fulton

New to me, just fitted a new light fitting in our flat in Germany, then realized does not have replaceable bulbs (lamps), hopefully they will last along time, seems a backward step to maybe have to call an electrician in the future just to basically change a bulb. When back in the UK will look to see if similar fittings exist, would not have purchased this fitting if I had realized.

In 1994 the Liberty ship Jeremiah O'Brien visited Chatham, I was very lucky to be invited on one of the tugs which brought her in to Chatham Docks,I phoned in sick to work, when she left for London it was invitation only, turned out anyone on the dock side was invited on the trip, wish I had been there! never to be repeated.

I have mounted mine using double sided adhesive pads, I can then move it around to get in right location, then fit the screws, had not considered the rocking base but I should think this helps to over come that, have fitted many over several years without problems.

Travelled to Germany yesterday, with Eurotunnel, in my Ford Transit Connect, no checks other than Passport, vehicles were being checked at random, did not witness any paperwork being checked, when booking a van with Eurotunnel, you have to confirm not being used for commercial purposes, there is another booking page for that, my reading of UK and French Gov. sites all seem to make a big distinction between "private and personal use" and "transporting goods for hire or reward and commercial goods", only my PERSONAL reading is that a model railway where you only receive expenses would not have any restrictions, will report anything different on my return in a few weeks.

Keep running those long trains, they really set your layout off, they look like the layout was designed for them, find a new control system if need be. The Digitrax system has worked well for me, on four different layouts, I only use the simple UT "buddy" controllers, as it was a problem with operators pushing the wrong button, causing all sorts of issues.

I found my, now gone, single garage size multi deck layout quiet enough to look after, looking at some of the American basement empires, I just think how much work it must be to look after and maintain, for me I enjoy the planning and building, not the looking after. My wife tells me off because I have that approach to our garden as well! 

Yes redundancy is a big upset, I was made redundant after 32 years in one industry, to be honest I was becoming jaded, the last firm I worked for I took the car allowance rather than the company car, thinking it may not last. When the end did come I took the opportunity to take a year and a half out, I was lucky to have some savings, then retrained and worked in a totally different industry for ten years, a lot less money than previous, but also less stress, which I enjoyed, covid brought that job to an end, now happily looking forward to my first pension payment in a few weeks.

It would be good to hear how people deal with baseboard joints, strategically placed road vehicles, fences etc. gets difficult on a prototype my joint below goes right through a warehouse, doing everything neatly I think helps.

Hi I did much the same as you, but using sellotape on both boards sitting slightly proud, ballasted with PVA diluted 1 part PVA 3 parts water with a drop of washing up liquid, when completely dry peeled off, I do this on all scenic work as well, so the colours etc. follow over, never had a problem with it crumbling away, obviously the ends are venerable to knocks when moving about. I still use PVA as it is readily available, relatively cheap, has many uses from signal arm spectacle glass to gluing baseboards together. Your acrylic sheet should give a sharper edge, good idea.

On 12/04/2022 at 15:12, woodenhead said:

 

 

Just make sure before you do sell that you are sure you won't change your mind later or that you won't beat yourself up for selling something you later want again (important for the mojo this last bit, being kind to yourself).

I know the feeling, do you sell or keep, I lost interest in 4mm some twenty years ago, tried selling some brass kits, got offered so little I decided to keep, am now back with a new 4mm layout, pleased I hung on to the stuff, having said that, I did sell a load of HO to a dealer last year as realistically there was much too much for me to ever use again, the price was right, pleased to have the cash and more room.

5 hours ago, hayfield said:

 

 

 

 

Peco have made a try at the bullhead market, Personally the bent end timber is totally non prototypical, the check rail gap has been reduced at the expense of a larger wing rail gap, The geometry of the timbering is wrong for the majority of uses, interesting to see the EM gauge track they make for the EMGS differs in these areas.

My understanding is that it is an EMGS product, developed by them, with PECO and manufactured by PECO.

Must also add I think it was a very good show, my first one for over two years, my layout Fulton Terminal performed very well, lots of good chats, we where away in one hour thanks to help from Nigel, good trip back to Kent 3 hours 20 minutes, even with a detour via Bracknell, passing the EXPO EM venue on the way, due to the M4 being closed somewhere near Heathrow. A good three days, BIG thank you to the organizers.

