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How to get lynched at a model railway show


BR60103
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6 hours ago, The Johnster said:

I wore mine on a visit to Bristol one day, and was made very welcome in a pub by a bunch of Bristol Rovers football fans, who were keen to ensure that the foreign visitor had a good time.  They were quite disappointed when they realised I wasn't German, but actually from Cardiff, but took it all in good part, fair play to them!

Lucky they weren't Bristol City supporters..... ;)

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7 hours ago, The Johnster said:

wore mine on a visit to Bristol one day, and was made very welcome in a pub by a bunch of Bristol Rovers football fans, who were keen to ensure that the foreign visitor had a good time.  They were quite disappointed when they realised I wasn't German, but actually from Cardiff,

So you were still a foreign visitor... :jester:

 

Hat, coat, etc....  :tomato:

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On 09/08/2021 at 20:01, AyJay said:

This is, of course, a complete fantasy.  Not sure we could get the required range of facial expressions for the locomotives.

Besides, how could we animate The Fat Controller in OO gauge?

In any case, I think the Isle of Sodor would require an entire exhibition hall all to itself.

 

Come on - surely someone will already be working on a DCC chip that can alter the expressions, just replace the plastic moulded ones with a round LED display that can show the faces.

 

Jim

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6 hours ago, Gilbert said:

Lucky they weren't Bristol City supporters..... ;)

I know little of football supporter culture, and did not realise this at the time, but they did mention it...:)

 

5 hours ago, F-UnitMad said:

So you were still a foreign visitor... :jester:

 

Hat, coat, etc....  :tomato:

No, they were foreign, the Welsh were here before the Saxons...  They assumed that I was German and could not speak English properly, the latter point being moot.:blinkclear:

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On 16/08/2021 at 06:59, F-UnitMad said:

I was guest operating on a very-obviously Scottish-themed layout at a Show once. The layout name, the station colours, the engines with 'scotty dog' logos, and 'Scotrail' signs, and one chap came up and asked - very cheerfully - "where's this set then?"

I couldn't tell if it was a genuine question or a mickey take, and I was sorely tempted to give a stupid answer, such as 'Minnesota, USA' (which is where my own main home layout is set). 

I opted for the safe route, & treated it as a genuine question.

Whreupon you discovered that he wanted to know precisely where in Scotland the layout was set. (wishful thinking?)

 

I despaired of some of the visitors who somehow find their way to Warley when I was staffing a Society stand there a few years ago. 

Our stand said SNCF Society (now the French Railways Society) in large friendly letters and we had French flags draped over the table along with photographs of TGVs, main line French steam locos and bucolic metre gauge sécondaires. 

Visitors - there were two of them. "Are you the Swiss Railway Society"

Me "No, we're the SNCF Society, we're for people interested in French Railways. The Swiss Railway Society are over there (pointing very clearly to three stands away) where you can see the Swiss Flag"

Momentary grinding of disused mental cogs

"So, isn't that the same thing. Europe and all, do you know much about Swiss railways"

"Not a lot (i resisted the temptation to say that they're very clean and rather boring) but I'm sure the people on the Swiss Socety stand will be able to tell you anything you want to know" 

long pause 

"Oh alright then" before they headed off, knuckles scraping on the ground,  and not in the direction of the Swiss R.S. stand."  

I'm pretty sure it wasn't a wind up and they didn't seem like people with learning difficulties but just those who think there's a single place the other side of the Channel called "foreign"

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18 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

Whreupon you discovered that he wanted to know precisely where in Scotland the layout was set. (wishful thinking?)

 

I despaired of some of the visitors who somehow find their way to Warley when I was staffing a Society stand there a few years ago. 

Our stand said SNCF Society (now the French Railways Society) in large friendly letters and we had French flags draped over the table along with photographs of TGVs, main line French steam locos and bucolic metre gauge sécondaires. 

Visitors - there were two of them. "Are you the Swiss Railway Society"

Me "No, we're the SNCF Society, we're for people interested in French Railways. The Swiss Railway Society are over there (pointing very clearly to three stands away) where you can see the Swiss Flag"

Momentary grinding of disused mental cogs

"So, isn't that the same thing. Europe and all, do you know much about Swiss railways"

"Not a lot (i resisted the temptation to say that they're very clean and rather boring) but I'm sure the people on the Swiss Socety stand will be able to tell you anything you want to know" 

long pause 

"Oh alright then" before they headed off, knuckles scraping on the ground,  and not in the direction of the Swiss R.S. stand."  

