Claude_Dreyfus

New-born lambs are appearing in the field just up the road from us, and I have seen the first baby bunny of the season! Talking of butterflies - is this a Red Admiral? I am no expert, but would be interested to know what this is. Taken last summer...

Not quite what it seems. 33202 was still in service when it appeared at the East Lancs diesel gala in 1998; withdrawal from EWS service took place later that year.

The rate we are playing, it'll be 3 easy points for you lot!

I think is more accurate! 6 years ago, Portsmouth vs. Forest Green, or Portsmouth vs. Salisbury would have been something of an FA cup romance (for them). In 7 games time, these could well be [non]league fixtures!

God Almighty! We were not doing well with Whittingham, so they fired him. We did even less well under Barker, so they fired him as well. If the pattern stays as it is we ain't going to win anything from now on! Northampton Town in particular must be rubbing their hands with glee at this announcement!

I am watching Pompey's decent down the table with a fair degree of alarm. We have not been great this season, but our form at the moment is getting desperate, and with 7 games to go (and a rotten goal difference), now is certainly not the time to maintain a loosing streak. We now occupy the place directly above the league drop-zone; two points above Northampton. Even more worrying is that Northampton seem to be gaining some momentum. Hmm...time to find out exactly where Forest Green is!

Hmmm... Tesco has their say on David Moyles; however perhaps someone ought to take a look in their own back yard (or should that be farm yard!) before they take to Twitter making brainless 'humorous' comments. Still, they could have confused the cows for horses; oh, hang on, they did that as well... Meanwhile...

A couple from Germany, taken last October. I know they have appeared elsewhere on here, but they are portraits, so I thought worth including here... Class 218 stabled at Stuttgart station Class 181 at Stuttgart hauling a rake of SBB stock Class 143 Another 143, this time at the opposite end of the country; in the Baltic port of Warnemunde...

37409 at Ipswich - December 2011 37174 and 37351 at Totnes - sometime back in about 1997.

This rather nice little flower was growing on a bridge near Pulborough station...

1 - I see what is meant by this, but in practice I am not 100% sure how effective a painted black line would look. Just me, but would the extra pipework defeat the object of the exercise...assuming the exercise is to make rapidos look better instead of improving the overall look and operability of the coupling? I suspect those who wanted that little bit more wouldn't go for the rapidos in the first place - no matter what colour they are. The extra pipework could also make the coupling more fiddly and prone to catching? 2 - Grey couplings do look better; but they are used on lighter coloured stock where the black stands out like a sore thumb...black is used for others. Grey couplings are rapido, Scharfenberg and kadee. I have also seen weathered couplings as well, which don't look too bad.

Whilst I agree they are far less intrusive than the black rapidos, from a distance (perhaps not helped by the light background) it does look like the wagons just have empty space between them - which looks odd. My mind is telling me there should be something coupling the wagons, but my eye is usggesting there isn't. Seeing the tankers on the track, oddly they may run the risk of being more pronounced as they have an opaque quality that stands out against the darker track.

They do look very good and I too hope they are still available.

I have been keeping an eye of this thread since it started. There are some extremely interesting techniques being put to use here that are acting as inspiration for my next project. I particularly like the housing estate; very well executed.

Following the conversations on another forum about suitable motors for Finetrax points, I followed your link to this thread. At the risk of yet another 'me too' post, there is some really innovative stuff going on here, to the highest quality. The extended arm on the point motor (post 118) to compensate for the viaduct is exactly what I was looking for to fit my embryonic layout design - albeit my plan involves an overbridge and embankment. Looking forward to seeing how else I can be inspired!

Since the last report, work has progressed on Fredrichstrasse. Now we have the first circuit of track laid out. The station area will be a four-track line, reducing to double-track on the side boards leading into the fiddle yard. The first track to be laid is the outer line; track 1. There will be a platform between this and track 2; likewise between track 3 and 4. In addition, there will be two S-Bahn lines forming the innermost tracks. Jumping the gun a little perhaps, but a hasty rigging up of the club's controller to one of the board sections saw some trains running; albeit only for a short distance. First up was a Roco V220 diesel; most in-keeping with the layout's setting. Not so in-keeping is the Kernow Connex class 205, which had it's first outing (runs beautifully I might add; just needs a sound chip for that true 'Thumpertastic' experience!) Our lovely assistant sits in the station area. The course of the river is in the foreground, which will be crossed by a pair of bridges; one for the S-Bahn and the other for the main lines. The platforms will extend partly across the bridge. The 205 looks quite good on the high-level station. The suggestion has been made that a nice little bit of third-rail may not do any harm! South London in the 1990s perhaps?

Did the Classical poet Virgil know of the trials and tribulations of railway modelling when he composed the poem Georgics and wrote the following passage? Sed fugit interea, fugit irreparabile tempus, singula dum capti circumvectamur amore Which translates to... But meanwhile it flees: time flees irretrievably, while we wander around, prisoners of our love of detail Which can loosely be translated into layman's terms as, whilst you fiddle around with the little details you suddenly realise that time has run away with you. Well it seems very much to be a case of tempus fugit since the last blog entry... Our annual visit to the Midhurst show took place on 5th January this time. This change of date was due to the old Grange Centre being closed in February, with its next door replacement due to open later in the month. Being so early in the year, the variety of layouts and available traders was not as good as previous years, and sadly it had a much lower attendance than normal. We had two layouts due, along with a modelling table, but unfortunately Warehouse District could not attend, so the club flag was flown by Matt and his Wipers, Fish-Hook and Menin Railway. Fredrichstrasse has seen some progress since the last report. Much of the basic formwork around the trackbed has been completed, and the basis of the two bridges have been put in. There are some discussions about the tram lines, especially where they cross the river. I quite like the idea of interlacing the tracks over the bridge having seen this method on the metre gauge system in Helsinki the other week. Yamanouchi Oshika had a short stay of execution following us obtaining more storage space. Sadly, since the appetite from exhibition managers for a 16' Japanese layout has been lukewarm to say the least (I wonder how much interest it would have generated had it been UK outline?), and despite lots of positive comments when it does appear at shows, we have finally decided to withdraw the layout from its final show; which is Rotorail in Fareham on 26th April. It is available for sale, so if anyone is interested, please drop me a PM. Finally, we are arrange for an extra club open day to celebrate the club's 50th anniversary. It will be at St Peter's Hall in Petersfield on Sunday 1st June. more details anon...