Simon G

My first thought on reading this thread was whether your formations actually need multiple motors to run them? If you are using the modern Hornby motor bogies, I have found that one of them will run my old Triang Blue Pullman 6 car set perfectly happily. On occasions I run the set with power cars at each end using the original Triang motor bogies, but the motors do seem to fight against each other at times. The single motor setup does give smoother running. If I were you, I would try to disconnect 2 of the 4 motors in the 8 car set, noting that you will need to disconnect them both electrically and mechanically for the set to run OK.

Just back in from today’s constitutional. There is a cold northerly wind today, so we wrapped up well. The clouds gradually thickened up while we were out with a couple of spots of rain. The rain then came on more heavily 2 minutes after we arrived home! The morning was partly spent going through more baby things I unearthed from the loft. Much to my surprise, I was allowed to put some of the items straight into the bin!

Many of the newspapers don’t care about the truth or the science behind it, as that does nothing for their circulation and profits! Many years ago when I worked on air pollution from motor vehicles at the Transport and Road Research Lab, the Reading local paper got hold of some of our data and splashed a headline that Reading was more polluted than London. They ignored the fact that the Reading sampling point was right on a main road in the centre of town, while the London sampling point was in a quietish side street 100 yards off the Cromwell Road, so comparison was meaningless.

This mornings rain appears to have abated, leaving it just cold and windy outside. Nonetheless we will venture out for a walk at some point. During last nights power cut, we invented a new game entitled “count the number of visible lights on the Isle of Man”. As it got slowly dark, it was surprising just how many lights on the island are visible on the mainland, considering that it is about 30 miles away. Some were bright but momentary, presumably car headlights, while others were visible all the time. There was even one bright red light right down at the south end of the island, possibly around the Castletown or Calf of Man area. Perhaps NHN knows what it is?

Morning all, wet here this morning, so I expect more time will be spent finding and sorting out all our old baby stuff, so we can see if son and d-i-l want any of it if they come here in the next week or so, as currently planned. Our electricity went off at about 6pm last night and wasnt restored until nearly 01.30 this morning. We seem to have had a large number of cuts in recent months, so I have raised a formal complaint to Electricity North West, and encouraged our neighbours to do the same. Part of th problem is that once they find a problem, it takes over an hour to get an engineer to the scene. We are not so remote that they couldnt have someone located in West Cumbria. The number of cuts we have, it would probably save them time and money! At least this time, we had just about finished cooking dinner, so didnt go hungry!

The last two days have been dominated by dental appointments for me. Yesterday I had a hygienist appointment, which is rather akin to having to pay loads of money for what feels like extreme torture at the time! Whilst out, I decided to have a trip to the nearest tip, sorry household waste recycling centre, so that we could get rid of a load of stuff we have had for years, and never used or are likely to be used. There was a queue to get to the tip, and it took about 45 minutes in total, but the view from the approach road must be one of the best views from a tip in England! Picture attached, and shows Ennerdale valley (lake not visible), with the surrounding hills on both sides. Today’s dental trip was to Kendal, to get my crown reattached to the implant. The crown was previously secured with adhesive, but kept coming off, so it is now screw retained. I just hope that this is finally the end of my problems with this particular tooth. We drove home through the lakes for a change, which was a nice run, but we were delayed for 30 minutes after a crash closed the A591 at Thirlmere. It looked like a car had clipped a wall and then careered into a car coming from the opposite direction. Fortunately no one appeared to be hurt, but both cars were pretty mangled. Just the sort of thing that makes you relieved to get home safely.

Wet here this morning, not surprisingly given how close we are to Fraggle Rock. Gluteal muscle still pretty stiff and sore, though better than Sunday and yesterday. At least I managed to find a comfortable position to sleep. After the announcement that we are to become grandparents, we have started to sort out all the baby stuff kept since ours were born. The old cot has been assembled and found to be immaculate, and various clothes have been located. The big question is whether the parents-to-be will actually want any of the stuff. They are due to visit in about a couple of weeks, so we might get some idea then. In the meantime more stuff will be unearthed and sorted out!

