GeoffAlan

I'm glad to have stumbled over this thread. It brings back memories of watching them load trains in Darlington station. The train was made up of a mixture of vehicles in colours from pure filth, through dirty Bauxite, grimy Maroon, grubby Green to almost pristine Blue/Grey, all hauled by an equally filthy Green EE Type 4. The train had 4 wheel, 6 wheel and bogie vehicles distributed at random throughout, with some dating back to pre-war and others almost new. It was always amazing to me that so many Green CCTs made it to Darlington!

My tactic with the 'Windows' calls, before we went ex-directory and bought a number blocking phone, was to ask them which computer was infected, a laptop, one of the desk tops, or the mainframe. As they continued the patter I'd interrupt and start to say:- 'This is serious and you'll need to talk to our Head of IT, his name is Chief Inspector Robinson.....' I never got further than that as they always disconnected the call!

It all went to hell in a hand-basket when the called 000 N gauge, getting the N from Nine millimeters the width, or gauge, of the track.. Now the term N scale is used abroad and by some sellers in the UK. By extension T gauge/scale is 3mm track width. I'd prefer using either the numeric scale 1:76 or 1:148 but given in N gauge we have 1:148 1:150 and 1:160 all running on N gauge track......

Yes, Another one is telling you that your latest bill is ready to view. Except it arrives on the wrong day and has a private sender's address.

Now I too detest Janafon Woss.

Mrs GeoffAlan detests Carol Vorderman with a passion. Whereas I rather like her . I really can't see why she dislikes her..... I'm just off for a cold shower!

I can thoroughly recommend it. The coverage is incredibly long with several formats in the card. I record the whole 7hrs*, then watch only the races missing out a lot, but not all of the talking and the adverts. Give or take!

I've followed F1 since the 1950s when, if you were really lucky the news might show a car drive over the finish line as they told you the result. Occasionally the local motor club got film of a race, but by modern standards the coverage was very poor. As coverage on TV increased I watched every race in the season, these days we have a household embargo in news before the Highlights races, as the BBC, in particular, take great delight in telling you the result.....without any warning! If F1 goes pay-for-view in any shape or form I suspect that will be the end of my viewing. I too refuse to donate any money to the Murdoch family. I suspect many will pay no matter where it goes. However many won't as has been shown in countries where coverage is behind a pay wall. For entertainment and damn good, if sometimes dirty, racing the BTCC package is a lot better than F1, but the prototype nature of F1 has its own fascination.

Middlesbrough didn't get blitzed, but it did get a few bombs on it over the war. One landed in the station wrecking my mother's desk and killing one of her friends who, unlickily, was in the office at the time. As a kid in the 1950s there were odd buildings missing from otherwise identical streets and when I got interested in the war, as all us boys did back then, I tracked sticks of bombs dropped from 'lone raiders' as they made nuisance raids in daylight or night-time. So a reasonable modelling of a post war town might show these bombsites. They were cleared of rubbish and left to stand, some into the 1960s before someone decided to build on the plot. Gresham Road, a terraced secondary link in the network of roads and streets, had one house that was very different to all those around it, being for a start twice as big as neighbouring properties and of a very different style. It's still there as far as I know, it certainly was in 2006 when I cleared my late mother's house when she moved in with my sister. My mother knew it was a bomb site built on in the late 1940s.

Given nobody alive saw Railways in the 1880s we have a lot of knowledge about the operation of at least some of the companies then running them. The general enthusiasm for railways is at least as high today as any time in my 66 years of life, so I expect the body of knowledge, in books, photographs and online will enable modellers in 50 years time to operate an early British Railways era layout well enough to pass muster.

I can't see it happening as a regular service. As has been said the infrastructure isn't there anymore. However there's a clear business model for heritage and new build locomotives offering an enthusiast's service at a premium. The success of Tornado and the P2 Prince of Wales now building is an example to both the operators and the line owners of a means to earn money. I can foresee a 'regular service' of enthusiasts specials being diagrammed into the system, but not as a routine running with steam haulage.

My N gauge flywheel models run on from a scale 45mph after power is abruptly cut. That tells me the flywheel is having an effect.

I thought 'Plastic bit in end of tap' was the technical term. Shows my ignorance.

Yes, don't forget the LNER was always chronically short of cash too.

I tend to think that a flywheel is almost always worth fitting in OO. A number of my N gauge locos have one, factory fitted, and all of them run better on dirty track than similar non-flywheel models. The gains are small but all you need is to roll the wheels on a fraction of a turn in order to restore contact and power.

