Mid-Cornwall Lines - 1950s Western Region in 00

[Barry O]

8 minutes ago, St Enodoc said:

 

 

By the way, yesterday we went to see "Operation Mincemeat", which we enjoyed. I was struck, though, by how Colin Firth, as he ages, is looking more and more like the late Kenneth More. Is it just me?

No, it's not just you...

 

Baz

[checkrail]

1 hour ago, St Enodoc said:

By the way, yesterday we went to see "Operation Mincemeat", which we enjoyed. I was struck, though, by how Colin Firth, as he ages, is looking more and more like the late Kenneth More. Is it just me?

No, not just you.  I said exactly the same to my wife when we went to see it a few weeks ago.  

[Nick Gough]

5 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

It's essentially just repetitive (and tedious, sometimes) rather than complicated, Nick.

 

Unfortunately (or fortunately?), the maximum length of a Modratec frame is 60 levers.

Thanks.

 

Practically speaking Cholsey's frame had six spaces and I doubt that I would have working ground signals either so it might be feasible. 

 

Do you still have FPL levers?

 

An interlocked signalling system sounds attractive, but it's still a long way down the road before I need to decide what to do. 

[Nick Gough]

5 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

By the way, yesterday we went to see "Operation Mincemeat", which we enjoyed. I was struck, though, by how Colin Firth, as he ages, is looking more and more like the late Kenneth More. Is it just me?

 

Fun Fact:

 

Kenneth More's father was general manager of the Jersey Eastern Railway.

[5BarVT]

On 11/06/2022 at 11:26, St Enodoc said:

It wasn't at all bad but it hasn't knocked either Tanqueray or The Botanist from their places at the top of our personal league table.

Have you tried Tanqueray Sevilla?  I like the taste, plus it allows me to ask my former colleagues for an “S&T” when I’m out celebrating.  (Not that anyone knows what I’m going on about.)

Paul.

[Regularity]

15 minutes ago, 5BarVT said:

Have you tried Tanqueray Sevilla?  I like the taste, plus it allows me to ask my former colleagues for an “S&T” when I’m out celebrating.  (Not that anyone knows what I’m going on about.)

On which note, do you get many invitations? ;)

[St Enodoc]

14 hours ago, Nick Gough said:

Thanks.

 

Practically speaking Cholsey's frame had six spaces and I doubt that I would have working ground signals either so it might be feasible. 

 

Do you still have FPL levers?

 

An interlocked signalling system sounds attractive, but it's still a long way down the road before I need to decide what to do. 

Nick, yes I have levers for FPLs, off-stage distants and also for dummy trap points where these weren't connected to a real point.

 

The interlocking frames are good fun where you separate the roles of signalman and driver and where you have more than one signal box. If you have just one station and operate the layout by yourself you might find that it turns out to be more frustrating than you would like.

[ianathompson]

 

10 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

The interlocking frames are good fun where you separate the roles of signalman and driver and where you have more than one signal box. If you have just one station and operate the layout by yourself you might find that it turns out to be more frustrating than you would like.

 

That was my experience (sometimes) of working the real thing!

My own layout, which has many stations operates on the KISS principle.

Keep It Simple, Stupid.

 

Ian T

[KymN]

On 27/05/2022 at 19:23, St Enodoc said:

Lloyd, I suspect that these are just different names for the same thing. In my vocabulary, for example, the why and where would be Transport Planning and the how would be [highway, rail, aviation, maritime, etc] engineering.

 

I've just caught up with this.  The Institution of Engineers Australia knows me as a Transport Engineer and elected me a Fellow on that basis.  I gave up the 'how' early in my career after designing various wharf structures and planning port facilities.  I wanted to work in rail, which I did for much of my career, mostly in planning as an executive.  I am also a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport Australia.  Late in my career I went into academia with a doctorate in transport land economics and planning that IEAust accepted as meeting its professional development requirements.  So John, sorry, but I agree with Lloyd.  Transport Engineering is a broad church that actually is about the why and the where and how much of it, even more so than it's execution. 

[St Enodoc]

1 hour ago, KymN said:

 

I've just caught up with this.  The Institution of Engineers Australia knows me as a Transport Engineer and elected me a Fellow on that basis.  I gave up the 'how' early in my career after designing various wharf structures and planning port facilities.  I wanted to work in rail, which I did for much of my career, mostly in planning as an executive.  I am also a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport Australia.  Late in my career I went into academia with a doctorate in transport land economics and planning that IEAust accepted as meeting its professional development requirements.  So John, sorry, but I agree with Lloyd.  Transport Engineering is a broad church that actually is about the why and the where and how much of it, even more so than it's execution. 

Thanks Kym. Like I said, I think it's different use of terminology, probably varying according to where you came from.

[FarrMan]

5 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

Thanks Kym. Like I said, I think it's different use of terminology, probably varying according to where you came from.

I was using the terminology used when I was (attempting to be) teaching the subject. Incidentally, I had been reprimanded for using the term Highway Engineering as it was an English term. In Scotland it should be Road Engineering. Australian english probably has a different term again!

