Mid-Cornwall Lines - 1950s Western Region in 00

[St Enodoc]

Note to self - next time (next time?????) I make a ringed distant arm, leave the ring off until the front of the arm is painted and striped. Paint the ring separately too.

[St Enodoc]

A very Merry Christmas from Mid-Cornwall to one and all.

[Barry O]

Ere! Wheres me cake and cheese?

 

Baz

[St Enodoc]

1 hour ago, Barry O said:

Ere! Wheres me cake and cheese?

 

Baz

Apple pie and Wensleydale? Ask DHT about the Wensleydale that wasn't at an industry dinner in York about 30 years ago...

[Barry O]

Just now, St Enodoc said:

Apple pie and Wensleydale? Ask DHT about the Wensleydale that wasn't at an industry dinner in York about 30 years ago...

He talked about it at onenof the club talks...

 

Baz

[The Stationmaster]

And a Merry Christmas to you too John (even if it is nearly Boxing day down there

[St Enodoc]

Yes, it is Boxing Day, which means cricket from the MCG so that's on the radio while I carry on with signals.

 

For the short fixed distant, I rooted through the spares box for a suitable post to shorten. I found that for some reason, lost in the mists of time, I had a spare two-armed post from an old Ratio 462 kit. I measured it up and found that if I cut the post just above the lower lamp the post height would be about a scale 19ft 6in, so that's what I've done. I also cut the finial from the top of the original post, fitted it to the shortened post and removed the arm pivot.

 

Here it is before final assembly, with the stub of the original post next to it.

 

Big Brother and Little Brother stand side by side, looking just as I thought they would.

 

[The Fatadder]

A belated happy Christmas,

Sadly Bath’s Boxing Day fixture has been cancelled due to positive covid tests so no sport to watch here today. 

Hopefully will at least find some time to get out to the garage this evening and do some work on Brent 

[Tallpaul69]

On 25/12/2020 at 11:03, The Stationmaster said:

And a Merry Christmas to you too John (even if it is nearly Boxing day down there

John, Apologies, I meant to get in ahead of Christmas Day down under but got bogged down in Christmas preparations and failed miserably!

 

Anyway, here is a gem of a chuckle from our Christmas day:-

We held a Zoom Quiz between our three family households, partly because eldest Granddaughter Hollie (aged 8) volunteered to write the questions and be Quizmaster.

She decided to check answers after each question.

Q1:- What are the 5 most popular vegetables for Christmas Dinner?

after everyone said they had answers, Hollie gave the answers:-

1) Turkey.. (Whole quiz dissolves into laughter, Hollie exits stage right in a huff!!!

(It took 10 minutes to restore order and persuade Hollie to carry on.)

 

I do have to report that except for this one incident, Hollie did well, her slides for the questions were very good and the questions suitable for ages 7-70 taking part. 

I am sure we could not have done so well at her age, so Well Done Hollie!!

 

Happy New Year

Paul

[St Enodoc]

3 hours ago, Tallpaul69 said:

What are the 5 most popular vegetables for Christmas Dinner?

Too easy.

 

Sprouts, sprouts, sprouts, sprouts and sprouts.

[Chamby]

48 minutes ago, St Enodoc said:

Too easy.

 

Sprouts, sprouts, sprouts, sprouts and sprouts.

 

Blimey, it must be windy in your house, especially if you have stuffing as well!   Honey-glazed parsnips, nicely caramelised, top the list for me.

[St Enodoc]

1 hour ago, Chamby said:

 

Blimey, it must be windy in your house, especially if you have stuffing as well!   Honey-glazed parsnips, nicely caramelised, top the list for me.

Parsnips are at No 6 (I am not a number, I am a free vegetable) and roast spuds are at no 7, closely followed by peas at no 8.

 

Any left-over sprouts are eaten cold with Boxing Day lunch (no 9) and/or go into the bubble and squeak at dinner time (no 10).

 

Of course we have stuffing too. Sage and onion (Paxo) and sausage meat (Lincolnshire this time - the supermarket had sold out of Cumberland sausages). I remove the sausage skins and mash the meat up with salt, pepper and a few extra 'erbs.

Edited December 27, 2020 by St Enodoc

[St Enodoc]

I finished the last two St Enodoc signals today.

 

On the left is 25, the Up Advanced Starting with the (fixed) Porthmellyn Road Up Branch Distant below it; and on the right is 24/13, the two backing signals for movements in the Up direction from the Down platform. The upper arm, 24, applies to the Up line and the lower arm, 13, to the Down line. I've tested these but will leave final adjustment until I'm ready to instal them.

 

This has reminded me that I need to make three Limit of Shunt signs, two for Porthmellyn Road and one for St Enodoc. Being purely static, they shouldn't take too long.

 

I'll start thinking about Porthmellyn Road's platforms next.

[St Enodoc]

Memo to @5BarVT: I remembered the yellow light for the fixed distant after I'd taken that photo - honest!

