Castle Aching

[brack]

1 minute ago, Edwardian said:

and what separates the two scenes?

If you're looking for something which separates but doesn't physically exist, then the currently accepted solution is to use imagination, faith and optimism.

 

As for funny coloured sheep dips, the ones up our way used to go an orangey colour afterwards when I was a kid, at least on a couple of the farms. I wonder if the slight colouring effect was unavoidable or added to help the farmer know which had been done?

[Compound2632]

10 minutes ago, brack said:

If you're looking for something which separates but doesn't physically exist, then the currently accepted solution is to use imagination, faith and optimism.

 

 

Is that what magical thinking is called nowadays? If so, I do think it's giving imagination, faith, and optimism a bad name. I think of myself as an optimist: "It hasn't happened yet."

 

On a more cheerful note, my resolute intention to get on with some modelling today has been derailed by the arrival of Vol. 4 of E.L. Ahrons, Locomotive & train working in the latter part of the nineteenth century (Heffer, 1953, reprinted from The Railway Magazine, 1915-1923). This completes my set and at just £7.50 was cheaper than the other five volumes which I've had for some years - giving the lie to the remarks I'd made on ChrisN's Traeth Mawr a few days ago - which is what got me thinking about looking out a copy. 

 

This is the volume that covers the Welsh companies and the Midland main line to Southampton but also devotes two chapters to a certain minor west country line. The second of these is hugely entertaining, though mostly about birds. 

[DonB]

4 hours ago, Edwardian said:

Suggestions on the back of a postcard ...

 

4 hours ago, sem34090 said:

I might have a play around and see what I can come up with... 

 

Many years ago I made a portable layout on a 6 x 3 ply door, ( all the rage at the time!) for my two nephews,  7 and 9 Years old ( now in their early 50s , with no interest in model trains!)

A central long divider with improbable tunnels each end .  simple single track oval.

Side A. had a station platform  and a two  sidings with direct access from a car factory , low relief against the divider. Cars emerged from the factory door.  A loading ramp gave access to the car carrying trucks.

Side B. was similar but with provision to unload newly delivered cars direct into a low relief car show room.  Pushing a car into the showroom found it emerging from the car factory ready to go round again.  It lasted for about 4 years when a house move saw it scrapped. 

Edited July 31, 2019 by DonB
additional text.

[Edwardian]

1 hour ago, Martin S-C said:

Another political joke, one presumes.

 

Yeah, walked straight into that one.

 

RasR has not said whether he wants the layout to feature a backstop, or, some alternative arrangement.

[Martin S-C]

But it will ever actually get done? And will the base be hard board or a soft board?

We could go on like this all week, someone, quick, post another picture of a train, or failing that, a renowned female British actress so we can get back on topic.

Edited July 31, 2019 by Martin S-C

[sem34090]

Will an L&Y Goods Engine do?

 

 

[Martin S-C]

Someone seems to be taking candid moving images of our JA.

[Donw]

A few years ago there was a 'U' shaped layout featured in the Railway modeller one side of the U was a ER terminus the other an Italian Railways terminus. Each would act as a fiddleyard when the other was choice of the day. The only thing that struck me was changing from running say ER to running Italian would involved replacing a lot of stock. I think I would  look to be able to run stock onto a cassette. So with enough cassettes it would be a simple matter to change stock.

 

On untidyness my intended railway room was used to  dump all the train stuff in boxes together with a workbench and some cupboards for railway room use. Some baseboards were erected along one side and then a portable layout placed on them. A quantity of household items which could not be located elsewhere were placed in the room. Various building materials and supplies have also been placed in there. It was then all shoved to one side of the room because a area along the other side was appropriated for an en suite to the adjacent bedroom. It was all covered in a tarpaulin while part of the floor was removed to run drainage and then concrete over the drains. A stud wall was erected as it was not felt that an en suite come railway room was quite the thing.  The en suite was finished and I did manage to plaster the railway room side this needs finishing. Of course duiring this I find myself needing various things and by a sort of domestic mining process things have been recovered but replacing things moved to get them has been less sucessful.  The most disruptive element of this was recovering the portable layout and stock to take to a meeting then returning it all. All the railway magazines plus quite a few purchases have been added to the piles. Recent additions have been some bits of kitchen worktop too good to store outside a Door to be fitted elsewhere at some stage and a sheet of ply 8x4 which are now serious hampering the 1ft wide access which had been left.

My excuse is that although it will be a railway room that will be for the future and that no attempt to do do modelling has been made.  I am not sure this holds water with my long suffering wife.

 

Don 

 

 

[Regularity]

4 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

I think of myself as an optimist: "It hasn't happened yet."

Sounds more like a forward-looking pessimist...

[Northroader]

I feel that putting modelling stuff off until some rosy future dawns isn’t good policy, Don. Couldn’t you just make a simple small statement of intent, even if it’s just a couple of hours a week? Time passes, and none of us are getting any younger.

