Pete 75C

I need to reproduce this... ...in O gauge. Now, I'm thinking that it can be made using very small square section microstrip. I know grids in 4mm scale are available as etches, 3D printed items, and also injection moulded by Peco. Is anyone aware of one available in 7mm scale? I've drawn a blank, so making one from scratch would seem the only option unless anyone knows different? Thanks.

The "Railways of Spain" sub-forum has been a little quiet of late, so I thought I'd add some pictures taken just a few weeks ago. For those that aren't aware, it is possible to travel by train/tram all the way from Alicante to Denia. Tram from Alicante as far as Benidorm and then diesel train the rest of the way. I confess to having a bit of a fascination with the section of line from Benidorm to Denia that is diesel-operated. Just a shame that pending an expensive upgrade, the section between Calpe and Denia is now shut indefinitely. The line is metre gauge throughout with several small request-stop halts. The line has been operated by FGV (Ferrocarril de la Generalitat Valenciana) since 1987 when it was taken over from Renfe FEVE and is no longer part of the national network. Below are some photos taken at Altea, with some more taken at the interchange station at Benidorm to follow. Some of these have appeared elsewhere on the forum in conjunction with a layout topic, but I thought it worth adding them here. If anyone has any "past or present" photos of the line, do feel free to add them here.

I suppose the season of goodwill is upon us and that usually means that until it's all over, I become a tad grumpy (grumpier?)... Sending a fair bit though the post after ebay sales (for example), I have this habit of copying and pasting the delivery address straight into a Microsoft Word template ready for printing. Out of the last 10 sales, around 7 people have uploaded their address in the following style... mr anthony wombat 7 beaver street uddersfield west yorks hd1 1dr A fictional address, of course. I find myself having to alter the address manually and add upper case where appropriate. I don't have to, but I do have to if you see what I mean. It bothers me otherwise. Now, has upper case been wiped from the face of the earth and nobody's told me? Or maybe people have just become lazy. It's a disturbing trend appearing in RMWeb thread titles too. No idea why it bothers me, but it just does. I'm unaware of any other form of OCD in the 75C household... I certainly don't feel the need to organise my sock drawer with military precision. Actually, come to think of it, I do have to use upper case and punctuation in text messages, but that's just because I'd feel lazy if I didn't. I'll no doubt find something else to moan about each day until they stop showing the new John Lewis ad which is a good indicator of Christmas being over.

I blame Andy (McGomez). A recent re-read through his excellent Portland Grove thread reminded me that I'd been meaning to try out DCC Sound. Now Portland Grove is about as Spanish as I am. Not, in other words. That's irrelevant though. Scattered through the thread are some pictures of Andy's HO scale RENFE stock which I believe gets an occasional run. As a wannabe ex-pat who's buying a house in Spain with the intention of moving full-time circa 2019, I find myself thinking more and more about Spain and its railways. High speed lines don't excite me too much, but little railway backwaters do... those that have survived, that is. Hence "The Plank". I had thought the Spanish translation was "La Plancha", but apparently that's a little metal plate that you grill meat on. The perils of knowing a few foreign words and not being at all fluent. For example, on a recent trip to Spain, I told a pharmacist that my wife was "sick in the head". I only wanted some aspirin for her headache... So... 2 bits of wood totalling 8ft x 1ft. A little run-round loop and a siding. Having bitten off more than I can chew recently with some bigger layouts, this stands a chance of getting finished. Even if it never gets finished (scenically), it will serve quite nicely as a little end-to-end test track. A decent DCC system has been purchased. I've gone for something slightly unusual... a Uhlenbrock Daisy 2. Good reviews, but it's not as common as a NCE Powercab, for example. Now, I always need a prototype for inspiration when beginning a new project and I didn't have to look far. The track plan owes a lot to the little metre-gauge station about a mile or two inland from the beach in Benidorm. The line runs from Alicante to Denia and is pretty much light rail rather than "proper" railway. Trams at the Alicante end and little diesel trains from Benidorm through to Denia via Calpe. The line is part-electrified and I gather a lot of money is being spent on the FGV right now. The station at Benidorm has three platforms and a couple of sidings, so I've already pruned that to fit into 8x1. I won't be modelling metre-gauge either... that has grown to standard gauge. Quite a bit of the prototype will make it into the model - the road crossing, inspection pit, platform canopies and buildings etc. Everything else will be pure fantasy. The track has been laid. Just 3 Tillig points. As this is a bit of a "micro", I resisted the temptation to go for Tillig's extra long points. The ones used are still a little bigger than Peco's large radius points, so they should look believable. The little inspection pit has been cut and the track has had a coat of grime. Next step is to finish the wiring and test everything thoroughly. That will let me have a play with the first sound-fitted loco unit I've ever owned, a Class 594 by Electrotren, prototype seen below. It's the DMU with the giant rubber gasket at each end. I do like the unusual... This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license. If you have an interest in RENFE, past or present, do please chip in with anecdotes, photos, advice etc. More soon but I'm not in a rush with this.

