The Night Mail

[polybear]

1 hour ago, jamie92208 said:

Yes I met a few in my working life/  The old method of fingerprinting before scanners required you to get the active cooperation of the subject to get a good set of what were known as rolled prints.

 

Now then...cough....Sir, we can take your dabs whilst your hand is still attached to your arm, or with it removed.  The choice is yours, however I would point out that the meat cleaver has seen better days and it does seem to take a few whacks lately....

[simontaylor484]

Both my boys are autistic both are very shy my eldest hid under a table from the Bishop of Wakefield when Kieran was 4.

Lucas my youngest has a brilliant memory which is very handy at times and he is very good with computers he is my IT consultant he is also my apprentice diy helper. Lucas also has obsessions he loves signs and cones and stuff like that. I have had to buy him a cone for Xmas in the past.

Kieran was badly bullied at high school and ended up missing a lot of school my wife found him trying to drown his self in the bath. Years later he still won't tell me who bullied him because he knows I would exact vengeance (to some tune I may add) he is now at college doing a foundation course I have to go and see them at college next week about his EHCP.

[DenysW]

Until there's a medicine that works, I'm mostly with Il Dottore - a wholistic approach focussing on coping strategies so that society doesn't bully because heads are now below parapets. And for even medicines that work it ain't that simple. My son's ADHD (clinically diagnosed in Australia, not amateur diagnosed by parents) responded to Ritalin - which also has a reputation as being used in the USA as a socially acceptable tranquiliser. But he rarely took it (to the point of swallowing the tablet) because it converted him into some-one he didn't like being.

[DenysW]

More to the core topic of this thread, I now have enough Bavarian wagons with DC wheels to haul a mixed beer-wagon and passenger train behind some of my green tank engines. The next step is getting the correct-ish wheels for the coal wagons and the wine-barrel wagons. All RTR, and none of it fit for rivet-counting, but still fun. Unfortunately the wine is from Alsace-Lorraine (Elsace-Lothringen), with you can't have everything.

[iL Dottore]

2 hours ago, simontaylor484 said:

Both my boys are autistic both are very shy my eldest hid under a table from the Bishop of Wakefield when Kieran was 4.

Lucas my youngest has a brilliant memory which is very handy at times and he is very good with computers he is my IT consultant he is also my apprentice diy helper. Lucas also has obsessions he loves signs and cones and stuff like that. I have had to buy him a cone for Xmas in the past.

Kieran was badly bullied at high school and ended up missing a lot of school my wife found him trying to drown his self in the bath. Years later he still won't tell me who bullied him because he knows I would exact vengeance (to some tune I may add) he is now at college doing a foundation course I have to go and see them at college next week about his EHCP.

Simon, your sad anecdote very much reinforces my contention that medicalising normal behaviour contributes to diverting resources - including support in schools for younger patients - away from those who truly need support.

 

And I have just thought of another, perhaps even worse, consequence of medicalising the normal: it trivialises the condition when the diagnostic criteria are so broad as to include (medicalise) the normal and that leads people to be - at best - sceptical about those who really do have condition "X" or - even worse - they believe that someone who does have condition "x" is simply "playing silly bu99ers" or "trying it on".

[New Haven Neil]

Today I have been mostly...

 

[DenysW]

My excuse for today adding a pannier tank to my options is that the set that my grandson was given by a 95+ yrs old neighbour was diesel-hydraulic, thus BR(W), not red engines. It is green, just not Bavarian green

[Tony_S]

I like blue engines and actually obtained one in an EBay auction earlier this week. In the past the day after having conscious sedation I have injured myself thinking I am more able than I am so restricted myself today to taking the body off the loco and sorting out how to fit a decoder. The loco is a rebuilt Merchant Navy in its blue “as preserved for a couple of years “ livery. The model is so old it doesn’t have a socket for the decoder. Considering the size of the loco there isn’t a lot of space for a decoder but a small one was squeezed in. I decided not to do the soldering today. Tomorrow is booster vaccine day, I didn’t have any adverse reaction to the Astra Zeneca jabs earlier, this time it will be Pfizer.

Tony

[Happy Hippo]

Has anyone made a model of the Castle class in the light green experimental BR livery?  We are all well versed with the darker blue applied to the 8P engines, but to some eyes the light green looked almost like a lighter blue.  I believe it was also applied to a Black 5!

[Dave Hunt]

Since our local MP is was Owen Patterson it would seem that we will soon have a by-election hereabouts. Oh, deep joy; I can hardly wait.

