class27

I used Hattons a few times with no issues at all. Living in the north of Scotland means just about everything is Mailorder. Was visiting an old friend in Brighton of all places and decided to call in to Hattons on the way home. I must confess to being slightly disappointed at the small display area ( I had been hoping for something more like Gaugemasters place) but I could not complain about the welcome I got. After explaining why I had visited, I was treated like royalty. This sort of thing never goes out of Fashion. I would like to wish The owners and staff at Hattons all the best for the future.

Bal-na-Muir is one of those places where it's always Sunday. The Refueler has a lean on his Brush, whilst the Brush tanks are topped up. The Driver who is on shunting stuff about duty is enjoying his Brew. Is the conversation Philosophy or Football ???? Merry Christmas All. Thanks for the inspiration..

27001 and 26024 lie in the fuel roads at Bal-na-Muir, must be Sunday again. There's no sign of life

Particularly like the barrow handles and frame, looks very real.

Early Sunday Morning. The P-way gang are getting the last of their gear together and the Ganger is in the Box Discussing the Possession with the Signalman, Hopefully just a couple of hours work..... I just couldn't resist having one of these.................

Simon I have really enjoyed the last 10 Years, since Allan's opening post about this being something special. I don't do any socials, so will wish you well and I hope to see it in the flesh somewhere sometime.

You will note it does not say which year it was 9 deg and sunny intervals !!! It is a nice place when the weather is good though.

Thanks. It's probably the part I am Happiest with, the track weathering. Took several goes, but that's the thing with weathering, it needs many subtle layers and suitable drying time to see how the colours look.It's easy to go too heavy and regret it later (ask me how I know) 26038 was my first full re-paint from Green to Blue.

26038 Basks in the sun outside the old goods depot at Bal-Na-Muir

Going back to metering. One of my main concerns is the fact that most if not all Smart meters have a means of shutoff incorporated into the design. Nothing overtly sinister in this, but it means if a meter goes faulty it will tend to leave you off supply, something an old meter would not usually do. I used to have to deal with these type faults on Gas meters and sometimes it descended into a week long farce for the customer to get their supply back on. I was on site, had a meter, it was a 15 min job, but no I was not to touch because a load of idiot bean counters were having a bun fight about who is paying for what. Their supplies are on, so they don't care. If any of you out there end up on the receiving end of this, you have my sympathies for sure. This has left me with a dislike of layers of tech applied to simple things which are more reasons for complications to develop. If I could bore you all a little about Gas meters. Since 1990 all new meters made were R5 compatible, meaning they could be made smart by adding a reed switch to the end of the index reader. This was a little plastic widget which fitted with a screw and seal then by adding a little box of tricks which knew the time of day it could know what you used and when, it would only need a bluetooth device to send the info on. Benefits would have been. 1. no need to change meters and by extension need staff qualified to work on gas, as they would not be touching the gas installation. 2. in the event of tech failure the old mech meter would continue to work and could be read as normal and the billing worked out if need be. 3. Changing supplier would have been less effort ( though I believe this is now the case) Ultimately it is a huge money go round payed for by us, the general public. This is one reason why we are all paying so much. We used to change gas meters at the 20-25 year mark originally to get rid of the old tin case (low mechanical strength) meters and to get rid of leather diaphragms, which dried up over time giving people large discounts by passing free gas. I've said this before, but when I started the meter skips were full of old 20 year plus meters ready for chipping and recycling, in my last year it was hard to find a meter more than 5 years old. This is a simple example of the type of waste that is currently practised by most developed countries in the name of saving money. It is in fact a myth believed by some who think they can see they are making profit for their part of the organisation ( not talking about end users here) when infact the whole system is haemorrhaging money. I firmly believe this is why SSE sold off their metering arm as it was loosing them so much money, not that you will get any confirmation of that!! If you live in an area of poor mobile signal then tech that relies on it is not a great idea. That is just a fact of life not just a prejudice. Happy modelling all (while you still can)

Part of the meter readers remit in the old days was, to have a look at the meter installation from a safety point of view. I speak from Experience in Gas supply. This is why the meter had to be physically read every 18 months, I think it was. All the old readers were very adept at spotting Screwed meters, illegal connections Etc. Unless the laws have been changed then this will still stand as it was a public safety issue. Got involved in a few illegal connections jobs over the years including a couple of very clever ones that went undetected for years.

We are all being royally ripped of by this. Meters have to be changed periodically to guarantee accuracy. If they had waited until they had the technology properly sorted and started with the people who wanted them first it would have saved millions. Problem is the Government wanted the perceived benefits to end users. Ultimately Power and Gas companies don't really want us to use less. They want us to pay. These people are not `not for profit organisations' There is no Strategy at all, just look at the Railways. It's all about short term possible benefits rather than looking to the longer term future. I worked in the Gas industry and could write a book on the opportunities to spend lots of money for no Gain in the name of saving money. I left at the earliest opportunity as the madness was beginning to get to me.

The view across from the back of the old Stationmaster's house to the goods shed at Bal-Na-Muir, a Gronk is pottering about with some vans.

Bal-Na-Muir Box after Dark My modelling looks much better like this.............

