The Night Mail

[Happy Hippo]

I woke up early thinking about a cooked breakfast and some cake.

 

Neither of which are forthcoming as there is nothing in the household storage area and being Sunday, the shops don't open until 10am.

 

Fortunately, I was able to rustle up a fruit cake in pretty short order.

 

 

 

[Winslow Boy]

3 hours ago, Happy Hippo said:

I woke up early thinking about a cooked breakfast and some cake.

 

Neither of which are forthcoming as there is nothing in the household storage area and being Sunday, the shops don't open until 10am.

 

Fortunately, I was able to rustle up a fruit cake in pretty short order.

 

 

 

 

I see you got round to putting up that extension then H. Did your mate help or did you get a contractor in. If you did let me have his details as you never know when you might need a Hippo enclosure building.

[Tony_S]

4 hours ago, Happy Hippo said:

I woke up early thinking

Our phone rang quite early (before breakfast). Aditi’s Mum was concerned that she hadn’t heard from Aditi’s siblings or their children this morning. Being a nice person Aditi just suggested they were probably asleep still. 
 

[Happy Hippo]

I have been troubled by a bad cough for the past few days.  So bad that I took a Covid test, on Thursday, which proved negative.

 

But the coughing has left me with a very sore chest, most of you who've had a really bad cough will probably know what I mean.

 

This morning, with the cough seemed to be on the wane, I was getting dressed, and as I bent down to do up a shoe lace, I was suddenly hit with a coughing spasm.

 

All the various angles and twists in the body plus the violent shaking caused me to pull a muscle, somewhere around the bottom of my rib cage.

 

I was obviously being lulled into a false sense of security by the cough, as now when I cough, not only do I have pain in my chest, but also a stabbing pain in my left  side.

 

It's better when I am standing up, so I've used this latest ailment as an excuse to go out into the garage and continue with the manufacture of the cassette system for my off scene storage for Pantmawr North.

 

I'm hoping that if it is a success.  the fiddle tables will be used on any future layout builds.

 

I did consider trying to retro fit such to Splott West Sidings, but I already have all the makings for a rebuild of the traverser.  This does have the advantage that if I sell it, SWS can be moved on as a complete model railway (less the stock and DCC handsets).

 

Having watched a number of weathering videos, I tried my hand at another of my 16 ton mineral wagons:  Better, but not as good as I'd want.  I can't seem to get the rust patches in the right place or right colour.  I suspect I'm overdoing it all, as the vans and brake vans I've been working up, all seem to be coming along quite nicely.

 

 

[Happy Hippo]

Nicholas Monsarrett wrote about Three Corvettes, I shall claim that I've finally got Three Cassettes!

 

They all plug together in any combination, wagons run through very smoothly; one side is electrically isolated from the other, whilst the connectors do both align everything nicely and pass power.

 

Only another 17 to go, which doesn't sound to bad when you whisper it quickly🤣.

Edited April 24, 2022 by Happy Hippo

[Happy Hippo]

Well, the good news is that, yesterday's newly created stabbing pain when I cough has now subsided to a much more considerate ache and pain.

 

I will however, continue to play the incapable invalid today and continue on the cassette saga this morning before setting up the boards in order to set the alignment between the scenic and cassette storage boards.

 

This last set of actions will no doubt be compared to the very best of British comedy where someone working solo, required 6 pairs of hands, many clamps and packing pieces and a magic want in order to achieve the desired result

 

Never in the field of British railway modelling, has such a simple task been made so complicated, by so few.

Edited April 25, 2022 by Happy Hippo

[bbishop]

19 hours ago, Happy Hippo said:

 

 

This morning, with the cough seemed to be on the wane, I was getting dressed, and as I bent down to do up a shoe lace, I was suddenly hit with a coughing spasm.

 

All the various angles and twists in the body plus the violent shaking caused me to pull a muscle, somewhere around the bottom of my rib cage.

 

I was obviously being lulled into a false sense of security by the cough, as now when I cough, not only do I have pain in my chest, but also a stabbing pain in my left  side.

 

 

All that cake!

[Happy Hippo]

My brain has two operating modes:

 

The stores depot, where everything is brought in, carefully sorted and allocated a place to rest.  Being a military  type store, a lot of stuff never moves again, or is only begrudgingly released in very small quantities. Certain items are eagerly received and quickly processed, whilst others of a more mundane nature, just get shunted off to be dealt with eventually.  Of course it is these items that spend a long time in the receipts bay that cause the nagging thoughts at the back of my mind, that are so annoying and cause me endless grief.

