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My cobbled together layout


traingeekboy
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Hi Griff, good to see you, I like the N scale track plan as you said lots of shunting,, may be what I should of done was stay with N scale could of had a good size layout in the spare room, staying with HO scale want to complete my dream layout not far off now, busy doing the bus wiring on the station modules.

It may be a good time for you to switch to DCC, I wont be for a while yet it is a matter of choosing the right DCC.

Lima French mountain rail motor and trailer, swapped it years back , what I am lacking need to look for another set..

Nice glass cabinet  my son has simular ones from Ikea to display his gamming statures and bubble head collection.

Can I ask what's all the talk over there with what Trump just did a couple of days back. ordering that missile attack on Syria

Tony from down under keeping on moving ahead.

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Hi Tony,

Well, I think feelings are mixed on Trump. Syria is so complicated anyway, what with the real push in the middle east always having come from big oil companies looking for places to build pipe lines and exploit oil fields. Maybe what is most interesting is the right wing/Alt Right claiming that the chemical bombings never happened. So the right wing which is usually fairly hawkish is very split on Syria. google: Freedom Caucus and you'll see how the right is very split on things within our government too.

The left is a bit split too. Most leftists are anti trump on anything he does, so you can expect them to be against it all. I know left wing democrats who are happy that Clinton lost, because they feel she is just part of the evil machine of corrupt government. These are the progressive leftists. I call them Leftistas. ;) The Bernie Sanders followers. 

The real thing to keep an eye on is the Election Hack. Just follow the money. ;) It's tied up with big oil interests and many other moneyed things like that. I expect we'll see some big revelations there. Maybe we'll see a big cover up too. Many of us are hoping for an impeachment.

I am fairly moderate and decide my feelings on politics from issue to issue. It is rather strange that Obama did very little in regard to Syria, I feel there was a small window when he could have aided moderate rebel groups. There are no moderate rebel groups anymore, it's just Assad and Isis and neither is a good choice. Regime change is an ugly process. The USA did that in south America and created truly fascist states. Colonialism has a huge impact on what is going on in the middle east today. That's all regime change in one form or another.

Now after a relatively small number of people get killed, remember it's up to almost half a million in this war so far, Trump goes all trigger happy. But the bombings are on runways and aircraft for the most part and according to some reports has changed very little capacity to deliver bombs, so the drama surrounding the bombing is about the act and not the result.

Uhm, did I mention that you should follow the money and watch the investigations into Trump's people?

I will tell you that the average American isn't very savvy when it comes to being informed. They want TV sound bite black and white instant fixes. Look at the world and you see very complicated situations, I try to read as much as I can and I am still not sure what the best answer is. Hell, I've tried to follow the Brexit stuff in the news and am still unclear about it. Although I suppose I am more left than right, I've watched some of Nigel Farage's commentary over the years about E.U. representatives not being elected and how decisions the E.U. makes are more like edicts and that kind of makes sense to me. Love it or not, Brexit will be an interesting experiment. I expect Germany will sow it up and be the dominant force in europe. So there is that aspect of, once you bow out, you get no say. So how will this affect GB in terms of being a european power, is GB isolating itself? I'm just posing questions. 

Eh, it's hard to talk politics publicly anymore. I have a lot of friends who are gun owning constitutionalists and others who are gun hating progressive liberals. They are all nice people, so I prefer to avoid discussing things like this. I know my own opinions don't match any existing party anyway.

Ok, I will come out and say that I consider Trump to be a narcissistic idiot who has no real understanding of how politics work. I feel embarrassed that he is the president. I still deal with this feeling of shame as an American in regard to how the rest of the world must see him. I don;t really expect him to do anything with great depth in regard to world politics. His golf game should be getting better though.

take_that_isis._2464405484.jpg

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Well my previous response may get deleted. I mean that I may delete it myself after Tony can read it.

I'm here because I love trains.

In my last post I bragged about how I was getting into modern high speed trains. Well, that has been a complete failure. I didn't really look closely at the images of the train I was buying. So what I got was a set of ETR 485 components. Mine came in individual boxes; they are the same as you see here: 

s-l1000.jpg

 

Look at those trains. Do you see what is wrong here?