Very nice indeed. Network SouthEast certainly added a splash of colour to a railway scene that had been a little drab. The rebranding also gave a boost to staff morale for those of us who worked in the area at the time.

Edited for layout name change to Ripple Lane. Jump to post #1089 Nothing wrong with starting the thread with a bit of inspiration. Circa 1985(ish)... © Copyright Martin Addison and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence. Here we go again... I sometimes have a problem making my mind up. Before the "big move", I reckon I have one layout left to build. Unless I make lots of bad decisions and it ends up looking like a Thomas Trackmat, it may even go in the back of the van and venture to some local small shows... but that's for the future. The more immediate concern was "what to build?"... For those of you that know Croydon North Street, personally I think that turned out ok but as is typical with me, as soon as it was built I passed it on. Darren, if you're reading this, I'd still quite like it back! So to stem off the withdrawal symptoms... welcome to Wandsworth Park. A similar size, a similar South London location (a real place, but a fictional station again). Maybe 70s/80s instead of NSE 80s/90s this time. Personally I always thought North Street could do with some extra storage sidings and why not throw in an extra platform on a slightly different alignment to cater for the odd DMU off the West London line? Apart from that, there are pleny of similarities. British Rail Southern Region is clearly my comfort zone. Although I've dabbled with N gauge and continental, I do keep coming back to it so why resist? The boards are built and the track plan (sort of) finalised. Why go back to the 70s this time? Well, I do have a thing for the humble Cortina and it would be nice to see a couple of those on the layout. I even quite like the Austin Princess although I'd need to be drunk to admit it. Oh, and I might also accidentally have bought a 2BIL in blue... Let's get the boring woodwork pictures out of the way... Next step will be to play around with all the track and see if the paper plan works or not. I must confess I am looking forward to getting stuck in with this one. Comments, suggestions and of course criticism always welcome...

Has anyone else noticed the peculiar absence from RMWeb of Kenton? I can't be alone in missing his "Devil's Advocate" take on forum opinions and life itself. Nothing sinister intended by posting, just hoping that all is well.

Rudeness is cheap but manners cost nothing at all. I would always wait until someone passes and, like Don, just say "when you have a moment". Probably also ensures my creme brulee arrives without any additional "toppings".

Morning all. Grey today. Me as well as the weather. I think a piece of chicken I ate last night has taken a dislike to me. All this talk of flights makes me want to go somewhere. Alas, I doubt it will be anything more exciting than Ryanair to Fuereteventura maybe next Spring. As a Ryanair veteran, I've learnt to board and sit scowling at the cabin crew. That way they tend not to patronise me or make me try and buy something I don't want like a cup of warm sludge for 4 euros or a scratchcard. You can forget sleep on a Ryanair flight. There's usually a baby or toddler in the seat in front that spends most of the flight staring at you over the seat back threatening to vomit on your newspaper or worse still, there's the 4 yr-old behind you that spends 90% of the flight rythmically kicking the back of your seat... When we moved to Fuerteventura some years ago, we had a container shipped with all of our belongings but I elected to drive down with a van load of "essentials" as transit time for the container was estimated at 60 days. The thought of a road trip, just me and my satnav was quite appealing. All went well until the ferry crossing from Cadiz to Santa Cruz. At around 48hrs for the crossing, I spent a little extra on a shared cabin rather than try to sleep in one of the notoriously uncomfortable seats. My "room-mate" turned out to be an eighteen stone tattooed lorry driver in shorts called Juan with a squeaky voice like Joe Pasquale. Bizarrely, he spent most of his time knitting... I seriously considered sleeping in the van until I discovered they locked the vehicle deck. I'm sure I didn't sleep a wink...

Curiosity satisfied. It was BR Standard 4MT #76084 just back from the GCR and yes, it did have a tender behind! And whilst I happened to have the camera in my pocket... I believe the frame that Beast helped remove from Brandon box recently is destined for here...

Something large and black just passed the living room window on its way down to Sheringham station on an Allelys low-loader. Closely followed by its tender. Wonder what that was? It'll take an hour or so to unload so I might go and be nosey.

Sadly, I can catalogue all my stock on a Post-It note.

Lunatics running the asylum? It'll never happen...

Morning all. Finally "off the hook" with regard to the car carnage. The police have been back a few times to Mr Curtain Twitcher's house so maybe some of you amateur sleuths were right? Either that or he's just making more mischief. I have a rather large Sprinter luton body van on hire next week and as it won't fit on my drive, I fully intend parking it directly outside his house which might somewhat spoil his view from the living room window up and down the street for a day or two... Petty? Me? With regard to flying, apart from a couple of family holidays to the States, I usually only get on a plane when there has been a beach and cheap lager on offer at the other end. I do remember flying from Gatwick to Crete on a Dan Air Comet on my tenth birthday and being absolutely fascinated by the pre-packaged cold meal that was already stowed in the seat back. The only business flight I've ever been on was from Glasgow to London on a BAe146 with AirUK. Everyone got breakfast which I thought unusual for such a short flight. The guy sitting next to me was a relatively slow eater and I found it quite funny when one of the cabin crew practically removed the rasher of bacon from his mouth in her hurry to tidy away before landing. I know Dan Air are long gone but I assume AirUK have disappeared too, I certainly haven't heard of them since. Have a great Wednesday folks. Edit: It's Thursday, isn't it? I keep doing that...

