MrWolf

Very atmospheric, just needs to be in black and white with a police Wolseley 6-80 lurking by the gate! I know, we watch too many old films in our house...

Not sure, we decided that he'd waste his time and I'd waste mine.

Having said that, there's a long established coffee house / ice cream parlour locally with it's own frontage with tables. We pulled up on my BSA with the intention of letting the Memsahib go and order whilst I found a parking spot. The manager was outside and said "That looks cool, you can park it by the door." Job done!

As do all those folks who abandon their Lamborghini's etc outside Harrods and elsewhere. Nothing has changed, only the style of the cars.

Snap! 20 years earlier in southwest Shropshire, the postman is doubtless telling the porter that he's "Wastin' his time!"

The problem with banks of garages away from the respective owners houses is that they routinely get broken into. Particularly because the police will not attend unless the garage is attached to the house. Thieves know this, so come back again six months later. (Guess how I know?) There's lots of empty council garages around here. Private garages tend to be full of things the owners CBA to take to the tip, or are rented out to one man band builders etc. They certainly should, but also need to deal with related issues. There's a lot of cycle lanes and cycle/ footpaths divided by a central solid white line around here. The cycle lanes are full of pedestrians who avoid the pavement for some reason. The combined cycle / footpaths which are clearly marked are full of wombles either with their headphones on or plain ignorant of some fool ringing his bell who carry on walking four and five abreast. Add to that the out of control drug dealer's dogs, little yappers on stretchy leads and it's a real obstacle course. Of the cyclists, there's the wannabe Bradley Wiggins types, who often ride in groups, three and four abreast and they're not going to spoil their new record by giving way to other cyclists. The deliveroo chumps on electric bikes who seem to have no road sense whatsoever and chavs two up on electric trials bikes doing about forty. At night it's a no go area. The electric bikes aren't just delivering takeaways and rivals lie in wait armed with hammers and machetes to tax them. Indeed, you will be poor but happy, or else comrade! Happy in the knowledge that your sacrifice is saving our tiny bit of the planet whilst the real world polluters carry on regardless and the elite fly along empty highways in armour plated electric Bentleys.

Or delivered in discreet packaging from the likes of NuMan....

I'm sure that I have some photos of those locos pre rebuild with temporary wooden cabs that appear to be made from floorboards. I'll have to go through my books.

I tend to do that with the castoff bits from motorcycle restorations. I recently listed a rear mudguard that I'd replaced with a much better one. Lots of photos and a good description of the rusty, holed and filler bodged but OEM article. Needs a lot of welding and patience! When it sold for £120, I thought it would soon be on it's way back to me. But the buyer was happy it "exactly as described". So you never know.

More what I had in mind! Project Gutenberg

I got the plates for 23, 530 and my Collett goods from 247 Developments, very pleased with them and a quick turnaround.

Last year we had some fool park across the gated tunnel to our garages and my workshop. It's clearly marked do not block, a single white line, signs and CCTV. Twelve people couldn't get in or out. The car belonged to one of the mobile home carer's companies and had their name and number on the side. I phoned their head office, gave them the reg number and asked them to phone the driver to shift it. If it had been a civvy car it would have been a matter of getting the police to shift it.

The hose clamps are likely to be like this one given the weight of things: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/275680843656? If you're having troubles with tightening modern Jubilee clips, a 7mm socket is your friend. Cracking job with the pipe bend solution @KNP, I'm looking forward to seeing it all coming together.

Good luck with that!

