Early Risers.

[Ian Abel]

Wednesday... (not HUMP as only a 4-day week here as most places I suspect).

 

Quiet day yesterday, nothing really to report. Slowly working up the changes for Long Island client, otherwise, nothing!

 

Today we're supposed to take the Mrs grand-nieces for holiday lights drive/viewing, that's scheduled for after 6pm.

 

-3c and overcast first thing, supposed to remain cloudy all day. High of 2c expected.

 

Carry on.

[TheQ]

Afternoon Awl,

Not a very successful day,

Tes and Coe shopped.

Stove bodged as my tube of very high temperature gue has gone hard, new tube ordered should be here tomorrow.

Sailmakers sailing kit not found, SWMBO says she's seen it and put it somewhere safe..... So I've ordered a few bits and pieces to get started..

The tape measure pile has now reached 9!!

Very windy out there, but the wet has stopped..

 

 

 

[Claude_Dreyfus]

8 hours ago, jjb1970 said:

 

Never question the stylistic taste of Japanese train designers...that way lies the Nankai Rapit.......

 

https://www.nankai.co.jp/traffic/express/rapit.html

 

Being out of stock should be no impediment to the sort of fashionable young fellow about town in the market for one of these fine models 😉

Strictly speaking, the Nankai 50000 series was designed by an architect, who also designed station buildings. Some Japanese designs are truly 'out there'.

 

8 hours ago, jjb1970 said:

 

On a slightly more serious note, the standard JRF DF200 is much nicer than the tarted up Seven Stars loco:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0zYXli88m4&list=PL90yE_n2PqE7nYvEqZWebnNmIP2BX2Y0w

 

The standard DF200 is a favourite of mine. For those looking for something slightly cheaper than the ENDO Brass model there is a superb plastic RTR HO DF200 by Tomix.

The DF200 is certainly on my list, but they are hard to get hold of now... Here's to a re-release!

[Coombe Barton]

... also today – books – retrieving from random piles where I hid them. ...

https://johncolby.wordpress.com/2022/12/28/sounds-of-the-season-2022-23-32-no-new-data-second-day/

[PhilJ W]

Afternoon all from Estuary-Land. Wild, wet and windy here at the moment. Popped into Tess Coe's after visiting the toy fair and I am now stocked up until the weekend. Might be a veggie meal later as the leftovers are roast parsnip and potato and baked red cabbage. I didn't get much at the toy fair, only a few old books and only one about objects that ran on parallel metal bars.  

[polybear]

Here's another for you - this time in the UK (IIRC); a guy Bear knew at work knew the Pilot and by all accounts his back was slightly "iffy" afterwards........

Not so sure I would've crawled out of the wreckage (fire wasn't an issue) - I'd be more inclined to stay put and let the Meds. do it properly.

 

"Out of Airspeed, Altitude and Ideas".....all at the same time!!! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[NGT6 1315]

 

More of the good local stuff!

[Gwiwer]

3 hours ago, New Haven Neil said:

Lots of woodys in our village,

We have at least one - probably a pair - in the village. Easy to hear but hard to spot. I have only had one definite sighting despite hearing them frequently 

 

3 hours ago, New Haven Neil said:

one - ONE = brass loco.

One item here but it’s not a loco. Mine is the weighty CMX track cleaner which requires a beefy loco to shove it around. Usually the Heljan parcel van. I won’t suggest that’s over-powered at all but I have a clip somewhere of it starting and accelerating away uphill with 36 mk.1 vehicles on the hook. Thirty-six!!!  

[pH]

3 hours ago, Sidecar Racer said:

 Change of underwear please .   😳

… and a lottery ticket.

[polybear]

Not a great selling point......

 

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/queues-stretching-for-hours-show-what-it-s-really-like-owning-a-tesla-at-christmas/ar-AA15JE54?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=cd11a951face483587673f18c875e8b5

[BoD]

7 minutes ago, polybear said:

Not a great selling point......