I shared a flat with a Swede once. Very tasty. She had this habit of walking between her room and the bathroom starkers. I used to spend a lot of time in the hallway...

Actually Andy, I was too busy working on a model railway when I should have been decorating! Just don't tell the wife. Or the police. Or Mr Twitcher across the street... Incidentally "Mr Twitcher" across the street was halfway up a ladder cleaning his windows when I got back from Cromer. I noticed him giving me the evil eye as I got out of the van. Unfortunately, he didn't fall off the ladder. If he had, I'm sure that would have been my fault too!

Just back from my little "chat" at Cromer nick which lasted all of four minutes. I was treated to the whole "good cop, bad cop" thing which I'm afraid I found rather amusing. When I suggested that they are probably looking for a couple of drunk teenagers, bad cop smugly suggested "I leave the detective work to those that are qualified" whilst good cop sensibly admitted that "they're just trying to 'eliminate the obvious' first". Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on point of view) my van has been parked on the street since Friday afternoon so was quite obviously there when the damage occurred. The Holway Road is a busy A road leading into Sheringham and there is parking on only one side of the street. I live on the opposite side of the street which is double-yellowed. As wife and kids are away for a few days and the car's not on the drive, I thought I'd take the opportunity to move the van onto the street, so I could gather up some leaves that had accumulated on the drive and also rake the gravel to get rid of the "moon crater" look. I'm led to believe that I was grassed up by a notorious "curtain twitcher" that lives across the road a few doors down. He was moaning to anyone who'd listen that I had no right to park on "his" side of the street when I had the luxury of a double drive on "my" side. Apparently that's why the police came banging on my door yesterday. Unfortunately, there were assorted luxury cars, piles of junk and other vans in the line of 12 or so and all of them attracted some kind of attention from the vandals. All except my van. Therein lies the problem... why did my van escape attention? I've been told they'll be in touch. Ah well, I wasn't planning to leave the country anyway! I'd like to stress that I have no issue with the police who are only trying to do their job. As roundhouse pointed out, at least they're taking an interest. Quite often, car damage goes uninvestigated. What I do have an issue with is the extraordinary amount of curtain-twitchers in this town who are all too eager to point the finger. I like the community feeling of a small town but sometimes there is a downside.

Well, it would seem the local yoof had a cracking time on Saturday night damaging a load of parked cars on the Holway Road leading into Sheringham. Door mirrors, wiper blades, the odd broken quarterlight. I did wonder what all the fuss was about yesterday morning when what seemed like half of the Norfolk Constabulary arrived... all that was missing was sniffer dogs and a couple of marksmen. I may, however, have a bit of a problem... Parked in the middle of this line of damaged vehicles was my little van and guess what? Not a mark on it. Apparently, this makes me a prime suspect and I have been "invited" to assist the police with their enquiries. As it's half term, wife and kids are away visiting her mother (I had a lucky escape from the dragon, by volunteering to stay behind and crack on with the decorating). So, with no alibi, if anyone fancies baking me a cake with a file in it...

Only in my dreams...

Hmm. If I ended up on Voyager in a dream, sod the castle and the assault buggy... I'd rather try my hand at *assimilating* Seven of Nine. "Dirty Old Man" mode off.

Absolutely, Steve. I have some deflectors I made up for Waddon Marsh but never got around to fitting them. The absolute final finishing touches including weathering, will have to come later because, as said, I'm a little conscious of spending too much time on any one area when there is still so much else to do. Pan the camera round to the left hand end, for example, and although the track is 3rd rail'ed and ballasted, it's still just bare board. Also, I haven't even ballasted the part-scenic section of the right hand board yet! To be honest, if I had any sense, I shouldn't have fitted lamp posts and street signs on the bridge just yet as I'm sure to damage something. With that in mind, I do think the next logical thing to do would be to continue the walkway along the backscene so I don't have to keep leaning across as work progresses!

Spent some time yesterday throwing some greenery at the road bridge end. Actually, it's only the road bridge end that is showing any progress. I need to stop fixating at this end of the board and get the backscene finished and a multitude of other jobs started. The part of London I grew up in (technically North Surrey) could be pretty leafy so even though this is set in a small town, I thought there was no harm "prettying up" at least part of the layout and adding some undergrowth. Still needs some work, but you get the idea. Some road signs and a couple of lamp posts added to the bridge which does make a visual difference. I guess the next job should be to continue the path along the backscene.

Teddy bear stuffing. £1 a bag at the craft fair. I'll only want 50% for the idea!

BoD, I'm glad you've got them on the case. Good luck and keep on top of it - I think I'd rather lose a limb than sight.

I used to know a Polish waitress in Spain who spoke Greek as well as English. She was going out with a German guy who worked for a French firm. That's about as multi-cultural as I get.