The Night Mail

[Happy Hippo]

3 minutes ago, rockershovel said:

I will probably have to buy aftershave in the New Year, for the first time in living memory, but it’s a small 

price to pay. 

Apparently, L'eau de Limpopo is the go to fragrance this year.

 

In other Hippo news:

 

 

 

 

[Tony_S]

1 hour ago, Happy Hippo said:

A Transit with a mattress in the back and a bucket in the corner.  Motor home on the cheap!

That was the image I tried to plant in Aditi’s mind. I do know that motorhomes can be quite comfortable though. I think Aditi remembers before we had a car her colleague would drive over in his motorhome and we would go somewhere nice for a picnic. She thought it was all very civilised.  He had bought the motorhome so he could take his dogs out for nice country walks. 
Tony

[SM42]

Welcome to my 1000th RMweb post Yaaaay1

 

Christmas at SM42 Towers will be a two horse race this year.

It's been a while since Mrs SM42 and I have done a just us Christmas and I am quite looking forward to it.

 

It will be the traditional Polish expansive Christmas Eve dinner with numerous courses and dishes with carp, salmon and cod for the main. 

 

To keep the Hippos and Bears happy (well maybe not as they won't be here and the traps have been set around the perimeter)  there will be lots of cake courses to finish. 

 

Baking is on the menu for the rest of the week.

 

Christmas Day will be turkey (that type that comes in a foil tray from the supermarket and is enough for two) with the usual vegetable supects and maybe a sausage or two. . 

 

I have already had my present for this year :  Sciatica

 

Deep joy (or is that pain?) .

 

Have a good Christmas fellow NMers.

 

Andy

(who apologises if the spelling and grammar is a bit off. I've taken a widely available  over the counter painkiller from Poland following an agonising night shift  and I think I am a little high.

In fact it's unpleasantly like being drunk)

 

 

[rockershovel]

2 hours ago, Happy Hippo said:

Apparently, L'eau de Limpopo is the go to fragrance this year.

 

In other Hippo news:

 

 

 

 

 

Grey-green and greasy? 

 

The only thing around here set about with Fever Tree is my sideboard ..

[New Haven Neil]

The Purge...Hippos....DUCK!!!  

 

 

[Happy Hippo]

Andy certainly gets my sympathy. 

 

Sciatica is nasty old thing and I suffered from it for some years due to something not being quite right with my lower back when something was trapped where it oughtn't to be.

 

I suspect we are all a bit cronkiwonky in the parts department:  In my case it's a by product of a misspent youth, career choice and increasing age.

 

On the cake front, contributors to TNM might by now have realised, that such grants an exemption to my cake confiscation missions.

 

I treat your submissions about cake as I treat looking at some ladies of my acquaintance....

 

Strictly window shopping!

 

 

Edited December 19, 2020 by Happy Hippo

[New Haven Neil]

Yes, sciatica is no fun, had an issue with it in my late 20's, felt like being electrocuted down the leg.  Traction and then swimming sorted it eventually, but it was a rough couple of months.

[New Haven Neil]

As it is cold wet and miserable out I thought I would just leave this here, as a reminder of better days.

 

[Happy Hippo]

Thank you Neil, with the rain driving in and the grey skies ever darkening such enlightenment is much appreciated.

 

The trouble is, every time I see your garden line, I get the urge to relay mine.

 

If I do I'm very tempted to relay as much as possible in Peco SM45 and to hell with the requirement for scale 7/8ths track. 

 

Of course, I'll still make my own pointwork.

[SM42]

56 minutes ago, New Haven Neil said:

Yes, sciatica is no fun,

 

Thanks for the sympathy folks. It is appreciated.

 

Last time I had a bout (the other leg) my doctor described it as "in his top 10 of things not to get"

 

Not sure if he was trying to be sympathetic or not.

 

This is a result of a slow burn slipped disc, been slowly going for about a month, so this was not unexpected.

