2E Sub Shed

On 07/07/2023 at 18:03, Wickham Green too said:

* the girl on my train today announced "don't forget to take all your bits and pieces" ........ obviously realises that most of my belongings are at home - in fact my home's one of them !

Remember the Virgin Cross Country service many years ago where we were reminded to take "our bags, cases, mobile phones, artificial limbs and false teeth" with us  

A friend who regularly commuted to London from Swindon in the 90's, experienced a delayed journey due to "llamas on the line".

SNAP

eBay Seller Stories: Meet Jason of Rocket Railways - UK eBay Community

Could you fix a vertical support to the shed to get the required height ?

56 minutes ago, doilum said:

Where did the Kent coal go?

See https://www.rmweb.co.uk/topic/118557-id-coal-train-south-eastern-division-late-70s-early-80s/

According to Dover Museum Webpage BR was a customer up to end of BR Steam and and by 1975 most Kent coal was used as a coking blend for the steel industry

10 hours ago, rogerzilla said:

Swindon is just about equidistant from the Oxford and Mendip transmitters, so aerials point different ways depending upon which signal is better in that part of town.  Generally, they are all very weak so aerials are huge, with amplifiers as well.  I gave up and fitted a Freesat dish.

When I lived in Swindon, on our side of town you had the option of the relay south of Swindon in the direction of Marlborough as well for HTV / BBC west

14 minutes ago, uax6 said:

 

You are right about why 999 was chosen. 

However "9" was also the access code for a number of local exchanges from your own, rather than use an STD code, , some years before I arrived to live in a ruarl area, calls to the next town were prefixed with "9", I assume that at level, given the volume of calls it would have been possible to "block" 999 traffic.

1 hour ago, polybear said:

at each end; there was a lever microswitch mounted on each block that was operated by the loco buffers as it reached the end of the track, reversing the track polarity and sending the loco backwards to the opposite end of the track.

Hi

Not seeing the item described,  I would guess that one way of doing this would be that, the microswitch at one end operated a "latching relay" (google it for more info), and at the other end ,that microswitch broke the supply to the relay to allow it to fall back to a rest state,. The relay being a multi-pole relay and a pair of DP contacts (i.e a DPDT Switch action), being used reversing the traction supply polarity from the controller to make the loco change direction. However you would still need a separate power supply for the relay 

32 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

It's not as if the signs were only in Welsh. Smacks of xenophobia, I think.

Many years ago when taking my late father to Northampton General Hospital I noticed that some of the Fire Safety Signage was English/Welsh bi-lingual.

Look here

https://www.ukmodelshops.co.uk/events/exhibitions

8 hours ago, Vecchio said:

WD 40 contact cleaner

WD 40 make a number of products, make sure it is the CONTACT CLEANER that you use. the WD 40 lubricant is not suitable, having seen its effects some years ago on cassette recorder mechanisms, (nasty dried out mess), where users had tried a "quick fix", before bringing it in for repair.

Followed today on way back home from SWAG 23.

6 hours ago, RJS1977 said:

I think I've suggested before that one way of marketing would be to step back slightly from the pre-defined train sets, to one where the heritage railway/retailer can choose a loco, couple of coaches, and maybe some scenic items from Hornby's stock, and Hornby puts them all in a gift box with an oval of track and a controller.

Once the impulse purchase on a day out is made at a Heritage Railway, (and how many have that level of discretionary spending power ?), how likely is someone to travel back to the railway to buy extra items ? Much more likely to look on-line, a search for "Hornby" will show the Hornby direct sales site, than try to look up "local model shop" which again if they did may not be "local".

I will have a number of Bachmann OO Wagons  to place on the Bring & Buy, including Presflo's and TTA's (subject to remembering to bring them).

6 hours ago, KingEdwardII said:

 They work 12 hour shifts, alternating between nights and days. The shift pattern is one week of 4 days followed by a week with 3 days.  

I once did 12 hour shift pattern  - 4 days on 4 days off and then 4 nights on followed by 4 days off an so on. Was pretty standard in the telecoms world for NMC's (Network Monitoring Centres). Also had a 90 min drive each way to the location.

Hardest part was to get a good rest in between night shifts, given most of  the world wants to go about it's business, and not quietly. Big light left on on the sky was solved by blackout linings on curtains.   

I only did it for a short period, but there are numerous studies relating to reduced life expectancy for long-term shift workers.

40 minutes ago, Widnes Model Centre said:

Decided having read one of the above posts to take the bull by the horns and contacted our landlords. Very sorry but they didn’t have any old settees!
 

If you did provide them, based on experience they would be occupied by the same small group of people week after week who would drink your free coffee, spend very little, and distract you from running your business while occupying space you could devote to more display of stock, and time you give to walk in customers. 

Amusing statement of condition in listing title, rather than madness

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4 minutes ago, Nick C said:

Would these have, in BR days, run to Southampton at all?

Chris Leigh  did a prototype feature on Banana Vans in Model Rail Issue 203, (December 2014), might find some information there, my copy is not to hand.

4 minutes ago, AY Mod said:

... station lamps on in daylight.

 

Bodmin & Wenford Steam Railway - Bodmin General Station - Platform 1 - Thursday 6th April 2023

16 hours ago, Michael Hodgson said:

When I was working in internal audit we used to talk about "working the Italian jacket trick".  It came about because of  a certain member of staff in the Milan office - we would ask "where's Luigi today?" and be told he's definitely in, just not at his desk right now.  This chap used to come in on time, leave his jacket on the back of a chair and swan off out of the building for most of the day and come back an hour or so before the end of the working day!

In contracting circles there used to be a story about a contractor at a certain company which had two sites located some distance apart, each hosting a different project which never interacted. It was alleged that the individual went into site A and left a coat and then proceeded to site B and left another coat and spent parts of the day at each site, hence having two contracts and two income streams.    

32 minutes ago, Harlequin said:

I think Iain Rice used twin slot brackets to support the scenes in one of his layout designs so you're on safe ground. Unfortunately, I can't find the reference just at the moment.

 

Described by Iain in "Model Railroader's How to Guide - Shelf Layouts for Model Railroads" Kalmbach Books 2009 in some detail. (Also has section on foam core baseboards)

Also covered by Lance Mindheim in "How to build a Switching Layout"

22 hours ago, RichardT said:

PS If anyone has copies of MTI issues 5, 6, 10, 11, 13, 15, 16, 18 or 20 that they no longer want then I'd be very happy to buy them from you to complete my set!

I had success in tracking down a back copy of a MTI issue with the Rother Valley Railway who have a second hand magazine sales site  https://www.rvr.org.uk/shop.html