It is the low Sun effect that makes this for me.

Drippy Diesels in the happy days long before ISO 14001 !!!

26024 and 26038 lie in the Fuelling point/ Maintenance facility at Bal-na-Muir and it looks like the P-way Boys are drinking Tea in the Fitters Bothy

27001 Sits outside the old goods shed at Bal-na-Muir

For what it's worth I think it is less obvious after your modifications

When I watch mine it has a tendency to surge a bit, just like an old Heljan model with a hairline in the gear causing a tight spot, easy to mistake for a dodgy motor. it is OK at lowest speed,not smooth though, then it gets quite erratic and finally settles at higher speeds Others who have removed the motor have also removed any potential meshing issue, motor removal will cure both faults. I know a fair bit about gearboxes and their issues. If I could only get a couple of spare axles I could find out, by turning the gear teeth off the wobbly axle (drive induced not bearing) and driving 2 on 1 and 1 on the other. To my eye everything looks ok, but 5 thou or so of eccentricity in the moulding can't be seen, but will cause lots of problems. To be honest it would have been better with a greater reduction as it's lowest speed is not very low, shame as otherwise it's a nice model.

I do think some of the rough running issues are a gear mesh issue, my 122 has a very sweet bogie and one that requires more voltage for the same effect. If you remove the lower gear covers and run the model upside down. one bogie is fine the rough runner has one wheelset that walks from side to side. Dapol, Tower and DCC supplies have been told about this as I wanted to try a different wheelset, I think the problem lies with the moulded gear on the axle. It's never good trying to fix the wrong problem. When they finally get spares, i'll try it and let you know.

It comes down to this. Are we the sort of country that should have its energy interests state owned and controlled or not ? If it were we may have a say in policy (ballot box) It would definitely have given us the choice to have a joined up energy strategy, which we don't and this is why we are in the situation we now find ourselves in. When you make it a supposedly open market you let in a lot of for profit organisations who do not have our best interests at heart. I remember being just out of my time and the gas industry being sold off and thinking, so this will be better and cheaper for us all just like Petrol is ............... It is not a utopia however as all the money making opportunities dry up. This in turn would bring unforeseen consequences upon us all I fear. Apologies for going slightly off topic

Fair comments, but it is still statute law in the UK that suppliers (gas and electric) inspect the apparatus at regular intervals. This is a safety issue as the site may deteriorate (water ingress, subsidence etc) or consumers may have illegal connections or other tampering, meter readers used to be trained to do more than just read meters. I can remember several Rotten supplies being picked up by the meter readers ultimately preventing a possible disaster. If you had worked inside it you would be astounded at some peoples attitude to their own and other peoples safety. In my parents day they looked forward to the meter reader giving them their rebate. It was the only bank they had, thankfully we are all better off in that respect nowadays.

One issue of smart meters is they all have switches/solenoids to isolate supply and under most types of meter fails the supply is off. older meters are not infallible, but much less likely to failure leaving no supply. In 30 years with the Gas board I changed about 2 meters due to seizure off supply and to be honest not a large amount for other fault reasons, other than age policy (regulation) in my last year there, it was more like 2 a month and the complex way the whole business is organised (or not) caused some customers to be off supply for 2-3 days!! sometimes longer. This was mortal sin when I was an apprentice. It was also why I left the industry at the earliest opportunity. Saturday night I'm called out to a property 30 miles away, coz their meter has flattened its 10 year battery in 2 months. I can swap it out for an old clockwork type in about 15 mins and get them back on, but no. I call my control and the supplier has no Post Emergency Metering Servces (PEMS) contract with us, so they have to phone them to ask. In the meantime I head home only to be told as I'm at the end of my street they have decided to pay us, so a new job has been raised and can I go back. This meant my whole Saturday night wasted on one 15 min job, which turned into the next day if a gas escape came in and took priority. The worst scenario was when they couldn't make up their minds and left the customer off. Fred Dibnah's famous quote `we've become a nation of con men selling each other double glazing' fits this perfectly. I think we are able to create a better future for ourselves, but fail because we seem to fall into the trap of doing what is easy, not best.

A brief word of caution about fitting a smart meter in a very low usage situation. I fitted a smart meter for a local organisation and when talking to the secretary he said, he hoped that it would save all the problems they were getting with billing as they only had a gas cooker and usage was under a tenner a year. The building was not occupied during the day and the meter was not getting read causing way off estimates, based on greed rather than actual consumption by the supplier. I met him by chance a few months later and asked him how it went? Terrible was the reply, the meter kept flagging a fault as it was not being used causing chaos, rather than the perpetual hassles with over estimated billing!!! No improvement then.. Best laugh ever was a new meter reader incorrectly reading a 8 row industrial meter ignoring the 0 on the first legend (tens of millions) which the supplier rather than questioning just sent out the bill which was over 140 grand. The supplier, rather than looking at the usual £1500-2000 bill and thinking, something's up here, they just charged it out. When I finally got sent to have a look at it the owner was beside himself. When I worked out his connected load (total input) and multiplied it out I found that if he had run his equipment 24/7/365 (totally impossible) it would use about £36000.00 per annum People ask me if I miss my job? Er. No and less with every year that passes