fulton

Yes still cheques about, was surprised my car tax refund and later tax refund were both by cheque, first visit to my bank in years, new to me, cheques can be paid into the cash machine, which reads them. I'm easily impressed.

Just finished loading Plant City, surprising how quickly the van fills up.

19 hours ago, Jack Benson said:

 

 

However, one feature that I find puzzling, it seems  that many modeller's railroad trackplans are invariably similar:- all sidings run in the same direction etc. all very neat and parallel with the running line whereas examining a couple or more prototype street maps of small towns, the actual location of the various rail-served customer's premises are anything but neat.

Interesting project, my own layout based on the prototype Potato spur at Plant City has all the above, parallel lines, same direction, layouts first exhibition this Saturday at Crawley, photo from Google Earth 2014.

When I open RMweb Home page,  I them click on "View New Content" the page freezes, when hovering over " View New Content" displays " Third Party Ad Content" I then close the page and reopen all works fine, an inconvenience I would like to avoid, suggestions please. 

4 hours ago, jjb1970 said:

Is alclad one of the paints which requires polishing? A few years ago I used a paint for bare metal parts of aircraft which when applied looked like any other silver paint but it was designed to be polished after application, after which it looked much more realistic.

My experience was I was happy with the results with just spraying, but have read of people polishing it. As I said Alclad is a paint system, you need to follow all the steps for good results, also follow all the health and safety advice, I used a spray booth and wore a 3M mask.

Have not tried on model railways, but have had good results on model aircraft using Alclad paints, must be sprayed, must follow all the preparation steps, its a complete paint system, preparation is everything as the smallest blemish will stand out. Was pleased with the results of an American etched stainless steel signal gantry kit, soldered using Carrs brown label flux, left unpainted.

On 06/09/2022 at 08:38, NWJ said:

There is also Upchurch, Lower Halstow and Otterham Quay to the East of Rainham. Otterham Quay is nothing more than a cottages, a pub (I think it's still there) and a wharf on the River Medway. Upchurch and Lower Halstow are a couple of villages on the coast but, in another world, each could have potentially had a station on the mainline (albeit some way from Lower Halstow so it would probably have been Lower Halstow Road...). Also, to the South of Watling Street and Upchurch is the small hamlet of Meresborough.

 

Neil

Just for interest, there still is a section of the narrow gauge railway at Lower Halstow, buried under the main road, while working there in the 1980's we cut through it for the sewer connection to the "new" houses on the old brickfields site, we also found buried a collection of rusted out hopper wagons,  still have a cast iron point lever I found there.

34 minutes ago, RichardT said:

 This is the level of robustness you need for an “open to the public” event I feel - and even then you need a standing patrol of stewards to pull them back from the layouts when crowd pressure has walked them forwards.

 

RichardT

I prefer some sort of barrier to be provided, but have bought recently my own pull out tape barriers, the sort you see in banks, four poles gives 6m, all for the price of two wagons, did exhibit some years ago at Dortmund and Cologne, both big shows, no barriers provided, did feel a bit uneasy at times, with crowds four or five deep, but all went well, no damage, which surprised me.

19 hours ago, big jim said:

I’ve been receiving regular emails from Les Kent at Haslington models with a link saying ‘have a look at these pics, you may remember some of the guys’ or words to that effect 

 

 

I've been receiving similar messages, supposedly from people I know, the senders email behind the name is different each time so is difficult to block. 

On 14/07/2022 at 09:00, billbedford said:

-

Most anchor chain was studded:

 

This type of chain is available from Shapeways, 3d printed, various sizes, would not know how to reproduce any other way, other than a very tedious soldering job.

You are lucky with packaging, I ordered this online, was delivered with no packing or protection, I was hoping for a lifetimes supply of bubble wrap and a box to store my old vehicle in!

On 23/08/2022 at 05:32, 97406 said:

As I get older, with retirement a small light in the distance, thoughts are turning to my own health and wellbeing. One thing I’m reducing is alcohol consumption, much of which was to relax on an evening after work.

We ( my wife and I ) were at that stage a few years ago, and decided to stop all alcohol, we could see it could get out of hand, difficult at first, especially in social situations, even today sometimes I think a glass of wine would be nice, but we support each other, we both feel better for giving up. I did a job for eight years where I was in contact daily with people with alcohol and drug problems, each with their own story, how easy things can get out of control, one particular memory was of a young women sitting outside our building, waiting for her boyfriend who was inside, she had all the signs of heroin use, had not seen her before or ever again, I wonder what her story was.

This is the situation on the front of my layout, not sure how you could offer protection without some sort of Perspex, prototype location being modelled, the left track will not see trains, so no protection required, most of the damage to my layouts, has been caused during assembly, disassembly and transporting, not by the public at exhibitions. I did have a very fine bracket signal on one layout, whilst trying to open the roller shutter on my trailer, something had moved and was in the way, " I know just pull the shutter harder" end of signal!

