Trevellan

I might be barred from this thread for suggesting it, but on the topic of era creep I rather like the idea of seeing a full length HST running through PN. I always thought David Jenkinson's "funny trains" added a bit of fun on his various layouts.

And with that piece of sacrilege, I will withdraw quietly.

There was even an animal waste disposal system built in central London in IIRC the 70's. The Household cavalry barracks were fitted with a narrow gauge system for transporting the rose manure under the stables. I can't remember much else about it but seem to remember photos of some hand pushed hopper wagons.

 

Jamie

Given the payload, it was obviously an atmospheric railway...

Perhaps my photograph of 401 at Waterloo in March 1986 might help the debate?

SHampAG?

Could be one reason why there is not currently a South Hampshire Area Group; just a random invention from my fevered imagination. 

Still, who wouldn't want to be part of SWAG, with such a wonderful collection of celebrities?

Meanwhile, back at the planning...

I'm actually part of the South Hampshire Area Group, but the system is offended by our acronym 

However, as an honorary member of SWAG, I'd be happy to continue supporting the modular group in any way I can.

The Premier Inn at Massingham Park is the fourth hotel I've stayed in for the Taunton event and it proved to be the best yet by a country mile. Two important considerations for me were:

1. It was possible to park the car within sight of my room, and

2. They start serving breakfast at 7am.

As Penlan says, the room rates are relatively good value. I can't speak for the evening dinner service, because I was in the Cross Keys waiting room 

I've attended on four occasions now, one as a visitor and three as an exhibitor. I'm certainly not local, but have been happy to support the event because the format works so well. This year, I paid around £175 just to attend (with ferry crossings, meals and an overnight stay), and then was daft enough to bid on a DMU I already owned. (And yes, the auction win will be retained and renumbered!).

I can understand that some folk would view the modular layout as an extravagant use of space, but we had no less than three new modules there this year, all admittedly unfinished, representing three completely different approaches. Arthur's steelworks module has also been a deservedly popular exhibit, but perhaps the time has come to review the module spec. For example, my canal module was deliberately designed to make a virtue out of the shortage of tables, with a dropped centre section. Technically, this is outside the spec, but it works. We've also had informal discussions about other changes and improvements we could make. Certainly, in my three years as a moduleer we have tried to be inclusive and have had several guest operators. As Godfrey says, we also welcome visiting locos and stock and anyone who wants to test new purchases need only ask.

I think the layout mix in the main hall has always seemed rather eclectic. Again, I know of a few owners who have invited visitors to "have a go". How many other model railway events offer this sort of friendly inclusion? I've also been given a lot of good advice to improve my modelling. Overall, it's a fantastic event and I hope it continues for some time to come. Yes, it may need a few new twists along the way, but the basics are there and sound foundations to build upon.

Yesterday we had the RMweb Members' Day at Taunton and Andy Y very kindly let us loose with his APT-E on the modular layout. What became clear is that there were at least three of us who had yet to try assembling our own versions, even after reading the excellent instruction manual. (The latter, incidentally, deserves an award in its own right - every user manual for every product should be produced in this style from now on.)

Andy demonstrated the technique required to join and separate the individual vehicles and I certainly came away more confident about the process. Thanks Andy!

The image below captures the moment when APT-E made a loo stop at Chard, en route to a special meeting of the Time Lords 

Thanks for the sound demo Andy. I particularly like the start sequence, where someone can be heard giving the gas turbine a good thump with a hammer 

I haven't decided how to treat the plywood yet - varnish? primer? What's the general view out there?

My personal preference for the visible edges of baseboards has long been to prime and then paint matt black. It's rather like a black surround to a colour photograph, seeming to add impact to the presentation. Varnish is okay if you want the layout to look like a piece of furniture. 

Is that a 64 bit one?

 

This computer I am replying on has an AMD Athlon 64 2.6Ghz with 4Gb which originally ran Win XP (with 2GB!) and is plenty fast enough with Win 10.

Again the CPU typically runs at 3-6% and memory at 40% disk usage is minimal unless something is accessing it.

 

N.B. I have disabled everything that Win 10 lets me disable apart from those things which I need!

All apps are off the start screen.

 

Keith

Yes, 64 bit. As you say, it is worthwhile disabling all of the non-essential features to improve performance.

What CPU and memory do you have because putting your comments together so far indicates that your pc is somewhat elderly and as its working flat out due to a lack of adequate processor power and/or memory that would explain the delayed installation of the W10 update(s) as they are downloaded as when the computer has background time.

CPU is an AMD Athlon 2.80GHz with 4Gb of RAM. The performance has been much better today because I have shut down the Compatibility Telemetry feature.

Part of the problem is that my current PC is an all-in-one type, which cannot be easily upgraded. It also tends to run hotter because of the slim design and the fan noise is intrusive, especially when trying to work on creative writing. Next time I'll go for one with a system box capable of various upgrades.

No updates today or in the last week so you must have built up a backlog.

My last one to 10586.63 didn't take long at all - one of the quickest so far.

 

Best check your settings, Win10 is definitely one of the speedier Windows releases and my CPUs (actually on 3 different PCs) all have lower workrates than with Win 7.

 

Keith

As mentioned above, my PC is on most days for work purposes, so a backlog is highly unlikely. Monitoring of Task Manager shows regular culprits causing high CPU and HDD usage,incuding:

Windows Host Process (rundll32)

Microsoft Compatibility Telemetry

Microsoft Windows Search Filter Host

Microsoft Windows Search Protocol Host

plus others such as Runtime Broker.

You may be fortunate with your experience of W10. Googling the various processes mentioned above shows that many people are experiencing similar problems, some of which clearly date back to W7 and possibly earlier.