I cannot use trains with painted on windows. It goes against my rules.

Source: Traingeekboy model train manual/ section 45 ( passenger coaches) / subsection 5 (details) / paragraph 617 (Glazing is mandatory in windows)

What the hell is this? I've never encountered such a crap move before. Needless to say these babies are going back to ebay for resale, likely at a loss. :(

 

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Morning Griff, gee that is sad about the four car set,  what country are they from, yes will have to agree  those windows spoil the whole train would of better off having darkened windows, I have a Walther's Amtrak supper line set with darken windows very nice,, saved having to have seating and figures the double deckers didn't come with the upper level floor would of being too much work.

Hope you can get your money back on that train,, the post before this post pure awesome I will reply to that post tomorrow getting too  late nearly midnight here, would  of taken you a while to type.

Tony from down under keeping on moving ahead.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Hi Griff that is some post the second last post on my question , taking you a while to type, we have in two major parties they have lelt and right as well I belong to the Labor party I am  not in either sides have being ask to join the right but  staying in the middle , Labor is like the Democrats, I don't support concretive party that is in government here, again history all over again all the way with Trump.

 

I am shocked that the Left of the Democrats were happy Clinton didn't win I was hoping she did great to see a President Lady, a lot of people over here don't like him as well calling him an idiot, I agree what you say politics and religion not good topics to talk about., but you don't have to vote we do, must be the only country that does. 

To true what  you say Russia wouldn't be involved in Syria  if Syria didn't have anything they wanted like  oil and gas

Fingers cross that meeting with Russia can change things for peace, many thanks for the info I also ready up a lot what happening in the daily news.com. and TV .

Sad to hear about not getting a refund, could you kit bash the windows a lot of work, will take a pic of my Amtrak superliners, I m planning to buy 7 more to make up 16 cars and modelling the auto carries to model Amtrak's Auto train awesome train with 23 auto carries WOW.

What's your plans over Easter, I be working on my layout finishing off the bus wiring on the station modules and competing the spiral corner module then moving onto the spiral.

Tony from down under keeping on moving ahead..

 

 

 

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The two parties pretend to be on opposite sides of many issues, but for the most part they support the status quo. They want to keep their jobs. ;)

Take any major issue that goes on unsolved. Let say gun control or abortion. If the two parties were to agree that they will never agree, but they can work to mitigate the problem, then the problem is solved to some extent. Lefties want no guns, righties want guns everywhere. How about guns in not all places? or, Yes abortion is horrible, but if we can provide free birth control and education to all women, then maybe we reduce the number of them that happen.

But, if they can keep arguing over an unsolvable issue, they can keep the sheep thinking it's some kind of race or footie match. Every few years either side will try to pass laws that they want, if the laws pass they slap themselves on the back and say We WON! if they lose, they blame the other side and say, They made US LOSE!

 

Easter I am planning a work trip. Then more work. :P 

 

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  • 1 month later...

Had an epic work trip to Minnesota. Was supposed to be only a week and got extended to two weeks. We scanned some large collections of documents. In the mean time my father was taking a turn for the worse.

 

Even got caught in a huge winter storm on the way back and nearly ran off the road. So we had to take a detour over the top of the storm; we navigated by radar map on our phones. It was a pretty crazy road trip overall and ended up being 17 hours of driving, as opposed to 14. I mention this because I ponder what places you could get to in Britain if you drove 17 hours from your house. Those in Australia, will merely giggle at this and nod, as they have some pretty massive distances to cover hen they travel. :)

I think my father was waiting for me to come back because he kept asking for me. The morning after I got back my sister phoned and said, "are you in town now? You better come over because dad won't be for much longer." SO I went over and sat with my father and told him about my trip, even though he was seemingly unconscious. But my sister said he was responding to our voices. Maybe half an hour later he took his last breath. So we sat with him for a while and talked.

Despite the loss, I think the entire experience was a good experience. Hard to explain that, but it just seemed like everything fell into to place and both my sister and I felt ok. It had been a diffcult up and down year for everyone, with a lot of he only has 2 days, he only has 2 months, he only has 6 months, etc. Well, we somehow kept him going for almost a year, and we all had time to appreciate the reality of the situation and make emends. I highly advise any of you with kids that are older, to sit down and say something along the lines of, "Hey when I die, I will be fine. It's everyone who remains who suffers. I don't want you to feel bad or guilty about anything, I want you to enjoy your life." My father did that with me about 20 years ago.

