AMJ

Saw in the works yesterday at GCR there was an Austerity with a note on it to say "This is not a J94". Many loco owners will and can paint them in whatever colour they like. However many kids will see a steam engine if it is a blue tank loco (even saddle tank) I have heard them call it Thomas. I personally like to see Austerity tanks in WD or industrial markings and I think they are more attractive than black as mock J94's. GCR had a nice HE example parked outside as well.

Looking on the web the 155 is DCC ready so it should be a case of plugging in the decoder and playing. Express Models instructions are good I have not see the instructions for this unit but have fitted one into a loco. If you are not au fait with the soldering iron ask a friend/shop that is.

019 & 020 were at Stourton FLT on Friday afternoon.

I'm slightly biased and these are one of my fave standard gauge locos. When I travel round visiting different railways it is interesting to see all of the changes made to them throughout their working lives. In the autumn I got a chance to look at the HC built Austerity based in Rotterdam. Some of the other 18" Hunslet designs (48150 & 50550) have gained some modifications and can look like the 'standard' Austerity to the untrained eye. I use 'standard' as the design was modified with experience. Many of the locos built outside Leeds gained HE plates when they had major overhauls at Leeds. These and Quarry Hunslets are the most iconic locos that we have at the preserved railways.

I understand that Midland Rd is doing some work on the stored 66's that they have for export to FL Poland. They have even brought over Polish staff for training. It is probable that once many of the stored locos have gone that 70's will be seen in bulk. I'll prob have a look at MR this week as it's less than 5 miles from home.

When dad got the list of these (he sells them) I think that he decided to have one of each MkVI Bentley and I might get 2 of the Ivo's one to keep as it is and the other to repaint just like my car. Dad's thinking of repainting one like his MkVI. Some time ago I was talking to Oxford about some possible vehicles and one that I mentioned was the MkVI so perhaps if you suggest a few of the 1980's cars that are not done as models (or others) then they may appear in the future.

As some of the stock is maintained at NL in Leeds the minimum extension from Sheffield would be to Donny. I can imagine that as Northern are getting quite a few more EMU's it would make common sense to include the route through Barnsley with yet more 321/322 cast offs to run the local/semi fast services.

The WHHR does seem to give the 'family' group a better package than the longer WHR/FR combine. For many youngsters they want a train ride but a long one and they have not got the stamina to enjoy the journey. Also the trip round the museum helps break the trip and adds interest to the visit. I always enjoy visiting the WHHR except that I often spend quite a bit in the very good shop! The WHR probably has more info on http://phase5.org.uk/ about what's happening.

If you do not know, the best thing to do with phishing emails is to send a copy to the security department of the said bank, but before doing so view the complete header information of the original email, copy it and add it as part of your message body to the bank. If you don't do this most of the detail can get removed upon forwarding the message. A sample header from a good source.

I think that there are many more famous folks out there that like steam than the topic we had on here some time ago of famous modellers. See the page on Leodis of Sir Jimmy Saville http://www.leodis.org/display.aspx?resourceIdentifier=2009114_169728 at Middleton Railway. As Max Boyce would say I know cos I woz there.

Might be better if you have any knowledge to import the Excel sheet into Access and save it as a proper database. As I have IIS installed (web server) on the laptop I'd build a series of web pages to display the information as a web page, I have done something similar for the Inglenook http://www.amjohnson.co.uk/inglenook/

Certain parts of web development are easier to do with different technologies. I have and often do sites with standard HTML, CSS, JavaScript and others us a mix of these and ASP code. Certain items work best by ASP code others JS. I suspect that the JS code is some from a free source and a parameter has been placed into the code wrongly for it to malfunction. Just like models I have a test environment before going live.

At least when I'm in India in January the locals will mistake my accent for Geoff Boycotts (he does commentry in India as well) and as ever they will be friendly even after the way they lost. In 2010 there were some kids playing on a rough bit of land in Tipong they were going to stop playing whilst we took photos of the steam train. I had deliberately got the angle to include the cricket. We insisted that they continued to play as that was what we wanted for the photos. They (India) are fanatical about the sport compared to us. Not to be No 1 in a sport that we gave to our empire. Perhaps we don't say anything to the Australians about cricket!

Unless I have missed it amongst the many pages wasn't there proposals from Dapol to do the very same locos when they started up? There was an article in a mag and this has been discussed in the models that were not produced thread on here.

I often wonder if life would have been easier if railway scales had been the same as other modellers scales.

Also see http://uk.news.yahoo.com/photos/indonesian-train-track-shock-therapy--1312371080-slideshow/rex4-photo.html Reminds me of the theme tune to M*A*S*H

The DCC Concepts decoders that I bought are the TS2SA classed as small thin. (Bought in 5 pack from a site sponsor.) I shortened the blue/black wires on the decoder & capacitor for the stay alive joined as per instructions. Coiled (& taped) the normal decoder wired above chip leaving enough for the plug to go into the socket with chip next to plug same with extra SA wires, cap placed next to chip. Body back on, about 15 minutes including programming total. I don't recall any marks on/near the socket to identify pin 1 but some would argue which end is the front? Boiler end or tank end?

Is this a bit too clean for inclusion here?

You can just see the DCC Concepts Stay Alive kit inside the cab. I'm using a wired one rather than the direct one. I find that it even makes some bigger locos seem weak - sweet little runner.

The one in Barmouth mentioned above is good. Slightly up the line I have had good F&C from the one in Harlech - the downside is that they don't open every day and I have been known to go into Portmadog to get food. In PM going off topic there Chinese and Indian resteraunts & take aways. Perhaps this could become a general guide to eating out near to a station, or do you think that we need threads for each type of eatery? Quite a few stations seem to have a Weatherspoons nearby so you can get a cheap pint of real ale and food prices are not bad either. (Another possiby topic real ale pubs near/on stations.) I realise that for those that work on the railway you can't visit a pub.

As I have fitted both the chip and capacitor for a DCC concepts stay alive into a Bachmann Gas Mechanical I'm sure that these will fit into the Sentinel.. I Have a couple in stock and just await the loco so that I can give a verdict on space.

I don't suppose that anyone has fitted a DCC sound chip yet?

Yesterday is having a Railway Week and is repeating some of the Railway Walks this week amongst other railway programmes.

PatC now that sounds like a nice idea. I'd buy a couple of certain Manning-Wardle tanks at least if they ever were produced.

With Arran from Scotland and Charlie from Yorkshire, as Charlie has done some Irish locos perhaps that will be the area to looks at.