Early Risers.

[Barry O]

Hey up.

It doesn't sound like its raining so great!

Jock the Midland engine has the motor in the firebox (it is a DS10) driving on the front driver.

Today is getting ready to visit one Tony Wright. Need to sort some proper engines for Little Bytham.
After the visit I will continue my journey to Cottesmore as I am taking my sister for an eye check up on Tuesday. I may well be missing for a couple of days as she security locked her hub and can't find her password...doh!

Have a nice day everyone.
Pete shame it wasn't a C&O E8 in full blue/yellow and silver or a set of covered wagons in high bowwave....mmmh Enchantment Blue....

Baz

 

edited to make sense post Kobe!

Edited December 13, 2015 by Barry O

[DDolfelin]

Unusual hospitality from a Supermarket.

 

Just leave your visiting parents and toddlers in the space provided while you do your shopping.

 

[Simon G]

Morning all. It finally feels like December here now, as there is frost on the ground for the first time this winter. had a good night out last night at the Christmas "do" for the company that I retired from in April. It was really good to catch up with old work mates, but It fully reinforced my view that I don't miss working one little bit.

 

I will probably need to get out for a walk early as rain is forecast.

[Shedman5]

Morning, first frost here somewhat further south than Simon and rain due later on.

 

Off out for Sunday lunch so an easy morning with the papers beforehand then we will see what transpires.

 

Im not driving so it could be a nap in the chair this afternoon dependent on liquid intake.

 

Enjoy your day

 

Alan

[roundhouse]

No chance of frost here in Shrewsbury as its raining.

 

Now sitting in Wetherspoons awaiting our breakfast.

 

Train to Birmngham later this morning. Line to Welsh coast beyond Newtown was shut yesterday due to flooding.

Edited December 13, 2015 by roundhouse

[jamie92208]

Morning all from a cold village where there is frost visible on the cars.   

Yesterday proceeded as planned, up to a point.  The C*****mas decorations were retrieved from the loft, though the boss then pointed out that there were several more smaller boxes that needed fetching.  All these trips up and down the stairs must have t least burned off some calories.   Said decorations were put in place in the afternoon though as I suspected I did the work whilst under instruction from the setee.

 

Anyway in the evening I did some more modelling but was rudely interrupted by a power cut.   Some robot on an automated phone told me that the work would be done by 00.15.  Half an hour later this had extended to 04.15.   (Working backwards from the clock they eventually got them on at 03.40 but at that time I was in the land of nod.

 

Amazon reverted to form with two more emails that asked me to enter some info by clicking on a link.  This lead into a loop that took me backwards and forwards to the same pages.   The saga will continue.

 

As regards a certain ex top gear presenter, Supersonic of this parish had the sad task of giving him a ride in a Jet Provost.  Apparently he had to use the barf bag very quickly and then asked to get back to terra firma.  Dave didn't hear that request apparently and completed his full planned schedule of aerobatics.   Apparently the pratt was not a happy bunny when they landed.

 

Jamie

[Oldddudders]

Morning all

 

Pink grannies? Sherry wears an awful lot of pink, but being a very good shape for her age can carry it off easily.

 

We braved Torquay yesterday for a few bits of shopping. Some stores have things at 50% off, so we each came home with Clarks' shoes. Lunch was a success in a little cafe, we bought pretty much what we wanted, the drizzle didn't spoil things. The excellent bus services in Torbay delivered too.

 

Charity Night for the play went rather well. The charity seems to organise pilgrimages - think Lourdes - for sick children. The Front of House manager was ill-chosen, sadly, but we muddled through. Sherry clearly had a great deal more idea of the duties than he did! Sherry and I sold quite a lot of ice-creams. Not all to kids, either. The play - Lion, Witch, Wardrobe - is not one I know. The youngsters were ok, but some of the adults were brilliant, none more so than the Queen of Narnia, who was animated, powerful and terrifying. And it was so nice to see her obvious pleasure when I told her so in the bar afterwards! She admitted it is a peach of a part. There was a brief dance sequence, in which a not-slim young girl proved to have serious ballet training and was simply enchanting. I made it clear to the Director that that was a high-spot for me. Tonight we are back at the theatre for the Xmas bash.

 

Sherry has gone off to church, just across the square, so I'd better get on with my breakfast.

