Il Grifone

Mine are upstairs at the moment. I'll have a look tomorrow, but the screws will be something metric.

I think they know it already! Whiskers and Lewis were sharing Arran's bed yesterday, tail to tail.

The nasty stuff is still available in Italian supermarkets. You can also get almost neat (95%) alcohol. On the plus side wine starts at about 1€ a litre!

This is Kitten Tinkerbell and this one is Ziggy, hard at work, and Visitor Pussycat Geronimo. (He has ideas about moving in, but is still rather timid. Strangely he is not worried about the dogs at all.)

Top to bottom: puppies - Spot, Alex, and Brenno resting from the stress of life and Brenno in the garden. Brenno has just gone to his furever home today.

Whiskers the cat decided not to come with us on this morning's walk*, but we were joined by a griffon to make up for it. It was circling overhead for a while and then passed directly overhead at quite a low level and then headed off towards the next village. Obviously the dogs were completely underwhelmed by this experience! * Possibly chicken leftovers had something to do with this, as he came out to see his 'visitor' friends Sophia and Geronimo when we got back. (We called him 'Wounded Warrior' as he has come off worse in a fight in the past (possibly with a dog - his poor ears are all mangled), but now he has taken up residence in the shelter we built for strays, so needed a proper name. He was very shy at first but is getting used to us and almost friendly, even with the dogs, but he refuses to come in.) We don't really need another cat (yes we do of course!) as we have quite a few in our care already, plus our two large dogs and three puppies we are looking after for the local shelter. (They were only supposed to be here 'for a few days!')

The axles push out of the frames in the earlier metal bogies. There is no need to bend them. Better to replace the bogies however - the wagon already sits high on the original 10mm (circa) wheels. Many years ago I repainted a Tri-ang bogie bolster* to a GWR MACAW B, replacing the awful bogies with Ratio ones. Then Mainline brought out a far superior product! The bogies now sit under a Dublo WELTROL MV. (Incorrect - there shouldn't be lightening holes - so one day they will be replaced! - The original plate frame bogies would have been OK (overwidth?) with 10mm wheels, but mine had the diamond frame ones. *The brown one from the second link I think, but mine was grey.

Undoubtedly, but there would have been little demand without a shift to metric.

Before WW1, I gather that model railways were rather the province of the well heeled. (They still are now at today's prices for new items!) The famous 'Railway Children' (must read it one day - Jenny Agutter film not withstanding!) were obviously not short of the proverbial shilling. (The faulty locomotive was presumably a 'dribbler'?)

As I said, I have yet to try the 'cure'. The nasty stuff* is waiting for me to get around to it, as is the remains of a pre-war Dublo N2 chassis... (broken into several chunks). *When last seen the screw top bottle was half empty - presumably evaporated. It's not a high priority project.... Apart from these bits, I have a TTR Princess body (a bit warped and fractured where I tried to straighten it) - not much chance of repair and no chassis (maybe a Tri-ang one?) -probably not worth the trouble - and various Farish wagons and Pullman chassis - definitely not worth the trouble

The dreaded pest is caused by impurities in the alloy and can be accelerated by vibration, which is why it shows up frequently in wheels. Rivarossi Memory claims a cure, but it invoves nasty chemicals and I have yet to try it. http://www.rivarossi-memory.it/Tecnica/Peste_Zama_cura/Curare_peste_zama.htm Sorry it's in Italian - Google translate.

That's the one! (I did read it a long time ago!) I think we are getting too far into science and engineering with timplate track. The railhead is rolled tinplate, as that is the simplest/cheapest to make and the rest of the rail follows from that. The nmber of sleepers per trackpiece is the least that they could get away with. The wheel section, if any thought was given at all, is an approximation of the real thing - as long as it works! Compatibility with other makes was not a consideration - if anything incompatibility would have been considered as a brand loyalty thing. AFAIK no consideration to standards was given until the formation of BRMSB around WWII. For instance the pioneer 00/H0 wheel standards were all different! I've never had any trouble with Hornby track due to lack of sleepers (rust and 'stepped on' yes!l).

