RJS1977

I'm pretty sure I've seen an electric milk float in Reading in the last few days. One of my RSME colleagues used to be a milkman. At the dairy, there were 10 or so floats all lined up alongside each other at the charging point, but there was only one loading bay. So whoever got to the loading bay first could be out on their rounds fairly quickly whilst the last one to join the queue had to wait best part of an hour. Since one of the charging bays was closest to the loading bay, whoever parked in that charging bay overnight was usually first out the next day. Consequently they were usually first back and having choice of which charging bay to use, chose that one again to be first out the next day. So my friend managed to be first back from his round (and thus free to go home) for something like a month in succession. Needless to say, some of the other milkmen got rather fed up of this so one day after my friend had gone home, one of the other milkmen got into my friend's float, unplugged it, wrapped the lead round the gear lever several times and plugged it back in again. Next morning, my friend jumped into his float, unplugged the lead and threw the plug off the float (as he always did) and set off for the loading bay at speed, towing the wall-mounted charger behind him...

Ironically my father and I discovered the trick by accident. At our previous two addresses my father had either hooked into wiring already in the loft or run a power cable into the loft specially (as he was an electrical engineer I'm pretty sure he wouldn't have hooked into the lighting circuit....). When my parents moved to their current address though we used the extension lead and socket to power lighting as we floored the loft and reassembled the baseboards... then hooked a controller into the extension lead to test everything worked, then... one day I'll get a proper mains supply up there thought my father, but in the meantime building/operating the layout's more fun! After a couple of years of procrastination we realised it was safer to carry on using the extension lead so never bothered hooking up a direct supply!

The trick with running a power supply to a loft is to drop a long extension lead down through the trapdoor and plug it in to a mains outlet in the house. Slightly inconvenient having to come back down to plug in, but since you need to unplug the lead in order to close the trap door, it means you can't leave the layout (or worse still a soldering iron!) plugged in overnight!

As Allan's doppelganger would say "There's an old Australian stockman lying, dying...." As to what keeping a couple of thousand sheep is like: Some years ago a sheep farmer in the Preseli mountains of Wales decided it was time to retire. So he put an advertisement in the Western Telegraph looking for a farm worker to come and take care of the sheep for him. A week later, he got three replies. One was from a man in Tenby, one was from a man in Carmarthen and one was from a man in Cardigan. He invited them all up to the farm for interview and quickly discovered that although keen, none of them had any farm experience at all. "Look," he said. "Sheep are pretty dirty, smelly animals and they can be quite overpowering if you're not used to them. I reckon if I sent you out to look after my sheep, in a couple of days you'd all be so fed up of the smell that you'd quit." "We won't do that," they replied. "We can cope with a few smelly sheep." "OK," says the farmer. "I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll send the three of you up the mountain with a thousand of my sheep. If any of you can put up with the smell and stay up there for a week, I'll give you the job." So he sends the three of them up the mountain with the sheep. Three days later the man from Tenby comes back down saying he can't handle the smell any more. Two days after that, the man from Carmarthen comes down, saying he can't handle the smell any more either. The day after that, the thousand sheep come back down....

Shame they didn't get them into the shops before ModelZone started selling things at up to 50% off...

Quantum physics? Both open and closed until you get there and find out which one it is!

I have to admit there have been a few times when I've been reading Allan's articles when I've wondered if he was making it up or not! (The "domestic incidents", not the model building!) But if he was he's got a great imagination! On the other hand, some of the incidents that I've known happen at RSME could have come straight out of one of Allan's articles (like the time two of our members were painting the clubhouse roof with anti-climb paint, another member popped his head up to ask if they wanted a cup of tea and.... well, at least the paint matched his hair colour and helped hide his bald patch!, or the whole Santa's grotto/gazebo saga, played out over several years....). Sometimes I think someone ought to write a sitcom set in a model railway club...

Irrespective of the scale issue, it is a nice model... At least you didn't post a picture of the windmill you mentioned in one of your articles that "ended up looking like a cross between a Dalek and a helicopter"....

That was only a guess - given that they're the only manufacturer of 1/76 film cameras I was aware of (F151)! However having now consulted Langley's website I don't think it's theirs: http://www.langley-models.co.uk/acatalog/Online_Catalogue_OO_Scale_Accessories_F124_to_F171_16.html

I'm not sure, but I think the cameraman might well be Langley.

I know of one model brewery occasionally "on the circuit" that goes even further and uses a breathalyser tube as the chimney!

And of course, Poppleton! (Why do they all begin with "P"?)

If that's Rolf in the middle, does that make Mimmo and Tony the "Two Little Boys"?

I can just imagine Allan getting partway through building a model and asking any onlookers "Can you tell what it is yet?"

I don't know - there are a few interesting garden centres around. Poynton and Pulborough spring to mind...

According to Wikipedia: "As of April 1st 2014, vehicles manufactured before 1st January 1974 will be exempt from the VED (Finance Bill 2014, as set out in the 2013 Budget, 20th March 2013)."

Never really had much time to look for flaws in a Persian rug - usually too busy killing a dragon with my bare hands!

That's actually a relatively recent change in the law - much later than the 50s & 60s - mid 90s if I recall correctly. Up to that date it was possible to register vehicles for 3 or 6 months' tax rather than for a full year. When it was first proposed that only annual tax discs would be issued, there was an outcry from owners of classic vehicles for whom their classic was not their main mode of transport but which were only pulled out of the garage for Sunday afternoon drives/classic car shows etc during the summer months. As these only accounted for a tiny minority of vehicles (and an even smaller proportion of miles done), the Department of Transport decided the best solution to the problem was to offer tax exemption to any vehicles over 25 years old. In 1997 the rule was amended so that the rolling 25 year date was instead fixed at 1972.

As a Cholsey & Wallingford Railway volunteer, I'm quite pleasantly surprised to see mention of Wallingford station in this thread. Please keep the photos coming! (and if either of you still have drawings of any of the buildings at Wallingford they'd be of particular interest as the CWR are in the process of planning/ fundraising for a new station building!).

Hope you were able to take time out to visit the C&WR across the road!

Hadn't seen either of those articles before (only the RM one) so thanks for posting. The bit about the propelling pencil in the "Foundation Course" article was one of the best laughs I've had in ages! :-)

Really enjoying this thread, guys. I notice that my favourite Downes masterpiece hasn't appeared yet - "Civic Splendour". Was that layout ever completed? (ISTR an editorial promise that there would be further articles on the layout as it progressed, but they never appeared though an article did appear in RM a couple of years later about a large industrial complex that might have been part of the same layout). But great to see all these photos anyway! Richard PS Allan - sorry to hear about your wife.

As regards the track plan, you ought to be able to get a 4-track section in just outside Paddington, giving you the scope to run trains alongside each other.