drmditch

I'm afraid I have repeated this post (extracted from my railway thread) several times now.

Since the layout goes round the exterior of the room, the crossing of the room door forms a major part of the structural engineering.

First the door itself was replaced with a sliding door, which was actually a mini-saga in itself.

Then there was the planning and construction of the two level 'swing out' section, the geometry of which is quite complex.

Here is a link to the full thread.

Section swung closed.

And open

And here is the two level structure in place

I will try to take pictures of both levels working, but this should give you an idea.

Planning the geometry needs care.

The carpentry is complex, and needs attention, (there aren't any right angles in the whole structure.)

Hinges are strong SS.

It is 'self-closing', so it i always left supported.

After what must be five years, it continues to work well.

I can run three trains continuously (if I want to!)

This technique has several advantages:-

- Nothing to drop on someone's head

- Rounded corners to avoid damage to hips etc.

I note that we seem to have lost some pictures again, but if you are interested I can try to 're-populate'  them.

8 hours ago, Richard_A said:

 

I don't know if this has been posted before, but as @TonyWright is from Chester I thought it was worth sharing. 

Very impressive. A shame that all the splendid locomotives are so filthy. It can't have given a very good impression to passengers.

I grew up on the other side of the country (GER mainline) and I can just remember some steam locomotives. 

I was taken in my pushchair to see what must have been one of the first Britannias on the GE services, and I can remember it being green and shiny.

Re: Coaching Stock in sidings.

(As in "the C12 has been down to Nene sidings to collect the stock for the 5.25 slow to KX")

Would not steam-heated coaches put away in sidings for any length of time need to be heated before inclusion in a train?

Or were there special provisions for heating stock?

(perhaps withdrawn locomotives of the sort one sees pictures of at sheds.)

Or perhaps PN is set at the time of year when heating was not required?

1 hour ago, Edwardian said:

 

Ah, brought to the screens of British children as Hector's House. 

 

Toutou always makes me think of the RN gunboats, Mimi & Toutou, named by the frankly odd Lt-Cmdr Spicer-Simson, and sent to sink the Kaiser's battleships on Lake Tanganyika, events that inspired C. S. Forester's 1935 novel, The African Queen. 

 

 

Hardly 'battleships' ! 

(but I see that others have already picked up on this.)

This is one of the Shlactshiff of the Hochseeflotte in enraged mode!

(From a painting by Claus Bergen, (April 18, 1885–October 4, 1964) - Lot-9630-12, PD-US, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=60525659)

(There is a book regarding Mimi and Toutou some where on my shelves. I saw know it fairly recently. As you say a 'frankly odd' commander.)

6 hours ago, TEAMYAKIMA said:

Please forgive this ignorant question (I regret that I haven't read the entire thread) but is this seen as a purely clubroom layout? Will it, can it, be seen at exhibitions? 

There are only three pages - aren't there?

On 02/01/2024 at 19:02, Flying Fox 34F said:

I wonder if someone involved once worked for the North Eastern Railway?  The N.E.R. preferred to have the turntable pit covered over.  They insisted on the G.N.R. doing the same at Doncaster.

An alternative is, the turntable at Ilfracombe was moved from somewhere else, where it used to be a covered over example, so some bright character decided to have the handrails rotate instead?

 

Paul

Is this confusing wagon turntables (which I think were usually covered)  and locomotive tables? I haven't seen any pictures of or references to NER locomotive tables being covered.

Interesting.

I case of future opportunity, what are the wheel sizes and wheelbase dimensions?

(This is not an urgent question, but if you happen to have your ruler/callipers out any time.)

I am sure that training under sail is very valuable for all the reasons you mention, especially for younger people.

It works in smaller craft as well. Having been a (former) dinghy sailing instructor I can bear witness to the effect  of being on the sea and under sail.

This link may be useful:-

https://sailtraininginternational.org/vessel/james-cook/

I have had little contact with the RN, (despite having worked in the defence procurement sector (ASWE) for the first ten years of my career).

However one story may be amusing.

The Type42 (can't remember which one, but it was at the time the South Atlantic guardship)  visited our club, and the crew were invited to sail with us. I had a bright lad, who was a Sonar operator, and he learned quickly and was pleased when we got in front and stayed there. He did 'spill the beans' that there were two RN sailing instructors in one of the other boats and they were expecting to show us what they could do. What they did was to stay behind quite nicely, largely because they hadn't worked out what the tide was doing and didn't follow the wind shifts. 

