Neil

Browsing one of those Model Rail published bookazines on layout planning I saw this: It's not very finescale (I hope the builder doesn't mind me saying so) but it has bags of charm and character, something in my opinion that's harder to achieve. I'm intrigued and would like to know more. Can anyone point me in the right direction for further info, does the layout appear on the internet, perhaps here or is there a particular issue of Model Rail which features it? Many thanks.

I think this may be a matter of perception; certainly a lot of the Brexit rhetoric was hostile to the EU and to some extent that remains so. Some factions hold the view that the form of Brexit in place at the moment isn't 'pure' enough and that this is why we in the UK are currently disadvantaged. It wouldn't surprise me if the view of the UK from the continent wasn't that of a 'jobsworth' nation being less cooperative than it could be.

Look what rolled up earlier this week. Well I could hardly resist, could I? It's a York loco, on my interpretation of what might have been in York, ordered and delivered from Monk Bar Model Shop in York. I'm impressed both by the sweet running loco and the service from Monk Bar. I had an email on Monday saying the loco was in stock, I phoned them on Tuesday with my details and it arrived in the post on Wednesday dinnertime. I know that the real thing was kept in reasonable order, but I am going to have to do something about the cab roof and tone down the bodywork. I thought I may have to repaint the buffer faces, but apparently not, just some grease marks should do the job. Here's No.84 in York's roundhouse in 1968. Finally another gratuitous shot of one York icon viewed against another.

A question if I may. Can your supplier charge you for gas that they can't meter? Our smart meter seems to have packed up a couple of months ago, there's no reading for gas on the in house device and the digital screen on the actual meter outside has been blank for a while. Despite whinging to the supplier nothing seems to have been done to address the issue and I don't want to end up paying for an estimation of what we might or might not have used. Thank you.

The light railway platform came inside after the test fitting for painting and fixing the brick plinths which would have supported the timber edge. Also seen on the workbench this week a pair of wagons requiring finishing off. The match wagon started out as a Triang single bolster with a chassis cobbled up out of Parkside parts. Originally OO it's been converted to EM and then back to OO. It had three link couplings in early life, then changed to some not very good tension lock hoops and then finally gaining some proper Bachmann small tension locks using Parkside mounting blocks last week. The brake lever on one side had gone AWOL over the years so I found a near replacement in my box of useful bits and cut it down to size. The lowfit is an out of the box Bachmann example to which I added some weathering. Weirdly I found both couplings to be angled offset. Their mounting pads not sitting squarely on the chassis moulding. They are a screw fix but locate on a moulded ridge which I had to trim back to allow me to centre the mounting pad and therefore the coupling.

I'm hugely impressed by the last paragraph, "Seeking staff for your organisation? We are more than happy to circulate any opportunities you may have to our highly capable former members of staff. Contact Us →" They manage to be a class act to the end.

Here's a rather fine thing from thirty odd years ago .....

I don't think there are any hard and fast rules. I used to be on the organising committee for the York show and now I help out a bit with the Corris Railway's exhibition (August bank holiday, Machynlleth) and they're both very different in terms of what they can provide. However exhibitors and traders at both seem to appreciate those differences and tailor their expectations to match. The common theme is that bar a few grumbles, which usually have nothing to do with remuneration, a good time is had by all. I guess that those just in for the cash soon move on to more lucrative enterprises.

It's not all shopping here, also getting attention this week has been the platform for the light railway terminus. It's built from card to a DVLR style to match the station building. I am a little worried about using card as the garage while insulated isn't heated over winter, unless I'm working in it, so sometimes has a slightly damp atmosphere. With that I mind it's all stuck together with UHU and has received a couple of coats of Halfords primer to try and seal the card; it'll probably get another couple before finish painting. Also on the workbench my Oxford J72 has been weathered to match as best I can the state of the real thing seen here in York's shed. By the way the caption of it being a Blyth loco is at odds with the BR data base which has it down as a York engine at the date of the photo. Finally, I've also had my jar of crushed coal out to provide wagon loads and to fill up the tender. Wagon coal loads are using a mixture of Parkside and Airfix kit bases trimmed as necessary as I seem to have quite a large stock of them put to one side. I've fabricated a removable base for the tender as I like to keep and carry the loco in its original packaging. The plastic shaped insert in the packaging won't allow for a coal load to be fixed in place so ....

Ah yes; twenty years ago I'd be happy to be on my feet all day, these days I can manage it but it's not comfortable and in ten years time ..... ?

[pedant mode on] .... producing some of the UK's best model railway shows .... [pedant mode off] This is good news. I could be tempted to take a day trip from home here on the Costa Cambria to the NEC particularly if some of the less agreeable features of the Warley show (I'm thinking insufficient seating, particularly at lunchtime) can be dialled out at the planning stage.

Could what appears to be a thicker pipe actually be lagging and cover over the original thinner one?

