Bill

A short update.. Bridge building has begun. Here is a knocked together mock up (or an artists impression) of an Iron Girder Bridge. The main bridge structure is a simple piece of 3/4" ply that spans the 30". The girders were designed to drop in place. They were built using odd scraps of wood - Ply, Balsa and Bass.. And are minus about 2000 rivets... The abutments and sidewalls are made from 1/4" hardboard and covered with brick paper printed using a laser colour printer. They, like the girders slide in and out. Producing a bridge effect or illusion rather than an actual bridge... Having decided this would make a good project.. My mind is now turning to the possibility of building an actual model bridge - one that functions as a bridge. One better way to get a good representation of an old Victorian era Iron Girder Bridge - might be to use plastic.. (Another would be to make one from soldered brass - but lets not go there just yet The realm of plastic strips, sheet, I sections etc., is now under investigation I have been researching pre-formed plastic rivets in strips - but so far come up with zilch! A problem that has occurred by building the bridge in O gauge is that it intrudes on the space of the H0/H0e layout.. One idea to help blend the two different scales together, is to board up, probably using corrugated Iron and wood fencing, the lower part of the bridge? All ideas welcome..

The saga continues - So as nothing seems to work in Windows Ten as it was stated it would work - Lets contact customer support... Well.. It's not as easy as it looks - Microsoft drops a series of endless loops in the way of the pilgrim for truth.. Not to be daunted I eventually (with the aid of Mr Google) found this dandy link https://partner.support.services.microsoft.com/en-us/contact/chat/4/ Opted for phone support.. They would call back in 33 minutes.. Whilst waiting I had the brilliant idea to reinstall Windows Ten, and started the download BUT An hour or so later the phone rang (when the download was only 60% complete ) - It was Microsoft's outsourced help on the line.. A very nice lady spoke to me and really tried to help.. But after much toing and froing... The best she could come up with was to uninstall Norton.. Which I explained to her was a pointless exercise, It was Norton that caused the reappearance of one of many of the ghostly apparitions of the start menu! But since I was feeling kindly disposed, removed Norton to humour her. This final solution did absolutely nothing at all so... She transferred me to a higher authority... SO... I was now in for two plus hours of cheesy music intermingled with repetitive ads singing the praises of Windows Ten.. ( I have an appointment with my shrink tomorrow... ) Eventually - (And only just before I had decided to give it all up and live with a crippled system until I needed a new computer...) Hope! The phone changed modes and it started to ring. The next level was on the line... Again a really nice Lady - a charmer - and for another hour we had great fun as she riffled through the entrails of my computer.. But alas to no avail - Some light at the end of the tunnel? NOW when I left click on the start menu - absolutely nothing happens.. This believe it or not is a real blessing! So yet again My case has been escalated, to, believe it of not, "Tech Support"... Which is where I thought I already was, but apparently not... It would seem it was but a filtering system where only the truly desperate get through to the holy of holies.. Where the high priests and priestesses of Microsoft's operating system reside.. At least that is what I am assuming.is the case - but well aware I could be in for a big disappointment when they finally call me. Which will be sometime in the next 48 hours... (I even have a case number and an email from Microsoft confirming it - progress indeed!) If anyone is still interested in this strange and rather prosaic saga... I'll let you know what happens next - if anything!

The latest update from my experiences with Windows Ten is: Wow - I got lucky and somehow the Start menu came back - open a bottle of Champagne!! But... The Joy was short-lived.. Since.. The internet connection proceeded to disconnect in a way that appeared to be permanently non-recoverable... ...... But after many frustrating hours - all was not lost There was found a way to get it back - The sign-in page (The one with the nice cave and rocks and peaceful vista looking out to sea...) has a link to the internet on it. Down in the bottom right hand corner Click it and a list appears of the various networks in my locale - thankfully including mine. So I could reconnect - (Using the normal Windows option has by now become an exercise in utter frustration.. I cannot even begin to describe the antics it got up to...) Well now the internet was restored - Guess What? Yes you got it - the Start Menu promptly vanished - yet again. And this time with a new twist .. All evidence that the Edge browser had ever existed on my Computer - vanished too... Welcome to the wonderful world of Windows Ten - probably the biggest time waster since politics was invented!