While many have picked out gradations of eras not covered in the survey, the one thing it seems to show is that we tend to model our childhood eras. No doubt there is a deep psychological reason for this. Now some questions. 1. Am I alone in modelling a number of eras? 2. Am I alone in modelling different countries? 3. Finally, if we are having fun, does any of this matter?

I see a seller of predominately N gauge second hand rolling stock and locomotives who consistently lists all of his items as rare. This is a sales ploy, no doubt, but when it appears next to overpriced Peco wagons, that are still available from Rails or Hattons, at the normal price?

It's not a 'British' thing to haggle.People tend to be embarrassed to ask for a discount/offer a lower price. Being a Yorkshire-man I'm not shy about saving money and often haggle on second-hand goods. In a longish life I've only a couple of times met a really bad reaction to an offer. One guy was so insulted by my (I thought, very reasonable.) opening offer, some 20% below his asking price that he invited me to depart. (As you would expect it was somewhat bluntly put!) Another was so gobsmacked at an offer, that he immediately enlisted his spouse, who had been unloading the van onto the stall. She was more willing to haggle and a price was reached. Often you get rebuffed, and that's part of the game too. I can ask and they can refuse. After a refusal I'll either pay the asking price or walk away, I know how much I'm prepared to go to for an item and will go no further. Over the years I've saved some money, which would have delighted my Yorkshire ancestors. As Grandma would have said:- 'Shy kids get nowt.'

Around this time I remember camping near Shap and seeing those new fangled diesel locos being banked up shap by good old steam locos. I have no idea how long that went on, but we saw both goods and passenger trains with an oily smelly diesel up front and a magnificent example of the steam locomotive engineer's art behind. Not that we were/are biased. One of our number was a locomotive engineer employed by British Railways, and long and hard did he lecture us on the merits of diesels. Long and hard did we argue, that, if they were so damn good, why did Mr Stanier's finest need to trouble themselves aiding these horrible green boxes over the climb. Many a comment that a 4P in good nick would have stormed the hill were, sadly, and rightly ignored, and the diesel revolution came to the UK.

Yup! Although the bulge in your pocket will be 'interesting to behold'!

At College we decided to introduce a new word. We chose GIMP, to mean a pint of beer. (Well we were students and apart from sex what else was there to do?) Within a month, people not in the know were using the word. within two months, nobody working on the bar even blinked when asked for half a gimp ot Tetley's. We then stopped using the word and withing 3 months, never heard it again.

I suspect they'd already pulled out the old bits, then found they didn't have the parts. They'd be precluded from refitting potentially faulty parts. As you have a loaner, no big deal, unless, like us you have to wait 10 months for the bits to come in. We're still awaiting Airbag replacement of Lady Byegad's Toyota.

Could be. My wife's Toyota does that from nearly 5 meters away through the dining room wall. We had a local police alert about thieves using a signal booster held against the house wall to enable opening up and then starting the car. £5 donated to your favourite on-line River-related shopping site and we have two little pouches to drop the fobs into when we're not using the car. With the key in the pouch there's no way the car is going to open even if you are stood next to the car. Worth a try???

My main layout is Sunnisyde. Set in an imaginary Expanded Yorkshire incorporating part of Doggerland*. I can and do run LNER British Railways from 1948-1990, German, and French, locos and stock. I try to keep to an era, so don't mix Blue?Grey stock with LNER or Blood and Custard, but it's Rule One. My railway and I'll run what I like. All of the above has a kind of impossible possibility in it, but then what excuse do I have for running Japanese outline or North american outline stock? Only that I liked the model so bought it and run it. While most combinations of stock I run on the layout are correct for an era and I change road vehicles and the like to suit it. I see no problem with anything appearing. I even have some fictional locos for an even dafter running session. Why does all of this matter, well sadly it allows me to justify buying almost anything! * A bit of difficulty here as Doggerland was submerged under the North Sea approx 6000 yrs ago,

Over 40+ years of N gauge model railway modelling, and a few in OO before that, I'm working on N gauge layout Nos 5. & 6. I found my real enjoyment of the hobby comes from two very different things. So my permanent layout, No. 5 started some 18 months ago following a house move has two continuous loops, one with sidings as well as a station, and an almost end to end layout around the outside. I say almost as all three sets of tracks connect. The loops allow me to 'sit and watch the trains go by'. My first pleasure. While the end to end allows for shunting of goods and passenger stock. My second pleasure. What of layout No 6? Well its a miniature shunting layout built into a double shotgun case. For the first time I'm using magnetic uncoupling and if it's a success then I may add that to my end to end section on the main layout. On the back-burner I have plans for N outdoors, and each year the under tree Xmas layout gets a bit more detail. Being busy = enjoyment IMHO.