jamie92208

Where oh where is that GROAN button. I will just have to restore my equilibtium with the stollen and mince pies that have just been delivered. Jamie

As mentioned above 1" by 1/2" angle gives the necessary clearance in 0 Gauge and cuts the expense. I got my angle by going into a wholesalers called Sevice Metals who were quite willing to sell it direct to me. I did not have a gun in my hand when asking. However I got quite a lot given to me by a fabricators that was shutting down. I haven't yet got round to making end stops and sides but have thought about cutting sots in the vertical faces that would take a piecevof 3mm ply. Sides would make the current storage system for the cassettes for transport impossible but I might do it anyway. Jamie

Good moaning, we have fist and mog here and possibly Welsh style liquid sunshine. Off shortly to put a bedside table up for a friend. I better not comment of the B word. Regards to all. Jamie

BR 60103's suggestion has a point. It is useful if you can have a break somewhere so that trains stop. Obviously some sort of physical barrier at the end is ideal. I believe this is even more important with DCC and their stay alive function. I nearly dumped one of Bill's chunky tank engines onto the floor at Warley. Unfortunately they're not fitted with air brakes. Jamie

No springs involved. I hope to have chance to get over to the shed tomorrow afternoon and will try and get some close ups and some measurements. One way of ensuring contact in such joints is to wind some thin copper wire round a rod of the right diameter to make a sort of spring, then put them inside the tubes. I worked that out on holiday in France when a caravan light started flickering so put little springs in the socket between the car and the van. Jamie

There's another lovely story from Kangaroo Island about them finding some tiny possum's that they thought had been wiped out by the fires they're smaller than a human hand. It's on the BBC website somewhere. Jamie

Good evening from The Charente. A good day out, shopping and trainspotting in good company. An hour this afternoon was spent discussing nuclear reactor design with pauses for freight trains. Scampi and chips has been enjoyed, now an evening doing not a lot is in store. As to Christmas' they were usually busy and usually included a sudden or violent death, sometime with humorous overtones such as granny dying as she put the turkey in the oven. At least 6 times I helped cook a full Christmas dinner at 0200 which always went down well. Sadly the days of the duty Supt putting a bottle of whisky on the counter went at the end of the 70's. For some reason Christmas Eve evening was always manic, Boxing day was Domestic dispute day. However nights was the best shift, get home, open presents with the kids, off to bed then get up, have a 2nd Christmas dinner then go back to work. No regrets though. Jamie

Hi Richard glad to be of help, though perhaps you need to visit Barnard Castle. The Aluminium angle is one inch by half an inch as mentioned half way down. I've used Bills and they work well. My long ones are 950mm long which nicely accommodates six four wheelers. If you want I can measure the brass rod and tube for you. Just one more point. The cassettes need to slide easily on the surface. Laminate is excellent. Jamie

As threatened here are a few pics pf LGA's cassettes. They are used for the trip freights to 4 different locations and are inside the main fiddle Yard. They are a self contained unit that acts as the mating pair to the centre board of the fiddle yard (E3) for transport and storage. Here is the whole set up with the cassettes in their positions for operating. 2 lengths of cassette. The long ones are long enough for an EMU and are the same length as the traverser on the Castle Branch. The short ones are for brake vans and locos. For transport all the cassettes bolt underneath where the long ones are, along with the bridge from the main layout, see later. Two short ones coupled together. The long ones are female only the short ones are all, male/female. The bridge to the layout has two male connectors. The surface for the cassettes of laminate which works better than plywood. The end of a cassette with some wagons on. The angle is 1" by 0.5" and the cassettes are approx 85mm wide. Hope this is of some use. Got to dash to pick up the fish and chips. Jamie

Good moaning to everyone. Our lock down finished and we are now curfewed from 8pm. The bathroom work continues well and I even managed to raise enough mojo to do some unmentionable work in the shed. As lockdown has ended I'm off to Angouleme today to try and swap a box of tiles, grey for white. However I'm going to pick my mate Andy up on the way and we are off trainspotting after the shopping is finished. It sounds like a grand and cunning plan. Regards to all. Jamie

No go the whole hog and do Trent Junction. The added bonus would be horrible green replaced by red on the engines. Jamie

Yes, I wonder that as well when I looked back on some of the pictures I posted from the 70's. It wasn't a bad day for us from Bournemouth with a nice meal as we walked back to our timeshare from the station. 6 train rides, 2 ferry trips and a tour of the island by car. Thanks for the info about the 158. Jamie