Last night's "walkies" was a bit of a trauma! It started fine - me, dogs - Lewis & Arran - and cat - Whiskers - who now insists on coming too! Off we set and all OK until the home stretch when we were met by a furiously barking dog* charging towards us. Our two weren't having that - MANNERS! - and ran towards her. I had to drop their leads or I'd have been pulled over. Abrupt reversal of dog in direction and demeamour - from Bark Bark Bark to Cree, Cree, Cree! I was able to call our two off, but then they set out, dogs on a mission, towards the next village (no idea why!) with me in pursuit. Down what I call " Bark Alley" where every house has vocal dogs - our two (they are Maremmani** after all!) treat all of them with the contempt they deserve. The last house has several (five at the last count) particularly noisy ones who all started in concert. Ours passed by ignoring them and then stopped for a particularly interesing smell. I managed to grab Lewis. There was a sharp crack from behind us (firework? gun?) which produced two scared dogs pressed up against my legs for protection. (That sort of noise really disturbs them and they seek our protection (the last 'Festa' had Lewis on my lap!). So now I had them back under control, we set off home - the other way! and we got back without further incident - they realised that Master was not impressed with their behaviour! Of course poor Whiskers had been abandoned during all this. I thought, "He knows the way home", but no sign of him. Obviously I set out to look for him and there he was, sitting forlornly in the middle of the road where the dogs had taken off - luckily it was late at night. He didn't come when I called so I picked him up and set off home. He decided that he preferred to walk though. Once inside he got some food to cheer him up! *Brown, medium sized and hairy and the mum of our puppies. Also a stray of course, but we have never been able to catch her as she is very wary. It looks like a neighbour has been more successful, as she seems to be around their house a lot now. We must go and have a chat. Our dogs had already met her without any sign of aggression, though she was inclined to bark at them (and us). Possibly they could have been protecting me last night (or even Whiskers?) ** Arran is a cross, but is Maremmano inside - he loves sheep, cattle, horses and donkeys - and brown outside.

The kittens have all left on the way to their furever homes. We miss them already, but couldn't keep them as we have so many already, plus some we are looking after for friends and our stray 'visitors' which we feed outside. They seem to prefer the outside life, but we will see when winter sets in.

We've just rescued five stray puppies. Three were very friendly and no trouble to catch, but the other two had to be hunted down, They settled down at once, when they realised we didn't want to eat them! Luckily they are all cat friendly and get on with the other residents. They overlapped with the kittens which have just gone to their furever homes. The first puppy has already gone too. 😭

This was before the de Gaulle period - in the Fourth Republic. Once we got to the Fifth Republic and had decided to join after all, it was of course, "Non! Non! Non!" Measuring the gauge between the rail centres is a German idea I believe. Sardinian metre gauge is 950mm because of this strange practice. The Märklin gauges were all in millimetres of course (Germany still had inches, but each region had their own different one). In the case of 0 gauge it was 35mm, but, because this was measured between the rail centres, the gauge was actually 32mm (1/45) - the few pieces of Märklin track I have mate perfectly with Hornby (allegedly 1¼" gauge - Frank Hornby didn't believe in metric). It's not so much the contact points of the wheel tyres with the rail as the distance across the flanges that sets the gauge, I read a SF story a long time ago in which they had landed on a planet where the railways all had different gauges. They solved this problem by using very wide wheel treads. Unfortunately this solution wouldn't have worked as the flanges would have fouled the pointwork. The American solution to a smilar problem at the end of the civil war* was to regauge the lot! *The Confederate states had different gauges, which was a factor in their losing the war.

To go with the card kits (basically a printed sheet of the basic to cut out and stick together) they had a range of white metal parts. They are excellent, but the range is very limited and like hen's teeth today.

"Models to scale" was a very flexible term back then! Hornby for instance had three ranges, all allegedly 0 scale, but very different in size. I was referring generally about a switch to Metric, not confined to model train... (There are those who want to still use Imperial! I won't comment on this!)

I think there was a general slow shift to metric from about 1951 (all my school rulers had Imperial one side and Metric the other), possibly to prepare for joining the Common Market as a founder member. (A change of government put paid to that - Thanks W.S.C!)

My thoughts were 'home brew' using someone's cast axleguards. I have seen those buffers before, but have no idea as to the make. The couplings look like the ERG product. I would leave well alone as 'collectibles'. The Peco wagons first appeared in 1954 IIRC and had a cast floor with wooden sides covered with an embossed card sheet printed with a vriety of P.O. names. Around 1960 the wooden sides were replaced with a cast body. They don't really meet modern standards, but were a step forward in the fifties*. The axles and buffers are sprung, but really the springs are too stiff to be of any use. * Alternatives were ERG kits (no comment!) and later K's and Wills white metal kits.

Our two like to dig big holes and then lie in them!

It's down to changing all the wheels (or at least the B2B) to one standard or using some sort of universal pointwork, where the crossing itself moves to eliminate the gap (Hornby tinplate for example.)

Definitely the dreaded zincpest! There is no cure that I can confirm beyond that damp makes it worse. I keep meaning to try this from Rivarossi Memory http://www.rivarossi-memory.it/Tecnica/Zama/Rivarossi_Zama.htm. Caution nasty chemicals are involved! Sorry it's in Italian, but Google Translate is your friend! Is this the old 00 version (zincpest is a common failing in these) or the later N gauge variety?

My investigation into possible prototypes showed it is really a not unreasonable model. It appears that Joy valve gear was typical, but I couldn't find clear enough pictures to confirm.

Kitten Gretel has just climbed onto my lap and taken possession! At least it gives me a good excuse for not doing anything....