Pacific231G

It's a blurred distinction but I'd see "real steam" as fulfilling a real transport function at normal rates rather than primarily providing entertainment. in other words getting people or goods from a to b rather than the journey between a and b being their main purpose. I doubt if many people use the WHR just because it's a convenient way to travel from Porthmadog to Carnavon. The dead giveaway would be whether they're fulfilling that transport function midweek in winter. I'm not sure what the current status of the Darjeeling Railway is in that regard.

The CMRA used to also organise a modelling/bring what you're working on day in Watford just for members of affiliated clubs. Although I'm in an affiliated group, I've never been too sure how the CMRA worked in that regard but the show was always well worth going to and it seemed to make sense for a number of groups to combine to put on a bigger show than they'd probably manage individually. Loss of venue (twice) seems to have stopped the CMRA show but I don't know if anyone is working on it for the future.

I was amazed to get a fairly good image of the ring around the moon a few weeks ago with my iPhone. (Especially in suburban West London which is the exact opposite of a dark sky site. but then took my "proper" camera out into the garden with a tripod and did multiple shots with umpteen different exposures (mostly to get a composite image with the rings clearly visible and the moon iself not burnt out) It actially did quite well in the camera club's next digital image competition so it is horses for courses. Interestingly though, when it comes to photographing model railways I almost invariably get better results with my phone (I have a tripod mount for it) than with my big camera. There are technical reasons for that to do with sensor size and focal length (It can't possibly be that the computer in my phone is also better at phortography than me!) .

Worth noting that this seems to have been the philosphy adoptet by John Ahern and Peter Denny, in their cases of course with models they were buiding from scratch. Once they'd reached a standard they were happy with, everything they subsequently built fitted with everything else and neither of them threw much if anything away (though presumably some models went wrong and never saw the light of day.) The result is that both their layouts (happily still with us) work as a complete picture. I think you can compare that with other arts and, if you see the model railway as a complete scene, rather than as a stage on which to view superdetailed models of rolling stock (which clearly some people do and that's fine) then a level of consistency is important. This isn't just about the level of detail. I've found with the buildings on my own layouts (and I have no pretensions to fine scale perfection) that those built from plastic, those built from card and those moulded from plaster or resin, just don't look well together. It's not that one if inherently "better" than the others but, a bit like water colour and oils, they are different media. There is of course the factor that a model you've built yourself can be far more satisfying than one you've simply bought.

The Czech station used for the French Maigret episode wasn't much better. It was a small wayside station that showed no sign at all of being a border station.

I always rather enjoyed Adam Adamant Lives which was I think supposed to be the BBC's answer to The Avengers (and is widely available online). Most episodes were fairly unmemorable but frustratingly the one episode I'd love to see again is the one episode from series one that seems to be completely lost. Ticket to Terror is the one where a crowded Waterloo and City train disappears with its 400 passengers including Adamant's manservant William Simms (Jack May) somewhere between Waterloo and Bank. The train later reappears but its passengers are now skeletons. Later on the train disappears again, this time with Georgina Jones (Juliet Harmer) aboard. It turns out that the trains had been diverted into an old tunnel near Bank (the points might have been a bit of a giveaway) and the passengers used as slave labour by a gang tunneling into the vaults of the Bank of England. I don't remember whether any of the other episodes had a strong railway presence but several of the early Avengers episodes did (including a miniature railway) . What I also didn't know was that three episodes of Adam Adamant Lives were directed by Ridley Scott at the start of his directing career.

I know that the last two British series of Maigret (Michael Gambon and Rowan Atkinson) used locations in Hungary partly because Budapest now looks more like 1950s Paris than does modern Paris (though location costs were probably also relevant). That didn't though work when Maigret and Madame Maigret were strolling along the Seine with large hills (not Montmartre) in the background It also didn't work when Maigret arrived on a very Hungarian looking carriage to save the local schoolmaster from a miscarriage of justice. I'm not sure if Czech towns and cities make quite such good simalcre of 1950s Paris. 1960s France in the BBC's Rupert Davies series does though looks just like 1960s France. The BBC set their adaptation in the present when Simenon, who was reportedly very happy with the series, was still writing Maigret stories. I've never been too sure though whether he set his stories in whatever was the present at the time of writing or set them all in the interwar period when he first started writing the character)

Even if her name did always sound to me like something inflicted by the Inquisition. If you think we have athenticity problems, I've just been watching "Un meurtre de première classe" a 1999 episode from the long running French TV production of Maigret with Bruno Cremer currently being shown on Talking Pictures TV. In this story a man is murdered in the first class carriage of an international train during its 50 minute stop for customs and immigration at Jeumont on the French side of the border with Belgium. You'd think that a French production would have little trouble finding a suitable French station and train to use but the series was actually filmed in Czechia (Czech Republic) and the locomotive, station and rolling stock are distinctly Central European and distinctly not French even to the sounds of steam loco whistles. Genuinely French railway scenes (though not many of them) are to be found in the BBC's original Maigret series with Rupert Davies made in 1960-1963 whose filmed exteriors were all shot in France (interiors wer recorded electonically in the studio) so a valuable trove of authentic street scenes and vehicle types for anyone modelling French railways of that time and also being shown by TPTV.

