Chris116

The sad thing about the work done by many women during WW1 was that as soon as the men came back from war the ladies lost their jobs in most cases both on the railways and elsewhere.

I hope it was a polite beer and did not call you anything rude.

I worked for LUL from 2001 and retired in 2016. The first uniform I had was the bright blue one which meant you could be easily seen by both other staff and the passengers. The second uniform I has was the dark blue which meant we blended in with the passengers and so when working on the platform had to wear a Hi-viz to be seen by other staff! Although it was probably smarter, I felt it was not as good for the job as the bright blue. Around the time I retired they changed to the present uniform which I described to a member of higher management as a clowns outfit! I am so glad I never had to wear it as I hate it. The uniform that most heritage lines wear is based on 1930's to 1950's BR and looks smart.As you say we get almost more questions than the staff on National Rail. I have even been talking to the guard on an SWR service and a passenger came up and we stopped talking, they asked the question and when the guard started to answer the passenger interrupted them saying that they were talking to me as I worked for the railway!

I was thinking of the remains of my old (2010ish) Underground uniform. I still have enough to make it look right!

I suppose the only Underground stock that could run on the MHR would be the D stock that has been converted by VivaRail. Now I wonder what uniform I could appear in as guard on one of those?

Where did you get the coaches from and what make are they? I don't think Sarah Siddons would work on the Mid Hants as we don't have a balance rail!

Your new project is to build a small layout for it to run on! We look forward to seeing progress on this new project.

Exactly. After some careful measuring by the two of us we used 2'6" on three sides and 2' on the long side that had the door with a lifting section to get in and out of the room which was about 1' wide.

When I was a young teenager there was a guy who lived about 15 houses up the road who had a model railway on a 6 x 4 board in the centre of a room that was about 10 x 8 giving him 2 feet room on all sides. My parents had been chatting to him and let slip that I was into model railways and would be happy to help him as he felt his layout was missing something. A few days later I went and saw the layout which was a typical Triang track plan on a 6 x 4. I asked him why given the room was so much bigger and was only used for the layout he had built a small layout in the middle of the room. He said that he wanted to make sure he could reach the points all around the layout and so needed the 2 foot walkway around the layout. When I suggested changing it to a 10 x 8 layout with an operating well in the middle his eyes lit up and within a few weeks the new boards were built and track laid. I tell that story by way of asking if the OP is in a similar situation? A four foot wide board means you cannot reach the rear of the layout unless you can walk around that side and if you can walk around then a central well can be wider and still give you a lot more space for the trains. Just a few thoughts that are probably way out of line but are presented in the hope that they help improve what is possible.

I look forward to seeing your progress. Good luck.

I forecast some unlined stock in the production line for a while! May be the easy option but I suspect you will soon want to push yourself to find out just what you can manage. From what I have seen you are doing very well.

I thought 70 years rang a bell. Thanks for the confirmation. I will be happy to copy them in June 2023!

A quiet day for me. SWMBO decided the weather was such that she did not want to go on her two exercise walks that she does following her hip replacement. But she then decided that I should go shopping and having spent £50 and got lengthened arms bringing it back on the bus she produced a list of things that she had not asked me to get but would have liked! A suggestion that she tell me BEFORE I go shopping was not received well, nor was the fact that her new list can wait a few days. We are still trying to work out what the definite maybe changes to the lockdown rules really mean to us. As far as I am concerned I am going to treat it as no change for a week or two and see what has happened in that time. Greetings to all ERs and best wishes. Stay safe and make good use of any extra time you have for any hobbies you may have!

I have a Layout Plans book issued by Railway Modeller dated May 1953 which says it is No.1. The first plan is a single track oval with branches in each direction that go to small termini with one of them having a platform on the continuous circuit. It claims to fit on an 8' by 4' board but I suspect that it uses 1st radius curves and very short points. I am not sure I would be allowed to put up a copy here due to copyright although given that it appeared although given that it appeared 67 years ago it may be out of copyright.

Having read the other replies I suspect you may want to think about the layout but if you go ahead with basically what you had then here is my alternative.

I think most branch line termini would only have one run round loop and that would be alongside the platform road. Maybe if you had the platform at the back of the layout with all the track on the control panel side it would make things better. I will have a play with the space you have knowing you are limited by the radius of the curve to the fiddle yard which needs to be as big as possible.

Looks good to me. The only comment I would make is that personally I would not bother with the shed and would spread out the sidings you have in the yard using the space vacated by not having the shed. It also has the advantage of getting rid of the slip which I don't thing many branch line termini had. Good luck with your plans.

I agree it is not difficult. Many years ago I got dropped in the deep end when helping operate a layout at the Central Hall Westminster. A point blade came loose on one of the sidings and the owner took over operating the layout with the comment that he would keep the trains running while I soldered the point back together. Handed me the iron and solder and just said "don't look so worried, that sort of thing happens all the time". Well, I did the job as requested and then asked if I could go back to operating as it was less stressful than learning to solder in front of a crowd on someone else's layout. The owner went sheet white and just said "you did a good job". I was never worried about soldering things after that!

That may be your mug but I bet no one else has two of my three shown here.

If you want good jokes then go to the forum joke thread. On second thoughts you did ask for "good" jokes so maybe get a boxed set of Morecambe and Wise or The Two Ronnie's!

In spite of being a non smoker all my life my reaction to that would have been to tell the snowflake to go melt over someone else.

Simple way to enrage all parties is to cut scone in half and put jam first on one half and cream first on the other. Amazing how quickly you can get a massive argument going even on a railtour!