SteveyDee68

Have just finished reading through the Osney Town Wharf and Osney Town thread by @rcf - what inspiring modelling in O gauge. It has made me step back a little and reevaluate what I should be doing in so much that I have never done anything in 7mm scale, so perhaps should build a simple diorama using the smaller buildings my dad made with either one or two tracks at most - if there is room to include a point, then a simple fork at most. Food for thought (not much else I can do at the moment - not even got to my main computer yet to search for missing images for my threads!) Steve S

Many thanks, Rob, for taking the time to restore your photographs to your thread, as I have just re-read it in its entirety whilst laid up in bed - the photos of your modelling are inspiring, to say the least. I remember looking at your original quayside layout several years ago and saving the photos on my computer in my folder of inspiring ideas! Elsewhere (on one of my many threads) I have mentioned about creating an O gauge layout in homage to my late father, using the buildings and stock he made before dementia stopped his modelling. I’ve even put up an idea for a plan, using the station building and goods shed etc. However, looking at your dioramas has got my grey cells buzzing, to create something simple using his smaller buildings (weighbridge, coal states, office, provender’s store etc). Thank you for creating such inspiring, evocative and atmosphere filled layouts - I’ve made sure to “follow” to keep up with developments here! Steve S

I suddenly feel so much better! Having said that, I am curiously drawn to both class 03 and 04 diesels. And I suddenly - embarrassingly - realise I have no idea how many I have accumulated! 🫢 To think, I currently have another 3 examples on watch in My eBay!! (Note to self - cancel those now) Steve S

Thanks, John, I have done random searches over time for them but never with any success. I’ve never mastered the art of the saved search - is that something that runs automatically? Sadly no, but it’s a terrific idea (although I think Bachmann might think it a bit iffy in terms of intellectual copyright of their own model?) Personally, it would be a whole new learning curve to master cold cure resin casting or 3D scanning/printing - I’m sure there are others who already have the necessary know how to do that (wonder if Modelu have ever thought of applying their 3D scanners to the cab of a Kitmaster Blue Pullman, for example?!) I assume, of course, that Kitmaster copyrights have long ago expired (with the company) Steve S

Okay, I feel like a panel member on QI but I simply have to ask the question even if the whole room starts flashing it around me to the sound of klaxons… In the first photo, why is there a pink fighter plane? HOURS OF CONFUSION!

After all this time, Silver Fox on eBay are again producing side frames for the Blue Pullman, after telling me their next batch would be released once they had improved them. Blue Pullman Power Bogies Blue Pullman Non Power Bogies* * These are currently showing as “out of stock” - might be worth messaging Silver Fox and requesting when the next batch will be available On a personal note, I succumbed a few days ago and purchased the Bachmann model. Need to decide what to do about the stock of parts I’ve acquired to upgrade the Triang version! (If I could just get hold of the correct profile front, think I’d still like to have a go!) Steve S

Still available on preorder on the Hattons website until (I believe) 12 noon today - just checked now and the webpage is still active but haven’t tried ordering as I preordered two a few days ago!! If they do still produce this second batch, now is the time to throw you hat (and cash) in the ring and get an order in! Steve S (Two ABs and a P please, Bob)

Well, the Hattons website is going offline today so I guess this is when we collectively cross fingers and hope that Hattons fulfills its P class preorders. I put in for one on Monday - certain liveries were ‘sold out on pre-order’ but the website accepted my ‘early BR crest’ livery order. Also accepted two other preorders for Andrew Barclay 0-4-0s - so now I have three locos on preorder. (Noticeably not a single version of any of their Genesis coaches was available to preorder - all were flagged as sold out on preorder.) For now, goodbye, farewell and thank you, Hattons Steve S 🤞

@41516 I applaud you 👏 Due to enforced “rest”, I might (might) just get around to doing some further hacking. It’s a “might”, though - I’m sleeping an awful lot (‘Post viral exhaustion’, don’t you know?) which means odd waking times (note the time of this post!) and also means that I can suddenly run out of juice (let alone mojo) at a moment’s notice! But very much liking what you have done there! Steve S

Well, neither of these boxes will include a Port of Par Bagnall in NCB livery*, so that itch will continue to irritate me… I already have (accidental) repeats of certain liveries of their wonderful Hunslet 0-6-0s … dare I risk a third example, should the £100 box happen to contain suchlike? 🤔 Trust me to have just purchased a Bachmann Midland Pullman off eBay a few minutes ago! 🙄 HOURS OF FUN! * Still seeing those adverts, gnnrrrh!

