Johnson044

Two lasting memories of the trip to Barry were the gas-axed driving wheels of Galatea and walking through end to end one of the A1A-A1A Warships. What sticks in my mind is the train heating boiler, which was completely white. Hmm. Probably the "A" word, I think.

Just the smokebox door I mean! The rest is sheet brass.

4-4-0 seems to be white metal.

Thanks - there was a brass Jinty body for sale by the same ebay vendor. I didn't bid and it's gone now. I'll see if I can get him to send me a photo. There was also a rather fine Furness Baltic tank from the same collection.

About 8mm to 1' I think, which I don't feel is likely to catch on as a scale. Completely dwarfs my Class F. I did wonder about some perspective modelling in the Jack Nelson LNWR scale with 8mm at the front, 7mm a bit further back and maybe a little 2mm or thereabouts right at the back. Hmm. Maybe!

A couple more.

I think I've done all I'm going to do now. There are still a few less right angles than I'd like and the finish is not as I'd hoped- I do wish I hadn't varnished- but a fresh coat of new Satin varnish has improved things- and I'm glad I added the sand boxes. It waddles along but no layout yet so I'll have to wait until the next EKOGG club day for a proper trial.

not sure how the wheels (which seem to be Romfords, but maybe turned to a finer profile than standard?) can be removed for maintenance without great difficulty

Hi - I've just bought this elderly Midland 4-4-0 on a whim. I like the patina and the effort that has obviously been put in to building it. A bit out of my normal sphere of interest as I'm firmly of the 7mm persuasion. Scale is 4mm, EM gauge, stud contact. The parts seem too precisely cut out to have been made by whoever assembled it - I'm thinking maybe a Jamieson / Eames kit rather than scratch built? I've not yet investigated the motor - the frames seem to be soldered to the footplate and the cab / boiler assembly seems to come off to leave the splashers etc in place - not sure how the wheels (which seem to be Romfords, but maybe turned to a finer profile than standard? The cab / tender steps throw me slightly - the entire assemblies of treads / back plates are folded up from single pieces of metal, rather than separate treads soldered on. Un sprung except for the front bogie, which is sprung. I'm not going to try to "restore" or anything - just keep as bought. As I say, I like the patina. The photos are all the original seller's ones. I'll take a couple of my own when I have a gentle exploration of the motor etc. The big lump of lead in the cab is completely loose- and the loco doesn't seem particularly nose-heavy without it. Anyone got any thoughts as to possible manufacturer or history? I've not come across any reference in magazines or on the web to an EM gauge stud contact layout. Thanks for looking folks.

There was an article in the G0G Gazette a while back about a GNR 2-4-0 that someone acquired from a swapmeet and repaired. He believed it was a Parley. They do get a mention from time to time in the Gazette - the thing that is usually said is that they are all to about 8mm to 1". Another article which described how someone built a coarse scale GNR Stirling single mentioned the Parley version of the same loco and said that the Revd Parley made the driving wheels using golden syrup tin lids as a basis. He seems to have been very inventive- all tinplate, I think, and everything built on the kitchen table with very basic hand tools. I'll try to dig the articles out soon and post some extracts. I'd love to own a Parley!

No- it's even worse than that - it was the London premises for Bassett-Lowke. Desecration!!!

I'm amazed there is no blue plaque here. I then thought I'd look at 112 High Holborn and... NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

Yay! The censor has kicked in!!! an artificial covering of hair for the pub ic area

'merkins. I love the idea of The Merkin People. It's not a word often used. merkin /ˈməːkɪn/ noun an artificial covering of hair for the area.

...and this one is just hilarious! https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/115405024209?hash=item1adeacebd1:g:w8oAAOSwsDVildI8

I'd love to have a kitchen floor made from hardwood wagon timbers! Don't really want to cut 6" off the bottoms of the doors though...

