Early Risers.

[AndyID]

More sunshine this morning. The house faces South and at this time of year it blasts into the living room.

 

Managed to winterize the travel trailer yesterday. All plumbing now filled with antifreeze. I hate the stuff but better safe than sorry.

 

Unlike Ian we've not seen any snow at this level. It usually shows up late in November but only starts to get serious around Christmas.

 

Funny stuff snow. At higher altitudes in Colorado and Utah when the sun comes out the snow doesn't really melt, it just evaporates. There isn't a lot of slush.

[newbryford]

And washing up bottles that had the word FAIRY covered up.

And cereal packets always had a big K on them...…

 

 I know it's bad netiquette quote your own post.

 

Rubber solution glue...…

 

In a black and white striped tin or tube with a red blank over the word Copydex.

[TheQ]

I have looked at flush lifting handles, and at rope or webbing strap handles. Many of the flush lifting handles only allow finger tips lifting, and I'd prefer to get half my hand in.

I've decided to put a glued and screwed batten all the way across on the inside, just at the top level of the hand holes, rounding off where the hand holes are. I may well make provision to use a rope to help to lift the carriages over steps etc.

The 3 carriages form an "L" 2ft wide, 14ft across the long side 6ft across the foot.

Standing Facing the long side, the carriage on the left will have will have an opening door that swings out and almost half fill the centre gap, the right hand carriage will have two opening end doors almost filling rest of the frontage. The "foot" carriage will have an opening door so filling the foot. This will replace the normal black skirt. infill pieces will be required since I had to shorten the carriages to 3ft 11inches.
Beams between the carriages will hold the doors and support the layout.

There will be a pelmet, on which will be the British Railways totem saying "Tiree", and will also say "In memory of Mr Derek Clarke and Mr Harry Nudd" ( previous owners of the layout) . Other details about the layout, may be painted on the carriages or pelmet. I'm tempted to try and get SWMBO to paint a stylised picture of the real Tiree across the carriages frontage.

Here's a few pictures of the real Tiree, with Border Collie of course.

 

Did you know other forums exist about model railways? well they do and there is  a thread about the rebuild of Tiree on one of them.. Here http://www.ngaugeforum.co.uk/SMFN/index.php?topic=38780.0

Edited October 15, 2018 by TheQ

[PhilJ W]

Evening all from Estuary-Land. Next door are moving in the next few days but their skip that was supposed to be collected Friday is still there. I didn't mention that when I hired a skip a few years ago it was over a week before it was collected. I wasn't too worried as it was one payment up front for the skip hire which is the usual practice. I'm still waiting for someone to collect the Workmate I rescued from the skip.

[BSW01]

Good evening everyone

 

Today’s been a very dull and grey day, with no sunshine what so ever and the temperatures were quite a bit cooler than of late. Despite the fact that no rain was forecast, we’ve had a couple of very light showers, but nothing heavy enough to stop work in the garden. After sweeping up the leaves from the back garden and behind the shed, I made a start on laying the new patio. Last week, I had some concrete delivered and poured onto the area where I’d laid all the hardcore, this was then left to set over the weekend. So far I’ve put down about 1/6 of what needs to go down, but I’m hand mixing the mortar, so that is slowing things down a little. Considering that I didn’t make a start until almost 11:00, I don’t think I’ve done too bad at all. But it’s a start and Sheila is very pleased with what I’ve done so far. We are forecast rain over the next couple of days, so I’m not expecting to anymore until Thursday.

 

I think it’s now time for a beer.

[Purley Oaks]

 

 

Here's a few pictures of the real Tiree, with Border Collie of course.

 

tiree-scarinish-harbour.jpgA traditional croft, Isle of Tiree_861915338.jpgbalevullin-tiree-06h.jpg

 

 

Thanks for the beautiful pics. The Tiree Ultramarathon is a run round the whole island - just 35 miles.

[lightengine]

Ha, 3 and a half hours of my life I will never get back.

2 months ago my Mother decided to give my niece a fairly sizeable sum towards a property purchase. This was said in front of her solicitor as she changed her will and removed my niece from it.

Today we go to the bank to transfer the sum across and Mother decides to answer all the spoken questions stupidly. For instance, when asked "are you giving this money willingly?" She replied "kind of". This answer was purely because the property purchase is proceeding quicker than she thought.

So, the bank person sought advice from another colleague. A similar question brought forth a similarly inane answer.

A third person was called for. As she entered the office I said I would leave so that they could talk to my Mother alone.

After 20/25 minutes they all came out and nothing had been done as Mother had answered that she is being "blackmailed".

I fully understand that the bank have security to apply and that they have followed procedure. That is not in question.

Luckily another bank made a transfer.

But, now my nieces solicitor has said she cannot accept the transfer of the money. She has been a solicitor for 25 years and never heard of such a palaver before.

 

I have now nearly recovered and am sipping a large single malt.

.... and calm......

[New Haven Neil]

Evening. it appears the C*&^%$£as rush has started - either that or 'that' TV programme has stimulated lot of sales!