 

The brand new high speed bypass where information comes in through one ear and out through the other and avoids the stores depot completely. This is bliss!

 

On some occasions, the transport takes the wrong turn at the big roundabout at the end of the bypass and stores that should have been delivered to the depot don't get there.  Then there is the stuff that ends up in the receipts bay that should never have been delivered, so causes a backlog and this in turn exacerbates the problem of the mundane goods backlog.

 

The same can be said for my garage and workshop.  Both should be managed with equal priority, leading to, tidy, neat and well organised locations.

 

Of late I have been very busy in the garage, both using it as my  general construction area, and getting to grips with the disposal of unwanted and sometimes useless 'stuff'.  This creates ever more space/work area and is also good for managing the storage of my ever growing tool collection.

 

Now unfortunately there is a down side to this magnificent situation.  The workshop management team have all been WFH, and the place has become the mirror of the bunged up receipts area in the stores depot zone of my brain.

 

This was brought home to me with a bit of a bump when I could not find...wait for it... an 18 litre Really Useful Box, full of 7 mm scale wagons!  That was the easy one to get wound up over, then I was looking for a much smaller box that had some 7 mm scale signal components contained therein.

 

Well, in the shambles that the workshop had sadly become, there was no chance of finding that little box of goodies.

 

So, Wednesday has been earmarked as Workshop tidy up day with the prime directive being:

 

'Do not transfer any unsorted boxes of stuff to the garage in order to create space to work in!'

 

However, to create the necessary sorting place, I can take the unsorted boxes into the Conservatory garden room, where they can be laid out on the table and carefully sifted through, re grouped and repacked.  But this will mean I need to pack away all the deconstructed wagons and painting kit.... Which I'll end up putting in the garage until I have some space in the workshop.

 

One does not need much in the way of brainpower to see this is another merry go round! 

 

Perhaps the solution is just to to appropriate yet another room in the house or get another large store shed and call it a summer house!

 

 

 

 

[PhilJ W]

1 hour ago, Happy Hippo said:

My brain has two operating modes:

 

The stores depot, where everything is brought in, carefully sorted and allocated a place to rest.  Being a military  type store, a lot of stuff never moves again, or is only begrudgingly released in very small quantities. Certain items are eagerly received and quickly processed, whilst others of a more mundane nature, just get shunted off to be dealt with eventually.  Of course it is these items that spend a long time in the receipts bay that cause the nagging thoughts at the back of my mind, that are so annoying and cause me endless grief.

 

The brand new high speed bypass where information comes in through one ear and out through the other and avoids the stores depot completely. This is bliss!

 

On some occasions, the transport takes the wrong turn at the big roundabout at the end of the bypass and stores that should have been delivered to the depot don't get there.  Then there is the stuff that ends up in the receipts bay that should never have been delivered, so causes a backlog and this in turn exacerbates the problem of the mundane goods backlog.

 

The same can be said for my garage and workshop.  Both should be managed with equal priority, leading to, tidy, neat and well organised locations.

 

Of late I have been very busy in the garage, both using it as my  general construction area, and getting to grips with the disposal of unwanted and sometimes useless 'stuff'.  This creates ever more space/work area and is also good for managing the storage of my ever growing tool collection.

 

Now unfortunately there is a down side to this magnificent situation.  The workshop management team have all been WFH, and the place has become the mirror of the bunged up receipts area in the stores depot zone of my brain.

 

This was brought home to me with a bit of a bump when I could not find...wait for it... an 18 litre Really Useful Box, full of 7 mm scale wagons!  That was the easy one to get wound up over, then I was looking for a much smaller box that had some 7 mm scale signal components contained therein.

 

Well, in the shambles that the workshop had sadly become, there was no chance of finding that little box of goodies.

 

So, Wednesday has been earmarked as Workshop tidy up day with the prime directive being:

 

'Do not transfer any unsorted boxes of stuff to the garage in order to create space to work in!'

 

However, to create the necessary sorting place, I can take the unsorted boxes into the Conservatory garden room, where they can be laid out on the table and carefully sifted through, re grouped and repacked.  But this will mean I need to pack away all the deconstructed wagons and painting kit.... Which I'll end up putting in the garage until I have some space in the workshop.

