.

[Dave Hunt]

7 hours ago, AndyID said:

Bet nobody knows where this one is.

 

 

Ah, Amsterdam, one of my favourite cities that we used to visit often when we lived in the Netherlands - from the look of the photograph about the same time in the '70s.

 

Dave

[Dave Hunt]

10 hours ago, Tony_S said:

We once drove into Italy over the Timmelsjoch Hochalpenstrasse. The Austrian side was a fantastic road. The Italian road was awful. Austria wasn’t in the EU then and Italy wasn’t keen on improving that road when they had that nice Brenner Pass bridge and motorway. The descent into Italy was so stressful we went back to Austria on the Motorway. We used to watch the Austrian TV news and they still reported stuff from SudTirol even though it hadn’t been Austrian since the end of WW1. There was a lot of German language activism in the area at that time (1980s). 

 

I once had the brake master cylinder on a Cortina split when descending the Italian side of the Grossglockner pass from Austria in 1971. To say it was bum clenching would be a severe understatement and at a couple of hairpin bends alongside which there was several thousand feet of bu**er all until the floor I thought our time had come but fortunately there appeared a huge mound of grit and gravel into which I steered. Whether it was just for gritting the road in winter or part of the improvements that were being made (as Tony stated, the road on the Austrian side was good, that on the Italian side not so) I don't know but it saved our bacon.

 

Dave

[Dave Hunt]

7 hours ago, Florence Locomotive Works said:

 

 

 

 

"And here at the World's Ugliest Steam Locomotive pageant, we have a clear winner............."

 

Dave

[Compound2632]

5 minutes ago, Dave Hunt said:

I once had the brake master cylinder on a Cortina split when descending the Italian side of the Grossglockner pass from Austria in 1971. To say it was bum clenching would be a severe understatement and at a couple of hairpin bends alongside which there was several thousand feet of bu**er all until the floor I thought our time had come but fortunately there appeared a huge mound of grit and gravel into which I steered. Whether it was just for gritting the road in winter or part of the improvements that were being made (as Tony stated, the road on the Austrian side was good, that on the Italian side not so) I don't know but it saved our bacon.

 

Back in 2001, I found myself wondering about that sort of thing whilst descending Porlock Hill behind the wheel of a 1 litre Corsa containing four adults, one toddler and, we later discovered, one foetus. I was in first with my foot hard on the brake but still slowly gaining on the petrol tanker in front. I reasoned that any impact would be at sufficiently low relative velocity it would be a soft landing.

 

Needless to say, we left Porlock in the Minehead direction. No way was I going to attempt to drive back up that hill!