 

I was down in the workshop this afternoon doing some more ballasting and had just finished flooding the section I was working on with dilute PVA when Jill came in and Horace the cat followed her. After wandering around for a minute he jumped up onto the layout. Guess where? Bl**dy animal! And to think the wretched creature was a stray that we took pity on and allowed to move in.

 

Dave

 

 

[Florence Locomotive Works]

Evening all,

 

Oklahoma’s very short fall appears to have ended and winter has arrived to my relief. It also meant that campus was covered in fog this morning, here’s a photo between buildings looking across the field towards the fieldhouse and stadium.
 

 

HH, I believe your question will be answered by none other than Wrenn Railways.

 

Douglas

[Happy Hippo]

5 hours ago, Dave Hunt said:

Since our local MP is was Owen Patterson it would seem that we will soon have a by-election hereabouts. Oh, deep joy; I can hardly wait.

 

I was down in the workshop this afternoon doing some more ballasting and had just finished flooding the section I was working on with dilute PVA when Jill came in and Horace the cat followed her. After wandering around for a minute he jumped up onto the layout. Guess where? Bl**dy animal! And to think the wretched creature was a stray that we took pity on and allowed to move in.

 

Dave

 

 

Just be grateful that Horace is not a hippo.

[Happy Hippo]

3 hours ago, Florence Locomotive Works said:

Evening all,

 

Oklahoma’s very short fall appears to have ended and winter has arrived to my relief. It also meant that campus was covered in fog this morning, here’s a photo between buildings looking across the field towards the fieldhouse and stadium.
 

 

HH, I believe your question will be answered by none other than Wrenn Railways.

 

Douglas

Thanks Douglas.

 

I've just looked at their website, and you can see from the rather poor picture what I mean about the light green looking quite blue in tone.

 

But I have to say, I'm not sure that Castles were ever turned out in the  'proper' dark blue livery that Tony mentioned when discussing the Merchant Navy loco.

 

But buying models can sometimes be fraught with difficulty when liveries are concerned:

 

  The blue livery was a late 40s early 50s experiment, and yes ,'Canadian Pacific'  did carry the blue livery, but not in this guise.  The model represents the rebuilt form of the class, and this did not happen to CP until 1959, so this combination is somewhat of an anachronism to purists.

 

The trouble is, it's not an anachronism if you just like a blue engine with a preservation era applied livery.

 

Call me old fashioned, but I'm not a fan, to my mind, however pretty the loco looks, it's an inaccuracy which perpetuates historical misinformation to the less informed.

 

Having grumbled, I do reserve the right of owners to paint their locos/ships/aeroplanes etc in whatever colour they like.

 

The finest example of this was the prank played when the revered 'City of Truro' appeared in the BR mixed traffic livery of lined black!

 

Some GWR aficionados are still suffering from PTSD over this.

 

 

 

 

[jamie92208]

55 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

Thanks Douglas.

 

I've just looked at their website, and you can see from the rather poor picture what I mean about the light green looking quite blue in tone.

 

But I have to say, I'm not sure that Castles were ever turned out in the  'proper' dark blue livery that Tony mentioned when discussing the Merchant Navy loco.

 

But buying models can sometimes be fraught with difficulty when liveries are concerned:

 

  The blue livery was a late 40s early 50s experiment, and yes ,'Canadian Pacific'  did carry the blue livery, but not in this guise.  The model represents the rebuilt form of the class, and this did not happen to CP until 1959, so this combination is somewhat of an anachronism to purists.

 

The trouble is, it's not an anachronism if you just like a blue engine with a preservation era applied livery.

 

Call me old fashioned, but I'm not a fan, to my mind, however pretty the loco looks, it's an inaccuracy which perpetuates historical misinformation to the less informed.

 

Having grumbled, I do reserve the right of owners to paint their locos/ships/aeroplanes etc in whatever colour they like.

 

The finest example of this was the prank played when the revered 'City of Truro' appeared in the BR mixed traffic livery of lined black!

 

Some GWR aficionados are still suffering from PTSD over this.

 

 

 

 

A late friend of mine painted an A4 in lined maroon and put some nameplates on it bearing the word Cuckoo. It looked rather nice.

 

Jamie

Edited November 5, 2021 by jamie92208

[Dave Hunt]

Other examples of ridiculous liveries applied to twelve inches to the foot locomotives include an LMS 2-6-4T in Caledonian blue and a Jinty in lined crimson lake. I agree with HH about owners having the right to do whatever they like with their own property but such wilful distortions of historical accuracy rankle with me too.

