Chubber

Oh how I agree with all the recent posts! Perhaps, if the digital camera had happened earlier, if we were not tied to an Instamatic cartridge that cost a whole week's pocket money, I would have photographs of Harry at North Camp Signal box in the late 50s, and the station staff who would let me wander with a burlap sack of wooden wedges and a wheel tappers hammer around the sidings, a pot of creosote and a long handled brush for the woodwork in front of the signal box and the sleeper-edged flower borders where the cattle sidings had been. My bicycle was chained to the square section drain-pipe by the entrance/exit ['cause those soldiers will pinch anything......] with a big S.R. padlock and a foot of shiny 1/2" chain, the round ended common key that opened the padlock on the carriage loading bay AND the station coal store. The brass label was stamped '3'. I'd pay £10 to hold it in my hands again........... If the current generation of Railway Softies doesn't record and detail everything they can for their respective off-spring, then shame on them! [P.S. I'd love a picture of one of those 'label machines' with the huge handle, with which you could make an aluminium lable for your [Parent's] luggage. No reason, other than I loved them!] Nostalgic Chubber

Re the barrels, could you not saw them apart into two single layers and stack them sideways somewhere? That way the centre band wouldn't show if they were partly sheeted over..... Doug

........Yuk...dirty damned dogs.......... D

Following the post below by Jason in another members topic, I have opened this thread to answer the request...... Hi Doug The example you have here is really great. I'm sure I read a post somewhere where you gave instructions and tips on how you built this frontage. I've looked all over but I'm afraid I can't find it. You wouldn't happen to remember where it is would you? It had some points in it such as somehow making the edges stronger so that they can be sanded or files that I've never seen before. cheers Jason The thread is here http://yourmodelrailway.net/view_topic.php?id=3290&forum_id=14 on the YMR Forum, I hope it helps, Doug

Worra baht the fag ends.....Old 'Olborn of course... Doug

Yup! Nothing moves in the U.S [Home of the Free] without the say-so of the haulage union 'The Teamsters'. Mafia practices are tame compared thereto. Movies don't get to 'move' aground the continent without it, in fact the first deliveries of fresh chilled produce to major populations by railway wagons packed with ice failed because the entrepreneur involved refused to pay part of his profits to the 'Union for the advancement of the working man' [my parenthesis] to handle this new cargo as well as paying the railway their way-bill. Hm.... From Glow-balls to low-balls..... Doug

I canard'ly believe my eyes! D

This is similar to the Bordeaux tram system. The powers that be would not let the entrpruner, entreuprer, businessmen errect overhead lines in the historical parts of the city and the many bridges over the Gironde so parts of the city and the bridges have a flat metal strip that folds down as the tram arrives and power is picked up from underneath the tram as it proceeds, closing up again as it passes. The OH 'thingy' folding down as it does so, very clever! Doug

Uncker Rick, Uncker Rick.....wot do 'ee taste like? Eh? Doolicious? Bisto

Close, but no cigars, both of you! I found it here and it is the egg mass of one of these, a Pale Mantis Spooky! The biggest/first one to hatch eats the other hatchlings, ensuring a good first meal.....Yech. If you'd like more, I have miniature a 'crocodile' that becomes everyone's most familiar insect, a 2" jump-jet fueled on nectar, a delta-winged flying scorpion with googly eyes, a carnivorous worm-eating underground blind slug, a red octopus fungi that smells of dog-poo and came to France [and U.K.] from Australasia riding on a sheep, orchids that look like cut-out paper dollies or fantasy world creatures and a Stealth Bomber moth..............or rather Mother Nature has them, and she has been generous enough to let an oaf like me become enchanted with all of them! Doug