Having “acted” on an episode of “Houdini & Doyle” (yes, that Houdini and Arthur Conan Doyle) I can testify that catering is first class and plentiful… Breakfast (cooked!) ✅ Elevenses ✅ Lunch ✅ Tea ✅ Dinner ✅ Filming over-ran and I had to leave (in order to catch the last train home!) but even as I was leaving they were breaking for “Supper” and encouraging me to partake! I was booked as a “conductor” of the theatre orchestra but due to miscommunication ended up as a “rich gent” in the audience. It was a very interesting and eye opening experience into how filming TV programmes goes. And so @The Johnster’s point about the “creatives” having complete control over the environment makes sense. I realised pretty quickly from the rolling stock that it must be a heritage railway - actually finding it quite fun to try to identify the (many) different locos: so far, I think I’ve seen Class 20, 50, 56 and 58 locos plus a couple of pacer units. I will have to watch again* and keep a closer ear on the station announcements - I hadn’t noticed they weren’t real places. Steve S * Nothing better to do - on enforced “rest”

And the mystery is solved! It was odd seeing a Class 50 pulling passenger stock on what purported to be a ‘contemporary’ setting - even more so to see a couple of Pacer units! Just watched the second episode and spotted a Class 58 on an engineering train (same wagons as in the previous episode but with a different loco!), so it appears K&WVR have access to more “modern” locos and stock - if by “modern” we mean “recently retired”! Thanks to everyone who has settled my mind on this. Steve S

Wow! Never thought to look there! Stangely enough, I did think “Keighley” myself based upon nothing other than having visited it when I was about 8 years old!! Steve S

ITV recently did a short series called “Platform Seven” - genre wise it’s a mixture of murder/mystery/ghost story. My question is, it is based around Platform Seven of “Central Station” - and there’s been a Class 50 (with passenger stock) and what looked like a class 56 with engineering wagons. In another shot, a pacer unit passed through! So, my guess this was filmed on a heritage line! But can anyone tell me which? Steve S

Just to say what a great layout thread about a lovely layout. I do hope that was just in reference to the End of Show, and not anything more ominous for Sandy Bay’s future! Steve S

Note to self: Weymouth = street running of passenger trains to serve passenger ferries plus goods etc Dover = train ferry alongside passenger terminus serving other ships Newhaven = multiple stations to serve town and ferries Having calculated (roughly) the space required for track to serve a train ferry efficiently, it seems unreasonable to then suppose that access to that is via street running (5mph flagman etc). Therefore previous thoughts of incorporating Weymouth style street running is redundant. The other (huge) consideration is to have a double track link span as per Dover … this may need rethinking. Steve S (laid up in bed, and thinking too much!)

Some hefty big ‘Z’ class side tanks on that and it could easily pass as a ‘big’ shunting loco for hump yard work etc! HOURS OF FUN!

