Boris

Even better that one of our TTIs today looked like the Boris who runs the country, not the Boris who runs the trains!

I'm here

Very poorly Boris yesterday

Great first day operating the layout at Goathland, the layout itself has behaved flawlessly, the past 6 weeks of testing have definitely paid off. It has been largely late LNER into early BR today and this has been well received by the public and we have all been nicely surprised by the amount of operational flexibility we have got. We have learnt a few lessons though: Another loco may be needed - we're all working on that! Don't be too enthusiastic about putting stock on the layout - I got carried away with a coal train and livestock train and completely gridlocked the layout this afternoon! The parcels train was VERY well received, this needs expanding on I'm sure i will think of some other bits to add to this list.

Robson isn't the first?

That's not me @RedgateModels it's one of our S&T techs running down a bad track circuit before we started playing again. But he did have a line block because we have a gadget for that now, I press a button and he takes a key out which locks the signals in/out of the platforms. Usually the diesel service loco would put the set away but it was on shed being swapped for a 37 so as the pilot was there doing brake van rides it would have been rude not to use it! This week is junior volunteer week on the NYMR - we have a really active juniors section for 8-15 year olds and this is their entire week working on the railway doing "proper" jobs rather than maintenance jobs etc that they normally do. Some are working with catering and retail as well as lineside groups and the older ones are allowed to do cleaning turns and shadow ticket examiners and guards. There are 45 of them this year and the brake van rides were a reward for them for their work. We have a high number of people stay on after "graduating" from the program and we recently passed out our first driver who joined the railway through the program. It's also got us a couple of guards and a couple of signalmen.

The P3 went to Wensleydale for the summer yesterday and I think the tin bucket is off to Peak Rail in a week or two. Watch out for brake van rides between 3 and 4 today.

My thought is, your daughter is 16, what does she want to do about it? Be guided by what she wants to do, if she wants to drop it, drop it, if she wants to call them out, support her and guide her. Simples (although easy for me to say not being her father)

We've had the layout up most weeks recently for testing, although last week we poked at a couple of scenic jobs instead, one was to fit a small bracket to stop the goods shed making a break for freedom off the edge of the layout if someone was a bit too enthusiastic with their shunting, and the other was measuring up the platform and canopies and coming up with a range of options in terms of price and style. In other news the Warehouse has been finshed to a basic standard for the show - the idea being to get as many identifiable scenic items in place as possible, finshed to a basic standard. We can work on making them look prettier later, as you can see, the loading platform requires the stones shading for example and the walls need toning down and detailing.

Just a quick witter for this update I am afraid, the wiring genius known as Kevin made it this week, just in time to discover that during last weeks testing we had somehow fried the rectifier and discover a Cobalt with a defective microswitch! But on the bright side, after a lot of fiddling we did get to see his scratch built N10 run on some Gresley suburbans which was well worth it. And we discovered that the modified Goods Shed does fit in the allocated space and so does the office, so from that perspective it was all good. It was also quite nice to be able to shunt the yard with the 08 and for it all to behave itself, although its only 2 roads the end on dock really does add some operational interest as it gives a purpose to playing about, along with the cattle/horse/sheep/children dock being in a slightly awkward place to add interest for the operator. The layout will be up again in full next week for more testing and tinkering so this time I will curb my excitement long enough to take a photo or two!

A little more fun with the goods shed over this weekend. The crane has been modifed to fit and helps suppoer the roof, although nothing is fastened in at the moment which is why it looks a little wonky, the roof trusses require cutting back to the correct length and they have been modified to accept the different roof on the viewing side. The roof on the far side has been turned round so the light sits in a slightly better place and the viewing side roof has been cut back and a blank piece put in ready to be tiled over otherwise it does not have much in the way of strength. Still not sure about the office personally, but I am pleased with the way this is coming together.

If you want people to naff off, might I suggest scatching vigourously and exclaiming "damn cat has given me fleas again", failing that the old fallback of scratching ones nuts and complaining of crabs also works. To kill an unwanted conversation try also exclaiming "I haven't had a poo for a week", if that doesn't work then try reaching for your phone and saying "you should have seen the size of it the last time this happened, it were so big I took a photo of it"

We have been making steady progress with the layout despite appearances! The track was all basecoated with Railmatch Sleeper Grime and then the rails themselves painted with Vallejo Leather Brown. The usual colour is Humbrol red leather which is a pain in the butt to obtain locally, but we do have a supplier of Vallejo paints and a supplier of GW paints, a quick comparison shewed that the Vallejo colour is definitely close enough. Another deciding factor in this decision was the drying time, with Humbrol enamels usually being a couple of hours and Vallejo being considerably shorter as they are an acrylic - useful on a club night where you can get 2 coats on comfortably, cleaning brushes is also a lot easier as no chemicals are required. It took about 3 weeks but both sides of the rail have been painted, a useful tip is to go round the rail with a very strong light, such as that on a mobile phone, so you can see where the paint coverage might be a little bit thin. Once this was done the railhead was scraped off and cleaned with a sanding block and all the points etc tested before we start doing anything drastic like throwing ballast around. One final thing to note was the obtaining of a part build goods shed kit for the layout very cheaply on Ebay, unfortunately it is about an inch too wide for the layout so it will be cut down and the side facing the public will be left open with a nice bit of detailing placed in the shed itself giving a 4 th wall effect, an interesting view should also be obtainable by leaning down slightly and looking through the goods shed windows onto the running line beyond.

The noises from the HRA indicated that some form of heritage cooperative may be the answer where preserved railways join to make it cost effective to import coal, bearing in mind that this DEFRA measure will likely lead to the collapse of the current domestic coal distribution network it will still be quite difficult. Six years is a long time though.

He was still around a few weeks ago

Quite a lot of progress has recently been made on the layout with the cosmetic fish plates having been fitted to all boards, and track painting started in earnest. Masking off the important areas of the points the track has been sprayed with railmatch sleeper grime and will now be painted with a suitable rail colour (tba). Once that has been completed the fun of ballasting begins. In other news Mrs Boris has declared the signal box to be completed, including the cat at the top of the stairs trying to get in!

Many fish Filming job With more fish

Comrade Wurzell had a full head of hair this morning, now look what I've done to him

You can admire my fine cleavage from up there

Don't forget that the snow plough goes on the coal drops.....

Lighting test number 1, definitely has promise.

I haven't made it to the club for a few weeks because of work, but in the meantime Mrs Boris has been extremely busy with the signal box, the roof is now finished aside from a couple of finishing touches and work has started on the interior and lighting. Some of the furniture is in as is the clock and stove, to date she has finished about half the lever frame which so far includes a detonator placer correctly painted for a bidirectional single line and a cut down electric ground frame lever! I think I saw a tensioning wheel for the distant as well somewhere. There is still a figure to be sculpted and painted, the rest of the lever frame, a block shelf and a diagram that I know of. She seems quite keen to have a 'bus phone near the desk and some form of SPT on the block shelf. The back wall isn't quite as rough as it looks, its a really bad angle on the camera with the flash!

Plenty of bad Manors around.....

Something big and important fell off it (one of the waggly bits in the middle I think) in February so the NYMR have repaired it. It's off to New Bridge Monday afternoon to be stuck on a roofrack to get it home.