RE: keeping elderly people alive, PM me if you want some useful info about diet and such. My sister invented a high protien shake she would make every morning and feed to my father. He was able to gain back about 30 pounds of weight that way from about 118. And of course, never trust doctors, do your own research. We did alot of creative thinking to make things better for our father. Like giving him a womens fabric head band to hold his oxygen tube so that it wouldn't wear through the skin on his ears. etc.

Sadly, the loss of my father means I gain an inheritance. Strange to benefit so much from losing so much.

So now I am thinking I need a shed. And because the shed is in the back garden, I may need to rebuild the layout. At this point it may be a single sloped roof 12' wide by 7' 6' deep structure, which is almost like a studio than a storage shed. My sister had a bunch of tools which she does not want, so I am also inheriting a band saw and another one that is similar. So woodworking may no longer be as primitive as it had been before. I am pondering lots of curvy bendy track beds and multiple stations for trains to pause at. And of course a through track in the shed for a very large passenger train yard. But yuo know how these dreams go, perhaps everything will be reduced a bit. ;)

I will post pre-demolition photos of the current layout which had a lot to be desired and discuss ideas for the new one, which may be lower so that one can step over it to reach the veggie beds.

Cheers!

 

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Google reports you can get from the most northerly point in Scotland (Dunnet Head) to the most southerly point in England (The Lizard) in around 15 hours, without stops...

I'm sorry to hear of your loss, but it seems you have found a good mental place for it all, after his illness.

Good luck on the redevelopment... i'm sure it will be great!

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Hi Griff, deepest sympathy  on the passing of your father, it is good you got to see him before he passed away and you being there as well, I know what you went through same sort of thing with my brother in law he must of hung on to he saw me and his brother and that night he died was 48 too young, my mum is still alive, dad died in 76 and step dad if he was alive this month would of being 100 and received a letter from the Queen.

Looks like lots of planning ahead for a garden shed and new layout can't wait to see what you come up with. plan wise.

Take care.

Tony from down under

 

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Just now, aussietmrail said:

Hi Griff, deepest sympathy  on the passing of your father, it is good you got to see him before he passed away and you being there as well, I know what you went through same sort of thing with my brother in law he must of hung on to he saw me and his brother and that night he died was 48 too young, my mum is still alive, dad died in 76 and step dad if he was alive this month would of being 100 and received a letter from the Queen.

Looks like lots of planning ahead for a garden shed and new layout can't wait to see what you come up with. plan wise.

Take care.

Tony from down under

 

Forgot to answer it takes by train from Sydney via Adelaide to Perth 3 days Adelaide to Darwin 2 days, not sure Melbourne to Cape York Queensland probable the same distance in a car, you need a 4x4 to travel from Cairns to Cape York and only travel in the winter  months monsoons hit December to February.

 

Tony

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Just caught up on this thread, Sorry to hear of your loss, Many people seem to be able to hold on to see someone before they go. There is a similar thread with a railway modeller on another  forum at the moment.

 

Minor notes about previous postings,

The Russians have their own oil and gas they export it, what they want is the Syrian port which gives them a military harbour in the Mediterranean.

The longest journey I've done in the UK is from the Outer Hebridies to Norwich Via Letchworth it took about twenty four hours!!! Though admittedly after the first two hours there was about 5 hours kip on a ferry, which I needed, I'd just done a 12 hour night shift!!

My own railway shed, is built with vast amounts of storage under the Layout, the layout itself is being built like a show layout, all the boards are removable to work on. Meaning no getting under to work on the electrics, and all that space underneath is not wasted.

Rather than building a lower railway, consider building a removeable / hinged horizontally or vertically, bridge to access your veggie patch, You gain another point of interest and you save your back from grovelling down to clean the track...

 

 Hope my textual meanders help

Q

 

 

Edited by TheQ
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  • 3 weeks later...