P class 0-6-0s and Andrew Barclay 0-4-0s still available to pre-order on Hattons website until it closes on 31 Jan (tomorrow). Not sure whether the Andrew Barclay locos will be produced as last I read Hattons were ‘considering’ doing a last run, but they had said they will definitely produce the P class models. There is very, very little left - and noticeably every last one of their Genesis range of coaches has been sold out on preorder (no bargains to be had there!) Steve S (hoping his order for a P and two ABs will come through eventually)

I taught these qualifications at a post 16 college, with the Level 2 being equivalent of a GCSE grade C for purposes of college/university applications. The Numeracy exam sounds about right to ensure a candidate is able to cope with the basic numeracy required to be able to take the course. When I did my teaching PGCE, they were due to introduce the literacy/numeracy tests for teachers the year after we graduated (on our two year part time course). So our provider suggested we all do it in any case. I turned up on the day for the literacy test to discover I hadn’t been entered. Why not? I enquired. You don’t need to do it, you’ve got an A Level Grade B in English Literature! It felt strange arguing with the people supposedly training me that English literature and language exams are different! Cut to the numeracy exam. Using the logic above, I would need to take it as I didn’t have an A Level grade in maths. But, no! Exempt again! Why? This time I was told (a) I had a Grade B in Mathematics O Level (which they rated higher than a GCSE!!) (b) I was already teaching Numeracy in my day job (!) and (c) I had led a couple of sessions going through numeracy practice papers with my peers when the tutor wasn’t feeling well which had been observed (on the sly!) Out of a 20 strong cohort, I qualified without either the English Language or Numeracy Adult Proficiency certificates. Go figure. 🙄

Re: evocative smells Just a few days ago as I drove towards home, I had a sudden and quite literally overwhelming memory from my childhood… The loft in our 1960s house was 1/3rd kitted out as my dad’s railway room (by the trapdoor and ladder) and separated from the 2/3rds storage area by a cardboard wall and a doorway with a draped curtain… Light in the modelling side was by fluorescent tube - the storage side by a measly 60w bulb… My dad kept all his Railway Modeller magazines in an old bookcase at the far end of the loft; he had put flooring down and some old carpet, but reaching the bookcase was tricky due to the items “stored” (aka dumped) between the “door” and the bookcase … My lucid memory was of sitting on the floor with my back against one of the posts holding up the roof, with a stack of black & white printed RMs - all with their covers and adverts removed to save space - reading avidly in stifling heat in the semi darkness one sunny summer afternoon, and with the smell of warm dust and dry paper filling my nostrils like it was yesterday. It all felt incredibly reassuring and comfortable… The strangest thing was, it was a dark and damp winter evening in January, and the memory popped into my head apropos of absolutely nothing. Hours of fun…

Have been reading through the thread from the beginning, in order to put on placeholders for missing images so I can be a little more efficient when searching through my image library. First thing that struck me - Good God, can I waffle on! 🤣 I can justify it in that I am simply writing down my own thoughts to make sense of them, and at the same time that allows others to make comments and suggestions as they see fit. Which is fine, except I now understand why I always had such issues with word counts for essays and suchlike - or, rather, maximum number of words permitted! 🤣 Secondly, I put images - especially of plans - into the text so I can myself understand (and also explain) my thoughts. Thanks to The Great RMWeb Crash, many of those images have gone. If unable to restore them, I think I may as well prune a great deal of the aforementioned verbiage as it becomes essentially pointless. Thirdly - and this only struck me whilst reading a note I had made about others being concerned that the bulk of a model train ferry would hide the station - the train ferry itself is approx five coaches long, with a link span of approx another coach length; the sidings feeding into it are approximately the same length again, and then a headshunt approx five coaches in length*. Added together, the “coach length” from ships bow to the shoreside end of the ferry feeder sidings would be around 12 coach lengths, and I’ve calculated I need a 14 coach length platform for boat trains - that means the ship itself will cover approx half of the length of the station, starting approx two coach lengths shore wards from the end buffer stops of the boat train platform. That means (a) views of arriving trains should not be impeded, (b) the main point work for the passenger station should align with the beginning of the train ferry headshunt line, and (c) the sorting sidings for the ferry cover the landward half of the station. I really must draw that up schematically and save it as I think it will assist in thinking about the vertical design of the layout! HOURS OF FUN! (Nurse! The screens!) * Four coaches plus reach wagon!