 

The last bout  came on after stopping to ask directions, getting back in the car an driving 1/4 mile, getting out and finding I couldn't walk more than  a few steps. No warning, no back pain.

 

Still as I am now on the box, and can manage to sit with reasonable comfort, some wagon building may take my mind of it, once the painkillers wear off and I can see straight again.

 

I have been dubbed the Angielski pacjent once more and I am hoping for convalescence cake later 

 

Now if only I could find my little bell to summon the nurse (maybe not. Don't want to push it too far)

 

Andy

Edited December 19, 2020 by SM42
poor Polish spelling

[New Haven Neil]

Did mine lifting and twisting - killer move, I should have known better but it was in a dangerous position - if I had not done so the heavy item would have fallen and hurt one of the other 5 people lifting it.  Of course we shouldn't have been lifting it as it was so heavy, but....jobs need doing......  And...it was in a hospital...where we all worked at the time!  At least it got me straight to physio without a wait.

[SM42]

My first run in with slipped disc was a few years back when walking resulted in back pain and I had to stop every 100yds or so.

 

It all failed catastrophically  following a flight back from Poland and the at the time not quite yet Mrs SM42 deciding at the last minute that we should get of the train one stop earlier and catch the bus.

 

All I did was move the small suitcase with my foot so I could stand up, this was followed by collapsing out of the train in agony onto the platform at Mill Hill and much use of the profanity filter. I went right off speed bumps after the bus and subsequent taxi ride to the hospital

 

It was the first of several out of hours visits to the local hospital which involved being given 6 Valium tablets to relax the muscles.

 

And yet she still married me.

 

Andy

[Happy Hippo]

57 minutes ago, SM42 said:

 

 

And yet she still married me.

 

Andy

Obviously a lady of impeccable taste!

[bbishop]

Grim day at Waterloo.  If anyone else is thinking too little, too late ..... dead right!

 

And my personal research was on London & South Western Railway WW1 war memorials, and I didn't get much done.

 

Bill

[J. S. Bach]

6 hours ago, rockershovel said:

 ...snip...

I just realized that your tag line "Oh mother dear, I'm over here, and I'm never coming back. What keeps me here, is a rake of beer, the ladies and the crack.." is really a poem:

 

"Oh mother dear

I'm over here

and I'm never coming back.

What keeps me here

is a rake of beer

the ladies and the crack"

 

It flows nicely.

 

 

[J. S. Bach]

23 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

Think again and ask yourself: why is it set in 1883?

There was an article in a UK modeling magazine (I do not remember which one now, only that I got it in a pile of them from a friend and have since passed them on) that referenced the Burntisland layout. I may be remembering photos from other articles and mixing them up in my mind. As to 1883 that makes me think that the article may have been titled Burntisland 1883, as to why I no longer remember.

 

EDIT: I did keep the December 2015 issue for an article called Knappwood Parkway as the track plan almost literally jumped off the page at me as just what I wanted (with a few minor modifications) for my much thought-about Chesapeake Beach Railroad which will be On2½, OO, HO; all the same track. There is a pocket track in the station which will also be dual-gauge: O and HO for the standard gauge interurban. Burntisland 1883 just happens to be in the same issue. The author opens the article with an explanation of the name (which our cake-eating Hippo mentions below before my finding and re-reading the article). While reading the 1883 article the first time, I really thought that I would like to see the layout in person and beg to be able to set my Southern Pacific SD40T-2 in the passenger station just for a photo shoot!

Edited December 19, 2020 by J. S. Bach
To add some information.

[Happy Hippo]

Apparently Llandudno is absolutely filled to bursting this evening with people frantically trying to get their Christmas shopping done now that Wales has gone into lockdown again.  I expect the rest of the Welsh towns are in the same boat.

 

My mother was going to stay with my sister over the Christmas period, but that's gone for a ball of chalk because it's cross border from a high risk area to a Tier one zone.

