tetsudofan

Phil. Hope you have a good time at Tinkers Park, I've been there a couple of times, its a fantastic place, plenty of things to do and see. Last visit was as a passenger on the East Kent Sealink AEC Regent owned by one for my friends: There are loads of other things to see including some steam rollers which were offering rides: and. of course, some things that we are not supposed to talk about here: Tinkers Park is located way out in the boondocks and from what I remember was not well signposted, first time I went over there when I was driving I went past the place but once I found it, it was well worth it, Keith

Interesting how the pricing of Bachmann USA and Bachmann is quite similar. Bearing in mind that the class 47 is a Co-Co and the American Charger is a Bo-Bo with the sound-fitted Cl.47 versions being priced at £339-95 and £369-95 looks like we are getting are better priced model compared to our American cousins. Keith

Last week I collected a Bachmann Trains (USA) all bells and whilstles Amtrak Midwest Siemens Charger SC-44 Bo-Bo Diesel loco from local dealer. According to the leaflet that comes with it, includes several brand new features from the prototype. One interesting feature is the emergency braking operation - if it is triggered the emergency brake dump sound will play and the red emergency strobe on the cab roof will begin to flash. Like the new Cl.47 the engine room is all lit up. Price of this loco retailed by Bachmann Europe is £360-95. Be interesting to compare it to the price of the new Cl.47. Keith

No new LGB yet Neil, am waiting for the new Sachsen VIIk 2-10-2T due at the end of the year. Keith

I have a confession to make. Before starting to follow this thread I had never heard of LDC and had no idea of what it was, As, at about 10:30pm this evening, I complete my 76th orbit of the sun I thought it's about time that I found out what this LDC stuff is and what it tastes like. Luckily on my weekly visit to my local Sainsbury's I found this box on the shelves which was soon removed to my shopping basket: Seems to be a number of red warning notices on the box which, on this special day, I will ignore. It also says 16 slices but I think that will be reduced to 8 slices which means I've got enough to last me for a few days. I'm not greedy so think that's just about right. If any friends drop by there will be no sign of the LDC. Only problem, should I have any left over by the weekend, is that my LDC is only 24 miles down the track from Headcorn ....... Will it be safe? Keith

Despite all the travelling I've done since 1966 maybe I've been lucky regarding travel sickness. Prior to boarding the P&O Chitral in August 1966 the only ships I had been on were the paddle steamers on the Woolwich Free Ferry....... The journey across the Bay of Biscay on the Chitral went smoothly and no problems were encountered until the ship left Colombo and headed for Penang when I ended up being confined to my cabin for a couple of days living on cheese sandwiches. Once in Hong Kong I joined the Marine Division of the Hong Kong Auxiliary Police Force where we normally manned the little tugboat-like boats on the harbour. During the Red Guard riots we were mobilised and one weekend we did a 24 hour duty on one of the 70ft launches and encountered some rather rough weather on the way back to base. The boat commander realised that I was not looking happy and told me to take the wheel which certainly kept me busy with no time to honk!! Once back in the UK in the early 70's I had to spend a week a month in Brussels and rather than fly I would drive up to Harwich and catch the overnight (Dutch) ferry to the Hook of Holland and then drive down to Brussels. On one trip the Dutch boat was being serviced and the (British Rail) steam-powered Avalon was substituted which was much more comfortable than the diesel-powered Dutch boats. I had an excellent nights sleep but when I got ready to disembark was told that because of the windy conditions they could not offload the car as the Avalon (at the time) was not a drive-on/drive off boat and it was too windy the crane the car off the boat. Bearing in mind the amount of flying I've done after I left Hong Kong I've only honked on board once and that was self-inflicted on a TWA flight from New York to London when I overdid the Harvey Wallbangers and headed for the loo. On leaving the loo one of the flight attendants had a black coffee reading and waiting. Dad was meeting me at Heathrow and asked me if I would like to drive home. I declined... Over the years I've been through a few turbulent flights including an approach to Anchorage when coming out of the clouds we were heading for a rather large mountain. Engines roared into life and up we went to make another landing attempt. Keith Keith

Back in 1972 I was working with The Chartered Bank in what was then Bombay the Indian Government had introduced a policy of localisation of positions in foreign companies operating in India. When it was my time to leave India my position was localised and just before I left India a number of my staff said that they were sorry to see me leaving. I asked them why and all the responses were basically the same - I treated them all fairly as Indians but their new Indian boss will treat them as Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Christians etc. Keith

Can vouch for that, have got some walls full of them as can be seen in the distance: and this (rather grotty) pic: Only problem is they are somewhat on the expensive side but you pays your money and you get a quality product. Keith

One indoors: bit of a mish-mash, no real theme. if I like it it ends up on the railway....... The other line is in the garden; Plenty to do and keep me out of trouble..... Keith

Just received an email that my three sound fitted locos (SECR, Southern Olive and BR lined black) have been shipped today in what seems to be in one parcel as I've only been charged £4 for postage. Keith

