Tanllan

The W&LLR re-opened on 1st August. To discover what is on offer please see this short video.

The Welshpool & Llanfair Light Railway re-opened on 1st August. For the time being trains are only running from Llanfair to Castle Caereinion & Return. To maintain effective soicla distancing tickets must be pre-booked and the carriages are cleaned after every trip. To book tickets please visit www.wllr.org.uk/book-tickets

Paul, Having looked again at my pictures I am going to go with this design https://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/brttanks/h1E09B633#h1e09b633 On the grounded tank I saw the end buttresses have been gas-axed off. See picture below. Thanks for all the replies. Something like this would make a nice lineside feature on a model railway.

I came across this tank, adjjacent to a public footpath, while out for a walk. To me it would appear to have been rail part of a railway vehicle and has now been repurposed for storing liquid fertilizer. It is on the margin of a farm and there is road access close by. The bracing Tee section welded along the length to the lower side of the tank has clearly been gas cut away from some other structure. I have looked at Paul Barlett's photos but cannot find a picture of a rail tank wagon there where the vestigial part of the bracing Tee section wraps as far round the end.

Surfing With The Alien - Joe Satriani

The late MIke Abbott's model and miniature railway collection will be sold by auction on 18th August 2020 by of Gildings Auctioneers of Market Harborough. There are 229 lots that include G Scale and Gauge 1 locomotives, 71/4 inch gauge locomotives and a large amount of 00 gauge equipment. Proceeds of the sale will benefit the Welshpool and Llanfair Light Railway. Date 18th August 2020 Formal announcement is here https://www.gildings.co.uk/news-item/full-steam-ahead/?pc=26 Auction catalogue is here <https://www.gildings.co.uk/auction/search/?au=79 I am posting here as a member and regular volunteer of the Welshpool & LLanfair Light Raiway Preservation Society and have no connection with Gildings.

Into The Blues - Joan Armatrading

I Feel Free - Cream

I snapped this, Evektor EV-97 EuroStar, earlier today while out for a walk. I presume it was heading for Holmbeck Farm airfield.

Your Heart Is As Black As Night - Beth Hart & Joe Bonamassa

I Could Be Happy - Altered Images

Cruel Brother - The Corries

The biggest hammer I have used to tighten a nut is a short handled 14lb one - and that was a looooooong time ago. At the Welshpool & Llanfair Light Railway we have a very large (20lb ?) hammer stamped 'Cam. Rlys' that is occasionaly used to persuade nuts to undo. I can remember a job in the 1980s where we were trying to undo a 2" BSP parallel threaded plug. As per normal it was stuck fast. Someone came up the idea of welding a socket onto the end of the tommy bar to receive the business end of a pneumatic road breaker in an attempt to create a sort of makeshift impact wrench. It didn't work. As ever the plug had to be drilled out and collapsed inwards.

We've Gotta Get Out Of This Place - The Animals

The Welshpool & Llanfair Light Railway originally had three carriages. When the GWR stopped the passenger service they were scrapped. In the early 2000s we set about raising funds for a replica coach and this was delivered in 2004. Then thanks to a very generous benefactor two more were obtained. There are very few differences between the originals and the replicas. Total cost was in the region of three quarters of a million pound (£750,000).

I have been playing with my camera this morning. I have previous experimented with Focus Stacking but had not been very successful. Today by using a 'sighting object' to set the focus for each slice I have produced waht I could consider to be a satifactory result. Equipment Used: SLR camera on a tripod, a section of model railway complete with a loco and 4 wagons, a sighting object - a short ruler held in a clip, photo manipulating software - GIMP (2-10-20 rev.1) Process: Set up equipment Take some pictures to get the camera settings right. SEt camer shutter to 2 seconds delay. From now on the camera and rolling stock must not move Take a genreal reference picture. Place sighting object (SO) at front of loco. Manually focus camera, remove SO, take picture Reset SO at front of first wagon, focus camera, remove SO, take picture, Repeat, repeat. Download pictures to camera Select pictures to use for stacking Open first picture in editing software Open 2nd picture in editing software. Select slice of photo using rectangle select tool. Copy Visible. Go to 1st Picture and Using Edit, Paste AS New Layer/Paste in Place command add slice to 1st picture. Repeat for as many slices as required. For my basic image it took no more than 20 minutes to do the manual stacking. I then messed about for a bit longer trying to improve the focus of the foreground grass. In hindsight I should have coinsidered this as part of the whole process. Picture 1 Basic Image Picture 2 Focusing Object Picture 3 Focus Stacked Image

Tim, I can see that the use of a printed card or other object to set the focus would be easier than trying to find a spot on the model to set the focus to.

I think that at some point in history there was either legislation or an RCH edict that the location of brake levers had to be consitent. This would have been driven by concerns for the safety of railway employees. For example in the days when there were marshalling yards where the wagons were pushed over a hump and then ran down a slope into the sorting sidings. As each wagon went over the top a shunter would run alongside it operating the brake. You have got to perform that task with the brake handle at the trailing end of the wagon. Now just consider how do you cope if a wogon comes over the top and brake handle is the wrong way round! No you can't run in front of it and by the time you have run round the back of it it will be away and gone .... clang, thump, crash - damaged wagons, damaged goods and all yard activity at a standstill.

My Guy - Mary Wells

While My Guitar Gently Weeps - The Beatles

Early examples had a single gusset behind the buffer beam. Later ones and rebuilds had double gussets. Many single gusset locos had/have bent/distorted buffer beams

My Austerity began life as a Dapol 'Warrington'. It was initailly used on my older son's 00 gauge layout. About 15 years ago, when he decided he didn't want it anymore, he passed it on to me. I did some fairly basic changes: Replaced the chimney - Brass Masters (the last one they had in stock) Handrails - replaced/modified to 'as originally built' spec. Filed the backing away from the injectors - huge improvement on its own. Re-gauged it EM using the EMGS conversion kit Replaced the coupling rods - Gibson 'mix and match' set - tricky but there were no suitable ready made rods available at the time. New, home made, smokebox door handles. 3 link couplings Repaint Renamed 'Samson' - Fox Transfer brass name plate. Overall it passes the 2 feet test and runs reasonably well. It was intended to be a working engine not a display piece. What am I not happy with ? The dreadful noise from the geartrain. Observation my model did not have the bunker hatch

In days gone by Radio Frequency Interference (RFI) complaints were dealt with by Post Office Telecommunications and then BT. A whole host of goodies were available to help people sort out any issues they might have. At some point it was decided (1990s springs to mind) the BBC?or HMG? who provided the funding bailed out. Unsurprisingly BT ceased providing the service unless it was a problem upsetting their own equipment.

Pump Up The Volume - M/A/R/R/S

Stephen, If it ain't broke don't fix it. They are not necessarily redundant and there is no need to remove any existing interference supression capacitors on your locos. TV may have gone digital but not all broadcast radio and a lot of radio communication services and amature radio users are still using analogue.