I'm disappointed I have only just found this thread, I love wild-life and trying to photograph it, some stunning pictures here, Waverly West's gannet photos really hit the spot. We have lots of stuff here in SW France, plenty of different arachnids and insects in all sizes, from this tiny 2m.m. crab spider pictured on a rendered wall [those are grains of sand...] to the bigger Long Horn Beetles and Stag Beetles, even the occasional Rhino Beetle. 'Flappy' things are just as varied, from tiny blue butterflies like this little Adonis Blue Swallowtails, with a caterpillar livery which would look good on a Sprinter and Saturnis Pyri, the largest European moth with a 5" wingspan. The usual mammals, including this fellow, now more common in UK I understand, I deffo don't want these getting into my veg garden but if determined you'd need Camp Bastion type walls to keep him out.......... My favorites are Bees, sadly [for me at least] I have lost dozens of bee -related pics after a 'pooter glitch, a far better year for bees this year after some bleak summers... Honey bee Carpenter Bee Orange Tailed Bee My butterfly favourites are the Aristocrats, the Painted Lady in particular, not as showy as some of her sisters, but to my mind perfect.. I've just realised I've used up about a million trillion electrons and probably bored you all witless, but can anyone tell me what this is? Doug

Trawling through the archives for a photograph I found this thread http://www.rmweb.co....php?f=7&t=11242 Plenty of faces, young and old, obligatory shorts and dodgy pullovers.........oh, and some steamy things! 1964 seemed to be a time when we were allowed and expected to look after ourselves a little more than today, in the 3rd photo down from the top, a nipper stands between the running lines talking up to the footplate. I enjoyed these the first time round and thought they could do with another airing. Doug

I took these photographs this morning whilst shopping locally for air-freshener however I decided not to buy this brand as I was trying to mask certain smells, not augment them..... I wasn't even tempted when I found out you could get a fresh variety! Doug

Well spotted, DD! 'A trip to the sea-side' [Now if that doesn't make you smile, your'e not alive.....] Doug

Never mind the puthy-tats!!! What about me....ME.......I'll make you smile...feed me Bonios....

Mike, this question will adequately display my lack of experience/knowledge, but they do say 'The only silly question is one you do not ask...' In the picture above, the lever frame is clearly not underneath the windows as is the case of the signal boxes I have had the pleasure of visiting. What proportion were built 'back-to-front' in this fashion, why, and what if any practical differences did the layout make to the operator? [i can imagine looking 'Up', then turning round and then sensing the train disappearing the way it had arrived...but then again I get dizzy on rounabouts...] Doug

Sorry, OT I know,but at this point I must tell you about my Uncle Fred [real name] long since departed who, apart from being a Servant at Dartmouth RN College, drove the first internal combustion-engined fire engine in the town. He was [as a trusted 'public servant'] employed for two weeks as an 'O' watcher................................... [Think very early neon signs, comprising individual letters assembled into words by theatre staff] For two weeks, he was paid to sit on a beer crate opposite the cinema in Lower Victoria Road, his only duty was to run inside the theatre and inform the manager in the event of one of the letter 'O's failing to stay alight................... when the cinema screened 'The Count of Monte Christo'. Doug

nice one.....just a thought, in the late 50s/early 60s they'd have still been wearing short trousers and deffo not those stylish slip-on shoes! Doug

......knowing Jim's eye for detail, he's probably already there somewhere! Doug

.....the neephs and nessews are a bit older now, but six years ago this made them and me smile.....still makes me smile, Dudley is an expert on the Kylechap Lifting Blast Pipe but Lucy just likes choo-choos...... Doug

I took this one in Escala, S Spain two years ago.......I called it 'Inflation'!

At the Watercress Line Arlesford box 2004. Despite my daughter passing the correct bell code the bobby at Ropley knew something was 'different' and so telephoned back straight away to check all was well. I had read previously that they could tell who was in the next box by the way the bells were pressed, this seemed to confirm the story! Sadly, whilst thinking she'd like to take up signalling her work committments prevented it. 'Some day, Dad...' she says still.

Oi! Getcher'ands outer yer pockets......! B'Lydiard Doug

I admire anyone who can make an average stab at Scalescenes in 'N' gauge, and this is deffo above average! I like the angled aerial update shot, as though it was taken from a mocrolite... Doug

.a real case of "Well spotted!" Doug