Artless Bodger

Going round in circles - a severe case of coupling incompatability amongst my stock led to many derailments. Somehwat disheartened I sorted stock into two groups. 1. Stock with more modern narrow couplings or ones I could easily swap. 2. Old Triang type long hook / old Dapol and Lima. Group 1 now converted or still on short hook Bachmann seem to work togethe rok and I've released some locos from the display case, cleaned the sticky grease (12+ years old and little used sonce I went over to N) and reoiled. Group 2 kept as an alternative stud, old Hornby / Dapol / Mainline and Lima from the nephews. Then, not happy with the short platform which though uncompleted had developed an anticline, I decided to make a new one. Started to cut the foamboard, then opted to extend and remake the exisiting one - it has sandpaper glued to the top, when painted grey two things happened, the anticline became a severe syncline and the sand paper bubbled. To cap it all the extra length caused some stock to foul the ramps when entering the loop - BAH! Back to rethinking the new platform - this time a 1mm card top and front wall with a 3x5mm foam board support. Coming on ok at present but still risks going banana shaped when painted. As a stop gap I've cut out part of the extension to the old platform and have to accept the lumpy surface for the time being. As an aside, everything I paint ends up worse than before I start - the loco shed is going that way unfortunately. Loco shed made from bits-box items some OO some N. At least it is partly modular to allow me to paint it without too much contortion. I had made a scenic end piece to represent the approach slope to the bridge, supposedly passing behind the warehouse. Cobbled from bits including some N gauge bridge arches it made the end look too enclosed so it has gone for the time being and I prefer the idea of a closed level crossing, hinting at an original continuation of the branch, now disused - will need a 'gap in the buildings' type backscene. Had some issues with my Rapido 6w SECR brake van derailing but luckily the appropriate thread on here provided the answer, now it runs ok, if at the expense of some of the delicate hidden brake rigging detailing. Lastly the NG battery loco body for the Kato N chassis is under construction - going as well as I could expect at present, but the opportunity to mess it up looms - need to work out sequence of construction and modules so I can paint the inside and glase and detail it.

Basingstoke, junction and 2 diverging roads - squalid, pigeon poo ridden last time I walked under there.

Something speed related? The black cab taxis round here seem to have a passenger door lock initiated once the cab starts to move, it routinely unlocks anytime the cab stops, at traffic lights for example.

Wasn't there an issue with commutator glazing (or something) when unpowered power car motors were run for long distances at high speed too, better to power the motors to prevent this?

Running in without a rolling road?

Dft answer to WCML freight path congestion?

The overbridge looks as though it was made from whatever was in the bits box. Was the stone section original for a narrow station site and the station widened later, requiring the metal extension?

Interesting trap point within the essentially scissors crossover.

OT, the first reasonably complete iguanadon skeleton was found in Benstead's quarry in Maidstone. Consequently, Maidstone is unique in having a dinosaur in its coat of arms. https://museum.maidstone.gov.uk/explore/collections/geology/maidstone-and-the-iguanodon/ From this website I find that there is now a sculpture of an iguanadon outside the refurbished Maidstone East station (I haven't been back to Maidstone for a few years now, but we used to walk past the quarry some Sunday afternoons in my childhood).

Did the higher speed of the engines enable a direct coupling to the generator? I think the Sulzer and EE engines had step up gears between crankshaft and generator. Another benefit of the smaller engines was supposed to be that all parts could be handled within the loco, smaller pistons, cylinder heads etc, so you did not need to have an overhead crane and take the roof off for most maintenance. If you did take the roof off, you could swap lightweight engines out as a single unit quickly as in aeroplanes (power eggs), not surprisingly considering the Germans' aeronautical background, e.g. Maybach engines in airships etc. Iirc Deltics and Westerns were known for quick engine swaps, repair by replacement, Laira was good at this, less time out of traffic. EMD E series diesels used double engines and generators, they were pretty succesful for their time.

Today was a day of highs and lows. I've lost interest in my original conceit.

I think the GWR railcar was delivered by rail via Robertsbridge because I remember reading that it was loaded on one side with scrap brake blocks to tilt it enough to fit through one of the narrow tunnels. I'm sure it was at Rolvenden when I first went there which was probably 1967 or 1968.

A school trip to Switzerland at Easter 1970, staying in Fiesch. We travelled by coach but had a couple of short trips on the FO and BVZ and saw the one FO diesel loco. A day trip to Stresa over the Simplon Pass, saw the FO shunting tractor in Brig, a sort of red milk float, outside cranks and with a pantograph on the roof. One steam loco at t alevel crossing in Italy - from later investigation I think it was an inside cylinder 2-6-0 with outside valve gear. Angular brown articulated electric loco on a freight at Stresa station (the others went on a boat round the Boromean Islands). The old tram terminus beside the FS station.

Quite possibly. The few I've seen (in more recent years), of the reinforced rubber type, are just rolled up and strapped onto pallets, much easier to handle with a fork or pallet truck than on a drum. These belt sections had a comb type interlocking connector at each end, secured with a long rod or pin.