Not the UK, but when modelling a yard in Florida, there was fenced off area with only rail access, most odd, discovered it was used to store tank cars of pesticides, awaiting delivery to a distributor.

2 hours ago, woodyfox said:

Looking at the Modelling industry...  A quick search reveals 'flesh' colours on offer to be a pinkish colour of various hues. A search of ready to plant people in various scales reveals few if any depicted in any flesh tone other than pinky/yellow... 

When i was on BR in the 80s many of my colleagues and passengers didn't have this type of skin tone.

The industry really needs to address this issue before we worry about ommitting or including historical facts. 

Ammo Mig do a flesh colour pack which  covers the full range of skin colours.

Had a trip to the Isle of Grain yesterday, fortunately for us if not the other road users, we were stopped at Grain Crossing as a Class 66 with empty stone wagons passed to Grain, How often does this service run and does the container port still use the rail connection? Semaphore signals still in use, must be some of the last, as are the manual crossing gates, the signalperson, not sure of the correct term, a women in this case, travels with the train and opens up Grain Crossing ground frame box, which controls the road crossing. If you like desolate places the Grain foreshore between the Thames and Medway estuaries is worth a visit. 

Our experience of the German railway system, in recent years, is one of unreliability, curious if there is an underlying reason or are we just unlucky? Our latest travelling to the UK, Dusseldorf to Koln 15 minute delay, Koln to Brussels, train starts in Koln, while sitting ready to depart, announcement train cancelled, only option take regional trains with two changes, arrived in Brussels 1 1/2 hours later than planned, ( Eurostar 3 1/2 hour delay due to a fire, but that is something which can happen, so you except it )  Also recently Dusseldorf to Munster train leaves on time then announcement, train not now going to Munster! so had to change trains which made a 1 hour delay, so late for an hospital appointment, coming back also, Dusseldorf train terminated short, so we had to change, these trips have been weekdays, can understand weekend disruption. The current 9 Euro ticket is a good incentive to use the trains but we wish they were more reliable.

Not saying things cannot be improved, but can understand Hattons, having worked in a similar environment, you have systems that work, stick to them and they can be very reliable, what seems very simple to the customer can lead to all sorts of problems, which are time consuming to sort out, and the customer ends up with worse service, the price we pay for ever greater efficiency and low prices, in todays world.(talking about things in general not Hattons, in particular as I have no knowledge of their systems)

Just to add my personal thoughts and experience, Smiths couplings are oversize but practical to use, did not find any benefit springing couplers or buffers, uncoupling tool with torch a big help, good general lighting also, everyone has their own preferred shape of coupling tool, check they all dangle freely, very frustrating when helping on another layout, in the public view, to find a chain stiff with paint or will not reach the next hook! the big hand from the sky has never bothered me.

13 hours ago, brossard said:

 

This is why I take the heretical approach and use Scalescenes brick paper.  This is really well rendered and I couldn't possibly paint as nicely as that.  I can live with the lack of texture.

I print the Scalescenes on to thin card, I find it easier to handle and when gluing down, also have a selection of coloured marker pens to colour the white edges.

Looking forward to my first public outing with Plant City.

This photo has come from a friends collection, interior of the steel works, I presume that is the furnace on the left, if so, then we are looking away from Janes' Creek with Pelican Creek to the left, as a 1920 aerial photo shows chimneys on that side. Seems to confirm this is a steel casting works, rather than a steel manufacture works, so no pig iron, but deliveries either by rail or barge of steel, for casting, looks, to me, like wheels being cast.

While I am posting, photo of Aveling and Porter locomotive, on my under construction Janes' Creek, unpowered EM model based around an HO scale Fowler Plough engine and Blue Circle wheels both from Shapeways, not all strictly correct but the Fowler has the nicest motion and gearing I have seen.

1 hour ago, Cwmtwrch said:

Steel comes in a wide variety of types and alloys, depending on purpose, often made to strict quality control limitations. I don't think a 10 ton gas fired furnace is intended for steel making, it's too small. I would suggest it's just for melting steel slab or bar made elsewhere, for casting purposes. This would mean they could order in whatever standard or type of steel was required for each job.

The Steel Works opened in 1901 as a joint venture with Vickers, to manufacture steel castings, which would fit in with the above, bring steel in rather than pig iron, so still a good traffic either by rail or barge.

My model of barge UVW, gear down, about to go under the SECR viaduct to enter Palican Creek, for Strood Steel Works, with pig iron? Would be coming in on the tide, relying on momentum and the tide to carry her through, the oars are for guidance and poling in the mud. The gear would have to be raised again for unloading.