A good friend (now unfortunately deceased) had a Radar technician with him, and he (taking more risks than I did) showed the lad how to be a submariner!

I am surprised and sad that the RN does not make more use of sail-training. The ships and weapons may have changed, but the sea and the winds have not.

As you say, ships don't work unless everyone knows how to work together. One of the most 'educational' experiences of my life was in the Heligoland Bight, in a lovely 42"er, when the skipper thought we had a 'weather window' to get home and the system coming down the North Sea disagreed with him! 

I have not been on the water for a while now; arthritis, cancer etc etc. A hope for 2024 is to sail again, although probably not in a dinghy!

18 minutes ago, fulton said:

Thank you for amending the photos for me, the tug is a Frenchman River Works resin kit, correct for one of the New York Dock Railway tugs, Walthers also do a nice plastic kit.

I like the 'floats' as well (if that is the correct term).

11 hours ago, jjb1970 said:

Here's something nice in European N, might be a bit pricey though.

The ship seems to have quite an elegant underwater hull shape, but would not the amount of 'cut-away' fore and aft promote sagging?

(or is there a large amount of distortion from the glass box?)

You seem to have had a more constructive Christmas than I have.

Well done!

If you will excuse a possibly naïve observation, should not the chimney height take it above the ventilation slats in the roof?

Greetings on this Christmas morning.

Hope you find some joy to celebrate.

2 hours ago, gr.king said:

And when I arrive somewhere as part of a group, I'm not too shy to rebuke any host (or host's employee) who dares to "greet" us with the detestable "hi guys", especially if the group includes women. Women are not "guys" in any possible sense, nor am I, as I'm English not American, my name isn't Guy, and I'm not a catholic traitor trying to blow up King James I !!!!

The use of 'guys' leads onto other aspects of language and gender politics, which are probably best avoided on this thread!

It is the 'hi' I would object to, not the 'guys'!!!

As people have commented above, English in common use seems to become more and more degraded every day.

There was a time when use of the word 'mostest' would immediately be recognised as a joke.

Not, I think, any more.

While I appreciate that language does change over time, I find it sad that we are loosing definition and subtlety, especially with comparatives and superlatives.

As to steam locomotives, I  think that where only one of a design was produced, as with the U1 (in LNER classification anyway) or the Midland 'Big Bertha', then the word 'unique' does apply.

Where a class was constructed, as with the A4s, then in a time when much work was done by individual craftsmen, they were all likely to be slightly different.

(If I understand correctly the final shape of the streamlining was not defined in the Drawing Office until Silver Link had been built.)

I presume that this was what is now referred to as  'artisan' tradition. 

Would the time-served Blacksmiths and Fitters who did the work have recognised that word?

This, of course, leads into the whole discussion of 'interchangeable parts', which is a different subject.

For reference note the different numbers stamped onto 60007's motion parts.

I find that my use of language (which has probably deteriorated of late) depends on my early education and 'what sounds right'.

I might have to look up the actual grammar later!

I had a problem several years ago in a job interview when the interviewer used the word 'forecasted'.

I could not but flinch, and then had to explain why!

Since the lady wouldn't have recognised a participle if it came and bit her, I did not get the job.

I would not have wanted it anyway!

I note that the Met Office now uses both 'forecast' and 'forecasted', and I am too lazy to work out why.

On 15/12/2023 at 19:41, Edwardian said:

Then I spotted something else, so I mugged up a bit on the LNER railcars and found that what I had stumbled upon was a Diagram 89 Sentinel car (1928). It's different from the NuCast kit and, I suspect, scratch built. They were numerous and widespread. I could run one on CA if spinning the period forward for the odd running session. This one, Eclipse, seems to have spent her entire working life at Hull Botanic Gardens, so quite why (on the side not shown) the destination is 'Darlington' is not known!

 

Apart from repairing the steps, there does not seem to be a lot wrong with it and I am lost to its charms. 

 

 

 

Another Dia.89!

Until your post  mine was the only one I'd seen.

As with a number of my 'earlier period' models it could do with some re-work, but at the moment it is stuck in a bay platform in consequence of an undiagnosed track wiring problem.

More work to be scheduled!

Re: Newton Coaches

One factor I have not seen mentioned in the discussions above, is how unpopular railways were in 1945 et seq.

Years of travel in dimly lit, closely packed coaches, with inconvenient ingress and egress, and everything grubby and dirty not to mention delays and diversions, meant many people were just 'fed-up' with railway travel.