 

By chance, a lad I grew up with is currently in Ian A's hometown, complaining about snow!  Alasdair is an American Studies lecturer at Winchester Uni, sorry 'The University of Winchester' - and the Dean now I think about it. 

[Ozexpatriate]

Evening. it appears the C*&^%$£as rush has started - either that or 'that' TV programme has stimulated lot of sales!

Here we have the magic of Halloween to protect us from the Christmas onslaught.  Honestly it's much more palatable when viewed from that perspective. Then there's Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is the official kick off of the Christmas madness here, though of course it leaks a bit. The catalogues for things like decorations are piling up in the mail box.

From a television standpoint, presently we have the schlock that is electioneering commercials. Local television is full of "Candidate A caused the end of civilization as we know it, vote candidate B"; "Candidate B is the spawn of Satan, vote candidate A", interrupted only by "Vote No On Measure xyz" / "Vote Yes on Measure xyz", non-stop right now. It's amazing how much (mostly) dark money is spent even on relatively local races. It's good for the TV station's bottom line, but when the local TV stations are owned by national corporations trying to create a media bloc with a political agenda it doesn't really help there either. All that money could be spent so much more productively. At least those will stop in three weeks.

[AndrewC]

Here we have the magic of Halloween to protect us from the Christmas onslaught.  Honestly it's much more palatable when viewed from that perspective. Then there's Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is the official kick off of the Christmas madness here, though of course it leaks a bit. The catalogues for things like decorations are piling up in the mail box.

 

From a television standpoint, presently we have the schlock that is electioneering commercials. Local television is full of "Candidate A caused the end of civilization as we know it, vote candidate B"; "Candidate B is the spawn of Satan, vote candidate A", interrupted only by "Vote No On Measure xyz" / "Vote Yes on Measure xyz", non-stop right now. It's amazing how much (mostly) dark money is spent even on relatively local races. It's good for the TV station's bottom line, but when the local TV stations are owned by national corporations trying to create a media bloc with a political agenda it doesn't really help there either. All that money could be spent so much more productively. At least those will stop in three weeks.

One thing I don't miss was the non stop political bombardment on the US channels. They'll stop in 3 weeks only to restart again for the next elections within a couple of months. Americans need a funded equivalent of the Monster Raving Looney Party. That would make election adverts much more interesting.

[Ozexpatriate]

Americans need a funded equivalent of the Monster Raving Looney Party. That would make election adverts much more interesting.

Depending on your point of view, combined with the toxic level of partisanship, most commercials tend to suggest that we have one of those already.

[Ian Abel]

Evening. it appears the C*&^%$£as rush has started - either that or 'that' TV programme has stimulated lot of sales!

 

By chance, a lad I grew up with is currently in Ian A's hometown, complaining about snow!  Alasdair is an American Studies lecturer at Winchester Uni, sorry 'The University of Winchester' - and the Dean now I think about it. 

Can't imagine why he's complaining, it's "all better now", and reached a heady 7C this afternoon with sunny skies...  

[laurenceb]

Night awl

[BSW01]

Earlier this evening I had a phone call from my brother who lives in Canada. He sent me an email just over a week ago telling me he and his wife were coming over for a short holiday. They flew in to Manchester yesterday morning and are currently in Wigan, staying with one of his wife’s sisters. After a quick chat we’ve arranged to meet up on Thursday afternoon, which will be nice, as we haven’t seen each other for about 10 years.

 

Goodnight all

[peach james]

 

 

Had a thought on those layout Carriage cases again, they will need handholds, you can guarentee some venues have steps or raised lumps at the doorways..I'll investigate commercial handholds or whether to just back the hole through the thin  ply case with a carved wooden handhold..

 

 

What you are looking for is called "Campaign Hardware".  Lee Valley sell some- http://www.leevalley.com/en/home/OnlineCatalog.aspx?id=844ce2b9 page 171 for examples.  (available here in Canada, not sure about the UK...)

 

James

[The Stationmaster]

G'night all

[Barry O]

We had to go to a pub in town for tea....shame.

It is a Timothy Taylor's pub...even more shame

I had to force myself to drink two pints of Ram Tam....loads of shame

 

In between drinking we had some nice food.

 

We then attended the Jeff Lynn's ELO concert...excellent and everyone was singing along. Not bad for a young 70 year old musician.

However, her indoors reckons there was a bit of jiggerry and pockery with the violin player...

 

Sleep well all and stay warm those on the other side of the pond

 

Baz

[PhilJ W]

Goodnight all.

[Ozexpatriate]

Morning...

Off to the cabin in light snow!!!!

Hopefully it'll hold off some until we're done.

1c right now.

Somehow I knew you'd be talking about the white stuff before we got to Halloween. It is freezing overnight in eastern parts of Oregon.

 

And all this talk of 'chuckinitdarn'. I just can't imagine it.

 

Our recent and future weather looks like this forecast for the rest of the week. It is quite literally cloudless. (Latitude here is comparable with Lyon and a little bit north of IanA.)

 

Quite nice it is with the leaves changing colours. The sun is setting on a particularly iridescent maple as I type this.

