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What is everyone up to?


traingeekboy
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With the recent software issues it seems sort of quiet in here.

I've been slowly dealing with sorting all the items in my shed.

 

I am also purchasing the odd item here and there for future running. Most recently it was a Rivarrosi tank car from the steam to electric transition in Italy. It's a truly odd piece of stock since it has two side by side tanks rather than just one.

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Morning Griff, I tought it was was only me with the stubid win10 update, lost spell check as well couldn't get on for a few days and had to find a new link all working well now.

I have done the same too bought two unpainted F7/B loco shells, keep an eye out in work bench I started a new post modelling Santa Fe's super Chief, my Uncle gave me his train collection and he had 4 Santa Fe F7/A locos, I was thinking how I would tackle cutting up two of the locos and came across the two F7/B shells couldn't help myself had to have them will arrive end of August gee postage is exspensive $31US shells only cost $10, all up $55 au.

Sadly he lost the fight to cancer and passed away late friday afternoon, the F7's be a special set indeed have the coaches as well, when amtrak took over they replaced the super chief with Southwest Chief have a 10 car superliner set in phase four colour scheme will look good with the old and new side by side.

How is your new layout plans going satred any building yet, look forward to any progress pics, my layout is coming along, the next model is build and levelled ready for paintin, one more module o levelandonto the 12ft quarter curve section, pics to follow tomorrow

A couple of weeks of winter left not letting go in ahurry we had 1 degree this morning.

Tony from down under kepping moving ahead

 

 

 

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Tony, I really need to spend a day going through all the new stock and presenting a photo show of my newer items. Just too busy working!

Really sorry to hear about your uncle. I lost my father a couple of months ago to Lung Cancer. Of course, the Cubans have a really good cure for it. Meanwhile in America we tell ourselves, we're number 1, while the pharmaceutical companies charge us to death and won't let competing treatments into the country.

RE: Shipping Costs: Yeah I tired buying from overseas and the shipping always nailed me pretty hard. In the end it's just not worth it.

A new layout will require some effort on my part. Part of having a shed is the thought that I can have a storage area inside the shed. Who knows maybe even model a station area as a run through. But al the new/old things in the sehd from cleaning out my father's house is taking up a majority of space. again, I need to get sorting.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Evening Griff, many thanks for the kind words of the losss of my Uncle, he be sadly missed, the only relation I could talk trains with that was interested, no one else  is , the F7 set be a tribute to him, I am waiting for hisson t contack me so I can go back and get the rest of his train stuff, also want to look at the table tops want the timbe to make my double deck bridge with and to find a missing bogie sid plate missing from the athearn loco, just updated earlier on my super chef post.

Yeah postage cost from the US and Europe is very dear these days, it is costing my $30 US to post the Second Athearn F7/A loco costing all up $79 au, saw on another eBay a link  seller was charging just for a replacement coulper for the Bachman $48 US crazy, found another link $13US postag.

Be looking forward to when ever you get the chance to take pics of yout latest items, yeah layouts take a lot of planning and big effort when building them as you know with my build,was planning to work on my layout today but my wife is tired and I told her to lay down for some shut eye after doing soon.

 

Tony from down under keeping on moving ahead.

 

 

 

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I'm sorry to hear of various people losses Human or Furry.  My brother in law is now into his 9th month after a six months to live diagnosis so sadly we are waiting.

 I  must admit the software troubles seem to have cut the number of posts I make... This lot will be copied to my personal diary to make it a bit more complete..

I buy a lot of my railway stuff secondhand but other than a few key items there is not a lot to get now, But there is a lot of conversion work to be done to wheels / couplings / weathering..

We have acquired a new furry friend, a 6 year old Border Collie. Since we lost the supervisor, AKA the cat, to a road accident last year SWMBO has insisted I rebuild the gateway first, which has been an opening in the fence for some years.  I've installed a six foot high 10ft wide gate way and I am now building two 15ft long six foot high walls to join the new gate recessed from the road to the old fence line.  Border Collies are nothing if not athletic, he leapt the temporary 4ft fence in one bound...   This has diverted my attention from viaduct building for the garden railway which has absolutely nothing done on it for ages.