 

Hope your Sunday is as relaxed as the time of year permits.

[southern42]

I suppose they would boil eventually without the air blowers, but some day next week probably.  I made working pressure in an hour and a half today, which is about perfect from cold for these little locos.  They both have 'marine' circular (tubular really, I suppose) fireboxes and these need a rather different technique from firing a conventional firebox.   Sea Lion was warm from yesterdays works trains so they didn't have to get out of bed so early!

 

The 5" gauge Sweet Pea loco I've had the privilege to drive this year has a marine boiler.  Advice I was given - keep the top of the fire towards the back of the firebox and below the tubes at the front so they don't block up, and add more coal little and often.  About half an hour to make working pressure - if you get it right.  Some coal (small lumps of anthracite) doesn't seem to do so well as others.  I guess it's the same with all scales.  Read performance articles in the Railway Magazine in the 1950s and the speed of the Castle class is synonymous with Welsh coal - it always seemed to get mentioned, anyway.

 

Neil. Thanks for the coverage of the Groudle event.  Always good to see.

[southern42]

Unusual hospitality from a Supermarket.

 

Just leave your visiting parents and toddlers in the space provided while you do your shopping.

 

Parentparkingrmw.jpg

 

Brilliant DD.  Love it!

[LisaP4]

... he's made a good job of making himself look a complete numpty as it is.

Reminds me of a movie quote: "bums wanna look like bums, and swells wanna look like swells." I guess the same applies for numpties.

I think the movies was Ironweed.

 

LisaP4, I'm truly impressed by the manner in which you approach your father's condition. Although the responsibility must wear you down at times, you are indeed a very loyal daughter! That was a lovely bit of history in your post (I've lived through some of it!!) although I'm not sure Pete Waterman would agree, having sunk a large portion of his personal fortune into 4472, only to have to part with it! As an aside, one of my school nicknames was the 'Flying Scotsman' as I raced motorcycles whilst in sixth form. Another one later was 'Haggistini'!

I promised dad, several years ago, that I'd keep him out of a care home for as long as I was able, and yeah it wears me down at times, but along with the tough times are the good ones to remind my why I do it.

Back when it was the 'in' thing to wear lots of badges (usually bands and such) I picked up the nickname 'steam', as one of the badges I wore was a 'Support Steam' badge; I don't know what happened to the others, but I still have that one.

 

So now I need to catch up with the thread since I started writting this post yesterday.

[DDolfelin]

Thanks to Ian for the best theatrical review I've read in some time.

The 'not slim' performer would lure me to the ticket office if I were within reach.

[The Stationmaster]

Morning all,

 

Very wet looking utside but it appears not to be raining, er very much.  And 'yes' Tony - isn't strange how 'nothing' actually means 'something - you think of it, and get it right'  when it comes to Christmas pressies for the herselves?

 

Polly beware anthracite - it is very fierce stuff which, once it has caught, burns very hot and can eat firebars.  The best Welsh coal you can get - assuming they still work it - is from a private drift mine just north of Rhymney  (possibly the same seam as the Royal Arms opencast site?).  It is about the nearest you can get to the stuff favoured by the GWR which came from the east end of the South Wales coalfield (mainly the Western Valleys) and was therefore quite soft; anthracite came from the west end of the coalfield as the coals got gradually harder as you went further west.

 

Presumably after yesterday's parcels working Dom will be back to passenger trams on his next turn?

 

Have a good day folks

[Gwiwer]

Meanwhile up the road the next village to ours has done a proper job for a few years now.  Ably facilitated by at least one RMwebber by the name of penlan.

 

[Oldddudders]

I am, of course, agreeing with DD's liking for the young lady, not about the quality of my scribblings! The girl is also possessed of a lovely smile, which never left her face during her highly energetic routine. Again, the best ballet soloists will engage their audience with such a smile where appropriate.

 

Not all of us are obsessed with catwalk model figures. As a fairly slim chap, opposites attract!