Looks like being a nice day here today, as it is calm, dry and sunny just now. I don’t expect to take much advantage of the good weather, as my gluteals are still very stiff and uncomfortable. I struggled to find a comfortable position to sleep , and am now waiting for the ibuprofen to kick in before trying to move out of the chair. What is really frustrating is that I just don’t know how I did this in the first place.

Evening all, A mixed day today. On the positive side, I can now say that I am due to become a Grandfather at the end of March. Son and daughter in law told us three weeks back when staying with us, but we were sworn to secrecy until other relatives had been visited and told. Mrs G are I are absolutely delighted and looking forward to it. On the negative side, I seem to have pulled a muscle, possibly one of the gluteal ones. It was OK first thing today, but really stiffened up during the morning to such an extent that I could hardly walk at lunchtime. An afternoon’s rest, plus max strength ibuprofen has improved it a bit, but it is still stiff and uncomfortable. Hopefully a good nights sleep will help. It was a pity, as it was a lovely day here today. I did manage a bit of tidying up around the garden in the morning. My afternoon rest involved watching some excellent rugby between Saracens and Bath.

Pressure washing completed, or at least as much as I want to do in a day. There was enough water supply from the old oil tank, so no mains water used. Since then, I have managed to pick a few beans, peas, beetroot and dug up a parsnip as apparently we need one for the dinner tonight. As it is a nice afternoon, I will venture back outside shortly to apply some teak oil to our garden seat, which is in dire need of it. I have already cleaned off all the accumulated detritus and lightly sanded it, so just the oil to be applied.

Morning all, supposed to be dry here today, but just as I stepped outside, the heavens opened with a brief but heavy shower. I had decided to use some of the water I have accumulated in the old oil tank to pressure wash the concrete path around the house, which is partly covered in unsightly moss. Plumbing parts drawer has been raided and I found the necessary bits to allow a water hose to be connected, via an old radiator valve. I am hoping that there is sufficient head of water in the tank to feed the pressure washer - one way to find out!

This is my third attempt to get on here today, with the software update seemingly preventing me earlier. Wet and windy here today, but the worst seems to have passed over and I can just about see Fraggle Rock from the living room window. A very brief visit paid to the club rooms yesterday to read electricity and water meters. In so doing, we decided to go slightly further afield for a walk, and went up Dent, which is a relatively small hill just outside Egremont, but with great views. It was nice and sunny when we set off, but the clouds rolled in during the walk, so we were a bit chilly after a couple of hours walking. The picture below shows the view from the top of Dent. Scafell Pike is visible a third of the way from the right hand side, in the distance.

Our heating system is a gas boiler installed about 3 years ago, and it replaced a 40 year old oil boiler. I now use the old oil tank for water storage in the summer for the garden. When we moved into our house in the 1980s, it was a very cold place, so after one winter we had double glazing, cavity wall insulation and loft insulation fitted. That made a huge improvement, so I was surprised more recently when the double glazing was replaced by the latest hi-tech glass with heat reflecting properties and argon filling in the gap. That made another huge difference, and then when our leaky slate roof was replaced 2 years ago with a decent tiled roof, that made another significant improvement. What that meant over the weekend was that one hour on the central heating in the morning would keep the house warm nearly all day, then another hour in the evening to maintain it. Once it gets colder, the woodburner will be used in the living room from late afternoon onwards. stiff shoulder from yesterday has thankfully eased a bit, so I am more mobile today, but still a bit stiff. Various outside tasks have been completed, but I was rained off just after lunch.

Morning all, When Imposted yesterday, I thought that our electricity was back on OK. Wrong! It was on, but at a low voltage. Some things worked, such as the TV, but the microwave just made a slight noise and didn’t do anything and the kettle took ages to boil. This went on for a few hours, then everything went off completely for a while, then finally came back at normal voltage. Today, I have woken up with a very stiff neck,so ibuprofen has been taken, and I am sitting with a hot water bottle on the back of the neck. Hopefully it will improve as it is a sunny, calm but cold day here, so I plan to do some outside tasks later.

