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ROY'S DRIVEL


cleanerg6e
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Inspired by Mick and Dave I too have decided to add to this new part of the forum. If I go right off topic please forgive me and it'll show you that senility is catching up faster that I thought.

Went to the doctor yesterday and he gave me the OK to return to work. However he also said that if I have trouble with the hand to go back and see him to have more time off.

I got my X ray of the hand and it shows the bone in my second finger with a definite split in it. My doctor says it will stitch itself back together in time. He also said that I wouldn't have full movement in the finger for about another six to nine months. Just as well I'm right handed.

At one point Mick said that it must take ages for me to set up my railway for a running session. Well I timed it the other day (the setting up process) and to clean all the track by hand and set up for trains running took 40 minutes. Ive found that with the covers on the railway I only need to clean the rails once a month on average. I still use the LGB track rubber and only use the CMX whilst I'm running trains. The Dapol track cleaner is ONLY used on vacuum and does suck up quite a large amount of dirt.

Today there is no running as it's pouring with rain. I've also set up another bank account purely for internet banking although my bank informed me that any unauthorised transaction on my bank account where a third person cleans it out and the bank will fully reimburse the amount. I've only had one almost unauthorised transaction when I bought a set of MIG weathering powders from the manufacturer in Spain. Someone else tried to deduct over $1000 out of my account and the bank phoned me to query the transaction. That 'someone else' was in Hong Kong.

Saw a program on the telly of the home of the internet which isn't in cyber space but in an old converted mine. They said that the next war would not be nuclear but Cyber and is already being waged. The authorities over there caught a hacker and he showed them how systems can be destroyed by computer. He blew up an electrical substation with a laptop computer. One of the men in the internet home said that most of the hacking comes from China from people inside the Chinese government and the PLA. Which is why the west cannot compete in manufacturing with China as the Chinese already have and continue to steal western company secrets.

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Welcome to the drivel Roy. There's no danger of straying off-topic here - this is your own space where anything goes.

Pleased to hear that the hand is healing well but it sounds like it'll be a while yet before you're back to full capacity. At least you're managing to run some trains and 40 minutes isn't bad to clean the whole layout considering how much there is to clean.

I've always felt relatively safe with online banking and making transactions over the Internet and, touch wood, up to now I've never had any real concerns. I'm always wary about sites that store your information and wherever possible I always select not to have my card details saved on site, even if I'm a regular customer. It's time consuming but much safer to enter your card details each time you make a purchase. There isn't really a great deal more you can do. Online transactions are almost essential these days so you just have to trust to luck and hope it never happens to you.

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I don't know if any of you have heard of credit card 'skimmers' but when you go into a shop and pay for purchases using a credit or debit card if you don't keep a close eye on the attendant who may take your card you may be 'skimmed'. They usually crouch down behind the counter and put your card through a 'skimmer' and then empty your bank account.

Have just ordered 50 tank wagons from Hattons as I hope that is the number used in the Heasham to Neville Hill steam era tank train. Motive power was usually double headed with an 8F and 9F or two 9F's or a class 25 and a 9F. The tanks are black with Shell and BP markings. Yes they'll have to be weathered.

Got 40mm of rain here today so rather boggy outside. The telly says it'll ease of tomorrow and bucket down again on Friday and Saturday.

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cleanerg6e said:

.Have just ordered 50 tank wagons from Hattons as I hope that is the number used in the Heasham to Neville Hill steam era tank train. Motive power was usually double headed with an 8F and 9F or two 9F's or a class 25 and a 9F. The tanks are black with Shell and BP markings...

Did they have that many in stock? I've often wondered how many of such items are usually available because if there are more than ten available that's normally all the website states.

Having just looked on the website I'm amazed to see that Hattons currently list 415 items of rolling stock from the Bachmann catalogue available either for immediate delivery or for pre order. Some inventory.

Oh and good luck with all that weathering!

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Yes Mick they have the wagons in 8 packs and I bought 6 of them so 48 wagons all told. However my web browser baulked at the online payment system saying that Hattons has an unsecured payment system. So I rang them and paid for it by phone. My internet security says no threats from the Hattons site, but that doesn't include the online payment site. So that's one to watch even though the girl at Hattons says all is ok to buy online from them. But I'd rather be safe than sorry.

Roy.

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I went to my local model railway shop yesterday afternoon. I bought a few things and left my Heljan Lion there for repairs. Both bogies are supposed to be powered but although both sets of wheels rotate only one bogie does all the work. I could have sent it back to the UK but the postal services have a habit of throwing the parcels around.