Looks OK Richard. The 2nd cassette at the north end will give you an immense flexibility. The main thing is to get your cassette and jointing mechanisms simple and easy to use. What does need careful planning is the length of the cassettes and whether or not you use separate ones for your locos. I can send or post photos of the ones on LGA if you wish. They work well. Jamie

Even though it's getting a tad cooler I decided to make a start today. The board was placed carefully on it's side. Here's what I started with And what it looks like tonight. I've done a lot of measuring and there is an 8mm dip in the board in the area between the two point motors. I've done a drawing for a piece of U channel with end plates on it that will run roughly under the trackbed. I need to take that up to the fabricators at the top of the village. I've also had a look at what needs to be done next on the 4F. I'm hoping to get the tender painted and the numbers applied. Jamie

I posted some pictures on my random railway pictures thread yesterday and wasn't sure of the location. It turned out to be Bletchley and I realised that the flyover was in the background. It must look a bit different now. This was in May 2012. Jamie

Following on from yesterdays pictures we were met at Yarmouth by one of Beth's old schoolfriends. After a tour of the south of the island and some lunch the girls let Graham and I off the leash to travel on the Island line. We got on at Shanklin and rode up to Ryde St John's where we got off to have a look round. Quite a bit of stock was parked outside the depot. Very dated look, not surprising considering their age. Then the next train came in and took us up to the Pier head. Looking back towards the island with the remains of the pier tramway on the right. I believe that one of the vehicles from that is being restored somewhere. Then back down to Shanklin. A real experience to ride on. My first ever visit to the Island and I managed to identify all the stock. A complete class in a day. All due to change this winter, I'll have to go over again if we get to Bournemouth next year. Jamie

But what track gauge, 32mm I hope. I once delivered a bottle of red wine to Kendal Castle station, balanced on a warflat as a thankyou to David Jenkinson for letting me take part in a running day on the layout. He appreciated the goods train and it's load. Jamie

Therevisxa major problem with postcodes in rural areas, as they can cover really large areas. I would imagine that they would be completely useless on many remote rural lines. Anyway good morning to all and of course sundry. About half the bathroom wall tiles have now been applied. I cut a lot of logs and finished repairing some bits of the shed floor with self levelling compound. This mornings task is due to involvectrying to empty some boxes in the shed. This afternoon I am required to take my drill and some fixings to putva shelf up for a friend. Coffee and CAKE will be supplied in return. Do I need to get the Armée de L'Air to patrol the skies around Néré. I'm not sure is Hippos and bears are allowed to travel to the EU though. Lockdown 2 has now ended and curfew 1 has started here. Not much will change but I am having a combined shopping and trainspotting day out tomorrow. Baz, I have to have a map pointed north to read it. Beth on the other hand needs it orientated in the direction of travel. Jamie

I also love maps and brought my collection of OS maps over with me. Most of the 50,000 and most of the 1" series. I always buy maps wherecI go and now havecquiteca few IGN (The French equivalent of the OS) ones for round here. I even have some USGSones for Sherman Hill, and Boreas pass from when I cycled round there in 2005. Like books and goods wagons you can never have too many. Jamie

Good evening again. We now move on to 2012. Quite why we were somewhere on the West Coast Main line on 18th May I have no recollection. I am fairly sure that it's the slow lines at Bletchley with the now removed sections of the flyover in the background as a 350/2 heads north. To be followed by a 70. Then a visit to Butterley on 5th June to look at the remains of the Midland Pullman coach and also this MR horse box as I have a part built kit of one. We then headed for Bournemouth and on the 11th June took a train to Lymington Pier. Quite why an electrified branch line is operated by a DMU I have no idea but it must make sense to someone somewhere. There we waited for a ferry to take us over the Yarmouth. More tomorrow all being well. Jamie

We had a group of Senior Indian officers, all but one were high caste Hindus, but come a cold October when the canteen served up beef stew and dumplings, they all wolfed it down. The Saudis were a mixture of regular and religious police, one lot certainly hit the bars and nightclubs. Jamie

Not good, what's the point of having two disconnected networks, HS2 and NPR. Jamie

IIRC it's callsign, or whatever it's called was BN and it's still flying after a major refit. There was a documentary aboutvit a couple of years ago. Jamie

The girlfriend must be something special to make him do things as daft as that. Thus you have to remember "Map to compass add, compass to map subtract" or have I got that the wrong way round. Perhaps I should become a navigator. Jamie

You beat me to it. I was also going to suggest Guide Bridge. Obviously pre 1981 but after headcodes were abandoned. Jamie