Wright writes.....

[Clive Mortimore]

12 minutes ago, APOLLO said:

My views on layout photos is that I like both those that portray a real life scenario i.e sky added, clutter removed etc but I also like to see the layout in it's setting, tidy, cluttered or otherwise - sometimes the layout surroundings is more interesting than the layout (but not on Tony's layout !!). Anyone recognize where the NER gradient board was rescued from ?

 

 

I also dislike layouts that the main line just disappears into a hole in the back scene with no attempt (or very little) to hide it. Little Bytham I note has very convenient bridges to hide such places. Again some exhibition layouts I have seen are either excellent or terrible in this area. I could name a couple but I won't as they are otherwise superb layouts. If you model a real setting and no bridge is handy - use vegetation (trees) - this can be very effective, and trees little and large are easily justified.

 

I have no fiddle yards, the whole layout is a fiddle !!!!!!!

 

Brit15

Hi Brit

 

How do you disguise the fiddle yard entrance on a layout based in the Fens? Very few woods and road bridges are only used to cross dykes and drains.

[Tony Teague]

26 minutes ago, Clive Mortimore said:

Hi Brit

 

How do you disguise the fiddle yard entrance on a layout based in the Fens? Very few woods and road bridges are only used to cross dykes and drains.

 

Add a windmill perhaps?

[woodenhead]

28 minutes ago, Clive Mortimore said:

Hi Brit

 

How do you disguise the fiddle yard entrance on a layout based in the Fens? Very few woods and road bridges are only used to cross dykes and drains.

Run a drain alongside the track 

[Ravenser]

38 minutes ago, Clive Mortimore said:

Hi Brit

 

How do you disguise the fiddle yard entrance on a layout based in the Fens? Very few woods and road bridges are only used to cross dykes and drains.

 

Very few curves either. I make it about 8 between Pasture St Grimsby and Werrington Jnc

[mullie]

There are trees on the fens and buildings can be used as view blockers just as on any layout. 

 

Now you see it 

 

Now you don't!

 

 

I am currently working on disguising it further. All my EM track is PCB, built for very little cost.

 

Martyn

[rowanj]

6 hours ago, Tony Wright said:

Thanks to all the posters for collectively passing the 50,000 mark!

 

Argumentative, controversial, self-opinionated, insensitive, useful, helpful, enlightening, disappointing, creditable, long-winded, upsetting, creative, misleading......................... Any other adjectives to describe this thread? Most of the 'negative' ones apply to me.

 

Thanks again for all the erudite (another adjective) comments from, everyone.................

 

So, given that 50% of those adjectives are "negatives", it is just as well that the same formula does not apply to the posts.

50,000 is a milestone, but it would be interesting to see how many posts are a]about model railways or b} would have been better undertaken by a personal message. How many pages could also have been made more concise by not replicating all of the message to which the poster is replying , including the reposting of all the photos? I suppose occasional pithy posts show the wit and wisdom of the poster, but do they do anything more.

For those who enjoy the "clubishness" of the thread, then good luck to you all, I look for rather more of the "creative, helpful, enlightening" .

But I did enjoy the videos.

Edited August 27, 2020 by rowanj
Correction of mistake on impact of number of posts per page.

[chris p bacon]

29 minutes ago, Tony Teague said:

 

Add a windmill perhaps?

 

And he falls into a quiz night trap....they're wind pumps... .. .well most are. . .

[Clem]

5 hours ago, dibateg said:

Clem - I like that K2 with the curved smokebox handrail, I wonder if anyone's been brave enough to do that! The NER coaches would make an interesting addition to the fleet, they must have gone by the '60s. There is that excellent photo of a J6 pulling in to Basford North with one in the formation.

Hi Tony. 

Your 7mm layout is certainly coming on. It must be a very big undertaking in a huge room! On the NER carriages, a very large number of the numerous non-corridor diagram Y178s were withdrawn in 1953 with the remainder taken out of service by the end of 1959, with just a very few (fingers of one hand) making it through to 1962. So you'd be pushing it for your Basford North layout. (what year are you basing your layout in? I think you told me early 1960s?). 

 

 In fact the ex-LNER non-corridor carriages started being replaced by London Midland stock from about 1959 and all the photos I have taken after 1960 only seem to include the odd Thompson CL or brake third with the teak Gresleys gone altogether (I think they were either transfered to stored as, for instance, the diagram 210s were generally withdrawn 1961/2. - did they go to the Manchester area?)

61738. Lovely model Tony.  The K2s continued to run on the Summer excursions until the summer of 1960 although if memory serves me correctly Colwick borrowed them in that year from Sheffield amongst other places. The flying pigs arrived soon after the M&GN closed in 1959. The last Colwick J6 was withdrawn in November 1961 having outlived its class mates by a year or more. 1959 is the real transition year. Loads of L1s came the A5s disappeared etc.

