Simond

There’s still something wrong…

Well done to Andy & co for getting RMW up again. damn shame that having uploaded the photos of our trip to see Lime St, I cleared them off the phone… the startling incompetence of the hosting service beggars belief. atb Simon

Progress on Porth Dinllaen took second place to an outing to Fylde coast to visit the home of the EM model of Lime Street, courtesy of John Holden & the Lime Street crew. Train from Folkestone to Blackpool on Friday, visit to Tower models (tempted but did not spend…) and a Tram ride to Lytham St Annes, where we found an excellent bar, “Number Fifteen”, thence to our apartment, then a cracking chippy for dinner, and a couple more pints before bed. Saturday breakfast overlooking the beach, down to John’s place, and a truly special day looking at, and learning to operate what can only be described as a magnificent model. It is visually spectacular, atmospheric, and combines prototype fidelity with an electronic routing & control system which makes operation not only pretty much idiot proof, but thoroughly enjoyable too. herewith a few photos: There are a great deal more photos of the visit on the RMWeb thread at Lime Street Station from which I pinched one photo, me, Jon Fitness, Noel, Les, John H, Andrew Green, David Morgan, Steve & Alan Kelsall and of course, you can see much much more about this fantastic model on that Thread Thanks once again to John and the Lime Street crew for their generous hospitality and a truly memorable day! atb Simon Last

I’d like to add my thanks to Jon’s, we had a wonderful & thoroughly enjoyable day, thanks so much for the generous hospitality and warm welcome! I posted an update in my Workbench thread in Western Thunder https://www.westernthunder.co.uk/threads/simond’s-workbench.9440/page-14#post-245565 cheers Simon

I’m guessing they did an air smoothed light pacific too. The frames were clearly blown up from 16.5gauge, and whoever built it (I just fixed it) never thought to make them wider. It had about thirty washers on each axle…

Yes, some kind of wiper on the wheels, perhaps a bit of foam rubber stuck with double sided tape to the van floor, rubbing on the flange?

we have a quite large one in Hythe, just down the road. seen a couple of musical events there, which seems to be its main function nowadays

If you want planked walls, maybe just overlay some scribed plasticard up to say 4’ as wainscot ? It’ll protect the faithful from draughts. (Though the Licencing laws did that too, on Sundays )

I’d be very happy if I could reliably paint plastic to look as much like wood as that does!

Strange

And passengers whinging about knees and ankles banged on sharp corners

MrsD & I drove from Bris to Sydney about 25 years back. Happy memories of a great holiday!

I think that 8’ is probably the minimum to do anything useful. My smallest loco is an Ixion Fowler, it’s 160mm long, a typical 4W wagon is 140-150mm. To shunt, you need at least 310mm from the blade end of the points to the buffers, which are another 80mm. A Peco wye point is 380mm long but that doesn’t get you to the clearance point, you probably need another 50-80mm. And you obviously need a wagon length in the sidings too. And the sidings need buffer stops. I make that just over a metre, to allow you shunt a single wagon from one short siding to another, using a tiny loco, which probably doesn’t have much entertainment value. If you want a passing loop, you’ll need headshunts each end, though one of them can be only long enough for a loco, the other needs space for a few wagons too, say 450mm (18”). The blade-to-clearance point dimension is about 450mm and you’ll need two of them. So in 8’ you could get a loop, about 2’6” long with a headshunt either end. With addition of a couple of sidings, you could have enough space to play with half a dozen wagons and one or even two locos, and maybe a bit of scenic enhancement. These measurements are not based on using set-track, which has a tighter radius, and therefore gives you a shorter point and will gain an inch or two. I think you can download and print templates from Peco, might be worth doing that before splashing out. Or just treat yourself to the loco of your dreams, and see what happens…

to be fair, if he had a working crystal ball, he’d probably not be working for the NHS, or anyone else, for that matter…

I believe this to be correct!

Sorry to hear of your troubles. Hopefully, the news regarding your sight will be better than you fear. there will be as many answers to your question as there are modellers, so I’ll try to give you some ideas to help you decide. I guess the first question will be “era” and the second will be “space” and the third is likely “money”. Most folks have a clear preference for the first, and not enough of the other two. another question, are you, or could you be, part of a club, at which you could run your stock? That might allow you to collect & enjoy the stock you prefer without necessarily having the space in which to run it. if you have a 6 foot by 1 foot shelf, a diorama is probably the best you can do. 0 gauge takes up space. A cross over will be 700-800mm, whilst older stock is smaller, modern coaches might well be 500mm or more, and modern mainline locos are enormous, so “big” kind-of happens without you trying. Assuming you don’t have ambitions for a modern mainline layout, shunting puzzles can be great fun, and with some scenic treatment, make a good place to show off your rolling stock too and/or provide a photo backdrop. Docks, harbours and industrial settings offer the opportunity for smaller locos and stock to operate on tight curves, which can help with the space question too. My Greater Windowledge Railway fell into this category - it was about ten feet long and 18” wide. Google “space saver” for some ideas. The Gauge 0 Guild produced several books on layouts - for small spaces, for gardens, etc. I’m no longer a member but there is certainly plenty of info for the 7mm beginner. there are lots of small layouts on here, and some rather bigger ones. will you build your own track? If so, 0-MF offers a useful improvement over RTR track, and you can go the whole hog with Scale 7. Provably the equivalents of EM and P4 respectively. There is an S7 society. Lots of RTR stock available, particularly for the GW fan. Less so for other regions, but there’s still a fair bit around. Kitbuilding covers all sorts, all regions, most eras. Second-hand is also a good source of stock and track. The bring & buy at Kettering last week was well stocked (except for what I was looking for ), and there are several well-known traders who specialise in 0 gauge. You might want to read about Ramchester on here too. hope that helps Simon

I see that you guys have more wet weather forecast - hope it’s not too bad.

I recall you need to put the video on YouTube or similar and then link to it.

There is no release agent on injection moulded parts. It’s not required. Release agent is typically sprayed or hand-applied to moulds for lay-ups, fibreglass, carbon fibre, etc,. the old Airfix soldiers of my youth were moulded from polythene, a material which has a very low surface energy, and is very difficult to paint for that reason.

“Uneven, yet balanced.” yes. philosophical question for the morning. How does it know?

A word for the unwary. Don’t wash plastic models in acetone… IPA should be fine.

I happily do stuff for my immediate neighbours, because we are blessed with the kind of folks who happily do stuff for us and for others, and it’s nice. There are other neighbours for whom, as a Northern pal once said “ah wouldn’t cross th’ road t’ piss in ‘is ear if ‘is brain were on fire”. but I doubt I’d be building a staircase, even for the nice ones…!

Michael there's a simple answer to the neighbour who wants you to do her staircase. Give her a quotation. Why the hell should you be expected to do it for free. Two possible outcomes; it'll be cheaper for her to go to the top dollar builder up the road. or it'll be enough to cover the costs, give you some pocket money, and to ensure your profits are sufficient to pay a top loco builder to build you the loco of your dreams depends whether you want to do it or not. good luck Simon

Anthony, glad to hear that you're ok, and the layout survived. I saw in the news that they reckon it's easing off in Brisbane now, so hopefully it'll subside in the next few days. Been pretty grim, I guess. keep well Simon

Seek and ye shall find. There’s lots of good industrial design around, perhaps more than ever. “Ordinary”things that are artistic or ergonomic, or just “nice to use”.