Northroader

My apologies, I was thinking back to apprenticeship days in a main loco works, rather different from today’s scene.

P.S. if you want a real laugh, set some cotton waste on fire, beat it out until it’s smouldering, then drop it into the tank filler after the mug who’s struggled into the tank.

Well, it’s not as if you’ve had some practice at it. Best wishes on this one.

Has anybody got into the side tank to free the balance pipe bolts at the bottom, wriggling over the baffles? Now that’s fun.

So there’s me in the summer of ‘53, walking along the dockside at Waterford, having just got off the S.S. “Great Western” (the ‘cattle boat’) at Adelphi Wharf pontoon. If you’re a 15 year old scout lugging a kitbag for your summer camp, it’s a long way to Waterford North, but we made it, and in we go. There was this diesel railcar in one of the west bays, looking brand new with a wedding party being seen off, (Dublin, maybe?) Nice dark green with some thin light green stripes. Then our train comes in for Limerick way, older corridor stock. ‘Twas dark green the same, with wider bands of light green, but I couldn’t say if any were missing the banding. Oh, the loco, a D4 with outside framed front bogie, real nice looker, but real dirty, like pretty well every railway engine back then. I was used to LMS maroon, or GWR chocolate and cream, both of which could look pretty careworn by then. There was the through train from Birkenhead in SR malachite Green, a bit brighter. I suppose I must have seen some BR blood and custard by then, though not as I remember. To me the CIE two shades of green looked quite an up to date, with it job, must have been because it was taken from the buses.

Nice update, I did do some long time ago, so good to see how it’s done now. My main struggle seemed to be with keeping the mould flat and level whilst casting, then getting the cast part to have a uniform thickness after the pour.The catalyst for the rubber mix back then was also requiring a terrible level of care in its use, hope that’s improved? Certainly the results would be an easier thought process than mastering 3D printing.

You can do it, it just needs some straight track between the two curves, so you’re not getting “S” curves. The throwover with the buffers gets too much..

Trouble is, all this stuff is just too clever for me, drawing on my experience with mobile phones and printer/copiers. The setting up, the feeding and replacement of consumables, working out what the programme/menu has to be told, then trying to clear print queues, it’s doomed to failure. Now if they could send a four year old Chinese kid along with the kit, things would be much better.

You’re very welcome to come and visit my continental thread. Ideally I aim for pre WW1, but it does carry over. I do try to put useful links in, as much as I can, so there some very nifty German layouts tucked away in there for inspiration, plus some good video and photograph stuff. https://www.rmweb.co.uk/topic/151308-“beyond-dover”/ Just a guess “TW-schuppen” equals “treibwagen schuppen”, railcar shed.

Put a S on the front.

I would be inclined to build something simple to start with rather than trying to fill the shed with a large layout from the start. Either a simple terminus to fiddle yard, say 8’ x 1’, or a 6’ x 4’ oval with a few sidings in 00 scale to build up your experience and explore what’s possible. Ones you could aspire to in time, say, Ballyconnell Road or Kilbrandon Junction as good examples? https://3mmsociety.org.uk/ballyconnell-road/

Looking very good. One thing, the big dome at the back of the tender is for water pickup troughs, so really needs removing and blanking over.

Me, too [in 7mm)

Maybe it’s just the rest of us like a quiet life. One boss I had was a master con artist. A group of us would be discussing a job, and he would turn to you with a look of low cunning, and say confidentially, man to man: “You know what I’m talking about, eh, Bob?” and I never had the b**** to say “ I haven't got a f****** clue!”

With communications as they were at the time, the local management wouldn’t be able to feed any timesheets through in advance, presumably they were paid with a week or two in hand, with old time sheets picked up for the next trip. A clerk would have to then calculate payment and put the right money in the pay packet. Back then hardly any paper notes, more coins? We were out on a newly overhauled engine running light, and were stopped by adverse signals out in the country. A pay clerk with a small wood case joined us, and hitched a ride to the next signal box. He was doing a weekly trip stage by stage along the length of the line. The pay train is shaping into a lovely model, David.