Northroader

It's just a case of 'pot luck' with the executor & trustee and the bring & buy, generally I have been seeing what's around second hand, although I am seeing some sense in my old age and buying more new kits which are relevant, two wagons and a horse box yesterday. My "list" gets carried over, so next go is Bristol in January.

There were some very tempting LNW 6wheelers on the bring and buy which had me hovering for a long time. In the end I just had a reality check and got some more relevant stuff for my line, but it was very close!

I enjoyed the serialised version on one or the other tv channels a few years back. (Edit: channel 4)The Irish station I did on a post on this thread does have a poster for the Lisheen Races.

Up to Reading today, so inspecting works while doing a ton on a HST. I formed the opinion that, yes, the Didcot- Reading stretch is about there., no bits of blue string, no temporary bonds. The wires go into the new depot, but nothing there with a pan on the roof, just the usual turbos and a sprinter. The Swindon side of Didcot, things are happening, sort of. The wires give up at Milton, and structures to the A34 overpass, then there's the black hole of Steventon. Do they intend to turn the diesels on to shoot the crossings? Out into the country past there, Wantage Road, Challow, and the structures are coming on well, posts, brackets, dangly bits, and quite long stretches of earth wire, nearly all the way to Uffington. Thinking back, a year ago, the earth wire was just starting to appear around Pangbourne, and now we're getting to Uffington. Progress in a year, eh?, old Brunel would be spinning in his grave. West of Uffington, there's a few posts and that's it.

I haven't forgotten Englefield, honest, it's just most of my effort is going into getting Washbourne mk. 2 into a run run situation. The one job that's going on is a feed mill is going up in the corner by the front siding. There's a 12mm ply base with a couple of dowels to locate it on the baseboard, then a 1mm ply shell to form the structure. This has stripwood pieces glued along the joins for reinforcement.

Everything is "gold plated" when we are in Europe, which could be the alloy you don't like? Brexit means brass, Teresa! No, sorry, I wasn't thinking, they're plug-in cassettes. Otherwise, what about flying leads, plug and sockets??

This arrangement works quite well:

I sent a letter to Santa, Kevin's been very good, please renew his subscription to the Pyramid builders gymnastics society, and send him a copy of Accumulator Chargers 2017 Annual.

Thanks for the links, Don, a very entertaining tale, what can be achieved when you put your mind to it, and the modelling is all quality, as well as quantity, as the pictures demonstrate.

Picking up on the responses to last nights post, firstly Castle Rackrent. As it lives in Scotland, it doesn't come this far south very often, I was lucky enough to catch it somewhere on one of its rare trips down here. I suppose logistics meant that just the main unit came, which is really what did it for me. The whole shebang got a write up in the Railway Modeller for February 78. There were another eleven units added to the original, ninety nine feet overall length! I won't be inspired to do that, although it's breath taking. Since then Richard went on to Allendenac, just a name til you see it, and then it just blows your mind, a bl**dy huge old French viaduct, with a junction thrown in as a special offer. It's back really to whatspace you're prepared to take, and what use you make of it. There are modellers who set out to plan a line by making an exact copy of the ordnance survey map, I've seen some at shows and they sprawl terribly to me, even if they are a spot on copy of the prototype. I do everything in O scale which creates more problems for what you can do. Take the 3mm line Heybridge Wharf put forward by Donw and Daifly. If I walked into a show and saw that, it would stop me in my tracks, it's so beautiful. Yes, that is the right word, isn't it? But then I'd reflect how could I handle it translating into a O gauge version, how much would be lost, just upping all the dimensions proportionally I'd end up with something far too large for where I could put it, but it still could remain as an ideal. Then to St.Georges Hill, O gauge, and with a cosy feel for the space it needs, I feel more at home with this. Thanks for the link and news, Dave. The Uckfield show pictures do far more justice to the quality of the modelling than mine. Oh well, back to the here and now..

Would there be a splinter group meeting for NiFe battery enthusiasts is a pub down the road from the lead acid crowd? It could lead to ugly scenes, otherwise.

Compliment him on a job well done. My understanding is he's sold it on but it is coming back on the exhibition circuit. I'd love to see more detail if he's agreeable.

