BMS

Can't resist this: My first flight , as schoolboy passenger, was from Cardiff to Jersey on a DC3 and then a Heron (?) onto Alderney - delayed for 2 days (posh hotel - airline expense) due to the one before going sideways down the "Landing strip" at Alderney. On smooth arrival the fire fighting equipment looked rather rudimentary. Oddly and not planned another passenger was my bros' Godmother who had come from Coventry. My mother took some interest in the attention my father, sitting in a different row, was getting from the Stewardess - it turned out she had been in one of my fathers confirmation classes at St Martins Roath. A later flight was from Heathrow to Liverpool we, married 2 children, (together with Gerald Sinstadt etc) were the next flight out of Heathrow after the "Kegworth", having seen the passengers leaving the departure lounge. At some point the flight changed direction and more or less flew up the M1, after which the chatty crew became very much quieter. My memory is of the vast amount of traffic stopped on the M1, I suspect the pilot was deliberate flying over the incident so we couldn't see it. . Obviously the crew were reporting back on what they could see, hopefully assisting in getting the emergency services there. We only found out what had happened after arrival at L'pool.

of Covid PPE, and

Yes: Barnetby to Wraby pages 58 to 65 N gauge for exhibition in Immingham Museum 31ft by 5 inches. Diesal era Not my area so can't comment on accuracy but looks good

Thanks for that and Joseph - glad to be corrected.

Sorry, 142 mm is the minimum size

One thing which puzzles me is model rail height. I understand, for example, that model code 100 represents a real rail height of 100mm (4mm) British Steel provides rail to the railways and their MINIMUM EN13674-1 rail height is 145mm and ranges up to 172mm. Therefore TALLER than code 100. This is (obviously) for current railways - historically obviously smaller sections were used. So is 85mm (code 85) actually used in new installations on the real railway? Comments?

And milk cartons from the fridge to cool it down. My wife at the age of 19 or so had some of her work in the Science Museum displays as a result of working at NPL where she worked on early computers. Not to mention professional computers where you could only edit text a line at a time and moving forward through the file "George 4"?.

After several weeks of battling with this point I have solved it - at least for myself. The problem in any case is inhibiting a short between the switch rails controlled by both motors when the first point is routed to the right, and the second motor is trying to go to the left (as viewed from above) I am using a pair of DCC Concepts DCC Cobalt motors. So i have insufficient power switches to follow the Analogue, non-dcc fitted wiring. as I have separate DCC Buses for point and train. Solution is a micro-switch at the first tie-bar. This is wired so that when the first motor is going to the right then NO power is on the second point rails. When the first motor is set to the left, effectively passing traffic to either of the second point routes. then the second motor common power terminal is selected allowing it to apply power to either route as appropriate. So the microswitch common contact is wired to the third frog (the left-hand one) and the common from the second motor is connected to the micro switch contact that is active only when the first point is switched to the left. Regarding the improvement to the wiring - I would strongly suggest proceeding with extreme caution on removing all the existing internal wiring -there are a large number of connections. However it may be possible to common up at the start of the point; but your red wires will NOT fully power the point and create shorts. Hope this helps - the peco silver small contacts are very vulnerable close to the tiebars, as your photo shows.

Not entirely true- I have a HO model of Locomotion from "GB Loco series" - static but a half-sized copy of an O gauge ?Bachmann" version which i understand ran. The verical motion (fixed on HO) looks good

Just to make the point which may not be relevant - while track spacing on curves may need to be say 55mm that does not apply to straights. On my layout the straights are at 50 and the curves are at 60; achieved by lengthening the outer straights by 5cm or more compared to inner adjoining curves; This also gets away from the toy train potential point that all tracks are equidistant all the time; look at the prototype. The minus is that the inner straights tend to be shorter than otherwise.