Edited August 27, 2020 by Clem

[johndon]

14 minutes ago, rowanj said:

How many pages could also have been avoided by not replicating all of the message to which the poster is replying , including the reposting of all the photos?

 

None at all.  There are 25 posts per page regardless of how long each individual post is, quoting a post and including all the photos from that post may make a page longer but it has zero impact on the number of pages.

[Headstock]

30 minutes ago, Clem said:

Hi Tony. 

Your 7mm layout is certainly coming on. It must be a very big undertaking in a huge room! On the NER carriages, a very large number of the numerous non-corridor diagram Y178s were withdrawn in 1953 with the remainder taken out of service by the end of 1959, with just a very few (fingers of one hand) making it through to 1962. So you'd be pushing it for your Basford North layout. (what year are you basing your layout in? I think you told me early 1960s?). 

 

 In fact the ex-LNER non-corridor carriages started being replaced by London Midland stock from about 1959 and all the photos I have taken after 1960 only seem to include the odd Thompson CL or brake third with the teak Gresleys gone altogether (I think they were either transfered to stored as, for instance, the diagram 210s were generally withdrawn 1961/2. - did they go to the Manchester area?)

61738. Lovely model Tony.  The K2s continued to run on the Summer excursions until the summer of 1960 although if memory serves me correctly Colwick borrowed them in that year from Sheffield amongst other places. The flying pigs arrived soon after the M&GN closed in 1959. The last Colwick J6 was withdrawn in November 1961 having outlived it's class mates by a year or more. 1959 is the real transition year. Loads of L1s came the A5s disappeared etc.

 

Basford North 1960, no fun at all, as John Lydon would say. Basford North 1950, I've died and gone to carriage heaven.

 

Yipee! First to page whatever, give me a medal. Don't nobody change nothink.

Edited August 27, 2020 by Headstock
yipee!

[Clem]

3 minutes ago, Headstock said:

Yipee! First to page whatever, give me a medal. Don't nobody change nothink.

It's a con! I didn't receive my 50,000 long service medal. No prize either. After all the build up too!

[APOLLO]

1 hour ago, Clive Mortimore said:

Hi Brit

 

How do you disguise the fiddle yard entrance on a layout based in the Fens? Very few woods and road bridges are only used to cross dykes and drains.

 

A bit difficult I do agree. Windmill mentioned, maybe a farmhouse, agricultural building / factory a pub or small church (like Ely cathedral) !!

 

Perhaps one answer is not to have a hidden fiddle yard - just minimally scenic the yard and operate as usual. To me large open flat fiddle yards are a waste of valuable modelling space, especially on most home layouts. 

 

I have hidden sidings / loops but no fiddle yards as such.

 

Brit15

 

 

[Headstock]

6 minutes ago, Clem said:

It's a con! I didn't receive my 50,000 long service medal. No prize either. After all the build up too!

 

Outrageous, you should have mentioned DCC more. Did you tell them you are EM and special?

Edited August 27, 2020 by Headstock

[dibateg]

I do get your point Andrew, but that would mean no flying pigs! You are going to tell me you don't like those now aren't you! The carriage variety then is most interesting, but I'd have to build them all myself.. and time is ticking.. 

 

Yes Clem, it's set '59-61 ish, so maybe I could squeeze one coach, but I don't think there is a kit in my scale. The room is 36' x 14', with a wider bit at one end of 18' for 12'. I could have fitted Bulwell Common and Basford North in that space in 4mm!

 

I'm just about to embark on a J6 - again a bit of a stretch, but  they have so much character.

 

Regards

Tony

[Headstock]

3 minutes ago, dibateg said:

I do get your point Andrew, but that would mean no flying pigs! You are going to tell me you don't like those now aren't you! The carriage variety then is most interesting, but I'd have to build them all myself.. and time is ticking.. 

 

Yes Clem, it's set '59-61 ish, so maybe I could squeeze one coach, but I don't think there is a kit in my scale. The room is 36' x 14', with a wider bit at one end of 18' for 12'. I could have fitted Bulwell Common and Basford North in that space in 4mm!

 

I'm just about to embark on a J6 - again a bit of a stretch, but  they have so much character.

 

Regards

Tony

 

Flying pigs, due to an electrical incident, I remember one shot of the turntable on Tebay, launching itself into the audience, a true flying pig. I liked them on Tebay.

 

I must admit, I don't worry to much about ticking time these days. Were all heading for the same destination, we might as well enjoy "being in the now", as Charles Manson would say.

[Clem]

14 minutes ago, Headstock said:

Did you tell them you are EM and special?

My missus calls me 'special' ... (not sure about her meaning...)

[Headstock]

3 minutes ago, Clem said:

My missus calls me 'special' ... (not sure about her meaning...)

 

She must have seen your layout.