 

Fortunately she can go and have Christmas with my brother and his family as they have been making sure she is looked after her since the first lockdown.

[Happy Hippo]

Just now, J. S. Bach said:

There was an article in a UK modeling magazine (I do not remember which one now, only that I got it in a pile of them from a friend and have since passed them on) that referenced the Burntisland layout. I may be remembering photos from other articles and mixing them up in my mind. As to 1883 that makes me think that the article may have been titled Burntisland 1883, as to why I no longer remember.

Cos the trackwork was all to P4 standards.  It was a verbal play on dates and gauges.

[rockershovel]

37 minutes ago, J. S. Bach said:

I just realized that your tag line "Oh mother dear, I'm over here, and I'm never coming back. What keeps me here, is a rake of beer, the ladies and the crack.." is really a poem:

 

"Oh mother dear

I'm over here

and I'm never coming back.

What keeps me here

is a rake of beer

the ladies and the crack"

 

It flows nicely.

 

 

 

It’s from the opening monologue to “MacAlpine’s Fusiliers” , a perennial success for The Dubliners; the lyrics are credited to Dominic Behan and the tune is a traditional air. 

[bbishop]

1 hour ago, Happy Hippo said:

Burntisland 1883, cos the trackwork was all to P4 standards.  It was a verbal play on dates and gauges.

A little bit of the layout was entered in the "1883" challenge at a Scalefourum many moons ago.  It is a lovely looking layout, especially the stock, but too often the stock falls off the track.  Well they have a model of The Diver, which William Topaz McGonagall immortalised in his poem "The Tay Bridge Disaster".  Why was Alfred Austin made Poet Laurate?

Bill

[jamie92208]

I know a couple of the Burntisland crew and invited the layout to Wakefield. Thevlayout has some exquisite modelling with the operating capstans tipping coal wagons. Unfortunately  the running wasn't as good as the modelling.

 

Jamie

[rockershovel]

1 hour ago, Happy Hippo said:

Apparently Llandudno is absolutely filled to bursting this evening with people frantically trying to get their Christmas shopping done now that Wales has gone into lockdown again.  I expect the rest of the Welsh towns are in the same boat.

 

My mother was going to stay with my sister over the Christmas period, but that's gone for a ball of chalk because it's cross border from a high risk area to a Tier one zone.

 

Fortunately she can go and have Christmas with my brother and his family as they have been making sure she is looked after her since the first lockdown.

 

No 1 Son is off on a similar mission. We’re all set. It seemed the only sensible course of action, under the circumstances. 

[Compound2632]

As I recall, as others have mentioned, its origin was with the Scalefour Society challenge (to celebrate an anniversary of the society?) which was to construct a P4 exhibition layout in an area of 18.83 sq ft. It's grown a bit since then - last time I saw it, at Warley last year I think, it had sprouted another bit - a roundhouse engine shed with webcam. The running on the main line into the passenger station was fine but not all the harbour features were working quite perfectly. It was nevertheless a crowd-pleaser - an amazing tour-de-force of modelling.

 

EDIT: I read that there were 57 entries, of which Burntisland 1883 was the winner.

 

 

Edited December 19, 2020 by Compound2632

[PhilJ W]

I had what I thought was sciatica but wasn't, it turned out to be a kidney stone. Fortunately it decided to leave of its own accord and THAT is painful. Some ladies I know who have had the same experience have said its worse than giving birth. But at least once its over there's no more pain.

[Compound2632]

Also, I gather it's been exhibited quite a bit in its home area, not necessarily at model railway exhibitions, reaching the sort of local audience such shows don't normally reach. That audience is more interested in it as an historical document than as an exercise in P4 and are probably rather more tolerant of any poor running than a bunch of model railway enthusiasts can be.

 

EDIT: For the avoidance of doubt: this post refers to Burntisland 1883, not @PhilJ W's kidney stone.

Edited December 19, 2020 by Compound2632