Castle Aching

[Donw]

I did write it somewhat tongue in cheek and keeping the room tidy makes sense. However this is a hobby done for pleasure. Isn't it bad to form to comment on the failings of others. I had an inspector at work who on a visit would sweep the van and put a few tools away. Nothing said but you got the idea. Mind you you would accept it from him. If you  had a big job he was quite willing to pick up the pick or shovel and give you a bit of a hand or suggest going for a pint if you had time. 

 

One modelling friend agreed with his wife that Thursday was modelling day. Any request to do other jobs on a Thursday would be logged for another day. Given that the was time to get a fair bit done that day the proportion of the time tidying up at the end was reasonable. If you get interrupted to do something else you can end up not finishing the modelling task and leaving tools and material out to finish 'soon as'. I suggest this as an idea, you may find this suggestion does not meet with approval or any such agreement is ignored in practice.

 

Don

[sem34090]

Is it bad that a volunteer porter on a heritage railway (me) has just been deputising for the non-existent South Western Railway staff at Alton?

 

It's not as bad as Surbiton - In that instance there was a member of SWR staff on hand, yet the public was still preferring to ask me!!!

[Edwardian]

To be fair, I'm hardly a paragon of order and neatness.   My involuntary exclamation (there is a more Edwardian word, but the Automatic Prude doesn't like it), for which I apologise, was prompted by a pile of clutter covering RasR's layout that I felt was extreme, even by my extremely lax standards.

 

Don't go defending the man, you'll only encourage him in his turpitudinous disorder; RasR is indeed fortunate that my camera battery died before I could immortalise a scene that might compare with Waterloo the morning after the battle. 

 

Anyway, a good time was had by all.  RasR found a book that immortalised some of his full-size railway architecture (yes, massive respect!), I bored an exhibitor to a near coma on the subject of Combat Vehicles Reconnaissance (Tracked), and, while having been reacquainted with the excellent Merstone, Linny alone of the party managed to do something helpful!    

 

Edited July 29, 2019 by Edwardian

[Talltim]

That doesn’t look very ergonomic 

[RedGemAlchemist]

Indeed not.

[Caley Jim]

13 hours ago, sem34090 said:

They still are...

Do I count as Motley?

While on the subject of station staff, I am I the only one for whom the ticket collector on the Achenseebahn last Friday reminded me of Mr Perks?

 

 

Jim

[Edwardian]

25 minutes ago, Talltim said:

That doesn’t look very ergonomic 

 

That's Linny pitching in from the public side!

 

 

[sem34090]

How come they found themselves doing that then? I mean... It's a bit of a mess up to have the public operating the layout from the viewing side - either they view on the viewing side or get invited to operate from the operating side, in my experience... Particularly when the viewing side is not intended for operational use!

[Caley Jim]

2 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

 

That's Linny pitching in from the public side!

Now if that was happening in a Clyde shipyard the unions would be calling a strike over job demarcation!

 

Jim

[Hroth]

2 hours ago, sem34090 said:

Is it bad that a volunteer porter on a heritage railway (me) has just been deputising for the non-existent South Western Railway staff at Alton?

 

It's not as bad as Surbiton - In that instance there was a member of SWR staff on hand, yet the public was still preferring to ask me!!!

 

Bad in the sense that you look more authoritative and knowledgable in your "Heritage" uniform than the SWR staff do!  But yes, bad because you're performing a role that SWR should be paying someone to do.  Tot up your time, and send 'em an invoice....

 

 

[Hroth]

14 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

 

That's Linny pitching in from the public side!

 

 

 

Did they know he was fiddling with their fiddle yard? 

[sem34090]

9 minutes ago, Hroth said:

 

Bad in the sense that you look more authoritative and knowledgable in your "Heritage" uniform than the SWR staff do!  But yes, bad because you're performing a role that SWR should be paying someone to do.  Tot up your time, and send 'em an invoice....

 

 

Now there's an idea!