16 hours ago, Matt35027 said:

Ah I see, I was going by some of the decorated sample photos that had been released of an alternative lettering style. Got my order in.

Thanks for the prompt, somehow I missed  No 567, now ordered.

On 19/04/2022 at 22:03, Ravenser said:

May I suggest that what the hobby  doesn't need is a current day BRMSB ? 

 

That is because the BRMSB was a qualified failure. To be specific, it proved quite unable to get its standards generally adopted and adhered to. As the famous quotation attributed to Einstein puts it, "Insanity is keeping doing something you know doesn't work."

 

I remember Cyril Freezer's comment when I mentioned the subject to him once: "The BRMSB was a cabal!" CJF would know, because he was actually a member of the BRMSB in its latter stages. And that - the fact that it was a cabal - is the main reason why it failed.

To be specific, the BRMSB as set up during the Blitz comprised 3 people: the editors of MRN, MRC, and Trains (later Trains Illustrated) . They rapidly co-opted the proprietor of the Constructor, one FW Chubb, and a well-known finescale modeller of the time  "in the smaller gauges", Micheal Longridge, who pre-war modelled in HO and belonged to Wimbledon MRC along with AR Walkley and A Stewart-Reidpath, and post-war modelled in EM and was a member of the MRC along with FW Chubb and Peter Denny . (If you look at Peter Denny's books on Buckingham you'll find the photos of Buckingham Mk1 and its stock in the late 40s are credited to Messrs Chubb and Longridge...)

 

The BRMSB was set up in response to a high-powered letter calling for clear, coherent and consistant standards for OO goods made by the specialist trade so that they were actually compatible. When the BRMSB actually convened (possibly in an air-raid shelter - this was the winter of 1940-41) they decided firstly to broaden their remit to cover Gauge O , and secondly that they would not draw up standards for 4mm scale /16.5mm gauge at all - and would instead recommend that post war modellers work in either a new gauge of 4mm scale/18mm gauge or in HO, for both of which they would provide standards .

 

This was not at all what they had been called in existance to do, and it is possible to detect the muffled echos of a loud explosion in the hobby in the pages of the Constructor when people found out what they were intending to do. The backlash was evidently strong enough to force them to concoct  OO standards after all.

 

This wasn't an accident . A "compromise gauge" of 18mm as the solution to the HO/OO gauge war was the pet idea of Mr Chubb, the proprietor of the Constructor - and no doubt his employee the Editor, fell quietly into line. Meanwhile JN Maselyne of MRN was very impressed by the work of WS Norris in 7mm and seems to have made that the basis for the Gauge O Finescale standard.

 

Effectively the BRMSB as a cabal meant that a couple of eminent people were able to hijack a standards project and try to railroad the entire hobby into their own personal visions of finer standards. They failed.

 

And the idea of magazine editors as "the unacknowledged legislators of the model railway world" was tested to destruction in the 1950s. The BRMSB had no means of ensuring anyone complied with its standards, and they assumed that commercial RTR - "the toy trade" - had little or nothing to do with railway modelling. In fact it turned out to be the core of 4mm modelling - and the BRMSB had precisely nil influence on any of the RTR manufacturers when it came to standards.

 

(In fairness the BRMSB did produce a O Gauge Coarse standard aimed at the specialist RTR trade like Leeds and Bonds - and the postwar demise of anything other than very basic Hornby Gauge O cleared the field of tinplate)

 

The  1960s saw another handful of modellers form a cabal and try to set the hobby to rights with a finescale agenda. This time they gave themselves the fine name of the Model Railway Study Group . They weren't very impressed with Mr Chubb's "compromise gauge" of EM so they  decided to replace it in the spirit of "this time we'll get it right" - the result was P4. What isn't generally remembered is that they also decided to issue new exact scale standards for S gauge, 3mm (they wanted to change the scale to 1:100 I think) and probably also 2mm and 7mm. Needless to say nobody gave them a mandate for any of this...

 

The MRSG had a plan for enforcement and compliance . Unfortunately it blew up in everyone's face. The 4 or 5 of them set up a group called the Protofour Society, which they, the MRSG members, owned. They also set up a company called Studiolith to make approved components to the official standards (there may have been an IP angle here). Studiolith would only sell to members of the Protofour Society, and members of the Protofour Society had to undertake to use only components from the approved supplier (Studiolith)

 

The whole thin g blew up when Studiolith proved unable to meet the needs of a single large exhibition layout, The N London Group's Heckmondwike. The layout leaders stepped outside the approved supply chain in desperation to meet an exhibition deadline, the Management Committee of the Protofour Society (=MRSG) found out, expelled the Group - en mass, and barred them from Studiolith supplies , and in the resulting bust-up the entire senior membership of the Protofour Society resigned or was expelled.