When did it last update as I'm not being offered any updates. Could it have missed a number hence the time taken.

No, my PC is on daily, so there can't be a backlog.

Even as I type this the CPU is running at 40-50% because W10 is fannying around with various processes. I have Task Manager permanently in the background these days in an attempt to monitor what W10 is doing.

A W10 update today, which took no less than 1 hour 45 minutes to install on my desktop PC, preventing me from working.

I've been a regular Windows user since v3.1 and IMHO W10 is the worst iteration yet. It's making the CPU on my PC work harder than ever with no tangible benefits that I'm interested in. I have even been effectively locked out on several occasions while it is using system resources.

My PC is not yet five years old and was a good spec when I got it in mid-2011. This whole W10 business is making me re-think my PC replacement plans for the summer and a Windows machine is no longer an automatic front runner.

I may be an old curmudgeon, but I still think that 98SE was the best iteration of Windows I ever used.

Hi Gilbert,

some superb photos there to behold, I love the signal box shot and the next to last photo, brilliant.

 

Here  is a batch that may prove interesting, construction pics and some taken before the roof was attached.

Thanks for posting these Peter. Very interesting.

Mind you, when I initially looked at the first image I thought you had stored some brushes in the completed lift tower! Very ornate storage 

My former home patch was on the West Anglia route, so I grew up with what became classes 302, 305, 307 and 308. We even had a few 304s for a while too. It must be a sign of advancing years, but what used to be everyday and incredibly mundane now makes me feel quite nostalgic.

Coachman - the traffic problems that you write of were caused by the bus driver not anticipating the actions of the car driver, not something I would have expected from a "professional driver.

I'm sorry, but that's an unfair accusation to make when you don't know the full circumstances. Still, such broad generalisations and assumptions are common these days. Sadly, many of the motorists who make these assumptions do not appear to be qualified to do so, by virtue of no large vehicle experience.

I shall be driving buses today and much of my effort will be down to anticipating the actions of car drivers, rather like trying to predict lottery numbers.

EDIT to correct typo.

Do what, do not understand.

Just a few friendly words of advice.

You are relatively new to RMweb and to date your posts have come across as unnecessarily negative, even combative in some cases. This forum is a fantastic resource and you'll get a lot more out of it if you can make some positive contributions yourself. I can understand your frustration in the case of the O2s, but I feel - as Phil says above - that some prespective is needed.

I have to say that my experiences of Kernow Model Rail Centre have been 100% positive and I don't believe this is down to pure luck.

Well, my two island examples have arrived safely within the last hour and what little beauties they are. The slightly muted finish looks right to my eyes, although my various IoW albums show the cab surround and Westinghouse pump bands to be mostly dull and dirty. An easily solvable issue. I won't be able to run them until later, but for now I am one very happy bunny!

I wonder how many O2s we can get on the modular layout at Taunton next April?

There seems to be a lot more bullying in temporary speed restriction areas on motorways these days. I find it is now quite common in a 50mph restriction to find a truck or bus go almost bumper to bumper to try and force you to go above the 50 limit. And I'm not talking normal tail gating, but going right up to your tail.

As someone with PCV and LGV entitlement, I would never condone tailgating. However, I have been in situations where I have set a truck's cruise control to 50mph and have had to keep lowering the figure because of over-cautious motorists (42mph in one notable case). Whenever I'm in my car in similar circumstances I often use lorries to check my speed, because I know their cruise control will be more accurate than mine.

First is D1002 in my favourite Western livery, MFYE at Reading in 1970....

This is certainly an interesting shot, not least for the 2BIL in the SR platform. What a great find.

He may have had an old Pentax, but it would depend on the lens he was using.

 

I had an old OM1 mainly because David Bailey used to have one, but the Olympus lenses were what nailed it for me.  I did succomb to a cheaper telephoto lens with an OM adapter, but the results were never as sharp as the originals.

Yes, I appreciate it's the lens rather than the camera in terms of picture quality (and film too), but in the case I was referring to (not the shot above), it was the composition that beat my efforts.

The Rokkor on my Minolta wasn't that good, but my mate's Pentax had the Super Takumar IIRC. I don't recall what lens PDH was using.

Yet another shot from June 1974, scanned from a transparency and featuring an unidentified Western. My notes, albeit sketchy, suggest the location is somewhere near Grampound Road. Certainly, the next slide in the sequence was taken at St Austell. Perhaps one of our Cornish brethren could comment?

This location was interesting, in that another photographer arrived after my mate and I had set up. The new arrival was using an elderly Pentax SLR, while I was shooting on a (then) new Minolta SRT303 and my mate had a nearly new Pentax Spotmatic ES2. Later, we saw the other photographer's images published and it turned out to be Philip D. Hawkins. His pictures were much better than ours too, proving that it's not what you've got, it's what you do with it .

Back in the mid-1970s, I attended a talk given by a former WR fireman to the North London Group and I recall one of his anecdotes concerned auto-train working. He claimed that the fireman would, in certain circumstances, remove the pin from the regulator and drive the loco himself by watching the linkage move and opening up or closing accordingly. The excuse for this was given as the relative crudity of the mechanical system, which sometimes meant locos working harder than they needed to and therefore making the fireman's job more difficult. It would be easy to dismiss this as fanciful, but I have read a number of locomen's reminiscences which suggest that rules were often bent if it made life easier.

These days we seem to make a habit of being critical of things that happened many years ago, all from a comfortable vantage point. As has been said above, the physical demands of footplate work could be onerous, so it's hardly surprising that crews tried to mitigate this where it was safe to do so.