I'd shorten the terrace, crop the gardens so that you can maintain the correct angle relative to the tracks (which will look more pleasing) and keep the houses whole rather than sliced at an angle.

Cripes, the nameplates would cost more than the loco!

Glad I'm not the only one to feel this way. I do wonder what happened to the tooling. Some time ago I bought a cheap push along Nellie, Connie, Polly look alike. I'd swear that it was the same tool used (or a very good copy) but it was moulded in a sludge green shade in the sort of plastic that washing up bowls are made from and had plastic wheels without flanges.

A couple of days ago I posted this photo of my latest buy. I bought it (for not much money) because it was the one thing in the Triang catalogue that I lusted after as a boy, the one thing that I never managed to own back in the day. Fifty and a bit years on I found one on ebay and succumbed to temptation. Now given that this was one of the most liked posts in the thread I guess that many others of around my age also feel the draw of nostalgia and can understand and empathise with an impulse purchase that has nothing in common with my current plans. If I'm right, and I think I am, then it poses a couple of interesting questions. The first is simple, what model from the past would you like to own? The second a bit more difficult, what current model might have the same nostalgic pull in fifty years?

Yes, spot on. They also do a beefier six coupled version. I suppose this demonstrates that there should be a healthy market for a UK fireless loco.

What does seven quids worth of nostalgia look like? There's a bit of a story behind this one. Last week Jan (Mrs R) and I went to Shrewsbury on the train, partly for a lovely day out and partly to buy patchwork material. We also took a look in the antique centre near the museum, a subterranean treasure house of tat; but interesting tat. There's usually a case or two of model railway bits which I browse. Mrs R could see that I was tempted and egged me on to buy and I might have done if the colour was blue rather than red. The next day I took a look on ebay, made an offer and yesterday this little beauty in blue arrived through the cat flap (posties parcel portal of choice). It's not mint, it doesn't have its original box, it's nowhere near finescale but it does have charm, nothing's broken off and it runs surprisingly well. Will I be souping it up, adding detail and finesse? No, it would loose all its character and no longer be the model the pre teen Neil lusted after. It's a thing of loveliness just as it is despite all its imperfections.

Ahead of the game here ....

Yes, I thought they would be. :)

Oh good grief, another good man gone. I have a vague memory from the days when we helped Bernard Richmond assemble the scaffolding barriers of Roger Ellis turning up in a pink and yellow paisley shirt and tie combo with a bunch of flowers for Cookie's mum.

This is a fantastically coherent and well presented piece about the artistic choices we make when designing and building models. Well worth the twenty three minutes of your time it will take to watch.

The last week and a bit has been hectic so I have little to show apart from these three wooden coal wagons. They are early Oxford Rail products, starting out like this with the weird sandy coloured weathering over the lower parts. I was given one and bought a couple because the under a tenner price seemed right. They had hidden away in a stock box waiting for attention for a few years but came out a fortnight ago. I wanted to improve the weathering but also make them look less like identical triplets while keeping the work to a minimum. The first job was to match the charcoal colour of the running number patches and adjust the shape and size of them so that they were all different. I kept the same running number as they were neatly printed and I guessed that most would be deceived by the different backgrounds. I picked out some planks in pale grey/tan colours to represent bare wood and some in other shades of grey. After leaving for several days to harden the sides got a wash of warm dark grey, a mix of Humbrol matt black and cream which gives a lovely warm, smoky hue. This was carried down onto the wooden solebars. The underframe metalwork and wheels got a coat of rusty black (matt black, a hint of cream and a touch of red oxide. Still to do are the couplings which remain in sand, I'll probably give them a wash over with the same rusty black mix as the underframes.

Oh dear, what have I started? My assessment of the survey is less doomsday than most of the above unless you happen to be one of the blue team in the seat of government. I take it to be a bit of kite flying to see how popular it might be with those party faithful who look like drifting off to the yellow team and those recently recruited to the reds who will in all likelihood return to the fold. How this correlates with chocolate biscuit preferences is uncertain but I'm sure there will be marketing specialists who can link choices to demographic groups; Foxes for preference but hob-nobs will do at a pinch.

Some time ago I signed up for You Gov surveys. As a confirmed pinko, leftie, right on, woke, socially liberal sort of chap the thought of influencing governments and world events appealed hugely. The reality is that most times you'll be asked for your opinions on more banal stuff, which reading between the lines is all about advertising cut through and market penetration for a range of products. Today I was asked on my thoughts about chocolate biscuits, yum. Sometimes single issue subjects get tacked onto the end of these product surveys; the last of any consequence was during Covid when I was asked several times about my attitude to lock-down and whether restrictions should be eased. This morning I was slightly disconcerted as the add-on was about my attitude to conscription into the armed forces. Given that these sorts of questions tend to be asked when there's some thought by those in power that it might be an idea worth exploring I wonder what on earth they're thinking of and why?