SteveyDee68

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?

And that sounds like they are trying to suggest to potential buyers that they are a larger and more professional operation, and are not running everything out of the back bedroom of their gran’s bungalow honest!

OMG … I think everything this Seller lists has descriptions generated by AI… 🙄

Here’s an idea - if you are not bidding because of the stupid AI generated descriptions, contact the Seller and tell them so! (Might not do anything, but allows a bit of (polite) venting! 🤣)

Non-AI generated response … Yes! 😉

A quick Google search turned up two examples on eBay … SD14 Cargo Ship - for the full ship at a scale of 1:70 and measuring approx 7 feet long in three sections - a snip at £300! SD14 Cargo Ship - this was only £75 which I thought was a bargain until realising it was just the forward section of the ship only! 1:70 is just a fraction bigger than 1:76 - but even so, those kits are huge (and expensive!) Steve S

On the subject of “the younger demographic” “missing” from the hobby… Since 1995, I have been involved in non-professional music theatre (or “AmDram” as it is sometimes disparagingly named). Now, ask Joe Public what their thoughts on “AmDram” are and they will probably trot out the media-propagated stereotypes of dodgy singing, forgotten lines and wobbly scenery. Whereas the reality is that most productions start with several £1000s of outgoings (licensing, scenery hire, costume hire, specialist personnel hire (music, lights, sound, stage) and venue hire) which by the time the show is staged runs into multiple £1000s - the most expensive show I have been involved with (to date) was a non-professional two week run of “Beauty & The Beast” costing in excess of £60k … and which ended up making a small loss of a couple of £1000!! The participants don’t get paid to do it - it is their hobby, which they should enjoy. As a Musical Director I have a responsibility to ensure the music is of as high a quality as possible, whilst ensuring that my cast still enjoy the process. It’s their hobby - if they don’t enjoy it, they’ll stop. Meanwhile the societies staging these shows are run by volunteer committees, not by paid CEOs or staff. They put massive amounts of time and very often their own money (in things like telephone call costs, postage, mileage costs etc) as well as energy both physical and emotional/mental (as there is a very real worry that the books may not balance!) into producing the shows. And there is an issue that the “younger demographic” - the twenty and thirty year olds - are not present on those committees! It is those who are retired who have the time on their hands to give. Except society changes - many retirees now find themselves as “second time mums and dads” to their grandchildren due to the huge cost of childcare. And they give that time, at it is their family, their grandchildren. Meanwhile the mums and dads - who might just be those who could now get involved - are too busy with work, too tired after work, too shattered with working and bringing up children. Does this scenario in some way sound familiar? Me oh my, it feels like some kind of big wibbly wobbly circus mirror, sort of reflecting the model railway hobby! Are the mainstream media any kinder to this hobby than they are to railway modellers? Try looking up general articles on the state of “amateur dramatics” as a hobby, rather than reviews of actual productions - you’ll find the same may-saying, doom-mongering, lazy journalism. Will AmDram die? Some societies - my own included - are in danger of folding, but others will rise in their place. Youth groups go from strength to strength, but then the kids go to university and they find life swamps them - getting a job, raising a family etc. There may be a hiatus, but in time they usually return. So, thank you to the Warley team for organising the spectacle of the Warley Show at the NEC - I understand full well the trails and tribulations they undergo through my involvement in totally different and yet bizarrely similar undertakings - and bravo for doing it for so long. To Hattons, thank you for serving the hobby for so many years. Good luck to the staff in finding new jobs. Meanwhile let’s all look to the future of Railway Modelling with optimism - things will change and adapt, but the hobby is in no danger of dying out, whatever The Guardian might say! Steve S (Written with the aid of two opposable thumbs and no additional intelligence)

Exactly what I have said elsewhere! However, should I go that route for a bit of shunting fun, I would still try to use some of my dad’s buildings but not the station or goods shed as those are way too big, and certainly forget about passenger facilities! Steve S

Thanks for the kind words - I’ve just changed and embedded the image into my second post instead of the daft pdf download, and added a PPS Steve S

Just to close this off, nobody has ever come forward with any information about this missing loco. My last conversation with my mother about it has now raised a new variable - she said she thought he’d said that the person he’d asked to look at it had been diagnosed with cancer, and so my dad was reluctant to bother someone undergoing treatment. Of course, that would have been very useful to have known earlier, except of course that if the person concerned has subsequently died then there is a strong possibility that my father’s loco would have been mistaken for part of that modeller’s personal collection, and disposed of accordingly. So unless there’s a miracle, I guess we’ll never see that loco again. Steve S

Well, I’ve been playing around with drawing software and come up with the following… Showing the end of the loop (two lines exiting under overbridge on the right), with the station platform also continuing on under the overbridge (and through the backscene). I’m guessing perhaps only a single coach might be seen pulling up at the station, but ideally two coaches (although one is half off-scene when at the platform). Incoming loco has room to run around coaches and draw train off again into the fiddle yard. Which leaves freight… Ignoring the goods shed road, the platform face to fit five wagons, the loop three and the front siding three wagons on scene in order to form an Inglenook shunting pattern. The dotted fourth wagon in the front siding is a blocker, and not used in the puzzle. Assembling the five wagons in the correct order to depart from the platform face should provide some interesting shunting moves. What is not clear in the drawing is the single slip giving access to the loop from the headshunt/turnaround spur, and to the goods shed off the loop line. Buildings above not to scale, but comprise 1) station building & platform 2) goods shed 3) cattle dock 4) weighbridge & office 5) coal merchant’s staithes and office 6) yard crane and 7) road overbridge, all built by my late father and included. The goods shed is probably too large… If not sorting out wagons for a shunting puzzle, cattle to cattle dock, general merchandise to the goods shed, coal to the back road (end of the headshunt), and craned goods served by the front siding. Now, I wonder how small a footprint this could be built in? (I am guessing more than the nominal 7 foot that a straight adaption of the 4 foot OO Inglenook would take!) HOURS OF FUN! PS I should add that he also had quite a bit of track, including unused hand built points including a single slip. Will need to check the box to make sure!

