Danemouth

I am sure we have all heard tall stories about the Military even painting the coal white, well yesterday I saw coal painted black😀 We have coal effect gasfires in both the living rooms which SWMBO decreed should be serviced. I will admit that the ceramic coals have become somewhat grey in the last couple of years but there was obvious dust etc beneath the fires. So the chap comes yesterday takes them to pieces and "Henry"s everything in sight. He puts the coals back in place and proceeds to spray them and the back behind them with a special black paint. We then had to run the fires at full heat for a little while during which time there was a smell. I am sure you have all been enthralled and thrilled by this drivel but it does show that there are times, other than on model railways, when coal is painted. Dave

We were almost in the same position Bas with two young children. One of the nicest sounds I ever heard was on a Saturday morning about ten years ago when a large package came through the letterbox - the deeds as the mortgage was paid. A couple of days later a letter from the Land Registry confirmed this. Dave

It seems that the cartridges supplied in some new printers are only half full when compared to the replacement cartridges. The sale of replacement cartridges is where the profit is made. Dave

Good article. As a boy at the end of the 1950s we had several caravan holidays at Wisemans Bridge. I remember the three tunnels when walking into Saunderfoot. Dave

I worked in the IT Dept of a small financial instution. Had a call out at 7:30 one morning whilst on my way to work - the burglar alarm had been triggered. I arrive to find our door of a multi occupancy building ajar and there are a couple of desktop p.c.s missing. However the scrotes had walked by a pile of cardboad boxes marked "Dell" - 27 new laptops had been delivered late the previous afternoon and not been locked in the storeroom. Dave

Can I have a large portion please? 😀 Cheers, Dave

I wonder if @Happy Hippo and @The Johnster remember the truly awful smell that sometimes came from the Brains Brewery when it was in Cardiff City Centre? In those days Brains was a really good pint. Dave

If that happens put me down for one in GWR Green with a Pannier chip fitted Dave

When my parents married in 1943 my father, who was in the Navy wore his uniform. As my mother entered the church the air raid siren sounded, as they came out afterwards the all clear sounded. Many years later my then young elder daughter saw their wedding picture and asked why her grandfather was wearing a pirate costume 😀 Dave

Saw Sheep Dip (and Rob) at the Cardiff Show today. It was even more impressive than the pictures on this tread 😀 I particularly like the fact that it is well lit - something that could not be said of all the layouts at the show. Dave

I've now reloaded the later images, earlier ones can be reloaded if needs be. Dave

Danemouth still gets a run from time to time and every now and again I think of rebuilding it - I can lengthen it by about 12 iches and would like aan additional siding in the goods yard. I doubt I will exhibit it again - my back would be less than happy with lifting it and standing around for much of the day. I am still really pleased with what I have given that I am not the best of modellers Cheers, Dave

When I first started work Wales Gas Board had a single holder in Bute Terrace Cardiff behind the offices that had been decommissioned some time. They decided to remove it so the steelwork was removed leaving a pit about 30 feet deep. Lorries started turning up dumping earth etc. into it. I was having lunch in the canteen one day which overlooked this pit when a lorry backed up to drop its load but was halted. A couple of men came from the cashiers office and emptied several bags of foreign coins, clipped halfpennies etc that had been accumulated from coin meters over the years into the pit - the lorry was then allowed to tip its load on top of them. One other story from an old hand I worked with. In the war there was a man who used to go on top of the holder at Vorlons in Barry during air raids and kick off an incendaries that landed on top - how true this is I do not know. Dave

When I started work in Wales Gas Board back in 1965 I was told the story of a gasometer in North Wales in the days before natural gas and transmission grids. A small town had a coal gas plant and single gasometer. Now their highest load was of a Sunday lunctime when the pressure on the district would drop. So the Manager and his wife would take deckchairs and sit on top of the holder - their weight would help keep the pressure on the district up. That would be an unusual feature on a layout 😀 Dave

I was also reminded of another childrens TV series called "The old Pull 'N Push". https://nostalgiacentral.com/television/tv-by-decade/tv-shows-1960s/old-pull-n-push/ I did find the theme tune on Google but not the actual series Strewth, I'm talking about 60+ years ago! Dave

For those of us of a certain age! When ITV started transmitting in Cardiff in 1958 this was on Wednesday afternoons at 5:25 This was in the days of TWW as I am sure @Happy Hippo and @The Johnster will remember 😀 Dave

Agree with Jamie, the first volume is particularly helpful with track layouts etc. Dave

Thank goodness, so I don't need to lock the Penderyn in the vault to keep it safe from marauding Pachyderms😀 Dave

SNAP!!! My daughter has just arrived with the same for me. I will force it down over the coming weeks days Dave

These images will bring back memories then John, I took them ~30 years 😀 Dave

Access is fine with a very small number of concurrent users. Once had to sort out the mess of a user who deployed Access database which ended up with 20+ users - it wasn't pretty 😀

Sorry Phil, perhaps I have been misunderstood. The level of data security is dependent upon the nature of the business. This is a hobby website and the level of security put in place was proportionate for that purpose - you were let down by a third party. What I was trying to say was that each situation rrquires a careful assessment and the needs of a financial institution are entirely different and cost a great deal more to implement. As I said no criticism of RMweb was implied. Dave

Having said that had RMWeb been a financial institution the regulator would descend on them like a ton of bricks. The regulators view rightly is that you cannot subcontract responsibility for data security. I worked for a small financial institution until I retired and was quesioned more than once about backups, offsite storage and disaster recovery tests as part of their periodic checks. I still find it incredible that the third party had the backup on the same disk array as the live data and apparently no offsite backup

Well said that man sound advice indeed 😀 As a retired Information Security Manager this is my approach - a cheap second laptop is used with a DOS script to back up each evening all of my personal files over the home WiFi network - just the files that have changed. In addition a UPS drive is connected once a week and Acronis True Image used to backup the complete laptop. Never leave a backup drive permanently connected - all it takes is a virus or power surge to wipe out your backup and leave you up **** Creek without a paddle! As Rick rightly says never rely on the cloud soley for your critical data Dave p.s. This is in no way a criticism of RMWeb - the issues are with a third party whose approach to backup was less than robust

I've just had a quck look - covers steam only Dave