 

Before I stop hijacking this thread, I think the LSWR ought to be sued for manipulating images of people to make them look short and fat -

 

[Hroth]

1 minute ago, sem34090 said:

Now there's an idea!

 

Before I stop hijacking this thread, I think the LSWR ought to be sued for manipulating images of people to make them look short and fat -

 

 

Go and find a shiny concave area if you want to look tall and thin!

 

btw, is that area on the frame where you put the key to wind it up?

 

saunters off, whistling.....

 

[Donw]

Using that backboard ( front board?) to support the elbows may have steadied the hands making the task a little easier.  I did used to get the odd viewer to use the uncoupling hook out front ( children especially find it easier) but viewers operating the fiddle yard is a new one to me. Although thinking about it, if it adds to their experience positively why not.

 

Don

[sem34090]

No, you're mistaken...

 

You know when they attach and detach locos from trains? The fireman has to go down to the coupling and wind up the loco to give it enough energy to run-round, then once it's coupled back onto the train he has to wind it up again to give it enough energy to move the train! Some locos then have a hook for the winder to sit on so it doesn't hit anything and get damaged:

 

[Compound2632]

I'm never quite sure if its a good or a bad sign if I find myself peering over the hoardings to see what delights are lurking in the fiddle yard. Good, because there's some interesting stock, bad, because it hasn't put in an appearance...

 

... in the 10 minutes I've been watching the layout itself. 

[Edwardian]

We were in conversation with the operators. 

 

 

We were admiring the IWC Terrier and a lurking Paddlebox was brought forth ...

 

 

I had just been invited to the side of the layout to admire these ....

 

 

When Linny was asked to couple something up

[Nearholmer]

Sounds like a good sort of exhibition. I much prefer the sort where chatting and audience participation are allowed/encouraged to the other sorts (detached, and/or grossly overcrowded).

 

Also, I like that layout a great deal, even if the Land Rover is as anachronistic as the Big Engine. Junction stations make good layouts, but seem rare, presumably because they tend to be extensive, which Merstone wasn't.

 

Glad everyone enjoyed themselves. 

[Compound2632]

T14 on the IoW? Sure, Urie was desperate to get rid of them... Perhaps he was hoping the ferry would sink under the weight?

[Donw]

I do like that layout not least because I know the site well. When living on the Island Merstone was a short distance from our home and the line is now a walk and cycle route (but not sadly the Branch to Ventnor West). Park the car by the trees and set off with the dogs.  The trees are still there and the platform edge is visible

[Martin S-C]

6 hours ago, Edwardian said:

Don't go defending the man, you'll only encourage him in his turpitudinous disorder; RasR is indeed fortunate that my camera battery died before I could immortalise a scene that might compare with Waterloo the morning after the battle.

 

You mean his baseboards were heaped with dead Frenchmen and a crowd of Belgians were picking them over and pulling the teeth from the cadavers? That is a quite extreme level of workroom untidiness.

 

Nice to see Merstone again, even if it is only a scene of the back of the backscene. I wasn't helping crew it that time, too far north for me, though I probably missed out on a couple of proper breakfasts that close to the home of black puddin.

[Malcolm 0-6-0]

At the risk of appearing a bit slow, what is this tidiness that is being bandied about.

 

On the odd occasion that I have cleaned up my work bench it hasn't been through any sense of tidiness but pure desperation because I can't find something I put down 10 seconds before. I have then found that the act of tidying has made me lose complete track of where anything is. Accordingly I have developed a hypothesis which is that we humans always put something down within easy reach regardless of what we are putting it on, so that the apparently disordered pile is in fact actually quite orderly and everything therein is placed in the archaeological sense, which is stratigraphical thus providing a very neat self-ordering chronological indication of how long a job has taken and in what order each action was done. Now I feel a lot better for expressing that because I knew my advanced degrees in archaeology would eventually pay off.

 

And, as an addendum, I must say that we should never forget dust - the modellers friend, which hides a lot of things that one has never quite got around to finishing due to the pressure of finding things on the work bench. 