I'm pretty sure it wasn't a wind up and they didn't seem like people with learning difficulties but just those who think there's a single place the other side of the Channel called "foreign"

Although as a countermeasure, I was somewhat disappointed at how little the European Railways Association seemed to know about European Railways. They seemed to have plenty of interest in Germany, France, Switzerland etc, but very little about the other 40-odd countries in the continent...

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19 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

I despaired of some of the visitors who somehow find their way to Warley when I was staffing a Society stand there a few years ago.

 

I know exactly what you mean. One such character came to the 7mm Narrow Gauge Association stand with a Hornby Flying Scotsman and asked us to fix it.   Sorry we said, this is an information stand about our Association but if you go to the demonstration area you'll find someone there who can help.   'But the sign says "Loco Clinic" and I was sent here to get it fixed'.  'No sir, that sign belongs to the Gauge O Guild and is behind their stand, not ours'.   'So can they fix it?'   'I don't know but there is someone in the demonstration area over there who can have a look at it for you'.   Of he went - again in the wrong direction.

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20 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

Whreupon you discovered that he wanted to know precisely where in Scotland the layout was set. (wishful thinking?)

 

I despaired of some of the visitors who somehow find their way to Warley when I was staffing a Society stand there a few years ago. 

Our stand said SNCF Society (now the French Railways Society) in large friendly letters and we had French flags draped over the table along with photographs of TGVs, main line French steam locos and bucolic metre gauge sécondaires. 

Visitors - there were two of them. "Are you the Swiss Railway Society"

Me "No, we're the SNCF Society, we're for people interested in French Railways. The Swiss Railway Society are over there (pointing very clearly to three stands away) where you can see the Swiss Flag"

Momentary grinding of disused mental cogs

"So, isn't that the same thing. Europe and all, do you know much about Swiss railways"

"Not a lot (i resisted the temptation to say that they're very clean and rather boring) but I'm sure the people on the Swiss Socety stand will be able to tell you anything you want to know" 

long pause 

"Oh alright then" before they headed off, knuckles scraping on the ground,  and not in the direction of the Swiss R.S. stand."  

I'm pretty sure it wasn't a wind up and they didn't seem like people with learning difficulties but just those who think there's a single place the other side of the Channel called "foreign"

Could have been worse, he could have asked about the Santa Fe. Well it starts with S.:jester:

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Once you've manned a stand at an exhibition you find yourself readjusting your definition of 'oddball'. It's quite an eye opener. 

 

21 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

Visitors - there were two of them. "Are you the Swiss Railway Society"

Me "No, we're the SNCF Society, we're for people interested in French Railways. The Swiss Railway Society are over there (pointing very clearly to three stands away) where you can see the Swiss Flag"

Is it Warley where the societies are all grouped together and use the same (venue provided) type of stand? It's possible that they'd not twigged that you and the Swiss railways people (and whoever was between you) weren't all one contiguous stand - presumably belonging to the 'Foreign Railways Society'. I mean, the flags should be a giveaway, but then all foreign flags look the same......

 

 

 

 

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54 minutes ago, pete_mcfarlane said:

Once you've manned a stand at an exhibition you find yourself readjusting your definition of 'oddball'. It's quite an eye opener. 

I know what you mean. I once lent a hand to a mate at an exhibition and it seemed like every Institute for the Clinically Baffled in the area had sent their inmates for a day out there.

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1 hour ago, pete_mcfarlane said:

Once you've manned a stand at an exhibition you find yourself readjusting your definition of 'oddball'. It's quite an eye opener. 

 

At my miniature railway club, one day when we had several 5" gauge steam locos running and burning coal, we had a bloke come and ask us quite sincerely if the locos were actually diesels, with smoke generators inside.

I don't think he believed that people could possibly build a loco, that was fired by actually burning coal. Not sure how he thought it was done for over 200 years!

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3 hours ago, Mike Bellamy said:

 

   'So can they fix it?'  

It always amazes me that they expect you to answer for a different organisation. It's not your job to speak for or against another group, that probably you know nothing specific about, except for their sign.

 

At a local model railway shop, they sold this guy a 2nd hand Hornby loco with a tender. An hour later he was back complaining that it wouldn't work. So customer puts it on the bench and couples it up - front of loco to rear of tender! No, no says the shop owner, like this, putting front of tender to rear of loco, puts it on the test track and it whizzes up and down. Explains that the pick ups are on loco and tender and need to be connected this way around to work.

