Early Risers.

[Donw]

Sherry & I attended the RMweb shindig at Taunton, and a jolly fine day it was, too, despite showers en route. Good to meet some ERs for the first time, and Stationmaster's concern about BlackRat's shirt was not misplaced, but he admitted rejecting another candidate shirt as being too extreme! Crikey. The layouts were top-drawer, the company uplifting, the food excellent. If you ever have the chance to attend one of these you are unlikely to be disappointed.

 

Here endeth the lesson.

 

Very nice to meet you and Sherry both looking well 

Don

[southern42]

'Evening all from red dragon land.

 

Yesterday turned out to be a whirlwind kind of day.

Ray dropped me off at Llandudno station on his way to West Shore - usual nearby parking spaces non-existent due to the Extravaganza.  Suitably togged, and armed with a few West Shore Railway leaflets, I started handing out the leaflets to people on the concourse.  Another member gave me another wad of leaflets and we covered the concourse between us until the steam Extravangza tour from Tyseley was due in.  Thereafter, I headed onto the platform to cover people getting off the rear half of the train.

 

Then the fun began.  I was stopped by several people wanting information - assuming I was Support Crew!  I wish!  Following that, a reporter from the Daily Post asked if he could "borrow" my hat (grease top!) so that he could photograph one of the footplate crew with it.

 

However, the crew were a bit busy.

 

So, the photographer took me to the front of the train to take a photo of me and the loco!  I doubt it will get printed, but I shall be getting Monday's edition, anyway, and keep my eye on the website.  You never know!  Sometime later, tender refilled with coal, and photo taken of member of crew waving my hat in the air, I got invited onto the footplate.  What I hadn't realised was that the innards of the Earl now sit inside Clun Castle (which is due back in service soon), the Earl being rebuilt, having brand new parts bearing the words "Tyseley Locomotive Works"! 

 

 

At last, the sun shone.  Previous times we have seen her, it was raining!

 

On the way out of the station, I headed towards a familiar sound.

 

 

 

Then it was back to West Shore for lunch, a bit of guarding behind steam, then a walk back into town to see youngest boom binging in the Batala band (Barmouth, Bangor and Mersey groups).

 

 

 

 

 

I could not resist taking a few pics of the traction engines we passed...

 

 

 

 

 

 

....and back to the station for some smoke and steam...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Into town, once more, for coffee and scone with youngest, watching the traction engines leaving town, before heading home.

 

 

 

 

[Horsetan]

TMI, people!

It's like Fybogel, but with more "body"....

[emt_911]

Not as much modelling achieved as planned today. I was working outside due to what I was doing when it decided to precipitate.

 

Hopefully I'll get some more done tomorrow.

 

Night all

[PhilJ W]

Goodnight all.

[southern42]

Today, (oops! It's yesterday already!) was a whirlwind kind of day too, but in a different way.  At home, a strong southerly wind was blowing.  Along the north coast and at West Shore the wind was east north east, the waves along the shore flowing right to left.

 

The wind was too strong for lighting up the steamers, and just too...er...cold for us poor folk standing around waiting for passengers and sitting on trolleys.  I stopped driving when my teeth started to chatter.  We did do better than expected, although we finished an hour earlier than usual.

 

With few passengers at a time, I managed to take some photos of the new platform extension.  It was just too busy last weekend.

 

Area for dropping off passengers.

 

New pavement from the entrance and area for boarding passengers.

 

 

 

Wishing everyone well, a goodnight and nos da.

 

[laurenceb]

Night all

[lightengine]

Nice photos Suvvern, nice hat as well.

[BR60103]

Intense railway modeling week. Worked Windermere station on Tuesday, local club meeting on Thursday, Platelayers symposium on Saturday and Village open house today. 

Six of us opened our basements to the neighbours (and grandchidren) to show our trains. We must have have over twenty people in two hours -- six or eight came in the first flood. All were very polite about what we're doing and most asked sensible or reasonable questions. 

 

I tried smoking a pipe once, but I never managed to carry all the required bits with me at the same time.

[Gwiwer]

Good morning all.

 

The trains are all packed.  Tomorrow they board the container for another trip around the world.  Most have already travelled from China to the UK to Australia ......... This afternoon sees final demolition of the layout.

 

The house feel empty.  Everything we are keeping is now piled in two rooms.  The remaining items are going to charity outlets or into the skip.  

 

Nine days left in the Land of Oz.  

