Chris M

It’s good to read the official stuff as that will cover everything properly. Things I have experienced - suddenly going very tired hot flushes ( for some reason you don’t get any sympathy from women on this one) harder to concentrate on one thing muscles go noticeably weaker its easy to do nothing if you let yourself. Doing nothing is of course very bad so I built a new layout i still like to see a pretty young lady but I can’t remember why A year after finishing the treatment all of these side effects are going and normality is returning.

Prostate cancer is surprisingly common amongst us chaps. Last year three of us took a layout to an exhibition and it was only when we we there we realised that all three of us had had prostate cancer. We were just chatting about this when I remembered that the chap on the adjacent trade stand had also had it. All of us in our sixties.

I agree that ius chaps should be regularly tested. I got tested just about in time as the cancer was just about to break out of my prostate. If it had broken out I would almost certainly not be here today. If I had left it say another 6 months before being tested I would probably be a gonner by now. The only slight symptom I had was needing to see more often which I thought was just an age thing. I’ve had three years of a drug that stops testosterone and 20 days of radiotherapy and everything is currently fine. The three years of that drug had all sorts of unwanted side effects which hang around for a long time after the treatment has ended but never mind I’m still here. The great thing is that none of the treatment stops you modelling.

There does appear to have been a few issues for trade exhibitors for this year's show. I have been told that most of the invoices for invited traders who have accepted their invitation will go out this coming weekend. I have also been told that the email address on the exhibition website does not work so any emails sent to that address this year will have been lost. Apologies for all this. I am assured that everything is now under control. Any trade exhibitor who wants to contact Warley club should use traders@warley-mrc.org.uk . This will work. The club website should be changed to show this in the very near future. These problems appear to have arisen out of an unfortunate set of circumstances rather than from any individual.

Advance tickets will be on sale at some shows. I will announce which shows when I am told about it.

Things are progressing nicely with this year's Warley show. Everything is coming together and we are all looking forward to it. All the layouts are sorted and lots of societies are coming as usual. There will also be plenty of demo stands and of course a real locomotive. I don't get told which loco until later in the year but I would put money on it being a preserved standard gauge steam loco. There does appear to have been a minor male hen up regarding the trade exhibitors. Invitations were sent out later than usual and it does appear that a few trade exhibitors who were at previous exhibitions were somehow missed off the invitation list for this year's exhibition. If you were expecting an invitation to bring a trade stand but haven't received one yet please let the club know. You can PM me if you like and I will pass it on. As always, it does look like a small number of trade exhibitors can't come this year so there will be a few trade exhibitor spaces available. Please contact the club or PM me if you are interested in having a trade stand at our NEC show.

The parking for the Warley NEC show has always been the standard NEC charge and has never been "free". At places like the NEC "free" parking means the cost of parking has been averaged out and is included in the ticket price for everyone including those who come by train or bus.

I have actually got into a model railway exhibition for free using a similar technique. It worked like a charm. It was also genuine as I was actually delivering some items to a stand. I didn’t have time to hang around to see the exhibition either.

Going by the comments on the topic I recently started about loco changes on trains I think this working and loco are fine for 1968. The Cornwall to Etruria clayliner. All other inter-regional workings will have hydraulics in charge .

I think my attempt at humour may have failed on this comment so here is my straight comment. Some years ago I was happy with my first N gauge layout which was a little branch line layout; I had just built it as a one off. I then saw Osborns models limited edition Western Enterprise at an exhibition and decided I just had to have it so I bought it on the spot (Osborns didn't have many left by then). This loco ignited a spark of inspiration in me and set me off on a new course. Since buying that loco I have had a great time building and exhibiting two N gauge mainline layouts and have steadily built up a good sized selection of WR stock to run on these layouts. I would like to thank Osborns Models for that limited edition loco and the inspiration it gave me. I have achieved a lot in modelling terms since then and non of it would have happened without their Western Enterprise.

Thanks for all the replies. all of them are most interesting. It seems loco changes in the diesel era were pretty common in places. My main interest is where inter-regional workings to the WR mainline in Devon & Cornwall changed from diesel electric to diesel hydraulic. It does seem that during the 1960s pretty much all passenger trains from Devon & Cornwall to anywhere in the north would have had hydraulic haulage to Bristol.

