Northroader

You were talking about having room for an 0-6-0 tender engine?

It's funny looking back now, with the knowledge of what notieriety a certain substance has since gained, at a derailment at Llantarnam junction involving an ordinary 12ton goods van loaded with this substance (amm&n@@m n£tr/t#, if you're still with me - it the one that trips searches) As it had a hazardous goods label the local traffic boys had taken the precaution of telling the local fire brigade, and we turned up with the breakdown van, "nothing to worry about, just bags of fertiliser" the firemans chief scratches his head and goes off to consult his bumper book of hazardous substances, comes back after a bit "yeah, that's not a problem, we'll stay til youve done, but no worries" Now, things would be much tighter!

Just to show what a metallurgical mess my engines are, here's one in progress, with brass footplate, splashers, and bunker, and nickel silver boiler, outer firebox, and cab wrapper (in progress).

Thanks for that picture, it does capture the strange "other worldly" quality that line has.

I'd best shut up before James hits me with a writ (Habeas mea threadum vandalicus, Eliz. II. Cap. 99, para 139, subsection 11(b), sort of thing)Enjoy Ormesby, me, I'm off to Hardwicke tomorrow. (Another chance to confuse stately home places with model show venues) I like that picture, you've made great strides wth CA, where's the militia?

Well, I was just hoping to encourage folks to progress from plastikard to brass / n.s., and as the model was brass, this got the limelight. Funnily enough, I mix both willy nilly, but boilers tend to be n.s.

We did a similar thing once with a screw top glass jar, but without gunpowder. Half full of water, and a few spoonfuls of calcium carbide in, then screw down firmly, and retire. Long ago, carbide was readily available, as when mixed with water, it produces acetylene gas for lamps, if you see where this is going. Trouble is, we placed it on top of my mates grandmas garden wall, and old mrs Pearce had her washing out next door. Class for putative hooligans over for tonight.

Last week I was reminded that there are some decent folks out there who are clinging to the faint hope that at the end of this lot a small Brighton line will appear. Here's a picture to keep their hopes alive, a job coming good in the shops. It's a Roxey Mouldings kit for a Stroudley horse box. This could be called the 'joys of O gauge', as it shows what I like about O, the size of a model like this. As I stick to small trains, this suits me fine. You could also call it the 'joys of brass'. I first picked up a file and a piece of brass at an apprentice school a long time back, and I'd just say, "try it", it's a marvellous medium to work in. The rectangular mouldings were a bit fiddly to solder, and the white metal spring units needed careful fitting, with filing down to give clearance, particularly for the rocking axleguard unit, before they're araldited in. It's ready for painting, then glazing, then the roof goes on. Production has been slow recently, SWMBO decided that we really must have a new carpet in the lounge / diner area, despite me going "what we've got is lovely, we don't need another one, think of the upheaval, where will it all go, etc., etc.," well, it's in, and the dust is settling, took the old one to the tip this morning, maybe I can in some serious modelling soon...

P.s. Have you ever stuck one of the old bangers made from guncotton in the hole for the wire at the top of a concrete fencing post? The reinforcing rods go like a peeled banana. Wonder why they don't make proper bangers any more?

Those leather straps used to get cut off short, and taken home for people to strop their "cut throat" razors on. Lucky most folks use an electric razor these days!

And a visit from the special branch... ho, hum, back to Norfolk.

Ideally you would need to have a continuous outer firebox running through the cab as well.

We mixed our own gunpowder with all the proper ingredients, packed it in a box with fuse and decided the school boys toilet block (outdoor) would be the best place for a test. It didn't go off "bang", just generated a ginormous cloud of thick smoke which slowly drifted away, leaving a big patch behind. Bit of a let down.

We had some of that two part resin mix on the drive, and one aspect besides cost is that it does go off very quickly. The boys doing it were going fast, and on a flat job they just got there, but with something as fiddly as ballast round track you would have to do small quantities at a time.

I always thought it was odd the way he'd turn up at a retirement do at the BRSA with her in tow rather than the missus.(sorry,rob, I'm starting to go way off track)

Are you still planning to make the west yard/ staging yard bit removable for exhibition use?

Down in South Wales, in a place with a lot of sand dunes, the area manager was quite close with his secretary, and another member of staff on the shed was very fond of animals, he was known to everyone as "Morgan, the Margam Mountain mutton mounter".

In the budget today, didn't the Chancellor put a limit on the number of pugs that can be bought, due to uncontrollable demand?

Back on the line, trackwork is going on in the fiddle yard. There's a new point made at the entry, which allows me to approach the double slip from all four directions and do more testing. Concurrently the three small Brighton tanks you met last year are getting a mod. They were built to go round an extreme curve, and each one had a pony truck at one end. Pickups were fitted on the other wheels, but not the pony truck. I've now got simple pickups fitted on the pony truck, with a piece of copper clad board bolted on, and a phosphor bronze strip (Slaters) rubbing on the rim of the wheel. I was finding the engines could be a bit iffy, and now they are much steadier runners at slow speed. However, there is still some checking on the double slip crossing, so the track gang haven't done once the fiddle yard is completed!

If you stuck a shed in the middle it would look a bit like Queen's Park on the Bakerloo? I hope the new interchange tunnel underneath Paddington is nice and big.

Never yet grasped how someone can design an electric train and then somehow space can be found to stick in a Diesel engine of equivalent power and associated accessories and the body design will take the additional weight and permitted track axleloads won't be exceeded, and then all the Whitehall crowd are happily running round going let's fit the rest of the fleet while we're at it, cos it don't cost that much extra after all?

There's a very pretty blue one of them on eBay right now. Eight hundred smackers? What am I doing looking at eBay?? Ah-ah...

Only twenty? ETS chassis?

And the good news is we've just done the first page and strayed away from the London suburbs and southern counties to Egypt and Belgium already. Very interested by this tinplate rebuild mentioned on Senor Corbs new thread, where that going? On here I hope, or I am going to lose the plot!

Coo, that really is a "relief"! Great start.