Edited May 1, 2017 by Gwiwer

[andyram]

Good morning all. The Bank Holiday has dawned with typically grey and wet weather so thoughts of spending part of the day on the garden railway have been completely curtailed. Not that there would be much time for that of course. Today seems to be fairly full already. No lie in for me because of the Avon delivery. Yep, off work but I am the one getting up for it! Sarah will then spend much of the morning sorting the stuff and tonight, between us, there will be the deliveries to undertake. I hope the weather improves before then. In the meantime I have to go to Toys R Us to return Sarah's bike for repair. Hopefully we can get it into Dad's car because it was slightly too big for mine. Then Amber is off to her swimming class this afternoon and there is another supermarket visit to add in somewhere. So much for a restful Bank Holiday!

Yesterday proved as busy as expected, the school work took much longer than I had hoped and was not completed before the drive over to the inlaws. I worked late after we returned home to finish the job and, at least, I have little left to do for tomorrow. What is left to do will probably be done this evening after Amber has gone to bed.

Tomorrow is the latest meeting of our church model railway group. Our layout is being built inside an old static caravan on the site of the church's activity camp facility. It is a lovely location, very peaceful. The layout itself runs around the inner walls of the van, with a huge viaduct across the front bay window. The dividing walls have been removed to create a large space and the layout is progressing well. On one side there is a developing scene based around Quorn and Woodhouse station on the GC. The rest of the layout is freelance with, when complete, four full circuits. We meet every other Tuesday night with the retired members having a working party on a Friday morning. Sadly, my hectic work commitments had meant, I had very rarely visited in the last few months. I did make the Tuesday running night after Easter and had started work on one scenic section the following Friday. Sadly Sarah has two meetings this Tuesday so I will have to miss out again. Very disappointed. If you want to see the layout then follow the YouTube link I put up in a previous post.

Previously I had also attended another club on a Wednesday night. Originally I attended on the opposite Wednesday's to the church group. That has also fallen by the wayside this year. However it was very heartening, on Saturday, when I received an answer phone message from one of the older members of this particular club. He had called to see how I was because he had not seen me since we chatted at the Mansfield show in early March. He is aware of my current work situation and wanted to check I was ok - could I give him a call at my convenience. It certainly gave me a little lift to know of his concern - he is such a gent.

Anyway, returning to matters ER, I am glad to hear that Sherry and Ian enjoyed the get together at Taunton. I would have loved to have made it down to Somerset for that event. I wonder if there are any pictures our resident married couple could share with us. Thanks to Polly for posting the recent pictures from Wales. It certainly looked cold, but the steam shots were nice and it was great to see more pictures of the West Shore railway.

I would also like to wish Rick (Gwiwer) all the best for the final pack up in Oz and a safe journey back to these shores. I hope that, once settled, you can get modelling again and share your new creations with us. It would be great to see more pictures of fellow ER's modelling efforts, after all we are on a model railway website!

 

Have a good day all.

Edited May 1, 2017 by andyram

[TheQ]

Morning Awl

A terrible nights sleep, about 5 hours but only about an hour between each wake up....

 

I've been considering my timetable for the next 4 months

I only have 4 weekends without a must attend event.

 

There is MRC open day,

The sailing club open day,

A wedding in Scotland,

After which I'll bring my parents down here for a holiday, so that's 4 weekends gone.

PAT testing the Sailing club, which took 5 hours last time.

A 24 hour sailing event which will also require before and after meetings.

A 7 day sailing event, which includes social events every evening.

My CBT is due.

 

Shed layout support building will take a hit, as will all the rest of the stuff needing doing round the house.

 

Time for breakfast, before heading down to the shed, it's raining....

[jamie92208]

Morning all from a sunny village here in the southern uplands, even Ikea doesn't have a black cloud over it.   Breakfast has been consumed and the boss is wandering round compiling a shopping list before setting off to meet her mate at Asda.  Not sure what tasks will be completed today but another episode or two of Broadchurch may be watched then an evening at the clubrooms should round off a good day.

 

Jamie

[Barry O]

Morning to most, evening to Rick.

Rick, I hope the container loading and shipping goes well. It must be a sad day to see PB go.

 

I have the head northwards today for a bit of railway modelling.

 

Tomorrow includes a bit of umpiring as does Wednesday.

 

The tilers are back tomorrow to finish off odd bits of work but fore the scaffolding guys take their scaffolding away.

 

It had been planned to do a bit of painting using the scaffolding yesterday but it was a bit too windy to venture forth.

 

Have a great day

 

Baz

[Coombe Barton]

Returning today from the weekend at Bridgnorth. Looks like we're packing up in the (very) wet.

[AndrewC]

 

Dateline: 01/05/2017 

Location: the boring borough

 

Report: nothing happened

 

Today I shall be mostly doing the same as yesterday. However, my honey-do list is growing with each passing moment. If my shoulder allows I may have to make a start on it.