I did a search but couldn't find anything on this. I'm thinking late sixties especially on this one and West Country but it would be interesting to hear wider information. During the steam age we know that locos were often changed en route. I'm pretty sure Bristol was where South West to Midlands and the North changed from a WR loco to an LMR loco. Just wondering how long this practice continued into the diesel era. Brush type 4s were seen in the West Country in the 1960s but I think they were fairly rare and pretty much no other diesel electrics seem to have been seen on the WR main line in the South West until the early 1970s when some 46s were transferred to Bristol shed. So I am wondering - did the practice of changing locos on SW to NE passenger trains continue right through the 1960s? Also - when did the practice change to one loco in charge for the whole trip? I'm sure many folk here will know. I guess a loco change would have been necessary due to crews with the required road knowledge for a route not having been trained on diesels from other regions - especially when the change was between hydraulic and diesel electric.

It’s big and it’s busy but you get a cooked lunch.

Go for it! There’s always room for another sea wall. I’ve often thought that little cove just west of Dawlish would make a great model. It is quite a short section of line between tunnels so is perfect for a model. Looking forward to meeting up again at the Warley NEC show in November. I’ve seen the provisional layout plan and we are not next to each other but I think we are blocks that are next to each other. In the meantime the next edition of a certain magazine published on June 8th will be a nice event for me. It might be out of order to mention the magazine name here but it is the one that Mr Nevard takes photos for. I’ve seen some of Chris’ photos of DW and was gobsmacked by them (in a good way).

And as a post script to the above I am now having to build a new BLT for those original branch line locos.

Thanks Maurice. Hero’s a photo you might like Did you know that I hold you responsible for causing me to spend thousands of £s? Some years ago I had a nice little N gauge branch line with a small number of nice little branch line locos. Then you brought out this limited edition, and I bought one. From then on it was all downhill. First I had to buy some coaches for it, then I bought another Western and before I knew it I was building a mainline layout which eventually led to me building Dawlish Warren and investing in the stock to run it. If it hadn’t been for your limited edition Western Enterprise none of this would have happened. So it’s all your fault. 😉

Considering I had only made one building from scratch before this layout I am happy with the way they turned out. The footbridge is a modified P&D Marsh kit.

There aren't many buildings on this layout but of course they are all scratchbuilt. Finding how things were back in the 1960s isn't easy, even at a holiday destination. Nowadays we just shoot as many photos as we like but back then each photo had a cost (the film and the developing) so far less photos were taken. I have had to glean what information I can from going through all the books I could find with photos. I spent a happy afternoon at Newton Abbot library going through all the books they had. Newton Abbot library does have a very good collection of railway books. Anyhow a few photos of the buildings. In one book I found a photo of a Western which was from 1966 or thereabouts - the Western was maroon but the paint was worn and the coaches were all maroon. In the corner of this photo there is a little bit of useful information for my buildings which I blew up to see more clearly. From this I built The Warren Store. I did notice the little white hut in the photo but didn't know anything about it so left it out of the layout. When on display at the Exeter exhibition a number of people asked me where the banana fritter stand was. Despite a lot of research and requests on Facebook I still have not found a photo of the banana fritter stand. Looking back at the little white hut in the photo I could see it had some gas bottles attached so it therefore sold something that was cooked in some way. I also knew the banana fritter stand was somewhere in that area. So I decided to build my version of the banana fritter stand based on very limited information. This stand is not to be confused with the later banana fritter stand that was a completely different shape and on the opposite corner.

My layout is based on the 1960s and these to have been on it since it was populated. I was pleased to get a set of people with these two in it. Just two people of colour of colour is probably about right for South Devon in the 1960s. I don’t expect anyone has noticed them at exhibitions. They seem to be enjoying their holiday though.

I got a problem with trolls

£29.99 sounds quite reasonable to me, even without a tender.

I saw an interesting article on the philosophy of government run railways compared to private train operators. The private train operators mostly look to increasing revenue to improve financial performance whereas government run railways almost always concentrate on reducing costs. The railways are now effectively government run and this could well be an example of this philosophy.

This topic has gone strange. If Hattons made profit of 5% on turnover then they are doing ok but no more than ok. I can only imagine that an email telling them they are doing things wrong would be received with great amusement and past round the staff for a laugh. Whenever anyone buys anything they can spend 10 minutes on the net to check expected prices. No need for anyone to be ignorant. I have bought from Rails on a number of occasions and made an offer rather than pay the requested price. This seems to work well. Most local model shops charge the same as the “big boys” nowadays and you save on postage. So yes they have to survive on tight margins but the ones I go to all seem to be competing head on with the big boys for new items and often cheaper on secondhand. Can’t see what there is to get worked up about. when comes to eBay, I only seem to make the highest bid when there is a recession on. If there is something that I really really want then I am happy to pay the going rate.

When I occasionally look at Hattons secondhand it does seem laughably over priced. So I merely don’t look their very often if I am after something. Telling them that have got their prices wrong does seem to be a strange way to waste time. They know far better than us what they can sell at what price.