I am going to keep this same discussion for the new railway project as I consider the current layout to be a paractice sessionf or this next one and not completely separate from it. :)

On June 12th a small shed will be delivered to my garden that will house the stazione e deposito Merci for my semi fake/semi prototype railway.

It is a amalgamation of two stations. Gorizia Centrale and Monfalcone (Mount Falcone) in Italy, that lie between many significant points of origin. The the south lies Trieste; a border connection to all southern Adriatic countries, as well as Greece. To the north is Udine with it's connections to Austria, Switzerland, Hungary, and everything beyond.

Go west and one arrives in Venice.

East of Gorizia is another passenger station in Nova Gorica Slovenia.

At the southern end of Monfalcone lies a small line that enters a tunnel and heads to the ship yards where many famous ocean liners were built in times past.

Although I have a huge passion for 1960's Italian railroading, I have no plans to stick to any single prototype as these lines see trains pass through from so many places. And with a little imagination it may be possible to even see some trains from sweden, norway, and denmark.

Lastly, there may also be the occasional French,spanish, and even out of scale OO british train rolling through, just to make the prototype police really grind their teeth.

Still working on a name-- The Fruili and Trieste?

Some google map satellite links to show you the kind of track arrangment one can expect.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Stazione+Monfalcone/@45.8071265,13.5446845,376m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x477b09c052888939:0x41cfbe194c97c915!8m2!3d45.807364!4d13.543043

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Gorizia+Centrale/@45.9333107,13.6047433,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x477b00caaa9cb87b:0xdeca8a97301f2fc7!8m2!3d45.933307!4d13.606932

While the station and yard areas will provide traffic for the layout. The yard itself will mostly serve as east west staging to generate through traffic to the passenger station.

The mainlines will all lie outside of the shed as a garden railway in order to get a long run in and also have some long sidings for additional station stops during operation, or maybe just one place with several sidings. hmm, will think on that part.

Lots of big plans, but we'll see how time and energy fits in with this dream scenario. :)

 

And just to give you an idea of how varied trains can get along the real line, here is a Swiss Shunter loco arriving in Gorizia, likely headed to Slovenia to pick up goods.

 

And a less known railway who's acronym comes out as FUC. The loco is a russian protoype diesel. The rail company also owns a taurus.

 

 

This area has been my source for railway ideas for most of my life.

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In the past there run a line thru Gorizia called the Transalpine Railway, Ferrovia Transalpina in Italian. The place in front of the station in Gorizia is called Piazza Transalpina since that time. 

Maybe "Ferrovia Transalpina" would be a nice name. 

The German name was "Neue Alpenbahn" and was a line from the industrial aera of Bohemia to the seaport of Trieste. 

Today it runs from Czechia thru Austria and Slovenia to Italy. Very International indeed. 

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Hi Griff that is some plan you are planning for your new layout build, liked the two video clips there was some other footage of the stations you plan to build, like the idea of where passenger trains come into the station and wait for a freight train to roll through.

Sloveria, is where a I bought my TGV from and the city he lives in has a huge staging yard and container port, have to agree a good focal point  the station in question to model with lots of different trains going through form other countries.

Be looking forward to what you come up with, will yo be able reuse the decking form the old layout.

Tony from cold wet down under keeping on moving ahead.

 

 

 

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It all begins monday when the new shed is delivered.

Seems The Shed is a real tradition with you Brits. Seeing as I have half of my lineage coming from over there, I am considering that my genetic heritage is exherting some kind of sub-conscious desire for a shed.

http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20170607-how-the-humble-garden-shed-inspires-genius

 

Thomas, You have a good point. I may simply call it La Transalpina. As kids, my sis and I would go with family to a restaurant called the transalpina just behind the station and border fence at Nova Gorica. They had an old German bomb shelter in the garden which we would climb on. :)

Aussie, Yeah those places inspire. I don't plan to model any container terminals or really much of anything. I am more inspired by the amount of traffic on those lines and the freedom to run a lot of trains. We will see what happens after I store a lot things in the shed. It will give me a 12' long area to model some kind of station. Still pondering designs for lines outside the shed. I think some meandering will be required to get an extended run.

 

I have a lot of videos I watch of monfalcone station. This one is a compressed hour of nonstop action.

 

Edited by traingeekboy
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