[St Enodoc]

12 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Try Czech.

I did, but it bounced.

[Martin S-C]

3 hours ago, Northroader said:

I feel that putting modelling stuff off until some rosy future dawns isn’t good policy, Don. Couldn’t you just make a simple small statement of intent, even if it’s just a couple of hours a week? Time passes, and none of us are getting any younger.

This is an awesome example of positive thinking and should be endorsed. My moods climb and dip and my time ebbs and flows but every day I insist I will do something model railway hobby related. It might be work on a freight management system, or weathering a wagon, or cleaning some track, or carving up a block of Celotex, but I do put aside time each day to maintain some forward momentum, no matter how slight it may be.

[Regularity]

bcnPete of this parish talked about operating his Kyle-in-a-box layout as a 5-20-5 layout: 5 minutes set up, 20 minutes play, 5 minutes to pack it up.

Chris Mears - also of this parish but also possessed of an interesting blog - has translated this to making small step progress with modelling projects.

5 minutes to get the tools and bits together, 20 minutes of activity, then 5 minutes cleaning up and packing away.

20 minutes is about as much concentration as most of us can manage at a single go, so this has considerable merit.

[phil_sutters]

13 minutes ago, Regularity said:

bcnPete of this parish talked about operating his Kyle-in-a-box layout as a 5-20-5 layout: 5 minutes set up, 20 minutes play, 5 minutes to pack it up.

 

I thought Kyle had been kicked off the box.

[Martin S-C]

I must be well above the average of that then. Give me a few wagons to fettle and weather and then come back tomorrow and I'll still be going.

But there are always people who reside, statistically, at the bell ends of the graph. Er, so to speak.

[Regularity]

46 minutes ago, phil_sutters said:

I thought Kyle had been kicked off the box.

Yes, but when Pete talked about 5-20-5, it hadn’t been…

[RedGemAlchemist]

7 hours ago, Regularity said:

Kyle-in-a-box

Dammit Cartman!

[Northroader]

Nice to see the return of the Killer Hedgehog!

[RedGemAlchemist]

27 minutes ago, Northroader said:

Nice to see the return of the Killer Hedgehog!

Clearly he found Dinsdale. 

[corneliuslundie]

Combined model railway room and walk-in shower sounds like an interesting project. Need to watch the humidity though, it can play havoc with cardboard buildings. On the other hand, very convenient for washing out brushes etc.

I too try to do a little each day, when not trying to keep up with this thread. I am lucky in that I have one board of Nantcwmdu set up and quite a bit of my workbench visible - the bits not covered by paint tins and other decorating bits and bobs. Just recently I have been working on the sleepering of the layout. Put the kettle on, nip into the railway room until it boils and cut a few sleepers to length, nip back and make the coffee, then four minutes of modelling while it brews. But I have now reached the point where each step needs more than  four minutes as it involves gluing down said sleepers, so a rethink is needed.

And on the clear bit of the workbench is a 7mm etched brass kit for a GWR outside framed brake van for Montgomery. We have already decided to use strip wood where possible instead of the folded up brass for the outside framing, but I still have to work out how to fold U sections in such small but quite thick bits of brass. I have some bending bars which are fine for the first bend, but useless for the second. Answers on a postcard - preferably with a pre-Raff scene on the back - please.

And since it is the holiday season:

Jonathan

[Caley Jim]

1 hour ago, corneliuslundie said:

........ Answers on a postcard - preferably with a pre-Raff scene on the back - please.

My experience of etched kits is all with 10thou n/s, but I've found that scoring along the bend line several times with a heavy craft knife, being careful not to cut through, results in not only making it easier to form the bend, but also results in a sharper bend. 

Sorry no postcards or pre-Raff pictures to hand, only a small boy on his tablet beside me. 

 

Jim 

[RedGemAlchemist]

5 hours ago, corneliuslundie said:

Answers on a postcard - preferably with a pre-Raff scene on the back - please.

And since it is the holiday season:

Jonathan

Interestingly that's where I am at work today. 

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, RedGemAlchemist said:

Interestingly that's where I am at work today. 

 

Hope you're feeling more cheerful about that than the little lad in red trunks. What's with all this post-Bloomsbury nonsense of fresh air and exercise - a dangerous doctrine? Why can't the young fellow be left to the genuine pleasure of a hoop and stick along the promenade, in three-piece tweeds?

[Martin S-C]

I had a moment just now and randomly wondered if there was any further news on the BBC WotW mini-series that was discussed by parishioners a few months back. It seems not, though the BBFC has given it a 15 certificate which means the show is complete in its entirety. One wonders what the Beeb are waiting for.
 

[Northroader]

Makes you wonder, aliens catching human beings and chomping them up for sustenance, how that got a 15 certificate? I’m hiding behind the sofa at 81.