Oops. I did of course mean to type "... the late and much missed ExpoNG". I am very much looking forward to ExpoEM which is one of my favourite exhibitions even though I model in H0 and H0m.

Indeed and that's really my point. If the purpose of the show is to attract as many paying punters as possible then running trains for them has to be the priority. If the purpose is more to showcase the hobby to anyone who might be interested and to share the layout with other modellers (or would be modellers) then being able to chat to visitors is not a nice to have but becomes essential. Running it, while still important, is not then the only priority and you can even do things like letting a responsible visitor (often a youngster) have a go themselves. One of my fondest exhibition memories is of operating a French themed layout at a show in Paris and chatting to a local who regretted not having space in his apartment for a layout. I explained to him what an Inglenook Sidings was (not the layout I was with) and saw his eyes light up. Though I'll never know if that really did plant a seed it's not something I'd have been able to do if I'd felt obliged to operate the layout non stop and that's probably why I generally prefer specialist shows to general exhibitions. (On the other hand though French exhibitors tended to go to the other extreme and do very little actual operation but just run a train round and round or up and down the layout. seeing us actually shunting train seemed a real novelty though that's less true now than it used to be)

I can't help thinking that part of the problem is the over-reliance many clubs have on their annual show to fund their activities rather than it being a showcase for the hobby or to attract new members. The only other amateur activity I can think of where the public pays for the members' hobby is amateur drama but, even there, the income from ticket sales usually just pays for the costs of the production itself rather than for the group's other activities (if there are any) such as room hire for weekly meetings etc. paid for from subs. This dependence on exhibitions for a club's own running costs doesn't seem to apply in other countries (and I've helped with layouts at several shows in France). I don't think it applies either to the specialist model railway societies in this country where the annual subs generally cover the society's running costs and an annual show (if there is one) is as much about being a get together and a showcase for their branch of the hobby as "putting on a show for the public". If the purpose of a show is simply to attract enough visitors to turn a profit for the club then there are far less opportunities to share interests with and socialise with fellow modellers . Not being able to discuss a layout with its builder because they're too busy keeping something running for the public is something you don't really experience at shows in other countries nor at those like ExpoEM, Globalrail, or the late and much missed ExpoEM. ExpoNG

It's only a couple of miles from Ealing Studios (which were the BBC's Television Film Studios for many years) and runs between two fairly quiet roads so ideal for a location shoot. I can't think of anywhere else round there where you could have found that combination of busy main line and footbridge in a fairly quiet urban area.

According to the Independent- it's all up for our hobby. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/cheshire-nec-b2478343.html I understand that there was a similar article in the Torygraph. I think though that rumours of the demise of railway modelling are greatly (wildly in fact) exaggerated. I actually wonder though what proportion of active modellers ever were in local clubs. I'm in the 009 Society and the French Railways Society and the Wealden Railway Group but, apart from a brief period in the MRC many years ago, I've never been in a typical-with-a-clubroom and weekly meetings type society mainly because my particular interests are fairly specialist. They are catered for by specialist national societies, one of which I am very active in, but not by any of the local clubs round here.

OT Sounds good until you look at the the London UndergrounD which seems to have given up on the idea on the so-called Circle line. It should probably now be called the Hammersmith, Edgeware Road, City and Edgeware Road Yet Again Line. Thinks: if the subsurface "Underground" lines (Metropollitan, Hammersmith and Circle Lines) were in Germany, would they be an S Bahn or a Ü Bahn? In any case those lines haven't been the same since the abandonment of the District's through trains from Ealing (and even Windsor) to Southend, the Metropolitan Railway's Pullmans services and its plan to run from Oxford to Paris!

So what sort of chips are being fitted to Bachmann's 009 locos which have sound (even when run on DC) ? They're surely not larger than SG TT locos.

Indeed. That was the point I was trying to make (though it was less the bodies than the chassis under them that was incorrect ). I don't think many modellers would accept that now given the advances in RTR but, at that time, it meant that a wider range of locos were available to anyone adopting the then new scale without having to wait for Tri-ang to release them. I've still got the 3F, along with a couple of Tri-ang wagons and they're pretty crude but I can remember building a Ks white-metal pannier tank body for my 3F chassis (I didn't make a very good job of it as I recall but others did) There were also a fair number of aftermarket manufacturers such as Bilteezi (for whom it was fairly simple to rescale their printed card building kits) In the end, I'm not sure if it was really the smaller size of N gauge that killed TT-3 as generally assumed or simply that better quality models from Arnold than Tri-ang's TT-3 simply made the new scale that much more appealing

A good proportion of those in my local Tesco are leaning slightly from being backed into!