It is about time someone produced a ready to run Welsh company engine; preferably Taff Vale 0-6-2T M or M1 or N or O(1-4) or even A- TVR or Kitson built - scope for other Welsh and non-Welsh versions of the M/M1

Fantasising - while Wales is growing bung in Cheshire as well into Wales. Expresses from Cardiff to Birkenhead again. Covid coverage (TV) by the Senedd leaders is much better than BJ and friends. Regards Basil

Try searching with: https://www.petersspares.com/?searchStr=pug £4.99 used spare, 5 in stock I have no connection except as customer. Regards

Yo are not thinking of Code 100 are you; code 75 is fairly new.

Local Aldi is allowing 60 total at a time total then 1 out 1 in. West Kirby, Wirral

My technique is to vary the spacing between tracks by on the outer rail(s) extending the straight leading into the curve before starting the larger radius curve so that the track spacing on the curve is larger. To my eyes Peco spacing looks wrong. Obviously any points on the straights need the straight part of the curved bit shortened to adopt my spacing!

I m making a rather simpler model than most of the correspondents but I am particularly interested in ballast colour in the SW valleys, and rather less SW mainline, esp. pre-grouping. My memory from the 50s would be black (coal dust I imagine) everywhere except where recently replaced. And composed mainly of ash. Comments?

One technique i use to get max number of tracks on the straight is to make outer tracks longer before starting a curve; also on my layout I further use the difference in straight lengths by a full quarter circle of 4th radius, adjoining a quarter circle of 1 4th piece of track followed by 1 3rd radius piece of track adjoined a quarter circle of 1 3rd and and 1 2nd adjoined a quarter circle of 1 2nd and and 1 1st . So on the straight trains are protoypically close to each other on adjacent tracks and as they enter a curve the spacing increases. I've got three tracks going under a Hornby footbridge (but tight on the platform edge!!) All helped by the fact that using Hornby track each track piece covers the same angle. When did you see ALL track at the same spacing on the prototype over a significant distance?

Statins I was put on Atorvastatin 40mg and aspirin 150mg (both daily) after a quadruple bypass op. So I've been on it since 1997 and have never been fitter. Bypass op caused by bad chloresterol; reading was around 11 when 5 was the max target figure and main heart arteries were blocking. 7 days after the op the district nurse couldn't understand how I managed to get to the door to let her in the house. 76 birthday was last month and I'm still active- indeed my understanding is being sensibly active is good for a weakish heart. Hope this helps others.....

Just to correct my previous entry and agree with others: TVR 30T Timber Truck, later GWR Macaw G. Length over headstocks 35 ft, width 7ft 4", The bolsters are removeable and don't revolve. Bogies axle spacing 5ft 6", Distance beween middle of bogies 24ft. distance between buffer centres 5ft 8 1/2in. This from the outline diagram I prev mentioned. Presumable removeanle bolsters suggest the are relocatable; as drawn the spacing beween the outer pairs is less than the next inner and the middle pair are between the others. Diagram has no overall length over buffers.

JN Maskelyne Editor MRN (GW Fanatic) in Sept 46 MRN Page 188 has a similar list to the one just above starting from 5071(1940) to 6952 except that 5049 splits the 5017 period: no dates unfortunately. Obviously nothing post 1946

Jan 2020 Page 57, what have pictures 3,4&5 got to do with their captions? Look to be breakdown crane review material (;-)}

On the uk modelshops directory listing there is a list of "local" railway stations; all are fine except the last "West Kirby" which is "9" or so miles away it says. This is, I think,as the crow flies and ignores the river Dee which would need to be crossed. Chester is closer for people without boats! I have put a note to uk....

Not all platforms on a line were necessarily the same length; Halts could be shorter for example because the train/autotrain predicted to operate them was say 1 or 2 coaches as opposed to the more significant stations which could be expected to handle handling 5 or more coaches. Also some platforms could be for more than one larger train. Contrast Alberta Road Halt/ Llandough Halt, Abercwmboi Halt, Penarth Town, Cardiff General (Central?), Queen St and at the long extreme Pontypridd from my memories. Regards

What scale are you on: N OO? Regards Basil