Tony Teague

Hi Mikkel Have only just discovered your thread and the 'printing on veneer' topic. I found this really inspirational and will have to have a go. I have placed my order with Crafty Computer Paper! Tony

I have read all of these posts with interest, but I think that I too must be a bit of a 'non-conformist', or at least rather eccentric! One of my earliest memories is of walking and being pushed in my pushchair by my mother in a South London park, along the side of which was the soon to be closed Crystal Palace (High Level) branch - this dates my memory to around 1954 and no later. I can distinctly remember the smell of the Southern electrics and the sound of their brake pumps running. I was also held up on footbridges to look at passing steam trains - pretty much all freight since most that part of the Southern had been electrified for many years. Later I traveled daily to secondary school by train - also Southern EMU's. So perhaps I might be expected to be modelling as Southern Electric layout - and although this is one aspect of my layout, it is set between 1938 and 1948 - certainly before I was born - and is predominantly Southern steam. For many years I had no space or time for a layout but I started to steadily collect Southern loco's - mainly kit built because at this time there were almost none available RTR - such that by the time a significant, permanent layout became a possibility, I had so many locos that I decided that the goal would be have at least one of every loco type that the SR had in stock at nationalisation. For this reason too, I decided that a single prototype was not appropriate, but rather, the location must immediately look and feel Southern - even when no rolling stock was to be seen, and so this is where I am now headed. Whether I can achieve either objective - one of every loco type, and an immediate Southern feel, remains to be proven! Best wishes Tony

Michael Many thanks, very helpful. So it sounds like they component I need to acquire is a "Geoff Peters"......! Tony

Tony Certainly not - I am not sensitive enough to feel 'less worthy'! Tony

Having seen a recent video on Liverpool Lime Street I am particularly interested in the way that you are using CCTV to view hidden storage areas and approach roads; can you provide some more detail as to the equipment that you have installed, and the degree to which this is either off the shelf or bespoke to the layout?

I think I understand the feeling behind what is being said here, but of course we all have different skill levels, and strengths, so someone who is a great coachbuilder may not be such a good locobuilder and so on. Equally, if there were no "chequebook" layout builders or collectors out there, I suspect there might be rather a lot less people building for fees! I am not personally driven by whether I made a loco - because it is something that I have never felt able to aspire to - but I enjoy owning well built locos by others and I still manage to add my own touches; nevertheless, my layout is substantially my own work and I get satisfaction from seeing locos and rolling stock run well on it - whether they originated as RTR or kit-built.

Tony I hope I have "fiddleyard v.3" about right as I am now pressing on with getting the whole layout 'complete' electrically, trackwise, and controlwise - so that I can move on to the buildings, scenery and operating pleasures to come. Yes, still up for improving my model railway photting - and hopefully will soon have some better backgrounds to assist; I will be in touch. Best wishes Tony

Tony Your post outlining the enhancements you have made to your fiddle yard rang home to me in more ways than one. It was after my first visit to Little Bytham some years ago that I came home and ripped up my whole fiddle yard and started again! By the time I visited again late last year, I had already realised that what I created 2nd time around was still not right - because I had made the entries and exits too complex and compromised some of the storage roads in the process. As you might imagine, I returned and have started what I hope will be the 3rd and final re-build....but the good news is that in making each set of changes I actually found the space to increase the number of fiddle yard roads AND this time, the length of them too. I share your obsession with getting the maximum number of trains on the track, rather than having to re-rail them when wanted, so this really is a great bonus. My conclusion is that fiddle yard design is an under-stated topic in most printed and other media, whilst optimising the design for storage and / or for operation are not always the same thing. What you and your team are doing at Little Bytham on this and many other fronts remains a great inspiration to me and many others. I look forward to a further visit - one on which I do not feel compelled to return home and re-make anything! - and I hope to soon feel comfortable enough with what I have done to offer a reciprocal visit! Best wishes Tony (Teague)

I have been using Hattons for a long time and have nothing but praise for them. What I particularly like is that you cannot unknowingly buy something that is not in stock and then find out later when it does not arrive - the stock position is absolutely clear from the outset. I was recently in a hurry to get a particular DCC Concepts item which Hattons showed as 'not in stock'; because it was holding me up I ordered it and a couple of other items from Gaugemaster at a much higher price. Two days later my other items arrived with an invoice showing that the key thing I was waiting for was out of stock and would follow! This is massively irritating and simply does not happen with Hattons excellent stock control.