 

One does not need much in the way of brainpower to see this is another merry go round! 

 

Perhaps the solution is just to to appropriate yet another room in the house or get another large store shed and call it a summer house!

I have the same problem. I wanted to clear out a storage area to do some work on it. So I purchased some racking which I placed in the utility area and moved most of the stuff onto the racking. Somehow the storage area has filled up but the original contents are still on the racking. Now I am in the process of moving the stuff into 50 litre storage boxes that fit two to a shelf in the racking and make better use of the space.

[Mark Saunders]

18 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

I have the same problem. I wanted to clear out a storage area to do some work on it. So I purchased some racking which I placed in the utility area and moved most of the stuff onto the racking. Somehow the storage area has filled up but the original contents are still on the racking. Now I am in the process of moving the stuff into 50 litre storage boxes that fit two to a shelf in the racking and make better use of the space.

There is a well known process of junk spreading to any available space but this is so slow that it is undetectable till it is too late!

[DenysW]

I cracked under the pressure from SWMBO and bought an item of infant-school-style furniture where there are lots of plastic trays in primary colours instead of shelves or drawers. We got the version with doors as a concession to reducing the visual impact. It did help with the sorting as the trays are big enough to take OO/HO rolling stock, and deep enough for track.

 

I don't think it will solve with the problem that there's never storage to let you actually find stuff, but it has deferred the issue a bit.

[Happy Hippo]

Looks like we could be due a string of ever worsening horror stories about other peoples tidying up and storage disasters.

 

Please continue,  as it will undoubtedly make me feel much better when I realise that compared to some, I'm a complete amateur.🤣

[Tony_S]

18 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

 

Please continue

Have you ever used a leaf blower to start the tidying of the workshop/garage/model railway room? I have.

[Happy Hippo]

4 minutes ago, Tony_S said:

Have you ever used a leaf blower to start the tidying of the workshop/garage/model railway room? I have.

A decent amount of accelerant and an ignition source would probably be more thorough.

 

Gives you a completely fresh start!

[Tony_S]

3 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

A decent amount of accelerant and an ignition source would probably be more thorough.

 

Gives you a completely fresh start!

When we had the solar panel battery storage installed in the garage we were advised to get a heat alarm installed. Just out of interest I looked at lithium battery storage fires on YouTube. We got an alarm! Like many houses our garage is part of the house structure. We don’t keep a car in it anymore but I wonder if a car full of fuel and electric stuff was more or less risk than the lithium storage batteries. 

[Happy Hippo]

I decided that grouping up all my empty wagon boxes into one place would be a good move:  Possibly before sending them all for recycling as their previous occupants all live in my RUB collection.

 

One box felt a little heavier to I opened it to find a pristine BR XP liveried 12 ton box van, still wrapped in tissue.  This was an immediate cue to check all the other boxes, just in case.

 

How this van escaped being re boxed into mu RUB system remains a mystery.  It is a welcome addition to the fleet and will just require a little grubbiness applied to represent a new van just out of the wagon works.

 

Funnily enough just getting all the boxes grouped up and tightly packed on a pair of shelves has created some more storage space.

 

Perhaps I should earmark one of the shelves for my collection of unbuilt and part built kits..........

 

Which reminds me to make a small fixture to make suspension springs for Peco/PD wagons.  That was another of getting aroundtoit tasks that seems to have slipped by the wayside.

[jamie92208]

2 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

Perhaps I should earmark one of the shelves for my collection of unbuilt and part built kits..........

 

Only one shelf of shame.  I have a whole rack.

 

Jamie

[Happy Hippo]

24 minutes ago, jamie92208 said:

Only one shelf of shame.  I have a whole rack.

 

Jamie

Yes, but it's a start🤣.

 

 

[polybear]

4 hours ago, Happy Hippo said:

This was brought home to me with a bit of a bump when I could not find...wait for it... an 18 litre Really Useful Box, full of 7 mm scale wagons!  That was the easy one to get wound up over, then I was looking for a much smaller box that had some 7 mm scale signal components contained therein.

 

A certain Bear had been using a 6" steel rule during this morning's fun n' games; the next time I went to use it (only a few minutes later) it was nowhere to be seen.  Since a nice, shiny stainless steel rule would stand out rather nicely against a darkish patterned carpet within a working radius of about 4ft you'd think it would be easy to find.  Nope......

I did eventually find it - and it was right under the Beary Snout - literally.  So where was it?  In Bear's cake chute.....

