RJS1977

It is indeed. The gates survive at the side of Harbour St at Whitstable harbour (see google) at the north end of the former Canterbury & Whitstable line.

....closed because "there were not men of sufficient faith in Canterbury"........

Gutted to have only just found this thread and thus missed the Wallingford question as I'm a CWR volunteer and as well as having travelled the line many times have also taken numerous photos from the bridge! One thing that has changed over the years is that the steel sleepers are gradually being replaced by concrete (every 4th sleeper each year!).

And another thing to have changed in the area since 1973 would be the erection of Agatha Christie's memorial in the churchyard immediately behind the photographer.....

I have used these and don't remember the ride being as bad as it looks here, I was pretty impressed in general. They are more like cars than trains and are pretty unique - I travel extensively and have not seen anything like them anywhere else yet. Certainly better than the airport parking shuttle buses.

I've a vague recollection of seeing some at Chicago O'Hare in 2008.

I used my Clipper (sorry, not a Safety Minor as previously stated) at a show on Saturday. At first I was surprised at how fast my locos were running (including one on a Dapol 14XX chassis), but switching the higher resistance in series brought them down to much more realistic speeds - indeed it was possible to crawl one of the locos!

Female Thespians being called actors. Are there no longer any actresses?

Reminds me of the time I heard Graham Norton on "Just a Minute" talking about "How to Become a Thespian". He started off saying something like "If you want to become a thespian, you have to wear baggy cardigans and listen to kd lang CDs," then on being challenged said he'd misheard the question!

Did some experiments with my father's Duette and Triang controllers and a Bachmann 03 today.

I was surprised to notice that the Duette's slow speed wasn't as slow as I remembered - I think the lowest I managed to get was a scale 30mph. A little on the fast side, but not ludicrous! I didn't try using the half-wave rectification.

With the Triang, minimum speed was approx 15mph.

I will do some experiments with the Safety Minor when I get home.

So no, not as good as newer controllers but not complete lemons either!

I did try using an H&M Walkabout when operating a friend's layout at the Abingdon show - pretty good controllability until I picked it up the wrong way round by mistake!

My father and I have between us owned three H&M controllers - a Duette, and two different types of Safety Minor*. As second hand controllers go, there's not a lot wrong with them. OK, they don't have the refinement in control of some of the more modern electronic controllers, but I don't think it makes them bad controllers.

We've got some locos with Bachmann mechanisms in them and they're still capable of slow running on the H&Ms and even the 1956 Triang controller that came with my father's Princess Elizabeth trainset when he was 12! (I've been known to not quite turn that one off and look down a few minutes later to find our Bachmann 03 inching its way along the goods sidings!).

No, not quite as refined as the modern electronic controllers but a lot less to go wrong on them too, and what there is to go wrong is often easily repairable. The older of the two Safety Minors (a variable transformer type) suffered a fatal failure when the carbon brush on the transformer finally expired (hence the past tense reference in my first sentence) but the others are still going strong after many years' use. On the other hand I have a twin Gaugemaster controller where the least-accessible transistor has blown, giving a permanent full voltage to the track! Guess what I've replaced it with....

Not sure what type of wagon it is, but the concept reminds me of the advert on page 40a of the latest RM - a firm will build 'railway carriage' style railway rooms on road wheels that have fully road-legal lighting and can be towed (e.g. when you move house). The mind boggles - could this herald a new era of model railway exhibitions held in fields where everyone just turns up with their trailers and open the doors?

Given the number of livery variations, I still think it's a pity you can't buy rolling stock unpainted. Seems a waste to pay for Hornby to paint it, only to then strip it all off and repaint!

Ideally I'd want one in NSE colours on one side and SWT colours on the other!

Richard

How about a multi-storey car park? As these are usually somewhat modular in design, it would enable a large structure to be constructed with relatively few parts to design.

I remember hearing a story about a steam special that made a water stop at Port Talbot. Whilst the train was stopped, one of the passengers spotted the chippy across the road, and realising the train would be stopping there again on the returned journey, walked down the train taking orders and phoned them through to the chippy "500 cod and chips please, to be delivered to the station at 5:30 this evening," which the chippy agreed to do. On the return journey, though, there was no sign of the food, so he rang the chippy again to find out where it had got to. "Oh," said the owner. "We thought you were joking."

Michael Schumacher.

OT

 

 

 

Distance markers on motorways are now in km. Spot the little signs at the side that are approximately every 0.5km unless a junction gets in the way. A nd B denote the individual carriageway. The (white/red/blue) marker posts that include the direction to the nearest emergency telephone are at 100m intervals.

 

Cheers,

Mick

But the phones are a mile apart.....

Richard

I seem to remember seeing a model of Midford in N gauge a few years ago, but with the Camerton branch slewed at more of an angle to enable continuous running on that line as well. 'Thunderbolt' was known to put in appearances!

In fact, for a space-starved location, it might be easier to model the Camerton branch with Midford viaduct as a scenic break (complete with Dapol Bulleid Pacific!)......

Ironically when I first started in the mapping department of my current employer, the first map to cross my desk was of Midford!

Richard

Yep, there are definitely less than there used to be, though its the same across Belgium and Germany... 24 hour unattended ones are common over there but I've not seen any over here...

I can't remember where it is, but I know there is a national boundary in that part of Europe which has a major road running along it. All the filling stations on that road are on the same side, because the tax is cheaper!

Richard

How about some Portakabins? To my mind Scalescenes are at their most economical when the model's something you can use a lot of, like the terraced houses and the containers, rather than the more one-off type of buildings.

How about some Portakabins? To my mind Scalescenes are at their most economical when the model's something you can use a lot of, like the terraced houses and the containers, rather than the more one-off type of buildings.

Lancaster Gate

Due to the completion and selling of CT (Castleton) I am attempting to faithfully model a fuelling point based generally on somewhere but nowhere in particular.I have detracted from naming it after "Street" or "Road" as it has become tedious even trying to think up a name that sounds vaguely correct and is not a real place.

 

My boss's name is Neville Lane - always thought that sounded like a good name for a loco depot layout - elements of Neville Hill (Leeds) and Ripple Lane (East London)......

Trouble with the DoH film was it wasn't done in the spirit of the original - the original series was a family series, the recent film had a lot of strong language. The 1990s 'Reunion' movies were much better.

Thinking more about the mirrors - even if you can't use them at the back, should work as endscenes where they won't be viewed square-on.

Even on 11" wide, you should be able to get 4 or 5 tracks, depending on how much space you want between them. And this is probably one of the few places where you can realisitically extend the scene using mirrors (not usually a big fan of mirror backscenes as it tends to end up with odd things like vehicles on the wrong side of the rod or trains having near head-on collisons, but should work here provided you can stop viewers seeing themselves in the mirrors!) . You might also be able to find some models you can adapt on a second hand stall/shop/ebay.

He must surely have meant £100. Whilst this stuff is probably worth closer to £10, there is quite a lot of it! Clearly not an enthusiast so he probably doesn't have a clue what its actually worth.

!

As someone who does quite a bit of browsing/purchasing on the 2nd hand market I'd say:

HST power cars £20/pair

Mk 3 coach with bogies £8

Mk3 coach body only £2

Pannier tanks @ £15 each: £30

0-4-0 tanks @ £10 each: £30

Other wagons/coaches 30 @ £2:50-£3 each say £80

Controller £10

Points 4@£4 each £16

Other track sections 30 @ £1 each £30

Baseboard with track say £80

So in theory probably about £300 worth. However I doubt many enthusiasts would buy all that in one go and he'd almost certainly be better off selling it in smaller lots.

Richard