 

As an aside, I think I've worked out the reason for the positioning of the fixed distant arm. It seems that the outer (fishtail) end should line up with the outer end of the stop arm above it. In this case, the stop arm is a pressed steel version, which is fractionally shorter than the wooden arm on Porthmellyn Road 9 signal. Consequently, this new signal needs the distant arm to be fixed further to the right than on the earlier one. This doesn't matter where the fixed distant stands alone, so the arm is fixed centrally on the post.

 

That's my theory anyway - anybody got a better one? Mike @The Stationmaster?

[Nick Gough]

10 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

Too easy.

 

Sprouts, sprouts, sprouts, sprouts and sprouts.

Egg and Sprouts

Egg, bacon and Sprouts

Egg, bacon, sausage and Sprouts

Sprouts, bacon, sausage and Sprouts

Sprouts, egg, Sprouts, Sprouts, bacon and Sprouts

Sprouts, Sprouts, Sprouts, egg and Sprouts

Sprouts, Sprouts, Sprouts, Sprouts, Sprouts, Sprouts, baked beans, Sprouts, Sprouts, Sprouts and Sprouts

[acg5324]

8 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

Parsnips are at No 6 (I am not a number, I am a free vegetable) and roast spuds are at no 7, closely followed by peas at no 8.

 

Any left-over sprouts are eaten cold with Boxing Day lunch (no 9) and/or go into the bubble and squeak at dinner time (no 10).

 

Of course we have stuffing too. Sage and onion (Paxo) and sausage meat (Lincolnshire this time - the supermarket had sold out of Cumberland sausages). I remove the sausage skins and mash the meat up with salt, pepper and a few extra 'erbs.

Our left over stuffing and roast spuds went in the oven last night and was had with garlic mayo.

Today the rest of stuffing......there was a lot.....along with the turkey leftovers and sprouts are going in a pie!

[St Enodoc]

19 minutes ago, Nick Gough said:

Egg and Sprouts

Egg, bacon and Sprouts

Egg, bacon, sausage and Sprouts

Sprouts, bacon, sausage and Sprouts

Sprouts, egg, Sprouts, Sprouts, bacon and Sprouts

Sprouts, Sprouts, Sprouts, egg and Sprouts

Sprouts, Sprouts, Sprouts, Sprouts, Sprouts, Sprouts, baked beans, Sprouts, Sprouts, Sprouts and Sprouts

Beans is off.

[Nick Gough]

6 minutes ago, St Enodoc said:

Beans is off.

Blame the Vikings!

[5BarVT]

3 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

Memo to @5BarVT: I remembered the yellow light for the fixed distant after I'd taken that photo - honest!

I’ll believe you - seeing as you managed it for the two earlier fixed distants!

Looking nice too.

Paul.

[acg5324]

I feel an appropriate T Shirt is required today!

 

[Oldddudders]

I've met some old trouts in my time - but not sure any of them came from Brussels. 

[St Enodoc]

On 26/12/2020 at 15:39, St Enodoc said:

Yes, it is Boxing Day, which means cricket from the MCG so that's on the radio while I carry on with signals.

 

For the short fixed distant, I rooted through the spares box for a suitable post to shorten. I found that for some reason, lost in the mists of time, I had a spare two-armed post from an old Ratio 462 kit. I measured it up and found that if I cut the post just above the lower lamp the post height would be about a scale 19ft 6in, so that's what I've done. I also cut the finial from the top of the original post, fitted it to the shortened post and removed the arm pivot.

 

Here it is before final assembly, with the stub of the original post next to it.

 

Big Brother and Little Brother stand side by side, looking just as I thought they would.

 

Question for @5BarVT, @The Stationmaster or anyone else who might know.

 

Given that 3ft ringed stop arms didn't have a white stripe on the front, should the 3ft ringed distant arm just be plain yellow?

[St Enodoc]

For the past few (many) months, a number of RTR wagons have been cluttering up the top shelf in the study room. These include some that I've bought new, some that I've bought secondhand and quite a lot that I bought at auction from the estate of my late friend Harry Howell. I decided that it was time to start fitting couplings to these to reduce the stockpile. I started with some Airfix/Dapol/Hornby ones where the tension lock coupling is held on by a plastic clip. Removing the clip and the little spigot under it leaves a nice flat platform to screw a DG coupling to. The coupling needs cranking by about a millimetre to get the right height but otherwise it's a very quick and easy job.

 

Except...

 

...when some of the droppers fall off the loops. This seems to have become more common over the last year or so and is quite frustrating. I'll have to clean up the offending droppers and loops, then resolder them with a little more flux and probably a little more heat - but without soldering anything up solid like I did a few months ago.

 

As the cricket from Melbourne has finished for the day, I'll leave that to tomorrow.

[nerron]

Good to see that some of Harry's stock has been able to find its way from Stafford to Mid-Cornwall.

[St Enodoc]

1 hour ago, nerron said:

Good to see that some of Harry's stock has been able to find its way from Stafford to Mid-Cornwall.

Thanks Ron. I picked up two lots at the auction itself plus some more wagons at Forestville, which had been part of one of the lots I didn't win. I'm very glad to have been able to give them all a good home.