At the MRC the inherited N gauge layout I received earlier on this year is starting to show some progress, two of the six boards (3ft by 2ft) have now got their folding  scenery extension on the front and now got the back scene / fiddle yard hiding boards on. At the moment they are looking like a wedding cake all In white. Once I  have finished the viaduct and a little more of the scenery in white, then it'll be time to make the scenery a little more Hebridean, lots of browns, greens and grey lumps of rock..

Time to go,  I Have to pretend to do some work, before heading off to get more breeze blocks and soft sand for the building works...

I hope you all have a better year ahead,

The Q

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  • 2 weeks later...

Well (fingers tightly crossed) we can no longer use the software as a valid excuse for not posting on the forum.  I wish it were as simple to address the losses that some are enduring at the moment and that every one of us inevitably has to face at some point. My thoughts are with all of you.

I've read elsewhere that it's deemed we're now entering railway modelling season, which is the time the majority of model railway exhibitions are generally staged. I'm not sure if that applies only here in the UK so perhaps our overseas members can confirm that. 

Generally in the UK our outdoor OO gauge railways perform better during the period from spring through to autumn when the days are warmer and longer. The trouble is, that's also the time for doing other things that prevent us enjoying our model railways. In my case I've spent a lot of this year out walking and exploring so the model railway has remained entirely untouched but other factors have also contributed to my decline in interest.

I'm fed up with the increase in costs of new products so have drastically cut back on the amount I now spend. I'm fed up with the poor quality of some of the products I have spent good money on and which leave you wondering just how long they are going to last. You only have to look at the number of problems people have with chassis expanding and motors failing and it makes you dread opening a box for fear of what you might find inside. I'm fed up with poor customer service and poor quality products from some of the smaller suppliers too - especially sound products. It's not good, especially when you have acquired a decent collection that remain, in many cases unopened and unused, but can't be guaranteed to work or even be in a fit condition when the boxes are eventually opened. If my past experiences are anything to go by, and if my current feelings are general, then I really do fear for the hobby as a whole. I understand that prices need to rise (or at least I accept that they will) but there's absolutely no excuse for poor quality and poor customer service.

I've cancelled subscriptions to the model railway magazines I once purchased and cancelled membership of the 'clubs' (manufacturer based) I was once a member of. That's really how disillusioned I have been of late. However, it's not all doom and gloom and I do have a couple of pre-orders in place but have overlooked several that I'm sure would have tempted me in previous years.

Since the forum software problem was sorted I've been popping by more regularly and with each visit to the forum my enthusiasm for model railways returns a bit more. I'm not sure how far I will ever go or how many of the plans I made will ever come to fruition but at least the candle still flickers. I do have plans to dispose of a lot of my collection simply because I wouldn't want that task to fall on someone else in the event I'm not around anymore myself. Well, you never know do you?

So in a nutshell that's it Griff - that's more or less what I've been up to or the reasons why I've been up to so little.

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I confess to ripping out all of the trackwork and base from the garden. Building that gave me a good recovery from major surgery, but the cost of stock made it difficult to continue. Despite being laid for four and a half years, and totally ignored for four of those, nothing had moved, rotted, or come adrift.

Some time ago, I built a layout in the garage to represent Ramsgate Tramways. There is a hill at either end, but despite the care that I took with scale adjustments, they were too steep to negotiate. This Summer, I have redone Ramsgate, but a shorter distance over the same length of board. Portable too instead of fixed. That's a work in progress and I am confident that my hills are much more useable.

A fortnight ago, I purchased a Petter stationary engine that was built between 1945 and 1947. The serial number makes me believe that it's from 1947, making it a year older than me. Something to clean, and paint, and polish, and occassionally start up and annoy the neighbours. 

So I'm still busy, but not in a railway sense. I am still here watching and sometimes commenting, but had I kept every locomotive and wagon that I have owned over the years, the garden railway would have been much more viable. How though, can I start from scratch and justify spending hundreds if not thousands of pounds on rolling stock?