Greetings all, I haven’t posted for a couple of weeks, and for the last week or so have actually managed to escape West Cumbria for the first time since lockdown started in March. We managed a week in a cottage in North Wales, and fantastic it was too. The weather was generally fine, so we were out walking every day, sometimes in shorts and tee shirt, as it was warm enough on occasions. On our few ventures into towns etc, it was clear why the CV-19 rates are climbing. Llandudno was rammed with people and social distancing just wasn’t possible, so we avoided it and went for a long walk up and around the Great Orme. While queuing at a bakery in Conwy, I was trying to maintain social distancing, but the woman behind me kept right up behind me until I just turned round and silently glared at her. Even then it didn’t make any difference until her husband explained to her why I was giving her the evil eye. On the positive side, we did manage to see a train, albeit a yellow Network Rail DMU, on the Conwy valley line to Blaenau Ffestiniog. It was clearly some sort of test train, having come from Crewe and it also went to a Bangor and Llandudno. During one of our walks, we had a good view of the newly reinforced track bed just south of LLanrwst, where the line was washed away last winter. Apparently, passenger services will resume on Monday. we returned home yesterday, via Kendal where I had a dental appointment to change the crown on my implant from being secured with adhesive to one secured by a screw. The current one keeps coming off, and I am thoroughly fed up with it, so hopefully this will fix it for good. I still need to go back to Kendal in a couple of weeks for the job to be finished. Today is nice and bright, but cold outside, and we have already suffered a power cut this morning, but only for an hour or so. It came back on while I was out getting a flu jab from the GP surgery. I was surprised that they were doing them on a Saturday, but they had quite a ‘production line’ going, so I was only inside the surgery for 1 to 2 minutes. Todays plan is now to do some grass cutting and then hopefully watch some European Cup rugby this afternoon.

Evening all, After all the walking etc this week, my back was suffering considerably this morning, so I opted out of today’s walk, which was up Green Crag in Eskdale. I had a quiet and restful day, so the back feels a lot better. I am just hoping it remains that way, as it has been decidedly dodgy these past 3 to 4 weeks.. I was helped significantly by my son cutting the grass for me today, as it had got rather long, and my back didn’t fancy the task. Hopefully I will be OK by the time it needs cutting again. I did spend a bit of time commissioning my layout, and actually had trains running on DCC, controlled through the laptop via DecoderPro. Everything seems pretty much OK, except an isolation switch is the wrong way round, so looks like it should be off when it is on and vice versa. It will be sorted soon!

Evening all, After yesterday’s exertions in Miterdale, today it was Black Combe, which is effectively the most south westerly fell in the Lakes, overlooking Millom and the Irish Sea. At 1970 feet, it isn’t officially a mountain by 30 feet, but it is still a good walk. We made a circular walk out of it, which meant about 4 hours walking in total, and about 2500 total feet of ascent. My level of knackeredness considerably exceeded yesterday’s! On the way home, we tried to buy some Cumberland Sausage from Woodall’s in Waberthwaite, who arguably produce some of the best sausage in the county, but sadly they had closed when we got there. I shall have to go to a local butcher instead for dinner tomorrow!

Today’s planned walk up Miterdale proved to be a very pleasant excursion. It was also well socially distanced, as in a three and a half hour walk, we only saw two other walkers, who were on a ridge about a mile away, and the farmer of a farm we passed through. Miterdale is known as both the Hidden and Secret valley, and it lived up to those names today. It was occasionally a bit wet underfoot, but none of us got wet feet. I took a few photos on my old phone camera, so here are some of them: Miterdale with the end cliffs just coming into view, and with Scafell in the background. The end of Miterdale with the now tiny River Mite in the foreground. We found some rocks on the right hand side to sit on while we ate our picnic lunch! Having had lunch, we went round above the end of the valley and got a good view of Scafell, with Burnmoor Tarn in the foreground. This is one of the more remote Lakeland tarns, and the stream leading from it to Eskdale is called Whillan Beck, after which the Ratty’s newest loco is called.