Back around 2003 I started on my garden railway (the EG&SNNR) which comprised of a loop and couple of passing loops at the end of the garden: This did not last long and was soon extended down the side of the garden you can see in the above pic to end at the back of the house. Soon got bored having to "drive" trains from one end of the railway to the other so a year later it was decided to extend the railway around the outside of the garden so I could leave the trains to drive themselves round and round...... Once that was done it was time to start developing some spirals down the side of the garden: and then it needed some mountains in the middle of the garden: Whilst all the above developments were taking place the original lines down the sides of the garden fell into misuse. What to do lah (as they say in Singapore). What about a rack railway? Having accumulated some rack locos over the years thought that was a good idea so last Autumn a start was made on converting the original trackbed to a rack railway: My engineering skills are not that great having spent all my working years in overseas banking but somehow inclines were created: and by the onset of winter I was happy with what had been created all still on the original trackbed: Work continued this Spring and a couple of days ago stage one (down one side of the garden) including some more bridges was completed: Work has now been paused and won't start again until the likes of Wickes have mortar mix on their shelves. Just got to cross the garden and then down the other side. Maybe I can run some trains during the interlude....... Keith

Having a bit of a clearout and came across this picture of the P&O Chitral: all 14,000 tons of her which transported me from Southampton to Hong Kong in August 1966 at the start of my nearly 4 year assignment to the Far East. My cabin was on the main deck about 2/3rds of the way down the ship, actually had a window to my cabin, no porthole for me!! Keith

Pity but my trains in the garden don't breath smoke and steam, this one just needs the batteries charging: Keith

Parcelforce just delivered one large package containing containing a fantastic model, well worth the wait. Many thanks Accurascale!! Keith

Thanks for that, solved a birthday present for a friend and ordered a copy for myself as well - had to because the remains of branch line are just down the road from where I live.

Warm and sunny down here in the southeast corner, think its grass cutting day today. I've never been in an Ikea store and probably never will. One thing I do know is that I won't order anything from Ikea online for home delivery. The Parcelforce guy was trying to deliver this package to my neighbours (who were busy dealing with the birth of their first child): Bits and pieces were falling out everywhere, the items were just wrapped in rather thin and easily tearable paper..... Could not believe it when I looked at the address label and saw who the shipper was Ikea. Keith

Mine was ordered online on Thursday and has just been delivered by a guy in an unmarked white van but looking at the address label it came via Fedex although no text from Fedex was received in advance. Think somebody above was asking what sound decoder has been fitted, the information sheet states that it is an ESU 21MTC Loksound V5 DCC. Am glad that I missed out on the Hornby version, many thanks to Bachmann for producing a first class model with sound etc. Keith

...... and me as well!

Pre-Ordering now available on the Bachmann Collectors Club website. Keith

Cars and Singapore reminds me of my year in Singapore around 1976 when the bank allowed me to buy a car for the duration of my stay. Ended up buying an old four-door Ford something which got me around Singapore, over the causeway to Johor Bahru a couple of times and even provide a lift to the President of the bank when he visited Singapore to open the branch. The car was basically a rust bucket and I sold it to a guy working for one of the Canadian banks. When he found out that it was a rust bucket he was not happy but in the long run he turned out to be the winner. A short time after he bought the car the Singapore Government changed the procedure for buying new cars (in their desire to cut pollution etc.) which vastly increased the price of new cars....... unless you were currently a registered owner of a car and wanted to buy a new car, The value of rust buckets therefore shot up and when the Canadian left Singapore he was able to sell the rights to his car to a well-off Singaporean ......... and left a happy bunny! Keith

Many moons ago I lived in Seoul for three years and was a regular lunchtime visitor to the Seoul Hyatt. A couple of years after I left Seoul went back there for a couple of days and was taken to lunch by one of my Korean ex-colleagues (my ex-deputy as it happens - best guy I ever hired). We started lunch with a salad and I happened to mention that there was a green shrimp amongst many pink shrimps in the salad. Mr. Shin suddenly shouted STOP, DON'T TOUCH IT and called one of the waiters. He went to town with the guy and subsequent layers of hotel management which resulted in my plate being quickly removed and I never saw the salad again. Other than that episode, it was a good place to visit! Keith

Down this way we get a siren going off at 12 noon each Friday which I understand comes from the Gurkha barracks over at Shorncliffe. Keith

Those Pannier things got everywhere, they even got down to the Folkestone Harbour Branch, could not have been that powerful as they needed three of four of them on each train being pushed up to Folkestone East Junction. Keith

Retirement day for me was December 30, 1998 and was celebrated with a glass of champagne on a Northwest Airlines Jumbo rolling down the tarmac at Narita Airport, Tokyo bound for Hong Kong. Was back in Tokyo as a tourist a couple of weeks later (having surrendered my work permit on December 30) to stay with a friend to sort things out, visit some other friends in Asia to say goodbye and see parts of Japan I had not seen before returning to the UK on April 10, 1999 (crikey, nearing 22 years ago.....) conveniently allowing me to sort of my tax returns in Japan as of December 30, 1998 and arriving back in the UK just after the start of a new tax year. Keith

Due to the warm sunny weather down here in the south east corner I've been spending most of my time in the garden getting my garden railway (the EG&SNNR - you can find some pics in the Garden Railway section of RMweb) back up and running so apart from setting-up the GT3 on my Z21 its spent most of its time been resting in the shed area. All I can say is that the GT3 is a great model, well worth the wait. Keith