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One of the drawbacks with a garden railway I guess is the fact that they're static. We can't take them along to exhibitions or round to a mates house for a quick running session. We are also few in number on the forum but the more regular contributors and visitors are hundreds or even thousands of miles apart. We share our interest via paragraphs and photographs. It would be so much better if we were within easy travelling distance of each other where our modelling and construction skills and our collected stock could be shared. It's far too easy to become disinterested in something when it's something we do on our own. 

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One wall of my gateway is up, as a bare baseboard, as in not decorated.

I'm finding old age is catching up, I'm having severe muscle and joint problems constructing these walls. I need to do the railway viaduct soon before I get too knackered. There is reference to muscle problems for some of those with a "susceptibility to malignant hyperthermia" I'm begining to believe I may be one of those...

The latest Railway Modeller has just dropped into my temporary postbox, an advert shows £220 for a new Hornby loco!!! Ouch..... I think I'll stick to buying and modifying secondhand rolling stock..

My MRC is preparing for our annual show on October the 7th in Aylsham. Surprisingly we get more new members from an open day in the local town hall than our much bigger exhibition.

My MRC occasionally goes and visits members railways it can be quite nice sharing a beer watching the trains go round the garden. Something I hope to be able to invite them to do here one day...

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  • 2 weeks later...

Lots to report on my end.

I took a trip to italy, with a side trip to france, and the obligatory stepping over the border into slovenia a few times. It was a total of 3 weeks and I really enjoyed myself doing a lot of nothing. Well, not exactly nothing. I enjoyed the local color in the from of foods and adult beverages. I also took some time away from everyone and sat alone in some train stations.

I saw all kinds of amazing modern trains on this trip. I also lucked out and visited the transalpina station on the very same day as the local steam tourist train was departing. Lots of video of the steam loco leaving the station.

I also took a lot of phone photos of trains some are a bit blurry as they were taken from trains, but it's all quite fun for me. It's hard to explain to people things like, "yeah, I know it looks like a shot of nothing, but it's a detail shot of catenary and signals for future reference." :)

When I get a chance to organize my shots I'll be posting some real train photos here for everyone to see.

The numerous comments about modern train prices have struck a chord within me as I am on the horns of a dilemma. You see, I used to hate all the post 1970's Italian train color schemes; err, liveries as you lot call them. Now that I have seen them up close and personal I am changing my views. What the heck do you do when you want modern trains, or as an old friend used to say: when you have caviar taste and a pizza face. :P

The kind of locos I wish I could have all cost about 200 or more euros from companies like Vitrains and Acme. I really need a e464 like this: http://www.tee-usa.com/store/product54618.html and yet, when one thinks of a model railway one is thinking in terms of fleets so at about 200.00$ per loco (when you include shipping) it gets really prohibitive. I dropped by a model train store in verona and saw a magnificent passenger train set. The coaches may have been this set here, or something similar in price: http://www.tee-usa.com/store/product32744.html:S Lets not even speak of the added cost of a single loco!

I ended up leaving the store with a copy of Mondo Ferroviarrio and a sort of slick magazine/monogram on all the modern Siemens locos that can be found on Italian rail lines. Oh the pain of wanting one of each loco on my layout!

So perhaps I will keep at my technique of only buying second hand and wait a couple years for these locos to appear on auction sites.

Onto planning:

I designed a combination storage shelving unit and model railway platform for inside my shed. I will get to building that in the next few weeks as my shed interior is a complete mess right now. I expect my new 2 foot x 12 foot shelves will de-clutter and inspire for the upcoming garden railway. I am spending a lot of time pondering just how much track I can fit into this future railway terminal as well. :)  24 inches wide should allow for a nice station with 8 foot platforms and a passnger stock and goods yard.

Anyway, vacation was fun, but it's good to be home and pondering the future railway.

RE: Mick's comments about model railway seasons. A shed with a heater is an all year round train habitat, assuming you've insulated properly. :) Perhaps some of you need to consider making your sheds more comfy in the winter. 

Edited by traingeekboy
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