Well I did not take my advice and upgraded to Windows Ten Now it worked wonderfully well for a while - Then everything started to go south with a vengeance.. An intermittent buzzing and slight hiccup began when streaming videos.. I downloaded latest drivers and it went away.. Ok - minor hiccup.. Then yesterday something wanted to upgrade somethings and wham - NO START MENU... You click on it and it tells you that you have an error and will fix it when next time you sign in. Only there is no fix and you are now stuck in an endless loop if you left click on the start menu.. There is no current solution - and all the new apps are no more.. Then today the intermittent buzzing and hiccupping was back.. So in my opinion - Windows Ten is still being Beta tested.. It does not appear to be stable in anyway. And because there is no start menu it is now impossible to revert back to Windows 7 and wait a year. Never look a gift horse in the mouth - unless it comes from Microsoft.. Now I found I could and still can right click on the start menu and get back some of the functionality. But I am still at a loss as to how to get rid of this monster! My advice - In no way should anyone upgrade to this thing!

Hey - Somehow I think somewhere I might have the coaches that go between these book-ends! Should I get them? - they look darn good - yellow grills and all... Another good effort from Hornby... Very attractive.. But... Just then I fell asleep and had a dream.. ..... ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ Where a familiar voice then spoke to me words of wisdom - For another 70 quid you could get the Bachmann S Stock - and have an underground railway! Where both is not an option - perhaps neither is a better wisdom? Decisions - Decisions! How can you decide - About two models you might never run...? What about all those Pullmans gathering dust? Just waiting for King Alfred to give them a tug... And.. The endless list of over-optimistic purchases you made - stored rack upon rack.. Enough coaches and trains to take the entire population of London on trips to Brighton and Bournemouth and back.. All manner of railway wagons.. Just waiting for your imagination to again take flight... SNOREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE Grunt Then waking up with a jolt.. I took another look at the idea of a yellow banana train rushing around the layout taking non-existent measurements from a non-existent overhead line.. on an newly laid SR layout converted to run trains from the ÖBB - and thought, "Your love of trains is getting weirder by the minute.. Next you'll be wanting to reproduce the railways of China ." - and giving a shrug - thought - "Why not?" Life is far too short, and should it tickle my imagination. Then perhaps I should go for it!

What went up has stayed up so the two different layouts are now separated - The experiment has begun. How to put an H0/H0e layout within and O gauge layout. What.. Began as a simple O gauge arrangement - which then had a simple circle of track included so I could run and enjoy my old OO stuff, has morphed into a much more ambitious project (and expensive!). The H0/H0e part is placed in the Austrian Alps around Innsbruck and the Zillertal - (This all happened because I could not wait for the USA tank to arrive so I invested in a Rivarossi USTC - having done so it needed something to pull and whilst researching ÖBB epoch III stock came across the H0e gauge - and as I had already put in a small N gauge loop. The devil in me said "why not?".) SO.. what is now beginning to appear is an Epoch III ÖBB layout of some kind - combining an H0e layout - the two interacting so that the H0 wagons can be rolled onto a H0e Roll-Wagon and taken for a ride up the "Zillertal". What is delightful about continental railways is the sheer range of RTR options... Having discovered that Tillig make a H0/H0e crossover I ordered one without really thinking about what might be involved ... So it duly arrived from Modelbahnshoppe-Lippe. It is then that it dawned on me I was rapidly getting out of my depth. For.. The Tillig Gleissystem in all its glory is code 83 and all my H0 track is code 100... How to join it together ( never mind wire it all up so it works)? Fortunately a well known supplier of Model rail stuff sent me a code 75 curved point (for no reason I can discern). So in case I had a yen to change to code 75 sometime, I bought some code 75 joiners and some Peco Code 75/100 transition track as something to experiment with.. ..Which I discovered, to my delight, works well enough on Code 83 (everything runs over the transitions without any noticeable hiccups). (It is amazing what one fails to think about and then how sometimes serendipity comes to rescue... ) But does it mean If I am to continue down the Tillig route will it be bye-bye to code 100 and an investment in code 83? Now about wiring.. Does anyone know what this means? I have meditated long and hard over this diagram and see I need a switch - ... Most of the switches that I have come across lack instructions... I've honestly tried to figure it out - but when it comes to 4 pole single/double/etc., throw or whatever switches that may or may not reverse the current flow - I am a complete novice/idiot/... (I need to find someone who can explain in detail what different named switches actually do, and in a way that a human can actually grasp..) For now I have put a brute force arrangement of on/off switches in place that can simply kill the current in whichever track section that is not being used. (I found that switching things off using Atlas type switches is not effective. They appear to only break the circuit and not isolate anything; so in relying on these current still flows (or not) when one thought it would not - with some bizarre results (i.e. either nothing mostly when you would expect something! or a loco suddenly moving on a distant siding for no apparent reason in a direction one would not suspect was possible!)) Here is a pic of the current state of affairs for the composite layout..... The next project ? It is time to build a bridge..

