faulcon1

I fear these two railways K&ESR and LR aren't the only ones and many preserved railways will have their begging bowls out more than ever. The lock downs because of corona virus has no doubt hit them all for six because it's cut off their main form of revenue. They may all recover but it won't be overnight and any future plans will be put onto the back burner for some time to come.

When I visited the UK from Australia in 2017 I went to a number of preserved railways including the Llangollen and although I only rode on one of the Llangollen trains I bought a full line day rover ticket. I did the same at the NYMR and the Severn Valley. The Bluebell was shut for a driver experience day so I couldn't buy a ticket. Maybe I'm not entitled in these modern times but it just seems very wrong to me to photograph or video a preserved railway from the line side on public land (as a line side pass for me isn't worth it) without contributing to the railways coughers. I did ride on the Severn Valley for I remember it well having ordered a cup of coffee on the train which was burning hot. I spilled some coffee and is burnt my hand and I swore loudly then apologised to the other passengers in the compartment for my Anglo Saxon. Often I had to walk across private land but I always asked the owner usually a farmer if I could walk on his land. One farmer who's land borders the Llangollen almost died of shock when I asked him telling me that no railway enthusiasts ever ask him permission to walk on his land. But to walk on his land without his permission is trespassing. I suppose that's an old fashioned concept too these days. If a preserved railway offers first class then I ride the train first class as they can always do with the extra money as I did on the Talyllyn and Severn Valley. I also bought a full line ticket on the Foxfield Railway even though I was only standing in a field videoing the locos climbing the 1 in 19 bank. I buy food from the railways. I wouldn't travel first class on the mainline railways for they don't need my money in my opinion and I will video them without buying a ticket as they get money from the taxpayer via the government and preserved railways don't. I can't give a donation to any preserved railway in the UK for they insist on a postcode, a British postcode and my Australian postcode (2777) doesn't fit the bill so I can only buy a ticket.

You could take long place names and change them about or subtract parts of place names and add others for example, Hazelbrook and Woodford two villages near to where I live could become Hazelford and Woodbrook. Does it really matter what a place name means?. Here's a good one taken from an old movie from a Welsh colliery layout Hafoduwchbenceubwlllymarchogcoch.

I can remember years ago in Steam Railway magazine of a person having a whinge about the GCR. I remember their complaint stating that the GCR started off with small engines but now we have these monster mainline locos roaring past the bottom of our garden with all their smoke and noise. This was long before the internet and people in the next issue of the mag were of the opinion, if you don't like it then move. The cycling lobby is now very vocal having jumped on the environmental bandwagon because it's the thing to do and with social media they can yell their opinion out louder than ever. Many people lived to ripe old ages who were born and brought up in the steam era and it wasn't just polluting steam engines either. Petrol was leaded, diesel for road transport was full of nasties and there were steel works. Many towns had a gas works providing town gas and the air was filthy. All this "pollution shortens people's lives" is garbage, otherwise all those born in that polluting era would have died and early death but many didn't. The one size fits all mantra is well and truly alive. Ever noticed when the mainstream media wants to go on about polluting coal fired power stations, what do they focus their lens on. They point the camera lens at the cooling towers and they emit plain water vapour. The long thin chimney with a wisp of smoke coming out of it is ignored because there's a huge volume of water vapour being emitted from the cooling towers and that's much more impressive. If a tall chimney is emitting smoke or anything else they wait for a late fine afternoon shot with the sun behind the smoke to make it look much more dramatic than it actually is. Some of the shots taken are over twenty years old but are trotted out as being taken yesterday.

Even Hitler's train had a bath wagon or a coach with a bath in it. A German who was a staff member on the train said you couldn't go before the boss (Hitler) without a wash and brush up. Apparently he was never called the Fuhrer on the trains only the boss. The bath wagon weighed eighty tons and once it derailed on a sharp curve. The engineers had to rerail it and during the rerailing Goering graced them with his enormous presence. He bought crates of beer for the engineers and they had to put up with his endless stupid suggestions. It was on TV and this man told of how the Germans regauged Russian lines to standard gauge but it was never enough. There was always some point where they had to change over to Russian wide gauge trains.

Years later my dad told me when I first started to walk my dad had made the Airfix windmill for my brother and I over balanced and sat on it crushing it. In those days unlike today trains were built solid and one only needed to get the carpet fluff out of the mechanism and they'd keep going. Track of course was steel and was cleaned with sandpaper as Peco streamline or set track either hadn't been invented or was just too expensive.

Here's a photo of me being coached by dad in about 1965 in Melbourne Australia with the track laid directly on the lounge room carpet. Mum is knitting and the other adult man is I think uncle Jonk. The other young boy is my older brother.

Here's a final one a video of a cab ride in a streamliner ascending the notorious 1 in 40 of Cowan Bank. The driver gives a good detailed explanation of what he's doing and concerned about. The loco is painted orange but in front of the divided windscreens is matt black paint. That's done to stop the sun reflecting off the paintwork straight into the crews eyes. The locos and train are maintaining a steady 11-12mph in 8th notch.

Here's another one of more old diesels working their guts out on the same grade. I do like the original livery of these old Victorian railway diesels. Again turn up the volume.

If you like roar of GM's then have a look and listen to this. Without the "super series wheel slip control" in the leading G class this train would have stalled on the grade of 1 in 52. Turn up your volume.

