Northroader

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.

Starting to look promising, I hope you've got some deflection and sideplay built in to the wheelsets, particularly the centre one, I find sixwheelers do give me grief with this.

Sitting on the train, looking out of the window, I was watching the waves wash up underneath on the beach from a passing Red Funnel SeaCat. The beach is just shingle, no sand, so don't bother taking your bucket and spade. Their boat is called "Great Expectations" lets hope that comes true. Their other boat which wrecked on the pier was called "Uriah Heep"! So you can't fault an operation using Dickens characters, can you?

Junk models will now be at a premium since you started this thread.

There is an article on it in this months "narrow guage world" but I haven't picked up what any future date will be, if any. An action group to support the line has been formed, and listing as an historic oojit applied for. The current operator is trying to sell to a local outfit who may have some more resources such as standby boat, so just maybe, it will continue as a most unusual railway with great charm. Looking at it all, it has an amazing "shoe string" look about the whole shebang. There's plenty of good pics. if you Google " Hythe Pier Railway" and "images".

Here's one to share with you from a trip out today, I ended up at Hythe and had a trip on the narrow guage railway - no, not the RHDR, by a strange coincidence, there's another Hythe also with a narrow guage line, larger than the Romney in that it's two foot guage, but smaller in the sense that it's only 700 yards long, so a good candidate for a micro layout. The motive power is an electric third rail loco, which works in a push- pull mode. I gather there's two of them. Theyre powered at 230v. DC, and were built by Brush in 1917 for a chemical warfare factory as battery powered, but converted to third rail when it came to Hythe in 1922. Will it see a century of service at Hythe? Very iffy, it works in conjunction with a ferry which is down to one boat for its operation, money is needed for infrastructure repairs, it's had one cash handout from the county council, and whilst a tourist attraction, I can't see that lasting, especially with competing bus services. It is a very pleasant trip with the ferry, so best get down there sooner rather than later. The appearance of the loco is unbelievable, it's even uglier than a class 70, if the drivers window was round rather than square, it would look like a Minion! However, handsome is as handsome does, you're looking at an operation that's put in nearly a century of service, day in, day out, all year round. How many other narrow guage railways in Britain can say that?

"Clean Up the Seaton Junction Site" - alright, who snitched on Phil???

Ooh, ta, you won't regret it, guvnor, grovel, grovel.. here's a Nellie with a new superstructure, which is a sort of narrow gauge version of a Highland Railway "Dornoch" 060T, but its only an 040T really, as you can see. I'm afraid it's a bit "stop-go".

G'wan, G'wan..

Mr. Corbs, sir, on your esteemed new hyperthread, are On16.5 rebuilds allowed? and would Nellies and Desmonds be let through the door?

You can have it in concrete as well

Ceci nest pas un mantelpiece.

Hey, Jacky, I see your S2 has made the O Scale Resource. Looks really good, well done! https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Foscaleresource.com%2F&h=ATMomZMoMYWUuz2brRowZS-822CduTFjfO2xWrz3kKZXLyvBdDr4hWmrOeUOvXmIJPvDm1bkCA2APtaKlwFLtiDtnO9orvquvI1e2wfoMeHMwBCCD4An3jqm4pOz6Wpx4w&enc=AZPMZ65xwfs2M1tGnMLtx3R2GOEtpTM9qVtHT_gt3A4wQlubOp2lr_YP8yapI6lBGXb7xKVsYmC8NACyEreN9cyOHQ8Ddc1ajqHsCBN53wkDhiXpYUi5BuR_AcLGzGAshWCq0n63j1n_m1xy5_PNUOoFoPWAD649EI92hk2fYvCfzXjrUQuwoD8ExFve_nrqk3M&s=1

Alright, then, before we get to Tintin and Poirot, what about Paul Delvaux? Who? Google and go to images, (please do, just make sure there's no one around to say "perving again, eh, grandad?") Artist, who painted trains and nudes, i.e. a proper artist. He has featured on RMweb in the proper place:http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/76860-a-discussion-on-railway-art/page-3#ipboard_body

I'll raise you an Egide Walschaerts and an Alfred Belpaire

Ooohh! Goody, looks promising, loads of luck and best wishes with the outcome! Where's the pyramid/s?

The track gang are still busy, including the double slip. I'm finding adding shims as needed is working. The critical area is the short length between the end of the crossing and the start of the point blades. By gauging I'm working out exactly where the flangeway goes, and if there's a gap between the edge of this space and the rail it gets filled with a shim. Pretty basic, Nigel Molesworth would remark "Any fule kno that". Was I in too much of a hurry when I made it? The crossings are made by gauging off the outer rails same as an ordinary point, but from there it becomes more virtual with shorter lengths dependant on other bits for their placing. Anybody looking at it closely would go "Eurggh!", but it works, and a lot of it will be tucked under an over-bridge. More work is being done on the right hand board at the back where the fiddle yard area will go. Some time back I've posted a picture of the snug little station at the front of the board, and at present the scenic background support has been removed to give me unrestricted access for trackwork.

That is a really good set of models working on very nice track.

That Alida Valli was there, as well.http://ilarge.lisimg.com/image/6995063/1118full-alida-valli.jpg

Your model looks like the "Mark 2" version. The sides look very similar in proportion, giving it a body length around 9'8", although the upper half was louvred in the mark 1. On yours the wheels jut out beyond the end, giving it a wheelbase of around 10', so they'd obviously found out a problem existed, and it should help running on your line. With the splashers, the wheels are also the normal 4' size, the mark 1 had 3' wheels. Another difference is the ends on yours are sheet metal, the original had wood. I'm quoting from a Colin Thorne drawing, taken from a drawing in MacDermot.

Long time ago, going round Brush in Loughborough looking at what became type 47s under construction. In the rank was one with a dirty big headlamp and the control cabinet in Spanish, everybody was a bit coy about it, but it turned out it was one of the Cuban batch. A few years later I was talking with a Sulzer rep who had gone out with the locos when new to see them through the guarantee period. He said that on one occasion there was a power plant failure and he suggested that they did a unit change with the spare one that had been shipped out with them. All manner of reasons were trotted out as to why this couldn't be done, and eventually he found out their friends the Russians had "borrowed' it, and it was being carefully examined in the USSR.

Splitting hairs, Bucknell's in Shropshire.