Evening all, Not managed to post for a couple of days. We have no 1 son and daughter in law staying with us for a week. Today, we went for the longest walk I have managed since before lockdown. We did the first few miles of the coast to coast walk over St Bees Head in largely sunny weather. It was as busy as I have seen it along that route, but social distancing wasn’t a problem! We were out for about 5 hours, which included a picnic lunch stop, so I am now pretty knackered! We arrived home to find the live T20 on the TV, so managed to watch half of England’s successful run chase against Pakistan. Tomorrow’s plan is currently another walk, this time in the “hidden valley” aka Miterdale in the West Lakes. We have walked it many times and it is never busy.

Morning all, After a single day’s respite from the last storm, Francis is with us. It may not be as windy as it was over the weekend, but it sure is wet! It has been a consistent downpour since I got up. With yesterday being a nice calm sunny day, I decided to get a few outside jobs done, such as grass cutting and lifting some potatoes. All these jobs were done Ok, but with the result that I overdid things rather, so I have a very stiff back this morning. This is a regular occurrence for me and I know it will ease in a day or so. Usually a decent walk helps it loosen up, but that isn’t likely for the next few hours! Yesterday, I finished attaching legs to my layout, which is now sitting on its side, awaiting being lifted into position. I am not sure if Mrs G will be able to help me do it, so it may have to wait for the weekend when no 1 son comes to stay for a few days.

Morning all (just!). Blowing a hoolie here as you might expect. I am looking out on a very angry looking Irish Sea today. The heavy rain earlier has given way to a little sunshine. My poor runner beans are now cocooned in some windbreak material, which is hopefully protecting them from the worst of the wind - time will tell. Cooking apples have been blown off our tree, so I have used some of them this morning by making apple chutney. It is currently “brewing” as I write this. I haven’t made apple chutney before, so I hope it turns out well.

Another bad smell is my bucketful of nettle “soup”! In order to get some liquid fertiliser, nettles can be put in a bucket of water and allowed to rot over a couple of weeks. The result is very smelly indeed. We are using it to feed the indoor tomatoes and cucumbers, which it seems to do very nicely, but does leave a very unpleasant odour in the porch where the plants are for a while.

Quite simply, that is what most brewers do when they take over another brewery. There used to be Hartleys in Ulverston in the south of Cumbria. It produced some excellent ales, although some “experts” reckoned it didn’t travel well outside Ulverston. It was taken over by Robinsons, who iirc came from Manchester way. Robinson’s beer wasn’t in the same league as Hartleys, but they still closed the Ulverston brewery and rebranded the pubs. It is pretty windy here today, as a prelude to tomorrow’s gales. I will be going outside to check on anything loose to make sure it doesn’t blow away. In the meantime, the morning has been spent so far making soup out of chicken stock. I tend to put all sorts of things into such soup, with the result that it is rarely repeatable, but usually tastes good!

My daughter in law is a water treatment works manager with Anglian Water. Her simple take on smells from the treatment works, aka sewage farms, is that if they smell at all, they are not functioning correctly. A pleasant morning here so we were out shopping early. I finally managed to buy some hair clippers in the local B&M store after weeks of trying online to get a particular type. Unfortunately by the time we returned home, I had a headache which persisted for the rest of the morning and still hasn’t fully gone now. Despite that, the grass has been cut, peas, beans and blackberries picked. Given we are forecast yet another gale this week (we are overdue one as the last one must be at least 2/3 weeks ago!!), I have wrapped some windbreak round the runner beans to try to protect them. They keep getting battered every time the gales come, and they keep surviving (just), but the forecast of three days of 40 to 60 mph winds could just finish them off, just as they are starting to crop.

Talking of bad smells reminds me of the old Cellophane factory at Bridgwater in Somerset. While at school in Somerset, I was once in a game of rugby nearby that had to be abandoned as the smell was making all the players sick. It was truly awful.