Northroader

Well, it depends, I want to run a line that has trains in sets, passenger and goods, even if very restricted, and there’s a bit of scope for shunting, but not much, but that’s what floats my boat. You can do a line where you can just shuffle wagons around in a gentle relaxing session, that are around half the length of mine. Jordan’s layout, Lyddlow Goods, is a good example. http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/129574-smallest-o-gauge-layout-possible-with-operating-potential/page-1&do=findComment&comment=2980080 That way you’re still modelling in 0 scale, and it’s just that I like the bulk. If you pick up an 0 gauge wagon and hold it, it’s a much more satisfying feel than 00. Though 0n16.5 ain’t bad, either.

The main board is sized at 60” x 16”, (1525 x 410) one piece, no joins, and the fiddle yard is 41.5” x 21” (1050 x 530) which has just four cassettes on, plus a lot of space, not strictly necessary, used as a dumping ground. Remember we’re talking 0 gauge, I wouldn’t advise anything smaller. Highly flattered if you do nick it, always assuming you work out where it’s gone recently???

Thanks, Kevin, it’s 16”, 407mm, wide. I knew those stickyout bits had a fancy name, but could I hell find it.

Then there’s Hazeldines foundry.http://www.engineering-timelines.com/scripts/engineeringItem.asp?id=1193

I’ve put the backscene into place now, as it’s got a nice flat hardboard sheet behind it, with curved corners. Once the cartridge paper has been painted on, it becomes quite stiff, and lies flat, although you can go over it with a hot iron, if it’s ruckled. If there is a tendency to sag, you can always stiffen it with another strip glued on behind. The bottom edge just tucks down behind platforms and so on, then the top edge is just clipped on to the hardboard using a few small brass clips, painted pale blue grey. (You can just pick them out in the photo, hope they don’t strike you as too obtrusive, one way to avoid this would be to have something like Velcro strips hanging over the back) I don’t glue the scenes to the back support, as I want to change them, just like a theatre does. Here’s a shot of the warehouse corner, and I hope you’ll agree it bears out my contention that a model layout needs a backscene as much as a loco. There’s a permanent platform made now for the warehouse to fit on, wood strips and ply, with some kirtleypete brickpaper and stone setts done in a redutex sheet. It being halfterm, the granddaughters came yesterday, and senior one in a creative fit put in a small tree and a patch of green scatter for grass at the back of this platform. I missed this happening, I was watching junior g.d. running trains happily on my American Line, except little people were either having a ride or placed on the track for the Atlas switcher to run over. I love ‘em to bits, but sometimes... anyway, after they’d gone I found what had happened on the platform, and cleared it up, except the glue she used does react with redutex sheet! Still, it’s only a little patch. The warehouse went into place, and I found the hoist housing needed to be chamfered back to clear van roofs. I do like the appearance of these housings, they make the building look much more interesting. Then the warehouse has gained a roof, so it’s now finished. Now on to work on the station end.

Like the station idea, of course we’re all here.

You give two glasses to an optician and he makes a spectacle of himself.

Here’s a typical example in a nice Edwardian setting, (Shere, my favourite bit of Surrey)

I ain’t committing on which ones as I don’t want you hanging around waiting for an eighty year old to save up and phase in with lots of other unfinished jobs. I’ll pester you when I can make it, roll on Telford.

I always marvel at anyone doing anything in 2mm scale, let alone a fiddly lever frame like that, so you’re allowed glasses, Jim. I’ve been wearing them since I was six, but around fifty things had progressed to the point I needed long range and reading, and I went for one of each. So I was swapping from a to b all the time. All went well until one day i goes into the bank, did a swap, putting the long ones down at the side of me, sorted the paperwork out with the bank clerk, then went out, replacing the long ones I picked up. Outside a sense of unfamiliarity caught up with me, and I reasoned out (not slow, me) that I’d got the wrong glasses on. More reasoning (real Sherlock Holmes stuff) and I worked out the woman who’d been standing at the next counter position had made off with mine, and left me hers, and then persuading the bank clerk that I needed details of her, which were not unsurprisingly given, but anyway the bank sorted it out and I was reunited with my glasses. (Ahhh, happy ending) since when I’ve been a very happy user of bifocals. Anyhow, more to the point, I really liked how Dave did the trip over the moorland to bolster our hero’s resolution and report back to the rest of us yokels. Great work!!

Oh bum, I can understand why you carry limited stocks, but some of your long listed stuff is on my “get it when you’ve saved up enough” list, still best wishes for your personal goings on. In the meantime, can I vouch as a disinterested party that the sintered laser production method does give an excellent surface finish on the items you’ve showed me at shows, much better than some 3D production methods from other sources.

And thank you for finishing with a shot of Washbourne Hill.

Well, if you’re working with physical exertion you’re going to burn the calories off as fast as you put them in. Anyhow, if he’s a good worker, problem solved.

I’m slowing down, matey, Ive been trying some of the “quick in and out thrusts with a hot iron” attaching limbs on w.m. figures, sometimes I’m just not quick enough!

Mention of MoD Puriton, and you set me off thinking of another strange little place on the Bristol Channel, although a bit far north for a S&D branch, as it’s just above Weston SM. St. Thomas’s Head, which had a godforsaken little MoD depot which was developing armaments. A few Nissanhuts and a little jetty. It was privatised some time back, but the contractors lost their licence when they unfortunately left a pallet full of bombs out on the beach below the High Tide mark, and they vanished! Extensive searches by divers but they were never found. The place is derelict now, but a nice setting for a railway, with lots of sheep grazing, too.

When you say Bleat Wharf, I think of Dunball wharf, just round the corner up the River Parrett. Quite a lot of it is rundown, particularly the railway bits, but there is still a steady traffic, lorryborne, of mendip quarried aggregates which is loaded on to a ship and over to Cardiff. Maybe this might help bump up your goods trains?

Jonathan, if you don’t feel up to low melt solder, and I certainly don’t, the times I try white metal soldering it starts to dissolve in shapeless pools, you can assemble your kit with 24- hour Araldite epoxy. Do it a bit at a time, and hold in position with blutak and elastic bands until it’s set, and you’ve done it. I’ve got a big 0 gauge hopper wagon done this way with no problems.

There you are then, work on those for a bit, and you’ll have a big smile on your clock in a week.

One I’ve been working at today is when the point blade is open, is there the right clearance to gauge for the gap?

Way back, we were doing trials on the carbon brushes of the electrical machinery that lived in the nose of a type 4, (class 40) and so headed off down the ECML from Gateshead. Somewhere past Low Fell, the nose clamshell doors flew open, as somebody had forgotten to secure the catch. Rolling along at over 60, with an overbridge coming up about quarter mile in front, me and my mate dives down from the cab, through the door into the nose end and making a grab to pull the doors back down into guage before we got to the bridge. Just made it, but we didn’t catch any pigeons.

Nice poem, it catches a mood, and yes, it is Picardy.

A 4-6-0 with a line of poplars, yes, that would be nice.

On a lighter theme of paddle steamers, here’s a shot of the one that sank, parked in Gloucester Docks in happier times. Not much freeboard for a trip across the Irish Sea? Then over to the Isle of Wight for two old wrecks, both built in 1937. This is quite an old photo, I hasten to add.

And you still ain’t found the cottage?

I thought the Peckett running smoothly in your video looked really promising. Keep going with the modelling with our full support.