Train spotting at Finsbury Square

[31A]

Just now, Oldddudders said:

This is watchmaker's work - brilliant!

 

You are too kind, I wouldn't go that far!  But it wasn't easy fitting it all in, and when it came to installing it on the layout I was glad the post with the connections on is near the front of the baseboard.

[acg5324]

12 minutes ago, St Enodoc said:

You want nasty? We'll swap your emu for a cassowary.

French sausage and bean stew? Good swop!

[Pacific231G]

8 hours ago, acg5324 said:

French sausage and bean stew? Good swop!

 

OFF TOPIC

Cassoulet surely and I'd be pretty disappointed if I only got sausage and beans in one. A good cassoulet  contains so much more (and is one of my favourite dishes)  A cassoulet looks like dinner whereas a cassowary looks like a dinosaur, mostly because it is one so mixing them up could be fatal. A cassoulet may include dinosaur meat (chicken, goose or duck) and generally dinosaur fat (goose) but never in my experience any cassowary meat- which it should not as they're threatened species. It was also said, in the days when nobody worried about eating endangered species, that a cassowary should be cooked with a stone. When the stone was ready to eat so was the cassowary

Edited January 10, 2023 by Pacific231G

[31A]

I had a nice cassoulet in Carcassonne once.

 

Anyway, stews and dinosaurs not withstanding, did somebody mention emus?  I'm not one to bury my head in the sand:

 

 

The Guard can't believe his eyes either!

 

[Oldddudders]

Just now, 31A said:

I had a nice cassoulet in Carcassonne once.

 

Anyway, stews and dinosaurs not withstanding, did somebody mention emus?  I'm not one to bury my head in the sand:

 

 

The Guard can't believe his eyes either!

 

1930s Northern Heights stuff!

[46444]

1 minute ago, 31A said:

I had a nice cassoulet in Carcassonne once.

 

Anyway, stews and dinosaurs not withstanding, did somebody mention emus?  I'm not one to bury my head in the sand:

 

 

The Guard can't believe his eyes either!

 

 

Very nice Steve,

 

Is that an EFE static model or one of the new EFE/Bachmann motorised jobs?

 

Cheers,

 

Mark

[31A]

6 minutes ago, Oldddudders said:

1930s Northern Heights stuff!

Yes could be!  Or somewhere on the Central Line, given the N7? 

[31A]

6 minutes ago, 46444 said:

 

Very nice Steve,

 

Is that an EFE static model or one of the new EFE/Bachmann motorised jobs?

 

Cheers,

 

Mark

 

Hi Mark, just a static one I'm afraid, and I've only got that one car.

 

I don't really intend to have working Tube trains, but I did have a rather daft idea involving them.  Through the wall behind the platform end buffer stops is a built in wardrobe on the landing and I toyed with the idea of extending the Platforms 3 & 4 lines (the ones in that picture) through a hole in the wall and onto a shelf in the wardrobe, and having a tube train shuttle running in and out!

[46444]

Thanks Steve,

 

It still looks very nice and in an appropriate setting.

 

I saw the new EFE models in Monk Bar Models, York a while back and was almost tempted!  

 

I do like the consideration of a working Underground line.

 

Almost shades of the famous Railway Modeller April Fools Underground article from many years ago.

 

The one where the layout went through walls and under the floor boards. 

 

Cheers,

 

Mark

Edited January 11, 2023 by 46444

[manna]

G'Day Folks

 

At least the real Underground tube trains did travel through the 'Cross' via the drain.

 

manna

Edited January 10, 2023 by manna
Added content.

[31A]

Just now, manna said:

G'Day Folks

 

At least the real Underground tubes did travel through the 'Cross' via the drain.

 

manna

 

They did!  I'd need to get a couple of Battery Locos for that, though.  Actually could be a good way of running tube trains on non electrified lines.....

[mullie]

1 hour ago, 31A said:

Yes could be!  Or somewhere on the Central Line, given the N7? 

Suggestions of the line out to Ongar.

 

November 78 Modeller featured a layout called Epton based on the Central line out to Epping, it included scratch built tube trains and kit built F5s, N7s etc. As a teenager I helped operate it at a few exhibitions. 

[Chas Levin]

The gantry is superb Steve, as others have said!

 

Is that one of a latest EFE tubes? I too have just one, inherited and pretty old, perhaps from when they first did them and from memory (it's been put away ages) it's not so detailed. Also, yours appears to have working lights in front, or is that a trick of the light?

[Pacific231G]

20 hours ago, 31A said:

 

Hi Mark, just a static one I'm afraid, and I've only got that one car.

 

I don't really intend to have working Tube trains, but I did have a rather daft idea involving them.  Through the wall behind the platform end buffer stops is a built in wardrobe on the landing and I toyed with the idea of extending the Platforms 3 & 4 lines (the ones in that picture) through a hole in the wall and onto a shelf in the wardrobe, and having a tube train shuttle running in and out!