I succumbed - I had reserved it and it duly downloaded it whilst I wasn't looking - which explains why my internet was running slow a couple of days ago.. The first attempt to install was met by a screen eternally juggling with balls and nothing much else.. So I quit and had another go - with the same result... So on the basis of third time lucky - apparently luck is built into all modern programmes - About 8 hours later just before retiring I tried again - Bingo, it decided to play ball with more than itself and told me to go to bed and all would be well. Well? Indeed it was the next morning was Xmas day - a brand new operating system - It asked me a few questions and I was in... Downside - where oh where is Microsoft Hearts? They get you addicted then drop you cold turkey! Now today is day two of the saga.. So I logged in - zilch! So I now have to log in with my Microsoft Hotmail account - extremely complicated and impossible to remember password and all. It has started to show what many might assume to be its sinister side... No longer is it "My Personal Computer" now is it to become "Slave to the New Roman Empire Computer"? Ah! Well I guess the illusion of freedom was bound to be shattered sooner or later So no problems really just a nagging suspicion we are being taken for the inevitable "Ride".. ... no longer is computing fully in our control..

Having summoned the will the new layout is under way.. It would be completed but cork is in short supply - here in Canada we are at the wrong end of the food supply.. So as a coarse idea of what it might be like here is WIP image.. Very messy, as always, just like the real thing.. The new location for the O gauge part of the layout is about 8 inches higher than it was.. I hope it is all going to work, after all the effort to get thus far.. .... It is odd how a layout that once fitted together perfectly, now, when reassembled no longer does!

Thanks for the ideas - Ingenious! I now see that a paper clip could be used as a single link, and might be just the ticket for a temporary fix...

The latest news from Barcoombe... Well having now fulfilled my O gauge dreams of having a viable circle of track and a BR Mark 1 BSK new problems emerge... Having 40" set-track curves solved the problem.. of having a circle in limited space... But they are un-prototypical and so having scale models run on such a curve can present new difficulties. There is enough slack between the coach and the engines to work just fine in forward motion.. However.. Reversing a mark 1 coach out from a siding and then straight into a 40 inch curve (an almost reverse curve scenario) we get.. Buffer lock deluxe with derailment powerful enough to lift the loco off the tracks.. Now I don't know about you, but I like my railways to work.. (I had to retire of an early version of an OO gauge Lit Hornby Pullman IBIS because no matter what one did - it did not do reverse!) So here is how this was solved... Now this is probably a case of reinventing the wheel... But it works! It was fashioned from a piece of 1/16" thick plastic cut from a folder cover.. And as you can see designed to slide over the buffers. Because it is black it is hardly noticeable in operation, especially when coupled to a Heljan mark 1. It is easy to use and remove - but whenever I am running the coach I just leave it on the Loco.. In this instance my trusty Lionheart Pannier Tank - (not perfect but designed to be faultless in operation which is a huge plus.) Now .. One might say what if I had two or more coaches... The answer is simple.. If I had two coaches I would have a much larger layout with much gentler curves.. A ten by eleven foot space severely limits what can be run. I am not in the enviable position, like some others who have much larger spaces for their layouts.. I thought to publish this just in case anyone was interested..

Has anyone ever used the Tillig H0/H0e combined track, turnouts and cross-overs? It would represent quite an investment.. But as I have a combined Ho/H0e layout in the planning/building/stock acquisition phase.. It might make for some interesting running.. Here is a place in Zurich that sells much of the range.. http://www.navemo.ch/tillig-h0---h0m/tillig-elite-gleissystem/h0-h0e-dreischienengleis/index.php I'm looking for some encouragement to take the plunge or be dissuaded

I'm still waiting for them to do this.. http://www.kesr.org.uk/images/stories/railway-stock/coaches/vintage/LNWR_Inspection_Saloon_ED33_250509.jpg But.. I agree - they would look terrific..

By way of refreshing this - Some lonely L&B stock is lonely no more. No more waiting.. There is no need to mothball the project if one can obtain an alternative instrument of locomotive power.. So.. A Glyn Valley tramway model has been conscripted to fulfill the duties of the actual Loco until Heljan mange to deliver. And.. It quite looks the part! (At least I think so.. The GVR to the rescue..) Might it then void the need to acquire Heljan's offering...? ..Probably not. But.. March is still a long time away, and a lot can happen between now and then.

http://www.autotrader.ca/newsfeatures/20150708/weird-and-wacky-sidecars/?utm_source=Outbrain&utm_medium=Display&utm_content=Native-NF&utm_campaign=CA-DSP-DM-EN-CONTENT#sVKqD6lcWfauDsOQ.97 The fifth image in might raise a few smiles...