 

It got ugly. The original RM article of Heckmondwike is the only modelling article I have ever seen prefixed by a formal legal disclaimer - because the MRSG sent a solicitors' letter to Cyril Freezer and Sydney Pritchard threatening legal action if the layout was described in print as Protofour.  (That put me off P4 for life). The refugees formed the Scalefour Society. Studiolith I think became Exactoscale in the end - certainly for some years afterwards they required you to sign a formal disclaimer that you were not a member of S4Soc otherwise they would not supply you.

 

In my view almost the last thing we need is another self-appointed little clique of 4-5 people to generate their own lofty vision for the future of the hobby and try to impose it on the hobby at large.

 

We've been there before. It does not work.

Yes, experienced all the above, almost left the hobby, never did get some items from Studiolith which I had paid for.

Watched Tuesday on German TV, "A MAN CALLED OVE" Swedish film, dubbed into German, much enjoyed, lots of wit, dark humour, anyway one scene has a modern wheel tuning lathe being loaded with a wheel set in the back ground, several other shots look to be done on a preserved line, with two nice shots of a diesel shunter passing by, the main character had been a railway fitter.

1 hour ago, queensquare said:

 

Thats fair enough Phil, it's been a long time since I had a post removed!

 

That said, you might as well close the thread as if you are not allowed to mention Brexit then  the whole discussion becomes pointless.  I'm in regular contact (weekly at the moment)  with one of the organisers of the large  Utrecht show where there used to be an entire area dedicated to Brits and they aren't bothering as it's just too complicated. Great shame but there you go.

 

Jerry

As my original post, it does not matter how we got to be here, I would like to continue to exhibit in the EU, what are the practical steps? I suspect like exporters it was very difficult, seemingly impossible at times, but has settled down, yes more work but possible.

If there were standards what would they be, decided by who?  Lots of very passionate arguments on these pages over even OO, wheel and track standards. I model EM gauge and there are still arguments over the EMGS standards.

When having a laugh at a miss spelling, remember english may not be their first language, or they have a condition such as dyslexia, and are doing their best.

I think British TV tries quiet hard to get period details correct, I have just watched a drama on German TV set in the 1930s, which featured a modern bendy bus and satellite dishes in several shots.

Most of my trackwork is plastic based, but I have a timber viaduct where I used super glue to fix C&L plastic chairs to lime wood bulk timbers, the rail will pull out of the chairs before the glue joint fails, is there a problem using super glue?

1 minute ago, John Clitsome said:

Something I've always meant to ask. If you ground onto track should locos be removed? Would they suffer any damage, particularly DCC/sound.

 

Yes, do not know about electrical damage, but my experiance is the static grass goes everywhere, not good if it gets inside a loco, I use a bag less vacuum to recover and reuse all that does not stick.

Next time I will be travelling to Germany, will be in my own van, empty, in May, will ask customs at the border, for advise, no information at Eurotunnel when I made the booking, I suspect it all depends on private or commercial, my van is insured for private use only.

I have exhibited layouts in Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany in the past and was due to exhibit in Rodgau Germany this year, but this exhibition has been cancelled due to worries over covid. Could there be any problems transporting a UK layout to the EU and back again in a van, I travel regularly by car and only the passengers get checked, I did have a novel experiance last time I travelled back to the UK, the French Police put my car through an X ray machine, saying they were looking for stowaways, which made me smile as I drive a Toyota Aygo! Anyway looking for knowledgable advice or actual experiance. Thank you.

House coal is banned, but smokeless fuel, anthracite, is not, at least in my part of north Kent. Back on topic does anyone have knowledge of solar panels not mounted on their roof, I have a large semi wild bank in my garden, former railway embankment, larger area than my house roof, what could be the problems? The bottom of the bank is about 4m from the back of the house and seems to get as much sun as the roof. Thank you.

Well done, very pleased now back up, just happened to coincide with me travelling from the UK to Germany, thought it was a problem with my phone! Rmweb very much keeps me in touch when out of the UK.