 

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/queues-stretching-for-hours-show-what-it-s-really-like-owning-a-tesla-at-christmas/ar-AA15JE54?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=cd11a951face483587673f18c875e8b5

Why specifically Teslas?  Are they using that as a generic term for electric cars or do Teslas have a unique charging need?

[Tony_S]

1 hour ago, Coombe Barton said:

... also today – books – retrieving from random piles where I hid them. ...

https://johncolby.wordpress.com/2022/12/28/sounds-of-the-season-2022-23-32-no-new-data-second-day/

John’s Wordpress blog  won’t open on my iPad but works perfectly on an Android device. Anyone else having similar problems or it is just me. My iPad is up to date and did open the blog perfectly until a couple of days ago. 

[Tony_S]

1 minute ago, BoD said:

Why specifically Teslas?  Are they using that as a generic term for electric cars or do Teslas have a unique charging need?

There are Tesla specific charging points on many motorway service areas. I think they are a Tesla specific connector and they charge quickly. 

[Dave Hunt]

3 hours ago, New Haven Neil said:

Lots of woodys in our village, here's a grim photo of one at the bottom of our garden - it's an abandoned orchard.

 

 

 

A few years ago a GSW appeared in our front garden intent on feeding itself from some fat balls we had hung on a cherry tree. After a few visits it was accompanied by another one and eventually we regularly used to see two or more of them, usually in the early morning or late afternoon. For three or four years the visits continued through all seasons then suddenly ceased and for the last four years there have been no more. It's a shame as we used to enjoy watching them.

 

Dave

[Dave Hunt]

1 hour ago, polybear said:

Here's another for you - this time in the UK (IIRC); a guy Bear knew at work knew the Pilot and by all accounts his back was slightly "iffy" afterwards........

Not so sure I would've crawled out of the wreckage (fire wasn't an issue) - I'd be more inclined to stay put and let the Meds. do it properly.

 

"Out of Airspeed, Altitude and Ideas".....all at the same time!!! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As the aviation cookbook states, "Low, slow and high angles of bank = crumbling cookie." I've seen it happen to guys in fast jets but the principle applies to all types.

 

Dave

 

[monkeysarefun]

5 hours ago, jjb1970 said:

Japanese brass lost out to the Koreans in the 80's when the big US importers switched allegiance from companies like Tenshodo, Fujiyama, Katsumi and Microcast Mizuno to Ajin and Samhongsa. Now the brass segment is a micro-niche, it was always an expensive niche but up to probably about the late 80's it was part of the mainstream hobby in the US especially. Importers like PFM produced catalogues and production runs were often in 100's. Then super-detailed plastic RTR came along, matching the levels of detail of brass for significantly less. It ended up with production runs of many brass models struggling to get into double figures. Now there are a few Chinese brass producers and some very limited and very expensive production in Korea and Japan serving a tiny number of collectors who want brass regardless of how good plastic and diecast is. Tenshodo don't produce anything like the amount of brass they once did and what they make is all for the Japan market, ENDO and KTM still produce quite a lot of releases but it's expensive and made in low volumes. Some Chinese brass is superb.

 

The larger hobby shops here would have display cases of  Australian outline brass HO locomotives when I was younger. Now its mainly Bergs in Parramatta, in the heyday they carried their own line of them, sourced from Japan then like you say Korea. They are still a reseller and still handle them as they come up.

 

https://www.bergshobbies.com.au/store/18

 

Similarly a place called Hobbyland sells them also.

 

https://www.hobbylandaustralia.com.au/hobbyland-ho-scale-brass-consignment-catalogue/

 

 

Edited December 28, 2022 by monkeysarefun

[pH]

I’ve just watched four bald eagles spiral up in a thermal over the industry on the shore of the inlet. There were several crows ‘mobbing’ them as a hint to move on. The eagles have all now headed off across the inlet. 

[Ozexpatriate]

13 minutes ago, monkeysarefun said:

The larger hobby shops here would have display cases of  Australian outline brass HO locomotives when I was younger.