Sir Charles would have been very aware of this, and was pushing the railway staff to do everything possible to overcome this.

It was bad enough on the ECML in the late 60s and early seventies when sometimes delays and diversions, or just  ordinary 'peak time' overcrowding meant that corridors were crowded with people standing and/or sitting on their luggage. 

2 hours ago, great northern said:

Last look at Deltic until the next sequence.

 

Then I plonked the camera on the bridge and realised how good all that intricate girder work that Peter did looks, so I took a picture.

A Bus - is this allowed?

I like the Lorry though!

(And of course the splendid bridge.)

Just to point out that 'Aerolite' and 'Locomotion No1' are both currently at Locomotion in Shildon.

(In order to ensure an RTR model of the 2-2-4 I had better get on with my scratch-built model over this winter!)

45 minutes ago, jjb1970 said:

General cargo ship 'Simag Beijing' leaving Pasir Gudang, the port on the East side of Johor Bahru in Malaysia. The big container port of Tanjung Pelepas is on the West side, on the Strait of Malacca.

 

 

General Cargo Ship - or Geared Container Ship ?

I ask in all ignorance - but it looks a practical ship!

This is discussed in Harris, LNER Carriages. See Chapter 12.

'A memo dated November 1944 from Newton to the Emergency Board and this set the main principles of the stock to be built'

'A prototype standard carriage had appeared during January 1945 in the shape of vestibule first No.1531.'

'This, at the time known as the Newton coach, entered service to the accompaniment of a major exercise in public consultation'

Mention is made of a brochure entitled Design for Comfort, inviting comments/suggestions by/from passengers.

In the next column (page 102)  Mr Harris refers to 'The first of the postwar, Newton or Thompson carriages - all titles are relevant - were approved  by the Emergency Board at it's May 1944 meeting.......'

The critical factor for 21st century basic modellers like me is the 'introduction from 1949 of radiussed  corners  to the large bodyside windows.........'

(See page 104.)

I like Magpies, and all the Corvids really.

They are clever and sociable birds.

I hope you speak to them properly!

When I was bedridden (for a short while a few years ago) Magpies would come and look at me through the window.

(Probably checking up to see if I had died and if so could they get in and harvest the eyeballs!) 

They do work in pairs. It was quite worrying a few years ago watching a pair persecuting a Hedgehog.

I suppose one should support one's fellow mammals against the Dinosaurs (evolved), and I was trying to help the Hedgehog anyway. I suspect its initial injury came from either Rats (Ratus Norwegicus) or a Human ( Sapiens - so called) with a Strimmer. I don't particularly like Rats, but they are clever, social, and adaptable as well.

Also a few years ago I had a pair of Crows who were regulars in my garden. The big (male?) bird worked out how to demolish the bird feeders intended for the smaller birds so that they fell to the ground and the Crows could take the contents. It was lovely to see the male and female (slightly smaller) birds dancing together.

I've probably posted on Rmweb somewhere about this. A bit later they brought their offspring to the garden as well

The real, beautiful, and sometimes savage world just outside my window!

I haven't seen the Sparrowhawk this year.

Somewhere I may have a (film) photograph of a sunset through the Elms at the bottom of the garden of the house I grew up in.

They were magnificent.

Also lovely were the Red Squirrels that played in the trees round my school, providing a distraction from Maths lessons.

(Not that this was entirely a good thing!)

Re: Lead

I do have two lumps of lead  (from a boatbuilder friend many years ago now). Offcuts can be produced with a heavy hacksaw, and then further cut and hammered into shape.

Lead is of course the ultimate malleable metal!

In one of the autumn storms last year, a part of my roof was damaged and had to be replaced. I was able to persuade the roofer to let me cut some of the 'waste' lead before he took it away.

My heavy duty tinsnips allowed this quickly and should provide for several years of model ballasting. I do not have as much as @mikemeg describes above, but it cost less!

(Well, the roof didn't  but that's a more complex story.)

I should point out the safety requirements (in terms of cleaning hands etc) for working with lead,

Suggestions (summarised from above):-

Choose the approximate region for your model.

Search for photographs online ('disused-stations.org.uk is a good starting point.)

Search for books. A visit to a 'preserved railway' might be a good starter.

Assess whether you want to scratchbuild or find a kit.

You could work out a modification to a 'new' Metcalfe kit. At least that would preserve your 'footprint'.

You might also need to modify/replace your footbridge as well.

Ignoring omnibuses, now this thread has reached Page No. 1500 shouldn't a GER Locomotive be featured?