[Edwardian]

7 hours ago, Martin S-C said:

You mean his baseboards were heaped with dead Frenchmen and a crowd of Belgians were picking them over and pulling the teeth from the cadavers? That is a quite extreme level of workroom untidiness.

 

Oh, but very much before Belgian looters set to work tidying up the battlefield

 

7 hours ago, Martin S-C said:

Nice to see Merstone again, even if it is only a scene of the back of the backscene. I wasn't helping crew it that time, too far north for me, though I probably missed out on a couple of proper breakfasts that close to the home of black puddin.

 

Indeed I feel that soon I will be the only member of the parish not to have operated this fine layout.

 

10 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Sounds like a good sort of exhibition. I much prefer the sort where chatting and audience participation are allowed/encouraged to the other sorts (detached, and/or grossly overcrowded).

 

RasR's facility for engaging strangers in conversation enriches the experience of all those with him.  But, then, the North East is populated by friendly people.

 

As well as the beleaguered operator of Dovington, I had a good chat with the really great people who run Smart Models, whose range is worth checking out.  This time I bought their spectacular ne bridge kit.  

 

10 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Also, I like that layout a great deal, even if the Land Rover is as anachronistic as the Big Engine. Junction stations make good layouts, but seem rare, presumably because they tend to be extensive, which Merstone wasn't.

 

I agree with Nearholmer that junction stations are a fine thing not modelled often enough.  Inspired in part by Merstone and in part by Melton Constable in the 1880s, I have a place for Aching Constable as a junction station with adjacent loco and carriage works. 

 

 

10 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Glad everyone enjoyed themselves. 

 

Thanks

 

5 hours ago, Malcolm 0-6-0 said:

At the risk of appearing a bit slow, what is this tidiness that is being bandied about.

 

A relative concept, relative to RasR's layout, where bits of track and baseboard can be only occassionally glimpsed from beneath piles of non-railway stuff.

 

5 hours ago, Malcolm 0-6-0 said:

On the odd occasion that I have cleaned up my work bench it hasn't been through any sense of tidiness but pure desperation because I can't find something I put down 10 seconds before.

 

Yes, that is both the extent of, and motivation for, any degree of tidiness I occasionally acheive

5 hours ago, Malcolm 0-6-0 said:

I have then found that the act of tidying has made me lose complete track of where anything is.

 

So, true

 

5 hours ago, Malcolm 0-6-0 said:

 

And, as an addendum, I must say that we should never forget dust - the modellers friend, which hides a lot of things that one has never quite got around to finishing due to the pressure of finding things on the work bench. 

 

Certainly improves the look of my models

[Skinnylinny]

In my defense, I hadn't been invited around to the back of the layout at that time (although I did get a look earlier in the day), but I offered a hand to an operator who was struggling with the three-links (it being very close to end-of-play) as I was at a better angle than he to see them, my view not being obstructed by other trains from that side!

This was definitely a very friendly exhibition - I only found one person who wasn't keen to have a conversation about either their work or their products (or indeed any topic you care to mention!), and that was a trader, so I left them alone!

I was also very struck by the Taff Vale layout Ynysybwl (set in 1922, so relevant to the Pre-Grouping section), which was beautifully presented in EM gauge, and had some really lovely working somersault signals.

[Compound2632]

Ynysybwl is superb, isn't it? It has to be among the top half-dozen layouts I've seen in the last few years - I saw it at ExpoEM in Bracknel a couple of years ago (I think). Up there with Sherton Abbas. At first glance it's a roundy-roundy but on closer inspection one realises that, with the gradient, it's a spiral with stacked fiddle yards - an interesting concept. Very closely observed - on the far side of the station from Linny's top photo, there's a row of short white posts alongside the cess. Always happy to learn by being wrong, I asked if they were signal wire posts, to be told that they were boundary markers - or vice-versa, trouble is I'm blowed if I can remember which. Lots of coal trains, no unusual loads or wildly out-of-place wagons - not even a D299!