MrWolf

Thanks to everyone for their thoughts and contributions here, it's given me a lot to think about.

I have a metal kit somewhere for a lever frame, so I can work out from that with a bit of luck the footprint of the signal box. I don't want it to overpower the other buildings, especially now that I have dispensed with the locomotive shed.

4 hours ago, spikey said:

BOF I may well be, but I just don't get all this "mode" stuff and whatnot on modern bikes.  OK, ABS I can see being well handy at times because however experienced you are, a patch of diesel on a wet bend at night can have anyone proceeding sideways up/off the road and it might just keep you on board.  But all the rest of it I really don't get.

 

I was actually nattering to a police biker a couple of months ago about this very thing, my feeling being that if you give the punters all this stuff to save them from themselves, surely it only encourages 'em to wring the bike's neck at every opportunity in the belief that the systems will save their asses.

 

He reckoned that among traffic police in general and police bikers in particular, it's about a 50:50 split on whether a lot of the technology is a Good Thing from the pov of keeping bikers out of hospitals.

 

This opinion brought to you by spikey, who famously got three "firsts" in his very first production race at Cadwell Park one fine Sunday in 1965 - first off the line, first into the first bend, and first on his ar$e ...

Your opinion that chumps think that:

A. They're invulnerable

B. That they can actually drive / ride 

Is proven entirely by the way car drivers behave in their gadget filled margarine tubs.

I have often thought that it would be better to bin the seatbelts, bring back bench seats, fixed steering columns and metal dashboards.

On that metal dashboard should be a sign, it would say: Drive responsibly or die horribly.

I doubt that the real thing looked that good when they were new. 

All in good time.

An OK Supreme was one of the obscure motorcycles that my grandfather (b1904) owned. One of the now desirable 250 OHC models from the early thirties, nicknamed the Lighthouse. He apparently also had amongst many a BSA, a 20s Douglas, Levis, Ivory Calthorpe and a 1926 RadCo that he got off the heap behind the village garage. Latterly he had one of the last 500 ohv Sunbeams built before the war and a 500 Rudge sports that he ran well into the 1960s. Unfortunately I don't know if any of them have survived. 

Likewise my father's first bike, a 250 New Imperial registered JF 8981, last seen around Leicester area 1959/60.

1 hour ago, Oldddudders said:

I know blokes who pay a lot extra for that sort of thing. 

I thought that we weren't supposed to talk about politicians on here? 

Wonderfully damp and scruffy. I like the Standard Flying Twelve too. Is that an Oxford model or similar?

I do have a proper digital camera, I may need to get a new card reader to run it through this phone. It's something that I need to look into.

That's a lovely shed....

Note to self: Must get out more.

3 hours ago, NHY 581 said:

A Sentinel. 

Now you've got me thinking Breidden hill quarry and the Criggion branch.

I presume that you are aware that you are a bad influence upon your readers? 

Aware also of the fact that if I change my modelmaking plans now I will get chased around the garden by a slightly unhinged giri armed with a sword?

One of the most desirable Red Hunters there. They were still popular as a quick bike 20 years later. A friend of my father's had one c1957, like my scruffy little MTX80 thirty five years later, it must have been a good bike as it too got stolen twice. 

I think that maybe other than the Panthers, my Royal Enfield J2 must be one of the last of the twin ports. Registered 1952 but built 1951 IIRC.

1 hour ago, Sandhole said:

Damn Straight.
Never trust any bull.
In my experience, Friesian bulls are psychopathic. I never had the dubious 'pleasure' of working with Jerseys mind.

Luckily I never had to deal with a Freisian bull. They were bad enough without any magazine in their guns.

Jerseys manage to look cute, but they are rather like Koala bears in that respect. They get bored and want to kill you.

A herd of cute little Dexters is like a pub full of Scottish soldiers. Short sturdy and don't #@*$ with them.

1 hour ago, Sandhole said:

I have been that guy.
I was taking a Hereford out of a trailer.
He took me for a walk.

I drew the line at Freisian bullocks. 

People who tell you that the Hereford bull is the friendliest and most docile of breeds have obviously never gotten into a disagreement with one. 

Likewise, I imagine that even if laid neatly in 1790, a good few would have sunk or gone MIA by 1930.

I spotted @Banger Blue's post first and the mention of a Green Line and thought for a moment there was some kind of debate about @#£& buses again! (Two bridges, two buses....) 

A splendid shed. I wonder what today's Safety Managers would make of the steps up to the water tank? 

Probably a big nuisance of themselves.

Possibly after the grouping? The top part of the lamp is identical to those used on the Great Central.

Very nice simple buildings, I rather like the one on the right with the lean to shed. I do like a bit of vernacular architecture don't you know...

It's put me in mind of a Great Central weighbridge hut, though it probably isn't. I think that my interest in the minor railway buildings stems from the fact that by the time I was old enough to go mooching round old branch lines, almost everything else was long gone.

I like the idea of an alarm cat, though they tend to wake you up by sticking a foot in your eye followed by drooling / fish breath. Could be worse, my dogs found that they were big enough to get one foot in your eye and another in your groin area simultaneously.

Had a late night ourselves and a totally out of character late awakening. Still, can't complain, I was woken by a charming young lady whispering her demands with greater urgency and insistence.

Unfortunately those demands were for cups of tea.

And it would have been easier (and probably safer!) to ignore the late lamented Doberman...

I am looking forward to seeing you develop this layout at your own pace.  Just don't develop it at my pace, 20 years is too long for anyone!

Yes, it would be a Slater's 3 link. It doesn't sit perfectly as I appear to have used an armour piercing round instead of a small drill to create the slots for the hooks! 

The extra lamps look like the Midland Railway columns with Littleton type gas fittings on harps like those that I remember once stood at Coalville.

Magic Star - Kenny Loran

Thanks very much @Beechnut she will be really pleased to hear that.

Space Guitar - Johnny Watson

Mountain Guitar - Rudy Thacker

It becomes more of a pain in the ##£e when you don't display the stereotypical traits, because then there's nobody fighting your corner or making excuses for your weird behaviour. You just become an outsider. Branded as highly intelligent but lazy, or disruptive, or antisocial. Trouble is there are plenty of kids who are like that for other reasons, or because they know that they can get away with it.

This is going to sound wrong, but when I hear about some kid in the US walking into school with an assault rifle, my immediate thought has nothing to do with gun control. I tend to think: I bet I know why he did it. I felt like that almost every day for about ten years. 

Mad Man - Jimmy Wages