 

Like Andy's shiny Lake, Autumn in the Pacific Northwest can be a lovely time of year. It is incontestably my favourite.

 

To think I spent yesterday afternoon indoors in a cinema seems almost blasphemous. I watched the "First Man" biopic of Neil Armstrong. It is a bit dark and moody but I would recommend it.

 

EDIT: What pray tell is a "Lazy Kate" Is she related to the similarly indolent Susan? (I did look it up.)

 

Apparently Paul Allen (of Microsoft fame) has died. He owns the Portland Trail Blazers NBA franchise and the Seattle Seahawks NFL franchise. I have seen him seated right of the hoop on the end near the home bench at Blazers' games many times. He also spent a lot of money on undersea research, his teams recently locating several significant WW2 era shipwrecks. Sadly even wealth and excellent medical care is not a match for some cancers.

Edited October 16, 2018 by Ozexpatriate

[BR60103]

Evening all from Estuary-Land. Next door are moving in the next few days but their skip that was supposed to be collected Friday is still there. I didn't mention that when I hired a skip a few years ago it was over a week before it was collected. I wasn't too worried as it was one payment up front for the skip hire which is the usual practice. I'm still waiting for someone to collect the Workmate I rescued from the skip.

The fellow that reshingled our roof has his own skip. Aside from having the company name on it, he said that he used to hire skips but one of them was left in a driveway for days (a week?) before being picked up.

 

I'm going to winterize the motor home tomorrow as temperatures are predicted to be below 0.  This will be a generous gesture if they condemn it but a sensible precaution if it turns out repairable. (Winterize = replace all water in the plumbing with a pink fluid.)

 

I think elections have become the US's biggest industry.  Since election dates are known immediately after the previous election, campaigning begins immediately.

[AndyID]

Americans need a funded equivalent of the Monster Raving Looney Party.

 

 

How dare you! Today I registered the MRLP as a political party. I'm running for POTUS in 2020. I just need to set up my reality show and I'll be all set.

[pH]

How dare you! Today I registered the MRLP as a political party. I'm running for POTUS in 2020. I just need to set up my reality show and I'll be all set.

I'd watch your show!

[AndyID]

I have looked at flush lifting handles, and at rope or webbing strap handles. Many of the flush lifting handles only allow finger tips lifting, and I'd prefer to get half my hand in.

 

I've decided to put a glued and screwed batten all the way across on the inside, just at the top level of the hand holes, rounding off where the hand holes are. I may well make provision to use a rope to help to lift the carriages over steps etc.

 

The 3 carriages form an "L" 2ft wide, 14ft across the long side 6ft across the foot.

 

Standing Facing the long side, the carriage on the left will have will have an opening door that swings out and almost half fill the centre gap, the right hand carriage will have two opening end doors almost filling rest of the frontage. The "foot" carriage will have an opening door so filling the foot. This will replace the normal black skirt. infill pieces will be required since I had to shorten the carriages to 3ft 11inches.

Beams between the carriages will hold the doors and support the layout.

 

There will be a pelmet, on which will be the British Railways totem saying "Tiree", and will also say "In memory of Mr Derek Clarke and Mr Harry Nudd" ( previous owners of the layout) . Other details about the layout, may be painted on the carriages or pelmet. I'm tempted to try and get SWMBO to paint a stylised picture of the real Tiree across the carriages frontage.

 

Here's a few pictures of the real Tiree, with Border Collie of course.

 

tiree-scarinish-harbour.jpgA traditional croft, Isle of Tiree_861915338.jpgbalevullin-tiree-06h.jpg

 

Did you know other forums exist about model railways? well they do and there is  a thread about the rebuild of Tiree on one of them.. Here http://www.ngaugeforum.co.uk/SMFN/index.php?topic=38780.0

 

Smashing!

 

Sing me a Hebridean song.

[chrisf]

Good morning one and all

 

At least I got the ironing done yesterday.   There were distractions, including a phone call from Tom, one of the Swiss tour group, who asked a simple question which had a simple answer.  How quickly half an hour elapses!  It transpires that Liz, the administratrix of the Swiss expedition, is planning to retire in the new year.  She will be sorely missed.  Then came the announcement from Kensington Palace.  This may be seen as treason but I for one do not give a donald duck that the Duchess of Sussex is with child and until long after the sprog is born we will not hear the last of it.

 

Today I need to do the fodder run first thing.  Later I must attend the AGM of the Bedford branch of the LCGB.  It is all too simple to type LGBT instead, which as you will realise isn’t the same thing at all.

 

Neil Blackrat, thank you for two good ideas.  Double sided tape may well work and I will buy a reel today.  The sentence you suggested is a good one and I propose to use it.  One topic in the letter – no, not that one – is still proving difficult to express but I am determined to crack it.  I had better check that I have enough cards.

 

Warm thoughts to all in distress and those who are missing.

 

Chris

[Robert]

Morning All,

 

I can't tell if it is going to be a bright morning, because it isn't light yet!  However, all indications (the number of stars visible, together with the forecast) suggest that it will be.

 

There isn't a lot else to report, so have a good day everyone...