You were quite right to take me to task on this Nearholmer- I was being very pompous and up myself. Anything I said afterwards was just digging myself further into a hole of my own making and I'll probably dig myself in further now. Well - yes- the eateries become more up-market depending on the prosperity of the area - of course they do. But proportionally it doesn't work that way. A "nice" High Street like Deal or Hythe has a very different ratio of cafes / takeaways to other shops to a depressed area, where the proportion is far higher. I’ve only to walk around the block to see this for myself. What I’m puzzled by is the bleedin’ obvious. That these places, which sell food that gives you a brief feeling of satisfaction without much benefit to health, are not cheap. They thrive in an area where money is obviously tight. There must be a ready market otherwise when a shop selling something other than junk food closes it wouldn’t be replaced by another fried chicken / pizza or kebab place (three of each face each other across the road within a quarter of a mile of where I live). There’s an Aldi, a Farm Foods, Poundland and a Morrisons nearby- and the money spent on a takeaway family meal would go so much further in any of these. Are they a feel good option that gets used because tonight I’m fed up, knackered, need a treat and tomorrow may never come? Many have “Just Eat” on the window, which as we know is pushed quite hard on the tv in the evenings. There’s either a lot of money out there or people are just living beyond their means? The cars that pull up generally are pretty new and expensive looking – certainly out of my reach for the most part. It's getting tighter and tighter – especially, as you’ve said, if you’re bringing up a family. And yet, as the current The Big Issue article says, we’re wasting 20 million slices of bread per day. It’s a mess. I rarely cook. I think I’m probably quite good at it when I try but I don’t very often, even though I know it’s better for the family budget and healthier. I’m lucky to be married to someone who loves to cook but when I’m on my own I could very readily go down the road and it would become more and more frequent- I know it would. I’m lazy when it comes to making a packed lunch and have to force myself to otherwise it would be another meal deal and the cost of these stacks up. I don’t sneer at the users of takeaways. I’ve no right to sneer at anyone for their lifestyle, be it necessity or choice. The pot would be calling the kettle black. My rant about parking on pavements and chucking rubbish out of cars stands. I do sneer when someone has contempt for their surroundings and for other people.

If we're on this forum then we have many blessings. Full stop.

You sure can. It doesn't take much to tip someone into poverty.

Thanks for all the wonderfully varied but always positive responses. What a broad church this is! A few further memories that might spark some more interest: Just little fragments really. Silly witterings. I went back in 1977 or 1978 on a cycling holiday and visited some old haunts, one of which was Bromsgrove, where I’d spent many happy hours on the platform watching trains assaulting the Lickey Bank. This time I got inside the former Midland Railway workshops, which were entirely derelict but largely intact, and I spent about an hour wandering about freely. What struck me was that the floor seemed to be made up entirely of old carriage and wagon underframe timbers – mainly headstocks. I do wonder what they might have all come from. I also re-visited the Halesowen Railway but even then I think, it was being obliterated by the expansion of Frankley. By the looks of things the line seems to be completely wiped from the face of the earth now from Halesowen Junction as far as the M5. Another memory that I have - another really pleasant one - is of the little model shop in Barnt Green - it was shared with a knitting wool shop and at the back was a room full of mainly Airfix kits, some of which, even at the time, were pretty elderly. Sitting on one of the "witch's hat" iron roundabouts that safety concerns have now eradicated in the park opposite and opening the newly bought box and looking through all of the parts of - say - a Fokker Friendship or similar - and I'm sure I was delving into a bag of Cadbury's Stroodles at the same time- or maybe they came along later? Anyone else remember Stroodles? In the early '70's, about 1973, the village of Barnt Green would club together and organize an annual mystery trip- usually to Matlock or, on one occasion to Barry - where most of the village went to the beach except for the one or two that had several hours amongst the rusting Bulleids.

When life's a crock of s**t and you don't know what tomorrow's going to bring a takeaway makes you feel better for a little while. A curious thing about some of the customers though is that they park their rather expensive cars on the pavement outside the takeaways so it's hard to get past without being run over. A curious thing about some of the customers is also that they chuck all the packaging out of the car window and chuck their fag ends at me and my dog.

It's very easy to generalise. It's easy to make sweeping statements- and, as you say, to sneer.

It's so easy to make sweeping statements and to generalise on perceived circumstances and behaviour patterns. A day walking in someone else's shoes!

The curious thing is that a recognized indicator of a poor area is the large number of fast food places on the High St. The more hard up people are the tendency is to live for today and let tomorrow take care of itself and It doesn't help with tv advertising promoting all the rubbish food.

Yup. The new Poundburies that are springing up with their GRP chimneys with brick slips glued to them are not readily adapted to burning whatever odd bits of timber that can be got hold of. It's all rather frightening. If you do have a hearth of some sort then now, folks, is the time to be filling your back garden with whatever you think you can burn next winter. However expensive timber might be at present there's still a helluva lot being thrown out.