 

Enjoy the day. 

Peas Love and Gravy

 

[PeterBB]

This has actually been debunked recently, and has been proven not to cause dehydration at all:

 

https://chronicleflask.com/2015/08/29/does-drinking-alcohol-actually-cause-dehydration/

 

It does, of course, do a whole lot of of other harmful things if not taken in moderation.

 

 

Jim, have read the quoted article and cannot agree with its conclusions as there is no evidence presented vs the number of publications that have shown an increase.  It has been difficult to study because of the large number of variables including kidney function and overall time to correctly follow through.  The safest course is of course not to imbibe.  Going back to my early NHS days pregnant women in labour were often given alcohol because small doses 'enhanced' liver function but its certainly not current practice.

 

Peter

[Gwiwer]

Andyram, Baz and others - thank you.

 

The final pack is going well.  The viaduct from the layout lifted out without too much drama, just a small repair needed to the rails at some future time.  The news on the rest of the layout is not so good.  I had always hoped to bring at least one section.  Cutting out a representative scene has proved too damaging.  The station area which I hoped would come away nicely enough as it sits on a single board has stubbornly refused to budge.  It seems the whole thing was built too well.

 

The upshot of that is that I only have the viaduct surviving.  The farm scene was sold to a fellow modeller and lives on elsewhere.  But everything else - which was built very firmly glued and screwed together and to the house - can only be removed by the application of brute force.  

 

Of course I am sad to see it go and go this way.  But it demonstrates to me that I built things to last outdoors and could do so again.  Over the coming days once the container has gone and I have more time I can unbolt the remaining fixings and apply a large sledge-hammer as required.   

 

In fairness I had my suspicions all along that the layout wasn't going to play nice when it came time to dismantle and so it has proved.

 

To each and all I wish a Happy May Day whether or not you are taking it as a holiday.   The rain is lashing down once more making a mockery of the old saying "Hooray, hooray the First of May; outdoor sex begins today".  Not here it won't

[Tony_S]

Morning all.

Cloudy with occasional drizzle here. Probably not going to be a good day for the sea front deck chair business at Southend.

I will be putting a light fitting up in the utility room. We have been intending to replace the existing one since about 1990.

Otherwise a quiet day with little plannEd.

Tony

[Donw]

Having spent a delightful day in the company of fellow RMwebbers at the SWAG meet it is back to normal today with a skip to fill and other such tasks

Don

[emt_911]

Morning all. A grey wet start to the day which seems forecast to continue. This means a change of plans on the modelling front.

 

Rick - It's a pity that you couldn't recover more of the layout but I look forward to seeing the new one in the UK.

 

I haven't managed to get to the MRC since before Christmas thanks to either late Thursday finishes or very early Friday starts. I'm hoping to rectify this this week.

 

Have a good day everyone.

[jamie92208]

Jim, have read the quoted article and cannot agree with its conclusions as there is no evidence presented vs the number of publications that have shown an increase.  It has been difficult to study because of the large number of variables including kidney function and overall time to correctly follow through.  The safest course is of course not to imbibe.  Going back to my early NHS days pregnant women in labour were often given alcohol because small doses 'enhanced' liver function but its certainly not current practice.

 

Peter

 

Nursing mothers were advised to drink stout, always Mackeson here in Leeds.  Thus was certainly the practice in the 80's when our kids were born.

 

Jamie

[AndyB]

Morning all and it's an overcast one here.

 

So far this weekend I've body swerved two proposed meetings in the office as they failed to meet my criteria for "weekend".

 

Last night I did some work on the layout and came up with an imaginative way of wiring a turntable. I'm going to take some photos of that just in case it works and could be written up. 

 

Gardening proceeds apace. Hanging baskets, salad, etc. 

[Happy Hippo]

Returning today from the weekend at Bridgnorth. Looks like we're packing up in the (very) wet.

You can't beat a good Shropshire send off!

 

Be grateful, you're leaving, we are stuck here.

 

On the positive side of such, both the muddy hollows are getting a much needed top up,as it was a bit too crusty for my liking.

 

The liquid sunshine also means that external operations are temporarily curtailed, so we shall blitzkreig the kitchen and other places that need cleaning.

 

I will then slink out into the garage and give one of my many projects some personal development time.

[southern42]

' Morning all from red dragon land.

Weather calmer so hopefully it will be warmer at West Shore than yesterday when greasetops were replaced by a flurry of woolly hats!

 

I will have to catch up later.

Take care and enjoy the Bank Holiday as much as you can.