Saturday Variety

Looks Familiar?

But one was in London, England and the other will be in Brisbane, Australia. There is Brizzie, on the right where it sits as the capital of the state of Queensland.

The city sits astride the river, also called Brisbane.

The river is crossed by one rather splendid railway bridge (Merrivale bridge) opened in 1978 and thus linking rail routes on both sides of the water.

But it is only two tracks and, with the on-going expansion of the city, has become something of a train bottleneck.

So, Bruce, build a new line and put it in a tunnel with four underground stations. This is the Cross River Rail!

Note a couple of "indigenous" names Woolongabba (next to the Gabba sports ground) and the delicious Boggo Road!

Tunnelling is now complete but it will be a couple of years before the line opens. But the design looks spectacular as in this Oz TV news item.

And, although a new link on the existing network, it will have brand new trains! Indeed it was a an on-line news item that alerted fbb to the project.

One to watch.

Docklands Delight Delivered

This refers to the first of an order of new trains for the Docklands (no longer quite so) Light Railway, This blog has already featured the trains c/o their builder, but the first has now arrived at he Beckton depot.

Things have moved on from the very early days.

The new trains ay five segments long ...

... with wide walk-through gangways and cantilevered seats.

There is wheelchair space ...

... and, of course, a view from the front as the trains are fully automatic.

And they look more like a proper designed train rather than a tin box on wheels.

It will be some time before the likes of our readers will be able to taste one.

Iron Mink - A P.S.

fbb is sure (?) his readers would like to know a bit more about the GWR "Iron Mink" wagon featured in yesterday's blog.

In many ways this was a specialist wagon, yet 4000 (that's four thousand) were built. It just shows how important the railways were in the late 1800s and early 1900s for transporting all the goods we Brits needed.

Pertinent Poster : Parties Proceeding to Pretty Places

It is a trade that is almost gone completely. Which of our bus companies now markets Private Hire in this way? Surely the Pretty Places are still there - and in today's hi-tech world, knowledge of our nations beauty is not what it was.

A marketing opportunity; certainly a Poster opportunity!

Sorry, fbb forgot - it's all on line.

Frustration and Infuriation Situation 

fbb reads the Railway Modeller each month and often snivels weepingly as he gazes upon the neat, tidy and superbly modelled railways featured therein.

Authors write things like ...

The Snoddlethorpe Viaduct was built to exact scale using my own drawings made on site with the help of full rock climbing kit. The core structure is the finest marine ply cut in my extensive workshop using a powered band saw with laser sighting.

It was coated in "Gooeyplas" and each stone was hand shaped using a series of special tools made for me by Bill Stibbings, a professional architectural modeller. The viaduct was painted using a mixture of acrylics, matt enamel, weathering powders and aged with dilute sheep dung collected from a local farmer. It only took a few years to build during which time my wife kindly served all my meals in the railway room. But it was worth it!

Nobody seems to want to tell you of the repeat crises, bludners and general disasters that happen on the way.

That is just the point!

The point clicked over happily, you may remember, and the point motor clunked resoundingly, but the activating thingy kept falling off the tie bar. So fbb glued boh point and motor down to the sheet of plastic. After a substantial period of angst, he managed to connect up rails and wires.

fbb pressed the switch. There was an acceptable clunk from the solenoid but ...

... the point blades did not change! They did occasionally and unpredictably.

fbb should have guessed. When he bought the point motor from Peco at Beer, "the man" suggested that he fit a CDU in the circuit. fbb nodded his agreement to avoid public humiliation and returned home to check what a CDU was!

It is one of those!

Apparently the idea is simple (????). The little cylinders (Capcitors) fill up with the electric (like a header tank) then when you press the button the electric Discharges from the Unit giving an almighty thump to the solenoid to help it move the point blades.

Will it work? Maybe?

Anyway, whilst arranging those wires, fbb knocked over two tins of fruit that had been used to weigh down the glueing.

In turn, they fell against the model viewing platform used by the OO visitors to Peterville Quarry to gain access to interesting coaches. At the moment these are a TPO sorting van, a Pullman kitchen and restaurant car and a sleeping car.

This broke the frail fencing (frail 'cos it goes brittle in the outside air) and ...

... because the replacement won't match the "old stock from the bits box", the whole fence will need replacing.

Then there's the lighting in the model buildings.

And then there is the sad tale if the wire stripper.

Two P.S. From The Above

1. Big Hills

The faux Railway Modeller text "quoted" above was inspired by a model viaduct on an N gauge layout that featured in the January edition. Also on that layout was a train dwarfed by a realistically huge cutting.

Real railway scenery is big! Beautiful! Model railway scenery is rarely big enough.

2. The Viaduct

fbb bought a second hand ready assembled one originally made by Triang in the early 1960s.

With a few weeds and a bit of painted variation in the brickwork it will look good on fbb's layout. Currently waiting for an opportunity to get a Round Tuit! Several such viaducts would make a useful alternative to the one at (fictional) Snoddlethorpe.

Yet more crises in tomorrow's variety!

 Next Variety blog : Sunday 12h February