When I look into my crystal ball - what do I see? I see that there are 7 billion humans on this planet - in short order to be joined by another 2 Billion at least. I see and have noticed that the economy is beginning to reshape itself to feed these extra mouths, to house them and fulfill the needs of all these extra psychological (ego?) needs I see them all wanting a consumer loaded experience of living.. I see that we are all going to find out, (and pretty soon) that we will have to make do with less, and share more, where price is the lever of guarantee that we will. I see the model railroad club rising to prominence as we begin to share more of our bounty with each other... I see that we need to gather what we can, whilst we can - because shortly this golden age of fulfilling every consumers desire might well begin to wane. I see that this upward price creep must accelerate. And that all things year on year in the realm of luxury goods (like model railroads - I think they are medicinal but that is not what the government will think !) ...are going to cost more proportionally than the rise of inflation and wages.. Perhaps I am looking at this with the wrong filters and need some rose coloured glasses ..? But we are so lucky to be living now and thus why should I complain about essential price rises? The skilled people who make our models, and all connected with the process, deserve the best wages they can get, do they not? And I would like to think that any model I might receive reflects the quality of fairness to one and all involved in its manufacture and marketing...

Unfortunately, as you rightly perceived, the lack of real estate has forced the O gauge layout to the back. It would be completely unworkable the other way around... (It was fun for a short while, having a loco of each gauge (O, OO & N) going round and round in sync for a circuit or two. Parent, child and dog all going for a walk together . Another idea I had that adds emphasis to your excellent suggestion of back scenes, was to elevate the O gauge layout anywhere from 6" to 12 " or so - ( I am not Yet sure what the optimum height for operation would be, but it will probably be determined by access to the electrical panel). Then a back scene could be permanently applied that would then work for the OO/OO9 - H0/H0e arrangements.. I am sure the answer lies somewhere in a novel application of the Droste Cocoa Tin effect...

The reformed layout is rising from the ashes in its new digs. For now it is still called Barcoombe but all will eventually be renewed. The size is 11' x 10' which is not ideal! But it has been possible to squeeze much of the functionality of the previous layout into it - plus a circle of track so that the Locos can get some decent 'running in time'. This new version has allowed the construction of a small OO/H0 layout - plus a small OO9/H0e/N scale/'spur' layout. The OO/OO9 will be based on the SR and interconnect with the Lynton & Barnstaple Rwy and on the other hand will run as a representation of the OBB interconnecting with the Zillertalbahn. The challenge will be in integrating it all together - it should be fun! Going around clockwise here is an impression of what this 'train-wreck' or mash-up looks like - The track for the OO9/H0e part of the layout has not yet arrived so its 'make do' with all sorts of odds and ends for now. As the weeks fly by reports of any progress should appear.. This new house is a welcome change from the last residence as the workshop is right next door in the basement. This means the messy parts of modelling can be done there - no more paint spilling all over the layout! For the moment ideas as to how to do all this well are bening mulled over.. One idea I thought might work is to use lots of trees to mask some of the difference in the gauges. Is not a large tree in OO although a small tree in O still a tree?

Living here in Canada - On the Atlantic shores can be very hazardous - the first Hazard is snow.. The second hazard is even more snow.. But it can be beautiful... Even more hazardous are various forms of local fauna... Also the place is hazardous to railroads - they just don't get the idea of conservation.. It is just so Un North American.. This line was only abandoned a few years back but when you live in a province that only recently gave up Sunday shopping prohibition... Then expect change to be very, very slow..

Many thanks guys for all the replies - this helps greatly. Once again highlights the magic of RMweb..

In anticipation of Heljan's release of the Barnstaple and Lynton Locos.. I am exploring putting together a small OO9 layout... Does anyone know if the OO9 track that Peco makes is identical to the code 80 N gauge. The only difference being only the use of larger sleepers at a wider spacing for the OO9 track... I have been trying to find out. And so far have not been able to connect the dots... My suspicion is that they are interchangeable in function but not in looks or aesthetic suitability...

Well - I live at the other end of the food chain in Canada.. So ... The Loco 700 has just arrived and I must say very impressed with its running capabilities in either direction. Slow, medium and fast... Compared to Bachmann, Hornby do have their gears sorted out. It is a smooth performer.. It managed all the many Peco electro-frog points - Including all the bumps where the N.A. Atlas track idea of 100 meets Peco's idea of 100... It pulled the test Maunsell coaches with consummate ease and overall I'm very impressed. My eyes don't see as well as they used to.. so as long as there are handrails.... I don't mind too much concerning the authenticity of how they are fixed Very nice model - I might even get another... However.. I was not that impressed with the latest Chinese invention - 'Air Glue'. Which was seemingly used to attach one of the tool boxes to the tender. (At least the packer had the good sense to throw it in the box for the purchaser to find...) But then I always open any Hornby offering with a tube of glue in my left hand - knowing that 50% of the time it will be needed