There's always this idea

Geoff Ashdown's EM Tower Pier layout. The District Line train doesn't actually move (but I used to commute on the District and that wasn't unusual) but neither do the passengers on the platforms nor the vehicles on the bridge. Even though it's purely cosmetic it is suprisingly effective.

 

 

[31A]

3 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

There's always this idea

Geoff Ashdown's EM Tower Pier layout. The District Line train doesn't actually move (but I used to commute on the District and that wasn't unusual) but neither do the passengers on the platforms nor the vehicles on the bridge. Even though it's purely cosmetic it is suprisingly effective.

 

 

 

Yes, nice idea that!  I wonder how I could fit in something like that.  To be honest I'm not really a fan of static trains ON bridges, but that one under a bridge does look good.

[lezz01]

Well at least it wouldn't be a bus so Wolfy wouldn't be calling in an air strike.😱

Regards Lez.

[31A]

Finsbury Square now on You Tube;

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGejcDh2QvA

 

With thanks to David from Canada!

 

[Dagworth]

Thanks so much Steve for letting us all invade your layout this evening. Very impressive 

 

Andi

[31A]

26 minutes ago, Dagworth said:

Thanks so much Steve for letting us all invade your layout this evening. Very impressive 

 

Andi

 

You're very welcome Andi, I'm glad you liked it!

 

Apologies for the operator errors on my part - it isn't usually like that, honestly!

[31A]

Not much has been reported recently; I've been too busy gadding about Germany and other countries thanks to @LNER4479's most enjoyable Team Grantham trip to the Harz and Hamburg.

 

However I have been playing about with the excellent Sonic Models A5 4-6-2 tank that I acquired recently.  The main things to do were to remove the fixed lamps fore and aft, and replace them with lamp irons which can be used to hang lamps on.  I've renumbered her as 69814, which was briefly and somewhat improbably allocated to King's Cross in 1960.  This is recounted in Peter Townend's book "Top Shed", but recently I was privileged to meet a gentleman who remembered seeing it on the GN.  I've also done some weathering, but hopefully not so extreme as to spoil the elegance of this impressive machine.  Here she is in the Loco Yard.

 

 

 

Meanwhile, back at the station, I photographed the A3 60039, for no particular reason apart from the fact that it too looks quite elegant.  In fact, this Hornby model has had quite a bit of attention.  Picked up for a very reasonable price at a Toy Fair, it turned out to have a few bits missing - reversing rod, ashpan lever (I think it is - beneath the cab), and smokebox door handles, so it seemed like a good opportunity to apply some of the bits from the Brassmasters detailing etch that languished in a drawer.  Apart from the above, I fitted the front frame parts, including the rear of the front buffers and the front steps which hang correctly from them.  The smokebox door handles were a nice little part from GW Models, and I also fitted a Crownline brass chimney, for no real reason except that it had been in the 'bits box' for a long while and this seemed as good a time as any to use it.  Anyway, here she sits at the platform end, adding to the soot on the signal gantry.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[thegreenhowards]

Steve,

 

I believe 69814 went to the cross to haul sleeper ECS which the N2s struggled with over the Ferme Park flyover. I don’t think the trial was a great success as it didn’t last long!

 

Andy

[31A]

3 minutes ago, thegreenhowards said:

Steve,

 

I believe 69814 went to the cross to haul sleeper ECS which the N2s struggled with over the Ferme Park flyover. I don’t think the trial was a great success as it didn’t last long!

 

Andy

Thanks Andy, yes I think that's the gist of what Peter Townend said in his book; apparently even the L1s weren't quite up to that task so they cast around for other powerful tank engines to try to find a solution.  I suppose not long afterwards, dieselisation would have provided the answer.

 

Anyway, it was a good excuse to buy the model!

[thegreenhowards]

28 minutes ago, 31A said:

Thanks Andy, yes I think that's the gist of what Peter Townend said in his book; apparently even the L1s weren't quite up to that task so they cast around for other powerful tank engines to try to find a solution.  I suppose not long afterwards, dieselisation would have provided the answer.

 

Anyway, it was a good excuse to buy the model!

Yes, I have a half built 52f kit with the same excuse!

[manna]

G'Day Folks

 

I seem to recall the the A5 was also used on the Royston stoppers.

 

As for the problems all loco's seem to have on the Hertford flyover, they should have kept the old R1 0-8-2T tank engines, they never stuck.

 

manna

[31A]

Just now, manna said:

I seem to recall the the A5 was also used on the Royston stoppers.

 

Thanks; I have seen a picture of it in the Suburban Station at the Cross so I assumed it was probably used on passenger trains as well as the ECS of the Sleepers; at least that helps justify my excuse for having it!

 

As for the R1s, unfortunately long gone by then but I think (without digging the book out to check) Peter Townend suggested they try an ex GW eight coupled tank but the 'authorities' didn't go for it!