[chris p bacon]

44 minutes ago, johndon said:

 

None at all.  There are 25 posts per page regardless of how long each individual post is, quoting a post and including all the photos from that post may make a page longer but it has zero impact on the number of pages.

 

Whilst that is true that it doesn't affect the page count, the replication of so many images when not required certainly increases the bandwidth(?)  required and associated cost to the forum owners. 

[Clem]

15 minutes ago, dibateg said:

I'm just about to embark on a J6 - again a bit of a stretch, but  they have so much character.

Hi Tony,

if it's post March 1960, it's 64219. There's a slight overlap with (off the top of my head) 64257 by about 3 or 4 months. It went Summer 1960. 64219 went November 1961 if memory serves me correct.

 

It'll be fantastic to see it all in 7mm.

[Clem]

1 minute ago, Headstock said:

She must have seen your layout.

She's always nicking my men to photograph, plus the occasional wagon. 

[Tony Wright]

5 hours ago, t-b-g said:

 

I know you like to give credit where due and I think it is really good that you do. It is just really difficult to do on Retford because of the number of people involved and the overlaps where people have collaborated. At least 7 different people have contributed to the signals to my knowledge and there may be some that I have missed. If you add those involved in the wiring up, you can add a couple more.

 

I am not sure that even Roy remembered who had done exactly which bits and there are things on Retford that I look at now and cannot be 100% sure if I did them, either by myself or with somebody else.

 

So it is great that you would like to give credit where it is due and fair play to you if you want to try to do it but you may find yourself in the same position as Roy, where he found it so difficult that the credit was given to "The Retford Mob".

 

I had a chat with John Phillips yesterday and asked him if he could remember what vintage "Singapore" was and whether it was an old High Dyke loco but he couldn't recall an A3 with that name. It wouldn't have been produced for Dunwich. It certainly wasn't on "The Talisman" on Retford previously and neither of us can remember seeing it run on Retford at all before, so we are wondering about its history. Could you tell the origin of the loco (which kit/RTR etc.) from looking at it?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks Tony,

 

I think SINGAPORE is an old Hornby body (not the oldest Tri-ang/Hornby one) with a proper chassis. The chassis ran superbly (as do all of Retford's) so it could have been Roy's (mechanical) work, but other than that, I don't know. 

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

[Tony Wright]

5 hours ago, davidw said:

I had to look up what erudite meant!

I could have added pusillanimous, David (in respect of myself, though not the faint-hearted bit). 

 

Regards,

 

David. 

[Tony Wright]

4 hours ago, 30368 said:

Good afternoon Tony,

 

Sorry to interupt the flow but a quick question relating to the Crownline A1/1kit that I am building, well I guess its a prototype question really.

 

I am fairly certain that Great Northern did have AWS fitted (there is an image of it on Doncaster works with AWS conduit fitted to the drivers side) but I cannot find any image that shows were the AWS battery box was located. I don't think there is room on the trailing wheel frame below the cab as on, for example, the A2/3.

 

Can you please enlighten me?

 

Kind regards,

 

Richard B

 

Good afternoon Richard,

 

As far as I'm aware (because it has - essentially - the same rear Cartazzi frames as the A3s and the A4s), the AWS battery box was in the cab (probably under the driver's seat). Can anyone confirm this, please?

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

 

 

[Tony Wright]

4 hours ago, dibateg said:

Back to the K2's, mine seems to have the wrong tender ( with the hand holds ) , unless it changed later on when the insignia was changed, the General repair in '55. I 'll have to live with that... and were K2's running at the same time as the flying pigs? Rule 1 then...

 

Clem - I like that K2 with the curved smokebox handrail, I wonder if anyone's been brave enough to do that! The NER coaches would make an interesting addition to the fleet, they must have gone by the '60s. There is that excellent photo of a J6 pulling in to Basford North with one in the formation.

 

Tony - I like the shopped photos, a sort of physical way of suspending disbelief in that the manipulation is doing what the mind would like to and that the focus is on the model and not the junk in the background ( which every photo of mine has included so far! ) .

 

I know there is no scenery yet, so the backscene should obscure that window - up to a certain level.. I need to shop out all that junk!

 

Keep up the irreverence!

Regards

Tony

'Keep up the irreverence!'

 

That's another good description of this thread. One might also add 'irrelevant' as well! 

 

Or, better still, 'assiduous'. 

 

I was also going to put asinine but I couldn't spell it.

 

What fun. Isn't English great?

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

[johndon]

1 hour ago, chris p bacon said:

 

Whilst that is true that it doesn't affect the page count, the replication of so many images when not required certainly increases the bandwidth(?)  required and associated cost to the forum owners. 

 

Very true and not just the cost/bandwidth to the forum owners.  Images that I post are hosted on my own website and so if my posts are quoted with the images, it increases my bandwidth as well.