An fbb Crisis!
Absolutely not; fbb has not flipped his lid and become an avid viewer of 'The Teletubbies". If it had been Balamory or The Magic Roundabout, maybe the old man would be watching.
But that grinning sun was simply too scary for your aged blogger.
This snippet of variety has little to do with public transport, but a lot to do with elderly incompetence.
On Tuesday last, fbb set about setting up the set, ready for sets, so Mrs fbb would not miss something stunning while she was at a Zoom meeting. The keypad ...
... was full of liquid!
One thing fbb has learned in the 60 or so years he has espoused modern technology is that wet keypads don't work.
And it didn't.
So there was an urgent need for a replacement. One for £2.99 seemed a bargain ...
... but it had differently coloured buttons. So did an "official" Samsung version at £11.95.
He then set up laptop and spare tv so Mrs could watch her giff-gaff heroes with no interruption of service.
On checking the laptop, fbb noticed a message thus, "do you still want your Samsung keypad?"
In an abject panic and fearful of Mrs fbb's disappointment if he failed, fbb clicked on the equivalent of "Yes, absolutely" to confirm his order. But which order?
Just on the off-chance, he also checked the engulphed electronic equipment which he had laid in the sun on the back fence.
It worked perfectly!
So, by the end of Wednesday, you guessed of course, fbb had THREE keypads for the one telly; and had spent (wasted?) over £20.
Then he splashed neat bleach on a brand new T shirt!
Puzzle Picture
... nestling near the border between Yorkshire and Lancashire.
The buses are from Todmorden, a small Pennine community ...
Todmorden buses were run by a "Joint Omnibus Committee" (JOC), a cunning plan by the municipality to prevent railway bus companies from sucking away the proud Council's passengers.
And their money.
Decisions were taken jointly by the Council and the train companies, later British Railways. Part of the fleet was owned by BR!
There were THREE other JOCs, namely Sheffield ...
.... Huddersfield ... 
... and Halifax. 
In those three cases the JOC ran country and inter-urbam services.
Exterior Excellence
The original Peterville Quarry line was developed on a baseboard just outside the fbb's back door. But it was always an indoor layout which happened to be 'en plein air'! It survived some 'interesting' meteorological manifestations.
In the August edition of Railway Modeller (RM) we have a "proper" outdoor layout. Such a scheme is often nominally at ground level and using real plants as its scenery.
Here is part of the RM track plan.
It cals itself a "Junction" but it isn't. It is a large set of loops!
Usually, such layouts eschew huge quantities of detailed and scale scenery merely providing their owners with the delight of watching long trains running through genuine countryside. Visitors can easily ignore the fact that the vegetation is like John Wyndham's triffids!
It's the trains they have come to see!
What intrigues fbb, however, is how many outdoor layout builders use adapted proprietary models - because they are weather proof.
The Airfix/Dapol footbridge often appears. Here is a collage of THREE kits at Daws Heath.
Purists might be picky at the switchback journey required by a 4mm passenger making his way over the construction's full width.
You don't often see one of these on any layout, indoor or out ...
The railway gardener has raised his Triang/Hornby suspension bridge on taller pillars ...
... to take the single track over a water feature.
... it is just too big!
There is no pointwork on the layout, so trains just loop their allocated loop. The only siding is at the main "junction" station.
Next Sprinter blog (plus?) : Tues 14th July