I bought two bachmannn BR bauxite weathered brakevans and a MK1 restaurant coach, two Airfix girder bridges, some Springside guards van lamps, Wills brick sheets.

I also the other day bought online from Fox Transfers a name and number set for a Hawksworth County 1021 'County of Montgomery and for my new Hornby 38xx some new numbers to change it from 2891 to 3801. Over here 3801 is a sort of iconic loco and is a 4-6-2 pacific so that should get the locals up in arms when it appears on you tube. I also bought the name boards for the Devon Belle as I have the observation car.

Today it's still raining we've had a 120mm so far with another 100 to 200mm to go. I'm taking mum to the dentist to have two teeth extracted while dads at Dialysis.

Roy. :)

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Roy, just noticed this on Hattons' website so being from DCC Concepts land yourself, maybe you can shed some 'light' on it.

DML-RCTL

DCC concepts - United Kingdom

Pullman Coach Table Lamp Set

OO Gauge (1:76th scale)

£76

Limited stocks, but available for immediate order

Am I understanding this correctly? One set of table lamps for a Pullman coach in OO gauge for £76?

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Don't know about the Pullman Lamp set from DCC Concepts as I've 'disconnected' all the table lamps in my Pullman coaches. There was too much drag for the loco and a Merchant Navy could only just haul seven and I want it to haul twelve to fourteen. Will have to have a look on the DCC Concepts site. Don't forget that the auusie dollars value is through the roof at the present time. Just today one aussie dollar buys 65p and I thought it was good in 2007 when it bought 45p.

Went back to work last night and no problems which is good as I'm on to work Christmas, boxing and new years eve and new years day. New years eve is triple time. The rest is all double time and a half. That's one reason why I earn around $20-$25,000 more than my annual salary amount.

Taking Mum and Dad to Mudgee tomorrow to give them a day away from the box they live in and me too. It's been raining here for the past week but a fine weather window has opened at the moment but more rain is likely on Wednesday afternoon. We've had so much rain that parts of Northern NSW are under water and roads have been cut as some towns roads getting out and into towns are under 6-8 feet of water. The Army and Air Force are dropping relief supplies to stranded communities by helicopter.

Since my accident on the 22/9/11 I haven't been out of the area other than to my local model railway shop if you can call it that (80+ miles away or 40 miles there and back) to pick up two BR bauxite weathered brake vans (Hattons had sold out of them) and to leave my Heljan Lion for repairs.

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Had a great day out in Mudgee with mum and dad although dad did have a wobbly turn at Mudgee Station. There was a plaque on the station frontage commemorating the reopening of the Mudgee/Rhylstone/Kandos Branch Line in August 2000. In 2003 the politicians re-shut it. There was no plaque commemorating that. Had lunch in Mudgee and had fish and chips. The plates were huge and one piece of battered fish went from one side to the other. I didn't think the dad would eat all of his after his wobbly turn, but he did. It perked him up no end. I thought dad would sleep most of the way home but no, he was wide awake and chattering like a chaff cutter. Afterwards I took them through Lue, and then onto the Gardens of Stone National Park where there are sheer cliff faces of weathered red sandstone. From there we drove back through Rhylstone and Kandos to Lithgow and went home via Bells Line of Road and called into the Mount Tomah Botanical Gardens. It's a rainforest area there and there were loads of Bell Birds, which have a tinkling call. From there back home. All up 510km travel for the day. I have just washed and polished my G6E and apparently those two letters and one number stand for Ghia - Six Cylinder - European Styling, and all made in Australia. So work that one out. Buggered if I can.

I took my reading glasses so I could read the lunch menu and then left them in the car, which was a ten minute walk from the cafe. Before leaving home I made sure I had everything but half way to Mudgee I realised I'd forgotten my camera. We were already 200+kms down the road so it was too late.

Roy.

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Today vacuumed the car out and treated all the leather. Raining outside now so I'm sitting down watching V8 Super Cars which is live from Olympic Park Sydney, just down the road. It's a street circuit where usually 50kph rules but on this day the fastest the race cars get up to is 250kph. Average speed around the track is 140kph. I know you have or had a Touring Car Championship in the UK the Vauxhall and others with I think 2litre motors in the cars. Ours have 6litre V8's.

Roy.