There's a thread running on here about layouts and articles that provided inspiration, I had my tenpenn'orth about one I started with when I was young, but it set me off thinking. So tonight instead of reporting the current state of bodgedom, I'm doing a post on what's been inspiring me in working towards Washbourne. The four layouts I've picked have been at the top of the pile for a long time for me, and are all good examples of restricted space termini. I'm giving references where they have appeared in a publication, also rough sizes, with one exception. I've been lucky enough to have a good look at them at shows, and the pictures are mine, which I hope will give you an idea, although the layouts creators would probably be happier with better camerawork. You'll see although I'm an O gauge fan, two 4mm lines have appeared. First off, then, is Castle Rackrent. Looking at when it appeared, things like the configuration of the kickback siding in front of the fiddle yard must have been very fresh. The flowing curves are very attractive, particularly how the road bends over the skew bridge with the line underneath. The scenic back is well done to give a feeling for the country the line is set in. It must have took courage to do an Irish gauge line back then, these days Slaters have the proper axles and wheelsets available. Next is Kettlewell, really compact, good to look at, with a good grouping of limestone buildings helping the Yorkshire Dales feel. Another compact line with a South Wales setting, Llanastr, all very neatly done, and good to watch. Quite small, but operating freight and passenger trains easily. Finally, there's St George's Hill. You go to Weybridge, ignore the action on the quad tracks out of Waterloo, (hard to do) and look instead at the northwest corner where the branch from Virginia Water comes in. Then set your watch back 150 years to the LSWR in the Beattie days. I haven't got any publication ref. for this, or dimensions. It's O gauge, and I would estimate the passenger train length in the middle at 24", if that's a help. It would be nice to have a picture of the bridge end, thats good. People who've seen it will say, yes that's the grandfather clock line, as it folds into the case for one. You can just see the elaborate fold down legs for the free end. Well, that's it, four examples of excellence. I'll be lucky if I can get anywhere near, but it's something to aim for. "Standing on the shoulders of giants".

That's a co-inkydink, isn't it? Jan /Feb 1950! I would have said it predated Portreath, but that would depend on my views being coloured by which the RM reported first. How do you manage to keep an eye on all these threads, Kevin? It seems I miss a lot.

Here's one from way back, buried in me subconscious, but I'm afraid I never kept the article, so I can't give you chapter and verse. It was in the Railway Modeller, and appeared some time in the early 1950s. It was an article by the great CJF, and he was writing about a layout that had been drawn to his attention. He had previous mentioned a "railway in a pantry" and had been asked for more detail. It seems that the pantry wasn't a regular shape, so he had redrawn the line to a proper rectangle. No layoutname was mentioned, I seem to remember it was by a Mr, Colson of Bristol, but I could have that wrong, and there were a couple of none too clear photos. The thing that made everybody sit up was that is was a 6x4 oval branch line in OO. So what? you say, well, it was groundbreaking in those days. All the experienced modellers took note, the callow youths (me) just thought that looks good. I've drawn this from memory, some of the track details could be different, looking at it now the fiddle yard is ripe for cassettes. Several of the lines featured on this thread clearly drew inspiration from here. I tried it, too, where I went wrong was it had to be capable of storage and I made it as a single unit, which got in the way. At the time I was just about to leave school, leave home, returning just at weekends, socialising and family, which didn't leave much time for modelling. It was quite a few years before I got settled.

The cells were "accumulators", rectangular glass articles, which needed to go somewhere with lectricity to get charged up, onthe railway widespread usage on the s&t side. On a domestic basis my aunt and uncle had a cats whisker radio needing juice, as they lived in a house with oil lamps for lighting and coal fire for heat and cooking. The accumulator had a mile trip to a picture house (cinema) which charged loads for the whole district. On the way it passed a GWR halt, with oil lamps on the crossing gates and the platform. The place had an aroma of oil from the lamps and creosote from the sleepers and halt buildings. So rather than a lot of building work, just tip a can of creosote and another of lamp oil over CA and breathe in...

You could bring the loop closer to the platforms and call it "Inverness".

I use Bakers acid with all my soldering jobs. Possibly with the euro inspired swing away from lead based solder (the reason I voted for brexit) cored solder is harder to find. The thing is, when you apply a hot iron to it, it etches the metal clean to achieve a good joint, but in doing so, it boils off, with a fine mist of vapour and droplets, which go looking for anything handy to condense on, and start rusting away. Consequently you need to either thoroughly clean everywhere close to the joint afterwards, and be sure to remove things such as steelrimmed wheels well away before starting the job. Then there's leaning over the job, breathing in...

Yes, 5'3" Northern Counties Comittee, t'other is Taff Vale with a Swindon boiler.

As long as they don't pinch your balls. (Hat, coat, etc.)

"Bring us our chariot of a burning dean goods..." yes, I suppose so...?

You could dash off on a chase for much nicer U1s than that great lunky thing, the Great Western (sort of) and the LMS (sort of) both had them;

Sometimes us sits and thinks, most times us just sits..

A favourite story for 37s in South Wales was when there was some problem with the steel works in Scotland, and some of the Eastfield ones were sent down for gainful employment until it was sorted. These were, of course, adorned with that small Scotty dog that depot put on their fleet. One night, in Canton depot, the foreman was going round one ready to be released following a service, and he found some joker had been busy with the white paintbrush. A second scotty dog had appeared behind the first, doing what scotty dogs do. Blue paint quickly brought to the scene!