That's true and I think there were quite long delays in some of them actually getting into the dealers' hands (though the first private TT-3 layout did appear in RM in September 1957. I think one difference between 1957 and now, is that most modellers were far more willing to simply bung a different body on the 0-6-0 chassis and ignore the wheel spacing etc. EAMES had a 94xx pannier tank out by May that used the Tri-ang Chassis though it was £10 (£9/17/6) compared with 29/6 for the Tri-ang 3F and 56/11 for the Tri-ang TT-3 Castle when it was offered in the first quarter of 1958. By that August however W&H, who had detailing parts in 3mm scale soon after the scale's launch, were offering, among other handbuilt TT-3 locos, a Nickel Silver and Brass TT-3 J50 using their own much finer chassis with a Romford "Terrier" motor for £11/8/6 unpainted ( a very good looking model looking a whole lot better than the EAMES Pannier with its Tri-ang chassis).

What rotten luck Fezza. I'm guessing that layout building won't be your priority for a while and hope you can get your home back in shape without too much drama. It's good to know that you're already looking at options and I'm minded to recall Cyril Freezer's suggested modular development of Minories with separate sections for a small urban MPD, goods yard, and sections of main line able to be put together in several permutations.

Fortunately, Tesco's bollards arent made of Berkshire Concrete! Standard car parking spaces are now too small as even relaively small cars have tended to get wider (My Focus is wider than my Mondeo was and I went from that to a Focus (not the current one) because Mondeos just got too large for London.

One of the photos in the book shows it on a pair of rails but I think they are just that - a couple of unconnected lengths of rail put down just for the photograph. There is another genuinely ng loco on the Madder Valley but this is dummy built of wood that was used as a scenic feature on a quarry that was a corner feature on the second version of the layout but that disappeared in the final version. It was accompanied by three skip wagons and all seem to be to 8mm gauge (i.e. 2 ft gauge in 4mm scale) For as long as I've known the Madder Valley, all four vehicles have been on the brickworks' inclined plane. This made sense for the wagons but always seemed a bit daft for the loco- and, looking at his photos, it was never placed there by John Ahern. So, like the working NG loco, we're thinking about where best on the layout to position it.

I had the same problem when one of the updates to my iPhone made it compress photos in HEIF, which my PC doesn't read, rather than jpeg. I was able to change the compression back to jpg in settings so you may be able to do the same though that won't help with any photos already stored in that format. There are also conversion apps available for the PC such as Pixillion that are free for non-commercial use.

If you use foamboard to form proper engineering structures such as box, I or T girders they are immensely strong. My H0 layout uses foamboard for the surface and the points are operated by point levers arranged along the front of the board and connected to the tie bars by wire in tube. The levers are screwed to smallish pieces of thin ply glied to the baseboard surface and have never given any problem in about fifteen years. The good thing about using foamboard is that it's very easy to add additional cross members made from it and simply glued to the bottom of the baseboard surface. If you find one in the way of a point motor simply replacing it doesn't involve any carpentry.

No need for hope. It does still exist! Unlike John Ahern's other working locos based on NG prototypes, it is not adapted (by adjusting the scale etc). to run alongside SG stock on 16.5mm gauge but is genuinely NG to 4mm scale. My notes say that it is 11mm gauge but I've not yet measured it myself. Without any NG track for it to run on it is a slightly awkward beast for the Madder Valley but we like to display all of Ahern's models so it has tended to be positioned on the dockside- as if having been shipped in. My photos of it were just for reference so not very artistic.I suspect that it has never been run exept perhaps for initial testing as we have no evidence that Ahern ever got any further with his plan for an NG feeder and there is no sign of any other rolling stock.

That looks to be the original 1948 edition. I have a similarly bound (and falling apart in the same way) copy of Miniature Building Construction (fortunately I also have a later print with better binding) though my earliest edition of Miniature Locomotive Construction is the 1956 revision. The odd thing about that this "revised" edition still has the same diagram of "some British motors for "00" and "H0" even though the range of available motors must have moved on by then. Looking at chapter XVI on Narrow Gauge I've realised that the 10-12mm gauge freelance loco he describes (with photos) is the very one that tends to look a little lost on the Madder Valley Railway with no track to run on (so often hangs around the docks) It was intended for a narrow gauge feeder that John Ahern never actually built. I think he actually built it to 10mm gauge but I'll check next time I'm there and if it's 12mm gauge we can test run it.