Here's another video of streamlined diesels operating in New South Wales.

Some diesels are still in daily use and others are preserved 42101 is one unit of a class of ten and 4204 is one unit of a class of six. 4461, 77, 86 and 90 are part of a class of 100 although many have been scrapped. As an example diesel like steam loco numbers are numbered the same way here, so the 44 class were numbered 4401 to 44100, never 4400 to 4499. Of the 42 class three have survived out of the six in the class being 4201, 04, 06. The B's, S's 42 and 421 are all GM. The 44's are Goodwin Alco, Goodwin being the Australian agent for Alco US. Most GM's here were Clyde EMD's or Electro Motive Division. In NSW we only had one class of British built diesels, the British Thompson Houston 41 class Bo-Bo. They were a complete failure. They were the same shape (but a lot bigger) as the class 17 "Claytons" and they suffered from continuous overheating. The first wagon on a freight train had to be a low sided wagon otherwise the rear radiator didn't get any air. Only one survives from a class of ten, 4106. 42101 can be driven from both ends on a train but 4204 cannot. It can only be driven on a train from the streamlined end the other end has driving control but only for light engine movements. The 44 class can also be driven from both ends on a train.

In 2016 there was a gathering in New South Wales of streamlined diesel locos from Alco and GM and here's a video of it

I've given up buying from Hattons or any other shop overseas and I now buy local. If something goes wrong with a model loco or it's a dud when you receive it they don't refund the postage which can be quite expensive if you send a model loco air freight. I did have a Heljan loco that wasn't working properly and the shop in the UK that sold it to me gave me some ideas on how to fix it. But taking the loco apart and altering it would void any warranty that the loco had. So I sent the loco to Heljan in Denmark and they fixed it and paid for all the postage. They also told me I did the right thing in not trying to fix it myself because yes that would have voided the warranty. So well done Heljan. There's a local model shop that sells mainly British and I use them to buy models. I bought a brand new Bachmann Blue Pullman from them in Nanking Blue long after they'd all sold out in the UK. It cost me $600.00 and when I had a look on Ebay Australia some thieving A hole was trying to sell exactly the same train for $1,200.00. Some unsuspecting person may have bought it thinking they were getting a bargain when in truth they were being robbed blind. That's why I don't buy from Ebay unless I know what the original price was because so many sellers on Ebay are just rip off merchants as they're out to make quick money from unsuspecting buyers. Never buy a limited edition model from an Ebay seller for they rip people off. They wait until the shops and manufacturers have sold out and then they put the limited edition items for sale online at hugely inflated prices. They have this mindset of it's no longer available so therefore it's worth double or triple what it sold for originally. No it's not.

I think it all depends on what you want to achieve. If the helix is to be covered in as there's nothing more unrealistic than watching a British train negotiating a huge spiral, then you won't be able to watch the train ascend or descend the two levels. However an incline or ramp allows you to watch your train climbing the gradient and if you use DCC Concept's power base then even steam outline locos can climb steep gradients with ease, provided that your steam locos have a plastic plate that covers the axles for you need to screw the tiny magnets in place. Diesels have a lot more weight in them than steam locos and even steep gradients are no real problem for them. But it all depends on how long you want your trains to be and even with an incline you may want to employ banking locos like on the Lickey Incline where any train over three coaches had a banking loco or four on the rear. It also depends on what control your using because if you're using DCC and your worried about locos racing down a gradient, well that doesn't happen with DCC due to the back EMF in decoders which keeps the train at a constant speed. So if you set the loco to speed step 20 then it won't exceed that going down the grade no matter how many wagons are behind it. But the choice is yours of course.

The little yellow Honda Z 360 which splits in two has survived the passing years and is now in the National Archive. They occasionally bring it out but because it's in two pieces it has to be supported with a framework. Here's a video of one of it's rare appearances. https://youtu.be/7uBnTzHU0Bw

The price has dropped here for we have a number of fuels available to buy. The cheapest is E10 which is 91 RON with up to 10% ethanol in it which raises the octane rating to 94 RON. But you do less kilometers with E10 because it doesn't have the same amount of energy in it as standard 91 RON. Anyway the price at the local servo was 1.17 per litre for E10 or around 60p in pommy currency. Next is is 91 RON then 95, 98 diesel and LPG. Many cars have a vapour system for LPG in that they start on petrol and then switch over to LPG. Ford Australia perfected the LPG system and put it in an FG Falcon and called the car Eco LPi which was a dedicated LPG fuel system only. In pommy currency LPG here sells for around 40p per litre. The ones who use it the most are taxis. Most late model Ford Falcons are powered by the Barra motor either naturally aspirated or turbo. Even the Eco LPi used the Barra but late in the models life the engine from the Mondeo was fitted with a turbo and put into a Falcon which Ford called the Eco Boost and it was rear wheel drive. Tail pipe emission are a lot lower than the Barra motor but the car got virtually no press from Ford and not long after the decision was taken to close local manufacturing. No diesel engine was ever fitted to a Falcon by Ford.

1960 Standard Vanguard

Ford Telstar TX5 Ghia

Mitsubishi Mark 3 Magna

Mark 1 Mitsubishi Magna

Toyota Crown

Australian Oddity the Wolseley 24/80 six cylinder

Another Australian oddity the Morris Nomad

There was one in a local car dealer a 4 door in a mustard colour.