I recall something similar said about the pulverised coal N class experiment, leading to the contents of the storage bin at Eastbourne being burned off, with deleterious effects on the local air quality.

That begs the question of what to use to glue it and colour it? I've sometimes thought while making a cup of coffee that the instant granules would make good ironstone loads for 2mm but again how to prevent it absorbing moisture but retain the matt appearance. I did raid Head Gardener's grit sand for ballast once (with permission), sieved to remove the grit. Would represent beach as used by the SER.

Though from Kent, I found the diesel mechanicals had their advantages (if a bit lacking in acceleration), when the driver left the blinds up - Ipswich to Lowestoft and Lowestoft to Norwich and Ely were fun trips, Newcastle to Carlisle also. After a geology field course in Cornwall I managed Penzance to Plymouth with a front view, quite enlightening. The heating, when it worked, was good too if a bit fuggy sometimes. After waiting in a cold wind on Maidenhead station in winter evenings, the DMU back to Reading was always cozy. As to knowing the classes, well there were so many reformings - always a surprise that the Paddington suburban units were not fixed rakes like the EPB/HAP/CEPs of my home area, when a student in the mid 70s I saw blue / blue and grey and white vehicles in the same train sometimes. SR codes tripped off the tongue but the class numbers for DMUs were hard to remember. As the Pressed Steel units were withdrawn for asbestos in the late '80s we got some oddities to my eyes, 101s I could identify, but some others appeared a few times, and I never did pin down what they were (had end windows in the guard's compartment). Then Networkers supplanted my favourite DEMUs (3H, 3R, 3D), but I did get to travel on the 210 4 car a few times, decent engine sound, not the straining burbles of bus engines! Ultimately though, favourites or not, any train is better than no train.

That's a useful hint thank you - I have left over N ballast now I've returned to OO, so not wasted. My old OO ballast can be stone loads for wagons.

That is good news that even an M7 will run on the unifrog points. While I admire the skill and the patience of Job that the fine scale modellers put into their layouts, I remind myself it is a hobby, not a penance.

Great layout, you have really captured the look of a scrap pile there, best I've seen. With the pile of cars, I can see one of my old workmates searching for bits for his car there. Reminds me of this photo in Dewsbury by Humphrey Bolton on wikimedia and geograph.

The sort of scene that would make a good micro layout theme, but would need a much larger area to be able to capture the atmosphere of the surrounding dereliction.

They might last longer if the holes were filled with bundles of plastic banknotes - they're supposed to have good durability compared to the paper ones.

I had bought Boots surgical spirit BP to use as hand sanitiser, when you couldn't buy the 'real' gel stuff in early lockdown, I tried it for track cleaning but it left an oily film. The ingredients of the Boots stuff are: Ethanol 90% Methanol 5% Active ingredients - Methyl salicylate, diethyl phthalate, castor oil. Its the phthalates and oil, that render it unhelpful for track cleaning. However it has its uses: I find it more effective than washing up liquid in reducing surface tension in dilute PVA for ballasting, or lightly sprayed on dry ballast as a wetting agent before the glue. I also found soaking old Hornby wagon bodies, which had been repainted (over a bright yellow original base colour), in surgical spirit, then scrubbing with a toothbrush removed most of the paint - it was the yellow base coat that broke down, the overpaint came off in sheets. A quick wash then in soapy water to remove the oils before repainting. Head Gardener uses the surgical spirit to clean writing off her plant labels. I now use Isopropyl alcohol for wheels, track and occasionaly for acrylic paint thinning. We used IMS (industrial methylated spirit - colourless) in quantity at work, ethanol denatured with methanol to make it unsafe to drink it's not taxed as drinkable ethanol would be, though we had to have a licence to buy it (several 25 litre drums in stock at any time). The purple colour in methylated spirit was iirc methyl violet dye. The smell (and dreadful taste if you were desperate enough to drink it) was due to pyridine, nasty stuff. We used pyridine as one of a number of solvent spot tests for sensitised papers and inks (for cheques, passports etc) as criminals could use it to leach out ball point pen inks (alter signatures etc). In the lab we had 250mls in a brown glass, ribbed, bottle with a ground glass stopper which was prone to sticking. One older colleague decided to demonstrate how to release a jammed glass stopper by tapping the bottle neck with the handle of a hammer - cue shattered bottle and most of the contents on the floor. The tea bay was at the other end of the corridor from our lab. We were not very popular come tea break. One female chemist took great pleasure in informing us that pyridine can cause male infertility.

Great, I can almost hear the rain! Makes the train look so cozy.

Ah someone who spells it like me! It was the most dingy, unkempt looking terminal in London that I visited with my school friend Mac in the early 70s, we didn't stay long, Kings Cross was far more attractive (and he was an LNER fan and modeller). My one abiding memory of St Pancreas was hearing a loud splat, looking around we could see an object - we assumed a railman had chucked something across the track onto the platform, but on closer inspection it was a dead pigeon which had just plummeted from the roof girders.