Apologies to @brynnydd - when I read this at silly o’clock this morning, it didn’t register with me that you had said you had fixed your track down! I thought you were still in the planning stages and wanted that loop if possible. Ignore my above posts (although I’ll leave them there for anyone else contemplating creating a small loop-based Inglenook micro layout). Big suggestion - as this is an Inglenook and stock doesn’t actually need to leave the board, how about recreating the ‘hole in the wall’ to disguise the ‘exit’ between two buildings as per Great Yarmouth? That would definitely give you a dockside setting feel. Fair Price Models (on eBay) have some appropriate laser cut buildings! Steve S

A picture paints a thousand words… Here’s an Apple Pencil created drawing showing the layout I described in my previous post. However, I’ve added a kickback siding to the left of the top siding to serve a dock area (to fit your dock theme) and to justify the loop’s existence, and added a warehouse serving the end of the top right siding to justify leaving two wagons there. Engine shown in green with two wagons (dashed outlines) to show necessary headshunts - the top kickback siding could have all of its wagons removed in one move if the top right siding was empty, but wagons shown in white are not part of the Inglenook puzzle so you could (if you wish) have a short top right siding in order to introduce further shunting complications. It’s an Inglenook but avoids using the entrance line as part of the puzzle track work - somewhere to leave a brake van? The arrow suggests a possible exit to a fiddlestick to allow trains to exit - which would allow new stock to be introduced. Nothing groundbreaking here - in fact, I think the track plan has more or less copied most of the micro layouts you will find under The Sheep Chronicles … which shows you what fun can be had with a small loop and a couple of sidings! You do what you want to do, it’s your layout - but hopefully I’ve shown that a loop might be included if you use the reduced Inglenook puzzle setting. Steve S PS Just realised you might just be able to fit two complete sets of 7 wagons on the board itself so you could introduce more variety of stock! Another thought - an overtrack crane over the kickback siding at top left would look appropriate! PPS Flipping the whole thing around so the dock is at the front and it could be extended all along the front edge so that the baseboard edge is the dock wall (as Graham Muspratt’s Canute Road Quay).

The traditional Inglenook uses a 5-3-3 pattern of sidings with a headshunt capable of taking 3 wagons plus a loco but for an absolute minumum Inglenook you can reduce that to a 3-2-2 pattern, with a shorter headshunt of two wagons plus loco. Reducing the “main train” length to 3 wagons might let you fit your loop in. Adding a second siding at the top off the left hand loop would allow a siding to complete the Inglenook design, negating using the lead line into the loop at the right hand side as a “siding”’ for the puzzle). Shunting using a “minimum Inglenook” according to Wymann.info (the home of “The Model Railway’s Shunting Puzzles Website” by Adrian Wymann) gives 120 different arrangements of wagons to create 60 different 3 wagons trains; okay, that’s down (a lot) on the 40,320 arrangement possibilities and 6,720 different 5 wagon trains of the original, but that’s the trade off for minimum space! That fourth siding - running parallel to the layout edge - could be serving the dock itself; finish the front edge of the board as a dock wall; rear sidings could serve industries or warehouses. When I’m not so sleepy I’ll be drawing it for you! Steve S

Another “Newhaven” link arrived via The Class 37 Group on eBay in the form of Bachmann/EFE’s latest offering, a Class 70 “Booster” (or “Hornby” as some call them) as used on Newhaven boat trains. I also have the Bulleid 1Co-Co1 diesel which equally could haul a boat train, plus Class 71 and far too many West Country/Battle of Britain and Merchant Navy locomotives to handle the same traffic. Note to self - no more flashy express locos! And thanks to Phil Sutters I can actually justify “Oliver Cromwell” at my fictional-based-upon-actual location, too, albeit incorrect by a few decades from my setting! I think the majority of the required passenger stock is assembled in terms of Pullman carriages*, BR Mk1s and various EMUs (including the obligatory “Brighton Belle” - well, it’s just around the corner!) although a major omission is the Night Ferry Pullman Type F sleeper cars, but I guess I really should simply stop now and do some proper planning. So many projects, so little time or skills! HOURS OF FUN! * Although I don’t have any 12 wheeler Pullman carriages as used on the Newhaven trains… and at recent eBay prices, I never will!

One of those coincidences that makes you go “Hmmmm” 😆 With thanks indeed to @phil_sutters for the photos! To quote Hannibal Smith of A Team fame, “Don’t you just love it when a plan comes together?” HOURS OF FUN!

One of those coincidences that makes you go “Hmmmm” My layouts and planned layouts are all named for localities, places or people which I have links to, hence … Blackford Wharf - named for a local river bridge, but happens to feel appropriate for a C&HPR location (Cromford Wharf becoming Blackford Wharf) Blackford Bridge - named for a local river bridge, which has never had a train near it (other than trams) Woodhey Quay - named for a high school I was working at when I started it! Castlebrook Sidings - named after my secondary school! DRS Engineering - named after my late father The exceptions were Burnstow Dock and this layout idea, Broadhaven (an amalgamation of Broadchurch and Newhaven) Driving past the SEN school that has recently finished being built on the site of my old secondary school, I was struck by the name of the new school … Broadhaven School. Life imitates art? Happy New Year!