 

Readers will be pleased to know that harmony has been restored among the residents of Hunt Towers, both two and four legged varieties. It has been pointed out to the latter, however, that further transgressions of the type perpetrated yesterday could well result in a reduction in resident numbers and the possibility of me acquiring a snug Davy Crockett hat for winter.

 

Dave

[jamie92208]

2 minutes ago, Dave Hunt said:

Other examples of ridiculous liveries applied to twelve inches to the foot locomotives include an LMS 2-6-4T in Caledonian blue and a Jinty in lined crimson lake. I agree with HH about owners having the right to do whatever they like with their own property but such wilful distortions of historical accuracy rankle with me too.

 

Readers will be pleased to know that harmony has been restored among the residents of Hunt Towers, both two and four legged varieties. It has been pointed out to the latter, however, that further transgressions of the type perpetrated yesterday could well result in a reduction in resident numbers and the possibility of me acquiring a snug Davy Crockett hat for winter.

 

Dave

But did the four legged one take any notice of these chuntering by the staff.

 

Jamie

[DenysW]

The green Bavarian tank engine you posted a picture of recently also got a couple of strange liveries for exhibitions. There was a yellow-ochre version, but I could only find the blue version quickly. Model by Marklin:

 

 

Better in the more dicrete green I think.

[Dave Hunt]

I know that appreciation of locomotive liveries is very subjective (almost to the same extent as pannier tanks) but I always think that certain liveries suit some locomotives whilst others do not - an example that springs to mind is that in my opinion the Jones Goods was eminently suited to HR green but not to LMS crimson lake. Why, I couldn't honestly say but I suppose that subjectivity is frequently like that. I think that the Bavarian tank engine in DenisW's post above definitely does not suit BR blue at all.

 

Dave

[Compound2632]

4 minutes ago, Dave Hunt said:

an example that springs to mind is that in my opinion the Jones Goods was eminently suited to HR green but not to LMS crimson lake.

 

Yet Inverness showed unbounded enthusiasm for crimson lake, applying it to anything that might remotely be considered a passenger engine, even when it had "Goods" in the class name!

[DenysW]

I suspect it's Rheingold blue after the express service, but I agree with the conclusion. Even worse in the ochre (N-scale model by Arnold)

 

[Dave Hunt]

Agreed Denys. Such a business like and powerful looking locomotive definitely does not suit 'pretty' colours. A Stroudly 0-4-2 in improved engine green yellow, yes but not a hulking great Mallet. Mind you, the Caledonian's Cardeans did, IMHO, suit the Caley blue, albeit not quite as well as the Oban Bogies did. Subjective? Absolutely.

 

Dave

[Happy Hippo]

1 hour ago, DenysW said:

The green Bavarian tank engine you posted a picture of recently also got a couple of strange liveries for exhibitions. There was a yellow-ochre version, but I could only find the blue version quickly. Model by Marklin:

 

 

Better in the more dicrete green I think.

From an engineering/technical viewpoint, it is interesting that the loco is depicted as having piston tail rods for the low pressure cylinders, but none for the high pressure set at the rear.

 

I suspect it was a manufacturing decision by Marklin to allow the model to get round very sharp curves

[Dave Hunt]

15 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

From an engineering/technical viewpoint, it is interesting that the loco is depicted as having piston tail rods for the low pressure cylinders, but none for the high pressure set at the rear.

 

I suspect it was a manufacturing decision by Marklin to allow the model to get round very sharp curves

 

The photograph of the blue engine shows a hole in the front of the low pressure cylinder that suggests a tail rod cover should be present but maybe was simply omitted. Could it be that fitting the tail rod cover is left up to the purchaser depending on the curves it is intended that the model has to negotiate? I believe that some RTR stuff has such provision for footsteps and other details that could interfere with the ability to negotiate tight curves. The yellow N gauge one has tail rod covers on both cylinders.

 

And it still doesn't suit either bright blue or yellow.

 

Dave

[DenysW]

My down-market Rivarossi version is the same for exactly HH's reason, but it's less obvious in DRG black-and red. It's also modelled as a Meyer not a Mallet.

[Dave Hunt]

2 minutes ago, DenysW said:

My down-market Rivarossi version is the same for exactly HH's reason, but it's less obvious in DRG black-and red. It's also modelled as a Meyer not a Mallet.

 

And I bet it looks a lot better in the black and red?

 

Dave