F-UnitMad

Not subject to regs, but also only counts as 'storage space' for insurance, I bdlieve. Putting a model railway up there defines it as a 'habitable space' which is supposed to be subject to regs, such as proper stairs, heating, a door, etc - i.e. full loft conversion territory. Now I guess there are many of us using a 'storage space' loft as a 'habitable space', to my mind I get to spend so little time on my trains they might as well be in storage!! We also use the space for storage too, suitcases etc, but it is as well to be aware of the issues that might arise if something were ever to go Tango Uniform up there.

Says the guy who posted this... ...yet again. As you say, whatever.

I referred especially to Special Types, actually, not 'every one'. I never had a 'super duper' satnav as an HGV driver as they were only just coming out by the time I got out of the industry, after 25 years. As for NR, isn't it slightly stating the screamingly obvious that "Most of the vehicles that hit railway bridges are Heavy Goods Vehicles (HGVs) and buses,"...???? I suppose if I'd had a job where I had to inspect drivers, especially ones who got in to trouble, I'd have a rather jaundiced view and tar all of them with the same brush too.

Oh for ****** sake, how many more times are the Keyboard Experts on here going to keep trotting out this tired old twaddle...???!!! 🤬 Especially when it comes to Special Types loads, drivers don't just hop in their cabs & set off on a jolly, following a cut-price SatNav... 🤬🤬 Other matters arising from the 'Chelmsford Yacht'... 1. it might not have used the bypass because of height limits, road overbridges could be just over the usual 16ft6in standard height, but maybe not high enough for this load. 2. it could be on a German low loader because - well, DUUUUHHH!! Maybe it's going to Germany?????? 🙄🙄 just a wild flamin' stab in the dark, y'know??? Far easier to load it once for transport all the way than swap trailers at the borders, for which you'd also need suitable cranes, too. Sheesh, just how hard is it to think all these things through, eh??? 🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️🤔🤔😝😝 Rant mode /off.....

Go on, do the walk. 😁👍 Be sure to include that impossible leg-twisting about-turn at the far end.

Water Otter?? Is that a kettle?? 🤷‍♂️🙄🤣

I got this one from Kalmbach recently, well worth the money, even with p&p to UK...

I prefer the German version...

1. Route planning isn't the escort driver's job. It should be done well in advance. 2. It's quite obvious that the height is perfectly adequate. It's the width that's the problem. 🙄😉

I dunno - makes it even easier for me.... 😉

I take it the old Lima pancake motor is at the other end...??

Yes & most entertaining it was, too!! You can't possibly have run out of material...??!! 😁😉👍

Certainly a measurement flaw!! It's a ro-ro skip. I wonder if the load was over-height? P.S. That's the bridge I hit, back in 2003*. The Council guys that helped clear up were right - I wasn't the first, I wasn't the last, either. * Long story short - knew the bridge well, went that way twice a week for two years with a 13'9" (4.2m) trailer. Unfortunately, didn't notice at 4am one dark morning that an otherwise identical trailer had a height label on it of 4.5m (14'9"). I got 3 points, £100 fine, and some months looking for a new Employer.... 🤦‍♂️

Agreed - my four identical locos are matched very closely, but still not absolutely 100% matched. If I consist them all together, but uncoupled & set an inch or so apart from each other, it's er, "interesting" to see the gaps slowly open or close as they move along. 🙄🤦‍♂️😂

One thing I do wish I'd known about DCC - what incredible witchcraft is needed to successfully speed match locos. The only way I've managed it is with identical locos by a manfacturer, fitted with identical decoders with identical CV settings. As for locos from different makers, or fitted with different chips, especially trying to match sound & non-sound locos - that remains utterly beyond me. Which can be quite irritating, modelling American trains. It's not the consisting together, I can do that easy enough - it's getting locos to perform well together - speed matching - that is the witchcraft.

One of my earliest Traumatised Infant moments that I can actually remember - thinking that Midge the Otter really had had his head chopped of by a nasty man with a shovel in "Ring of Bright Water", possibly the first film I was taken to at the cinema, circa 1969.

Which such wonderful powers of description, Sir Johnster, you really ought to write a book of all these anecdotes!! 👍👍👌😁

I think that comment was still about Captain Kirk. 😉

The original word to induce schoolboy giggling....

Bit late to tell us now 🙄🙄😂😂 I ordered direct from Pen & Sword just a couple of days ago!! 🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️ They have a discount too at the moment, it was £22.40 + p&p, so not much in it, in fact. 👍 Looking forward to getting it. 🥳

0.5amp = No Chance. I have an old H&M Duette (doesn't everyone?) which is 1amp each output IIRC; whatever, it always tripped out when I tried my first O Scale loco, which was only an old Atlas/Roco 0-6-0 Plymouth switcher. I got a 2amp controller which was fine for everything subsequently, twin-motor Heljans included.

You have never seen looks that could kill instantly, until you have got out of an unmistakeably Welsh truck, in a North Wales town, to ask in a Midlands English accent, for directions to a place you can't pronounce.... 😬😱🤦‍♂️🤯

Well, I've found one way to get round a U.P. boxcar that's a Foobie.... Buy one that isn't.... Well if it isn't entirely accurate, it's very very close.... I've also more easily found the sort of photo I'm after - okay it's obviously a different car design, and 100 numbers lower than my model, but shows the new patch number (still in UP ownership) plus the inevitable graffiti. Copying the 'removed' red UP lettering, that has left the original, clean paint showing, would be a big challenge.

But could they reach those standards using exactly what the Rev. Denny had available to him in the 1940s? The ingenuity he & others like P.D. Hancock showed were part of what made their modelling so special.