Cannot believe it is nearly two years since I updated anything about Burnstow Dock. But then, things have been happening elsewhere. I am about to have a week’s enforced leave via a doctor’s note, due to Post Viral Exhaustion … which is another way of saying that my body has not recovered from the full blown knock you over sideways ‘flu I had a couple of weeks before Christmas, resulting in me being absolutely exhausted by the end of each week and falling ill over the weekend before recovering enough to start the working week again; it came to a head last week as the periods between full blown exhaustion were decreasing and I got a secondary chest infection to boot! So, my intention is to recover as many of the photos into the thread as possible, as that is something I can do whilst “resting”. Currently, there is rolling stock laid out on my central workbench in the loft as per the sorting roads for the train ferry at Dover, following a photo on a FaceBook group vis a vis - However, also to hand are the mock ups I made of the Ipswich buildings. Hopefully enough recovery/rest shall take place that I can revisit the Burnstow Dock ideas and get the little grey cells ticking over once again! Hours Of Fun!

Without wishing to hijack Sheepbloke’s thread, I assume that missing photos (following the Great Outtage) have to be replaced by the original authors - which means those that were originally posted by modellers who have since departed will remain forever blank. Or is there a way to allow anyone who has saved such images to be able to reinsert them into those original posts? Could an account be handed over to a willing intermediary to act as a conduit for such saved images to be passed to? I realise that RMWeb exists purely through the input of willing members, but it has become such a resource for the wider modelling community it seems beyond a pity that so much has been lost. Steve S

I detest the autocorrect or predictive text thing you get on mobile devices - how else can you explain Cash Converters being a “porn shop”?! I believe that is an entirely different type of establishment! There’s quite a few “pawn shops” around our area, including the old CC. A few years ago, my sister had her tenor horn stolen from her car boot. She was pretty cut up about it, and immediately decided to visit the local pawn shops to see if it had been pawned with any of them. First shop she went to, CC in Bolton, she says she’s interested in playing a trumpet and did they have any in? (She was being clever and acting a little dim to ensure no suspicion!) The guy in the shop goes ‘You’re in luck, we got a trumpet in yesterday’ and proceeds to show her her own tenor horn! (Fair play to him, both are in the brass instrument family but did he not know what a trumpet looked like 🎺 and a horn looks totally different). She says she’ll think about it and goes straight to the police to report her horn stolen and that she had also located it! They asked her were there any distinguishing features and she said yes, there was a repair patch on the second valve tuning slide, and the case had a little plaque with her name on it. Policeman went with her to the shop, asked to see the instrument, they brought it out (this time with the case) and lo and behold it matches her description. The policeman asks her if there’s any other way she can prove it was hers (this was before phones with cameras/Internet so she couldn’t show him a photo of her with it) - she popped the mouthpiece in and promptly played a solo piece she had been working on! Much embarrassment on part of shop, who promptly gave up name of the guy who brought it in, the police said something about needing it as evidence and my sister said she had the National Competition Finals in a weeks time so they took photos of it and let her have it! About a month later the scrote involved was in court, and her horn was a star witness (so to speak) as it was so unusual an item to steal and pawn that he couldn’t deny it! Hey ho

Facebook group the other day - someone posted the following and suggested it might make a good “micro” … Well, those loops in the centre I imagine are about four MK1 coaches long* (as that was how many Type F Sleeper coaches were shunted on and off the ferry) which I mocked out upstairs … approx 4’6” (not including points) The ship would be a smidge over 5’ long in 1:76, the link span perhaps 6”. A train off the ferry would assemble into an approx 12 MK1 coach length train; a departure siding running alongside the yard and ship would be approx 9 MK1 coaches long, so another 3 feet or so required. Total length of “micro” serving the ferry so far … hmmm … approx 14 feet, maybe. That’s before any passenger facilities are included. That’s a big “micro” I guess! In other news, the constant drip fed advertising on these pages is wearing away at my resistance. There should be a law against it. It’s almost as pernicious as Gambling Advertising (which I find loathsome) You know what I’m talking about. Some of us suffer from an addiction, I tell you, an addiction! HOURS OF FUN * Looking at the 08, possibly longer - five, six?