 

1 hour ago, Tony_S said:

When we had the solar panel battery storage installed in the garage we were advised to get a heat alarm installed. Just out of interest I looked at lithium battery storage fires on YouTube. We got an alarm! Like many houses our garage is part of the house structure. We don’t keep a car in it anymore but I wonder if a car full of fuel and electric stuff was more or less risk than the lithium storage batteries. 

 

This Bear would take the car over the Lithium Batteries any day of the week.

https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/family-lose-everything-after-scooter-23718144

[J. S. Bach]

On 21/04/2022 at 21:21, Happy Hippo said:

That would also describe the typical American garage attached to a modest house.

 

Not only does it have space for two large cars, but it also houses the swimming pool plant room, the central heating furnace, washer and dryer, a freezer the size of Anglesey, pool and table tennis tables and a fully equipped auto repair shop!

Wishful thinking!

[Happy Hippo]

2 hours ago, J. S. Bach said:

Wishful thinking!

Yes, a freezer that big would be a bit of a squeeze.

[TheQ]

2 hours ago, polybear said:

 

A certain Bear had been using a 6" steel rule during this morning's fun n' games; the next time I went to use it (only a few minutes later) it was nowhere to be seen.  Since a nice, shiny stainless steel rule would stand out rather nicely against a darkish patterned carpet within a working radius of about 4ft you'd think it would be easy to find.  Nope......

I did eventually find it - and it was right under the Beary Snout - literally.  So where was it?  In Bear's cake chute.....

 

 

This Bear would take the car over the Lithium Batteries any day of the week.

https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/family-lose-everything-after-scooter-23718144

and the scooter would have been illegal to use outside the back garden anyway..

[AndyID]

5 hours ago, Tony_S said:

When we had the solar panel battery storage installed in the garage we were advised to get a heat alarm installed. Just out of interest I looked at lithium battery storage fires on YouTube. We got an alarm! Like many houses our garage is part of the house structure. We don’t keep a car in it anymore but I wonder if a car full of fuel and electric stuff was more or less risk than the lithium storage batteries. 

 

Internal combustion (ICE) cars seem to go on fire more often that battery-electric fires but ICE fires are usually due to poor maintenance and when they do go on fire it's not too difficult to extinguish the fire. Also, ICE cars do not tend to spontaneously combust in peoples' garages.

 

BEV fires are usually the result of a fault in the battery itself, either because of a latent manufacturing or design defect which has nothing to do with good or bad maintenance. Current technology BEV fires are extremely difficult to extinguish and even when they seem to have been extinguished they can start to burn again many hours later. And BEVs have a problem that few ICE cars suffer from - their batteries can ignite while they are being charged.

 

Our football pitch size garage occupies about half the ground floor of our house and if we had a a BEV car I do not think I would recharge the battery inside the garage. I'd consider parking it in the garage after recharging the battery but only after installing a lot of fire detection/prevention/containment stuff.

[PhilJ W]

7 hours ago, jamie92208 said:

Only one shelf of shame.  I have a whole rack.

 

Jamie

I have a whole room.🙄

[SM42]

As you may recall, the garage is due for conversion  to a room for me to play trains in. 

 

It's previous role of general store for any old stuff too good to throw away but we are too lethargic to move on, is therefore undesirable. 

 

Having spent a few days in there without Ruth, it is now at a stage where I can walk through it, without having to tiptoe through the junk, looking like those action heroes avoiding those laser alarm systems. 

 

However as time moved on, Ruth returned and stuff was dumped into boxes for temporary shed storage for later sorting. 

 

The shed therefore had to be sorted first. 

 

Some items were dumped, others sent to good homes, some still hang around in the garden. 

The shed is full. 

 

I need to find homes for two bikes, 3 tool boxes and some assorted pot pourri. 

 

This will involve evicting the BBQ, garden chairs  and planters from the small shed.  Where they will go, who knows?

 

Oh and space I made in the loft by selling some stuff has become home to some ex garage stuff on a temporary basis. 

 

The great game of musical boxes will culminate in things being dumped all round the house whilst building work is in progress. 

 

Somehow  I need to find a temporary home for the second (beer) fridge and tumble dryer. 

 

This all has to be done by 4th May and we have the in laws coming on Thursday and staying till the 3rd which will eat into available time and I have to go to work too in between. 

 

My head hurts just thinking about it all. 

 

Andy