"Flying Money pit" is the one I've heard the most. But any steam locomotive that is owned and operated by a single person or a small group will be. They were built and operated by big businesses. My concern and the reason for giving FS the "Flying Backwards" moniker is that quite a few irreplaceable locomotives have been damaged when enthusiasm has overidden experience. Do we remember when 532 Blue Peter nearly got written off with smashed valve gear and twisted axles? It's no surprise that the NRM doesn't let Mallard out to play anymore. Somebody might just try finding out how fast she really is. When Scotsman got into that collision I thought that's it, she won't be out anymore and it may well be the end of main line steam. It's bad enough that operators are now being forced to idiot proof the old carriages. Lots of things have rather odd nicknames, it doesn't mean that they're disliked, have a look at military slang sometime. A friend of mine has a veteran BSA sidecar combination which has always been known as "The Oil Monster" because of its total loss lubrication system. Another has a very rare Morris Marina Deluxe known as "The Marinator" because the paint colour is best described as chicken tikka. Years ago I had a battered old 1959 Bedford pickup truck known as "The Nasty", the name actually came from when a pair of reprobates tried stealing my Hovawart* dog out of it and it didn't end too good for them. It retained the name even after a full chassis off restoration. The Scotsman is a wonderful old piece of machinery, something that keeps steam locomotives in the minds of all those weird people who aren't interested railways, does anyone think that I haven't had any stick about my name over the years? 😄 *Hovawart: From the old German for "Yard Watcher", a bear like breed of dog used by farmers to scare off wolves and intruders. Loyal, playful and generally laid back, but not something you would want to upset.

Or a really old Skoda.* *Also handy for supermarket car parks. Bundesarchiv

Great news Graham, may the commission be the first of many.

I'm a fan too, they're a prime example of form following function. Though it would be a big stretch of rule 1 to have one on my layout, a friend has several handbuilt brass O gauge versions which always come out on running days. As for FS fever, I can't remember if I've ever actually seen Flying Backwards in person.

You'd definitely get away with that on a prewar layout. The bike is fitted with girder forks, (Two sets of thin tubes going down to the front wheel, rather than one thick one each side) BSA stopped fitting those at the end of 1946, going over to a telescopic fork until the end in 1973. National motorcycle museum

Paraquat is actually a suitably terrifying bright green, but it wasn't discovered until about 1950 and came into use in 1962. Around 1932, the first synthetic weedkiller appeared in the US, 2 - methyl - 4, 6 - Dinitrophenol. Other synthetic weedkillers were developed during the second world war, but for the UK in the late l930s the most likely is Sodium Chloride. Basically salting the ground using a very strong salt solution suspended in water. Which would explain the lack of gloves and gas masks worn by the operators.

I would expect them to get it checked by the scaffolding company, a full bolt check and re-tagged. There's no sign of damage, although the outermost leg has moved on it's pad, so we've notified the contractors to that effect. Under CDM regulations, it's their responsibility now to ensure that it's safe.

Annoyingly not. Where we were is surrounded by a 12 foot high hoarding and the we could only see the side of the cab before it shot up another side street.

Last night was quite amusing, working on the door at a local music venue. Opposite is a listed industrial building which is currently receiving a new roof and the whole frontage is scaffolded, complete with florescent markers on all the uprights. It's been that way since before Christmas. We watched a taxi cut the corner before it, carry on half on the pavement and collide with the scaffolding. It made a nice clang and the whole lot shook. The driver simply backed up and drove off at speed. There was nothing parked at all which would cause him to swerve and the street is wide enough to get a coach down with ease. We've pinned a note to the building door to tell the roofers to check the scaffolding before using it on Monday morning.

We're quite lucky as there's only the two of us so we don't need a big trolley shop, we just take a rucksack apiece ( saves buying endless bags or forgetting those bags for life) they're small enough to easily walk between the cars and drop in the boot. Shopping by car is only done in bad weather or coming back from elsewhere anyway, we usually go by bicycle as it's barely a mile round trip. Parking further out helps because if you get some lard barge SUV either side, it's awkward getting the Herald's very long doors open.

It's been a busy six months for me, so the almost complete autocoach project has taken a bit of a back seat. But it is now in the queue on the recently tidied Bench of Bodge and is glowering at me from the corner. I feel a bit guilty having got so far with it, especially as @MAP66 has ploughed ahead with his and is now upgrading the loco. I think that it's time to get it finished and give my modelling mojo a kick up the derriere. I also have the Shawplan glazing kit, fitting that will be a first for me.