[big jim]

Having a massive lie in today, was asleep at 23:30 last night and woke up at 10:00, must have needed it, a week of 'control orders' ie sitting at home with my phone on has worn me out, i actually phoned in a couple of days to see if there was anything for me to do as i was bored, unfortunatly the only job iasked to do was yesterday and i had plans, shame as it was moving a 37 derby to barrow hill and bring another one back

 

In tomorrow refreshing the cambrian shrewsbury to machynlleth as 'back up' for a job thats coming up, worked out quite nice as i can tie it in with a trip to drop cristmas pressies off with my mum, going to get 2 trips in salop to macc tomorrow and then stay on the 2nd train to llwyngwril, stay with her for the night then get the train back on tuesday morning

[Happy Hippo]

the Queen of Narnia, who was animated, powerful and terrifying. And it was so nice to see her obvious pleasure when I told her so in the bar afterwards! She admitted it is a peach of a part.

Yes If you'd said it was a cute performance she would have turned you into a stone statue!

[Smiffy2]

Morning all.

 

Swapmeet: Arrived 10:00, departed 10:12. 

Poked by Umbrellas: 1

 

Tamiya Drill Kit: Bluddy impossible...

 

House: Needs a thorough tidy & clean. Motivation minimal.

 

Cooking: Lots to do. Motivation minimal.

 

Julie: Out.

 

Won a Roundhouse HO carriage for £1.20 to go on AM&SPHR. Off to fit Kadees. Supposed to be easy. Will pretend it's a coach for Dwarfs.

 

Have a nice day.

[emt_911]

Morning all. A quick visit before I have to return to the land of no internet and get ready for another busy week. I'm just hoping that they fix it by the end of tomorrow. Eight days is taking the p**s.

 

Have a good day everyone

[Happy Hippo]

Further to Mike's comments about coal and what it can do to fire bars, I recall firing Sgt Murphy some years back, and we were using Coal of an east European origin.

 

Being an inside framed loco, it was a very small grate area between the frames, and usually filling the whole lot up to the bottom tubes with soft Welsh, would give a really good deep fire, that needed just topping up. We usually topped up the back corners and let the vibration deal with the leveling of the fire.

 

The European coal, stacked in this way, would just let the fire bars clinker up, and I had the rather warm task of pulling the fire over to one side, cleaning the fire bars, then doing the same for the other side. It took about 45 minutes to do this, so it was lucky it wasn't on a service train.

 

Keeping a thin fire and literally filling up the holes as they appeared seemed to suit the coal, but it made the fireman work a lot more diligently, rather than just keeping an eye on the water and smiling at the passengers.

[Tony_S]

Does anyone else recall being sent round to buy paraffin? That seemed to be pink or blue too.

Tony

[Smiffy2]

Does anyone else recall being sent round to buy paraffin? That seemed to be pink or blue too.

Tony

Yes, and I hated paraffin heaters - instant migraine for me.

I also used to get sent to a local furniture workshop who gave away offcuts for firewood.

[BSW01]

Morning all. Late on parade as I've been packing my bag for this evenings drive down to Retford, where I'll be stopping for the next 2 nights as I'm on a training coarse at our training centre in Eakring. Can't say I'm looking forward to it. The whole department has to have these refresher courses every 5 years, and now it's my turn, ho hum.

Edited December 13, 2015 by BSW01

[NGT6 1315]

Just wrote up a brief outline of how our ITCS terminals look and work: ITCS is Key

[Rugd1022]

Morning all,

 

A touch 'grey and grimsal' hereabouts, had a nice lie in this morning due to my overnight ballast job with the HOBC being caped thanks to a derailment at Willesden Euroterminal. 'Keep your phone on Nidge' was the message from Control, thankfully it didn't ring so I was able to enjoy episodes 8 and 9 of 'The Bridge' last night rather than record them and watch them later in the week. Poor old detective Saga is being put through the mill somewhat, but at least her lovely 1977 Porsche 911 cheers me up even if it doesn't have the same effect on her!

 

Hope all's well folks, glad to hear Mr.&Mrs. Olddudders are enjoying the delights of Torbay to the full  

[Gwiwer]

Does anyone else recall being sent round to buy paraffin? That seemed to be pink or blue too.

Tony

 

Absolutely.  And I was just 4 years old at the time.  Sent down the road with a note from mother and a couple of bob from which she expected change.  Except on the days when she also needs firelighters which cost a bit extra so I got given half a crown.

 

You'd never get away with that now!  Even if you can find paraffin on sale it costs a bit more these days   That and the Elfin Safety mob have to justify their existence by not allowing sales of by-the-quart paraffin in open containers to 4 year-olds!