I don't even remember seeing much in the way of Australian outline when I was young - except that 1970s NSWGR Class 38 LIMA model that Hornby resurrected not too long ago. There were brass models but they were all US outline. Part of the issue might have been that locally H0m would have been the right choice to approximate the 3'6" "Colonial gauge" used in Queensland and I'm not sure whether it was much available back then. 

 

It's different today (except of course 99% of the hobby shops are gone).

 

All why I developed an interest in 00 British outline models and ultimately why I am here this afternoon.

[Ozexpatriate]

11 hours ago, TheQ said:

Another piece on TV at a dump site.. people are already dumping their Christmas trees!!!!

Here a local Scout troop distributes fliers for people to sign up and have them take away Christmas trees and to be recycled them into garden mulch.

[pH]

2 minutes ago, Ozexpatriate said:

Here a local Scout troop distributes fliers for people to sign up and have them take away Christmas trees and to be recycled them into garden mulch.

The municipality chips Christmas trees here, and uses the results to (re)surface walking trails.

[Ozexpatriate]

Weather is more mellow today after the pre-Christmas ice-storm and the post-Christmas rain/wind storm. Showers and mountain snow are forecast and I saw a momentary glimpse of sunlight. It's around 7°C.

 

Apparently we had about >3" / >75mm of rain in the last two days, which is a lot for us compared with our customary drizzle. We now have a surplus for the rain-year.

 

I'm glad I didn't have to fly in the last week. Several thousands of flights were cancelled. Erie County, NY saw 51" of snowfall with >30 fatalities. I hope our correspondent from nearby Ontario ( @BR60103 ) fared better. (He is on the 'better' side of the lakes regarding lake-effect snow.)

 

Edited December 28, 2022 by Ozexpatriate

[monkeysarefun]

11 minutes ago, Ozexpatriate said:

I don't even remember seeing much in the way of Australian outline when I was young - except that 1970s NSWGR Class 38 LIMA model that Hornby resurrected not too long ago.

Australian Triang subsidiary Moldex produced a set of the Sydney red rattlers back in the 60's - but for some reason badged them "Triang Railways". Apart from that, the Lima Class 38  and some speciality kit makers, it was pretty much  brass or nothing.

 

http://www.hornbyguide.com/article_details.asp?articleid=8

[Ozexpatriate]

16 minutes ago, monkeysarefun said:

Australian Triang subsidiary Moldex produced a set of the Sydney red rattlers back in the 60's

Yes. I should have mentioned them. There were "VR" diesels as well and a diabolical S class 4-6-2. (All the VR models were to a 16.5mm gauge - not representative of the 5'3" Irish gauge they actually ran on.)  Along with a bunch of rebadged 00 models purporting to be Australian - mostly NSWGR, VR and some reputedly Commonwealth Railways. None of them reflected anything I saw in Queensland.

 

I did actually see the (NSWGR) Brisbane Limited at the old standard gauge terminus at South Brisbane - probably in the very early 1970s. We dropped off my Aunt there to return home to Sydney once or twice. She usually flew TAA.

 

I did see (and ride) Sydney suburban electric stock in ca. 1974 on a trip to Sydney when my aunt got married.

 

Edited December 28, 2022 by Ozexpatriate

[Erichill16]

10 hours ago, Tony_S said:

Off an Alfa Romeo too. 

I thought that too after I’d posted. 
Sort of reminds me of the Allegro  vanden plas. Why bother?

Edited December 28, 2022 by Erichill16
Grammar

[BoD]

1 hour ago, Tony_S said:

John’s Wordpress blog  won’t open on my iPad but works perfectly on an Android device. Anyone else having similar problems or it is just me. My iPad is up to date and did open the blog perfectly until a couple of days ago. 

It opens fine on my iPad, Tony, so not a generic Apple thing.

 

Edit: have you updated to iOS 16?  I haven’t as yet.

Edited December 28, 2022 by BoD