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We've had a slight and I mean slight break in our rainy weather that allowed me to run two new locos that I'd bought some time ago. Two Hornby 2-8-0's a 28xx No. 2812 and a 2884xx No. 2891 soon to be 3801. I got the new number plates and smoke box plate from Fox Transfers. Model Rail magazine said that the 28xx would not 'pull the skin off the proverbial custard'. Yet once again I've found that the loco had no trouble at all in hauling that rake of 59 coal wagons that I have. :) I'm quite sure that if I tried to haul that same rake of wagons around second radius curves then yes it would be unable to haul them. :D

It has been our coldest start to December for 50 years and Queensland's coldest start to December for 120 years. It's called 'Global Warming' you see. Our daytime temperatures have been around 19 to 21 degrees and they're usually for this time of year 28-33 degrees. The weather forecasters say they don't know what the weather's going to do. I know what the weather is going to do?- what ever it wants to do, just as it always has. :lol:

Also I'm going to change the name and number on my Britannia Pacific from 70013 Oliver Cromwell to 70046 ANZAC. ANZAC stands for Australian and New Zealand Army Corp. I already have the new name plates from Fox along with the new number decals. I also bought the three Devon Belle name plates two to go on the smoke deflectors and the other one is on the front buffer beam. All the plates come fully finished. 8-)

Roy.

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It's still pouring with rain so I've been busying myself with putting on the new names and numbers on locos. Although at one point I did have to stop due to having the telly on watching Grumpy old men and women talking talking about life in the UK in the eighties and the education system. I admit I love these programs and often laugh so much that tears are rolling down my face. Like the one where kids started bringing lunch to school in Tupperware boxes. Bread with actual nutritional filling and fruit although one bloke did say you could get a more nutritional meal out of an elephants arse than what came out of the average British school canteen. :lol:. Talking about horrible hair styles in the 80's except one black lady who said she was lucky to miss out on that as all she had was a shit Afro. Remember the cabbage patch doll and couples in the US having ceremonies with some dopey nurse promising to be good parents to this hideous creation. Some little green penguin with an orange beak that was one half of a ventriloquist act singing about how he wanted to fly up into the sky and the narrator Geoffrey Palmer saying 'if I shoved a firework up your arse you'd soon be up there' :lol: Next week is Grumpies Christmas.

Roy.

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I'm glad I'm not the only one. Another idiot craze was teenage mutant ninga turtles. I like a lot of music that comes out the states but I can't stand Rap, which I call vigorous chanting. But one is not usually allowed to say what they feel as they will be accused of being racist.

Roy.

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I remember the lengths we had to go to in order to get hold of Cabbage Patch Kids for my daughter many, many years ago. If I remember correctly we ended up with three in total.

Talking of American crazes (no offence intended but that's where it originated) was there anything so silly as those pet Rocks? A 'rock' fastened to a lead that you could take out for a walk? What was all that about?

traingeekboy said:

...I just don't get people who collect things.... uh oh. :?

No, me neither... :oops:

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When I was in Mudgee I spotted something outside a shop which I haven't seen for years and years. A woolen golly wog. I don't know if you had them in the UK. They were banned over here as they were deemed racist for some reason which escapes me. Another stupid sort of toy that one of my nieces had was a sort of baby thing on a mobile phone. You had to feed it every so many minutes and if you didn't it just bellowed at you until you did or your phone battery went dead. Then it was deemed to have died and you were labeled a bad parent. Babies that actually wet their nappies(with water) was another one of their toys. What ever happened to ones imagination. So I have sound in nearly all my locos but smoke and steam is left to my imagination. The US toy company Mattel had a load of products banned here as they were being made in China and were painted with lead based paint. Some so called parents were worried what would happen if their kids sucked on the toys. Blimey I think all the toys we had in the 60's were painted in lead based paint and no doubt I sucked on them as a toddler and I'm still here. Don't remember the rock companion but it wouldn't surprise me in slightest if some moron somewhere says it would be a great idea if people could form a loving relationship with their garden tools with people on telly saying that they feel a real and genuine friendship with their garden fork. I really 'dig' my garden spade. :lol:

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Trigger's broom is an absolute classic - just one of many I might add from the Only Fools and Horses series. We were sat watching the Blow up Dolls episode earlier today! Really doesn't matter how many times you watch them they're always guaranteed to get you laughing.

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The Only fools and horses complete (and I mean every single episode & Christmas special) dvd box set was my Christmas present request to the wife this year - for a million laughs you can watch over and over again, £50 at Tesco is a bargain. No point asking her for a Howes class 47 sound chip - she wouldnt have a scoobydoo :lol:

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