 

Customer takes it away and comes back later and says it still doesn't work. Puts it on bench and couples it up - front of loco to rear of tender!

 

Shop owner says this is too hard for you and gives them their money back.

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24 minutes ago, kevinlms said:

At my miniature railway club, one day when we had several 5" gauge steam locos running and burning coal, we had a bloke come and ask us quite sincerely if the locos were actually diesels, with smoke generators inside.

I don't think he believed that people could possibly build a loco, that was fired by actually burning coal. Not sure how he thought it was done for over 200 years!

Unless he took his childhood holidays in Scarborough......

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1 minute ago, kevinlms said:

Always exceptions, but the vast majority of owners and builders are usually put out at such a suggestion!

I can well image that, a couple of years work of spare time spent building each engine and somebody asks if it's a diesel. There's probably a moral in there about the limited understanding of engineering in the wider public. 

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2 hours ago, pete_mcfarlane said:

I can well image that, a couple of years work of spare time spent building each engine and somebody asks if it's a diesel. There's probably a moral in there about the limited understanding of engineering in the wider public. 

 

I can remember being on the footbridge at Reading station (pre rebuild) when A4 60009 came in on a railtour. I heard a passenger on the bridge say "Oh look, that train's on fire!"

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2 minutes ago, RJS1977 said:

 

I can remember being on the footbridge at Reading station (pre rebuild) when A4 60009 came in on a railtour. I heard a passenger on the bridge say "Oh look, that train's on fire!"

"Smokin......."

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There is sometimes another side to this.  The club I used to belong to exhibited a 00 model of Bute Road, a terminus in Cardiff's Docklands built by the Taff Vale but modelled in the 1950s period as rebuilt by the GW in the 20s.  One chap pointed out that there had never been steam trains at this station.  'Yes there were', we said, 'perhaps you only knew it in the 60s'?  'No, I commuted regularly from Heath Low Level, starting in the late 40s; never rode on a steam train in all that time'.  Puzzlement all round and we showed him some photos, but he still insisted.  Then he came out with a statement that cleared the mists a little, 'Mind you, the colours changed. First they were brown and cream, then red and cream, then green, then blue with yellow ends' 

 

What he'd done for years was walked on to the platforms at Heath LL and Bute Road, and the train had either been there already or he'd seen it running in.  What he sees is the 3 windows of an auto trailer cab in various consequitive liveries, followed chronologically by the cabs of class 116 dmus.  He'd never looked at the steam loco 2 coaches away at the other end of his auto train, and why, as a non-interested commuter, would he?  Looked at in this light, incomprehensible as it might be to anyone interested even passingly in railways, what he said made sense.  He was amazed to discover that steam locos had been pushing and pulling him to and from work for over a decade!

 

In another punter encounter with this layout, a lady exclaimed in a voice that, in the event was probably louder than she'd intended, that the model was very good and she should know because she'd worked on Bute Street for many years...  No good claiming it was in a shipping company office after that sort of comment in public!

 

Sometimes it's worth listening to some of these people, as they are not all complete idiots, not that I'm denying that some are!

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4 hours ago, kevinlms said:

At my miniature railway club, one day when we had several 5" gauge steam locos running and burning coal, we had a bloke come and ask us quite sincerely if the locos were actually diesels, with smoke generators inside.

I don't think he believed that people could possibly build a loco, that was fired by actually burning coal. Not sure how he thought it was done for over 200 years!

Somewhat off topic but:

 

A friend of mine had a collection of traction engines, steam rollers, etc and at one time housed them in a museum. The pride of the collection was a showman's engine, complete with dynamo and coloured lights around the canopy,  which we steamed on occasions.

 

One day, as I was shovelling coal into the fire box, I heard someone explaining to his two little boys, that the motor at the front (the dynamo), was driving the engine and making all the bits go round.

 

Admittedly we had an extension to the chimney going out through the roof of the museum *, so you couldn't see the exhaust; I can only assume he thought I was stoking the fire to warm my pasty.

 

* It was the exhaust through the roof which eventually led to the museum closing; it was in the middle of town and the neighbouring business and householders were not to happy about the black smoke and soot 

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Absolutely.  On a steam locomotive the wheels drive the pistons back and forth to provide a draught for the fire on which the driver warms his pie, and which boils water for his kettle.  The steam is exhausted via the pistons as a by product; I thought everybody knew this!

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