 

Lloyd

[Bogie]

Yes it's called "Making Tracks".

[St Enodoc]

1 hour ago, FarrMan said:

I was using the terminology used when I was (attempting to be) teaching the subject. Incidentally, I had been reprimanded for using the term Highway Engineering as it was an English term. In Scotland it should be Road Engineering. Australian english probably has a different term again!

 

Lloyd

Fair enough, Lloyd. It is generally Highway Engineering down here. Incidentally, @KymN mentioned docks and harbours. Colleagues at a previous firm on a different continent would have referred to that as Maritime Engineering (as distinct from Marine Engineering) while others that were involved with beach defences and the like were Coastal Engineers. Me? I'm just a simple Mechanical Engineer.

[St Enodoc]

A very busy week of birthday drinks, birthday dinner and birthday outing (to see the very excellent An American in Paris at the Theatre Royal) meant that this afternoon was my only available time for trains. I used the time to complete the Penzance tea tray, which is now ready to be loaded.

 

 

Can you spot the non-deliberate mistake?

 

While the glue was drying, I marked the even-numbered tappets for notching. I think I've got it right but I'll come back to it next weekend to double- and triple-check before applying file to brass. 39 notches of different shapes and orientations need to be filed, then about the same number again for the odd-numbered upper tappets.

[Barry O]

Belated birthday greetings from the Leeds mob ..  So you and suffers have been celebrating.

 

Doh.. who got the numbers wrong???

 

Baz

[St Enodoc]

1 minute ago, Barry O said:

Belated birthday greetings from the Leeds mob ..  So you and suffers have been celebrating.

 

Doh.. who got the numbers wrong???

 

Baz

The numbers are fine. I just put the tray in place back-to-front!

[acg5324]

Belated happy birthday John……I’m going to pinch your Penzance tea tray design for Olympia…it’s a great idea.

[St Enodoc]

3 hours ago, acg5324 said:

Belated happy birthday John……I’m going to pinch your Penzance tea tray design for Olympia…it’s a great idea.

Thanks for the good wishes - and pinch away, Andy. There's more detail (of the Paddington tray, which is nominally identical) here:

 

On 15/04/2022 at 20:22, St Enodoc said:

Then on to today's real job, which was to make a tea tray (or possibly a shove-ha'penny board?). This consists of a few bits of ply cut to size and glued together with some square-section pine to keep it all in shape.

 

 

What's it for? Not saying today. With luck it will be finished tomorrow, when all will be revealed if nobody's guessed first (operating team members excluded, as we did mention this over tea and cakes in March!).

 

On 16/04/2022 at 18:01, St Enodoc said:

I finished the Paddington tea tray today.

 

It fits (thank goodness) snugly between the wall and the front fence. The front and rear support are made of 4mm ply, so with the nominal 30mm clearance from the wall and the fence to the centre lines of tracks 1 and 14 respectively there is still plenty of room for the trains underneath.

 

After I'd labelled it up I placed the spare locos on top. There's space for more, which will be needed once the Branch is operational.

 

Having got this far, I'm a bit worried about how much of the loops it hides. Something, such as a 16xx pannier, could easily get lost in there. If that turns out to be a problem at our next running session, I might slice the tray down the middle to make two narrower (300mm wide nominally) ones and spread them out a bit.

The tray itself is 7mm ply, because I happened to have a sheet on hand that I had no other use for. The front and rear supports are 4mm ply, so that they fit betwen the baseboard edge and the adjacent track without restricting the clearance. The timber is 18mm square pine. All glued together with PVA - no nails or screws. The finished article sits on the cork and is held in place by its own weight.

 

At our May operating session the team were very pleased with it and actually didn't think there were any problems with the width hiding the trains.

Edited June 19, 2022 by St Enodoc

[Regularity]

28 minutes ago, St Enodoc said:

All glued together with PVA - no nails or screws.

If you had used the latter, you’d be able to turn it round…. ;)

 

Belated celebrations for surviving another whole rotation around the sun.

[St Enodoc]

3 minutes ago, Regularity said:

If you had used the latter, you’d be able to turn it round…. ;)

 

Belated celebrations for surviving another whole rotation around the sun.

Rotation or revolution (comrade)?

[Regularity]

22 minutes ago, St Enodoc said:

Rotation or revolution (comrade)?

Freedom for Tooting!

[5BarVT]

And Pimlico.

Paul.

[Oldddudders]

7 minutes ago, 5BarVT said:

Pimlico.

Which is the name of a rather narrow and distinctly shabby street in Torquay.

[ian]

4 hours ago, 5BarVT said:

And Pimlico.

Paul.

You'll need your passport.

[St Enodoc]

18 hours ago, 5BarVT said:

And Pimlico.

Paul.

 

13 hours ago, ian said:

You'll need your passport.

You will if you mean the one in northern NSW...

 

https://www.australias.guide/nsw/location/pimlico/