Artless Bodger

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.

Looking at the previous photo on flickr, a contributor states it's a side tip. Looking at the lever close up I think it's just a link on the end of the safety chain, with an L shaped pin you draw to release the end of the chain prior to tipping. The L shaped pin is on a light keeper chain. There is also a loop handle (pull out?) to the left and further left a catch of some sort. Would be interesting to know how the whole lot worked. There is a photo on Paul Bartlett's site in the internal user private section showing a similar wagon. Also some photos on web of similar wagons at Esholt sewage works, though they are captioned hopper.

Hmm, bogie? Hopper? Looks more like a side tip wagon, a large version of the Rugga tipper skip? The curved segments at the end look a giveaway, and to tip it you'd put a crane hook in that handle like fitting on the side and lift. The safety chain looks a bit delicat though. There's a photo of several somewhere else on RMWeb - in the industrial steam topics perhaps, used for coal mine waste iirc - one has odd wheels too - maybe prototype for anything?

Trying to place that view, is it on the line from Maidstone, approaching the junction, the 58 in the original LCDR Ashford station area? Having behind the photographer the army depot, that always had what looked like a Centurion hull parked close to the railway line, and having just passed an interesting looking metal door built into the side of the cutting? The CEP(?) in the distance being on the SER main line to Tonbridge (or Chart Leacon depot)?

On buses, two things stick in the memory; being mystified by the upstairs layout on a low bridge type, I think they were used normally on the 3 to Sittingbourne and Faversham, this was off route as we had it on a 33 to Tunbridge Wells. And on holiday in Margate, the lovely dark red East Kent double deckers with power operated sliding doors, occasionally got them in Maidstone on the 10 from Folkestone. Generally trips to see relatives in Kent was by bus as few lived near stations.

Good luck with that repair, it looks like watchmaker's work.

Not really given to going spotting, except a couple of trips to London to do the main termini with a school friend, so Deltics at Kings Cross, Westerns at Paddington. Living in Maidstone it was otherwise a diet of emus in green or blue. Early sightings that stick with me were: A family wedding reception in Ilford, the venue overlooked the railway, strange to see trains like at home but powered by overhead wires. First trip to Margate by train (we'd used the M&D coach before - cheaper, until I got travel sick) and seeing Maunsell and Wainwright at Ashford (check the Observers book when we got back home). A holiday at Bracklesham Bay holiday camp, we went to Portsmouth one day for the Victory, waiting for the train back to Chichester at Portsmouth and Southsea HL a dark green dmu came through on a service, I recall the racket the exhausts up the end of the carriages made compared to our quiet emus. Next birthday I got the Triang Met Cam dmu (rather than the Triang emu - looked too old fashioned). (Some years later, a holiday in Hastings introduced me to the much nicer sound of a Hastings unit, or two). A holiday in Weymouth area, 1968 I think, seeing a maroon warship in the sidings at Waterloo, in my ignorance I thought it must be a Midland region loco. Later on the return from holiday, saw a blue one at Basingstoke (Greyhound iirc but I wouldn't put money on it). Later in life, returning from work in Maidenhead one misty evening, walking from platform 6 at Reading, saw ahead along 8 a class 58, which departed westwards as I approached, so only really saw the end, they were new at the time and I only knew about them from magazines. Didn't see any more 58s until the Fertis (?) ones parked at OOC. Seeing the APT at Carlisle on my first trip to Scotland. Discovering thumpers still lived (just) in NI when my wife got a job over there. We could hear them across Belfast Loch sometimes on services to Larne.

When APM to had adapt its siding and unloading gantry to accomodate the bogie tank wagons, the drawing of the wagon supplied for reference was lettered for Murgatroyds. I saw a Triang one in a charity shop window in Wokingham years ago - it was unfortunately a Sunday evening so I couldn't buy it.

Speaking of larger drums - on a visit to Townsend Hook papermill at Snodland in early 1980s we saw liquid chlorine in yellow 1 ton cylinders - laid flat, would fit nicely in thoe cradles. Used for water treatment (anti microbial) - bigger mills like APM took liquid chlorine in tank wagons (4w then bogie like the Triang Murgatroyd ones).

I recall seeing mobile muffler devices used at airports ( in the days of turbojet rather than turbofan engines?) - park it up so the jet exhaust went through it so the engines could be run up and tested during the night - something similar over the track for locos (a sund absorbing version of a smoke hood in a steam shed). Found on Reddit r/aviation - duncan_D_sorderly