Not A Good Day
Wednesday last was a poor day for fbb with a number of minor stresses that he neither expected nor needed. First, one of the roof trusses in the Peterville carriage shed just fell to bits! Repair was impossible and replacement was too difficult as it would have involved butchering a major section of the structure.
So a bodge was implemented.
The "difficult" parts of the truss were simply stuck on to a triangle of clear plastic which won't be visible from outside the roof ...
But It Took A-a-a-a-ges!
Then the lap top died. It just wouldn't start, despite fbb's efforts at prodding a large selection of potential keys on the unresponsive keyboard.
Modern laptops are designed to mend themselves but actually setting this process in motion when the machine refused to switch on is, understandably, tricky.
Eventually fbb manged to persuade it to (a) mend itself and (b) switch on - sort of.
After a frustrating hour or two all was well.
But It Took A-a-a-a-ges!
But committed Christians have some very high powered assistance in times of crisis - BUT, it is always His will be done, not always fbb's!
So fbb's distinguished head lay on the pillow at beddy byes time, very discombobulated and twitchy.
Two Frustrating Years
Readers with encyclopedic memories may recall fbb's frustration on the vexatious matter of Hornby's new TTA tank wagon.
The old TTA first appeared in 1973.
It was a good enough model for its day, but avoided the sophistication of today's more detailed and much more expensive models. Many modellers still run the old TTA and offer guidance on-line as to how they can be improved - by making them look worse!
Occasionally an "old" TTA reappears in the Hornby catalogue as with this CocaCola version.
So it was that, in 2023, after 50 years of the old model, Hornby announced a completely new "tooling" for the TTA. Advance publicity showed two versions.
One was simply a much better model of the original TTA.
Note that it has two ladders, one on each side at one end, just like the old one. But it was pictured in the company of a different version.
This has just one ladder at the very end of the tank.
It is called "weathering".
But Hornby was very coy about publicising this "different" version. It took fbb ages to find a retailer who admitted to stocking it. And when he did, the one ladder version was sold out!
Your ancient collector of tank wagons trawled the interwebnet week after week, in the hope of completing his collection but to no avail. Nobody had one. A year ago, a very nice man at Rails of Sheffield mobilised his electronic trawler and came to the same conclusion.
Recently fbb could have gone to Australia ...
... or, less stressfully, paid an enormous amount of postage to get one back from Aunty Podes. Even fbb baulked at such expense.
Possibly A Good Day
Then on Thursday last, the old boy was idly scrolling through adverts for end ladder TTAs (R60208) when a door was opened by a retailer that fbb had never met on-line before.
It transpires that the Bluebell heritage railway has a shop selling model railway stuff and, for the first time as far as fbb could tell, they were offering an R60208. And it said "ONE LEFT"
It would cost fbb full Hornby price plus a rip-off fiver P & P but ...
... apprehensively ...
... fbb sent off his order and paid the high price!
Would it be the true and correct R60208 that arrived? Ot would it be an "ordinary" TTA because Bluebell did not really know the difference? Would fbb be sadly sending it back? Would it ever arrive, anyway?
A Very Good Day!
It arrived and ... tta dda ...
... it was the correct model - now an "unobtainable" rarity!
Some Call It Good Luck
Of course there is no such thing as "Luck"; everything is part of the highly complex pattern of life, and everything can be explained even if we cannot always do the explaining!
fbb's life experience is that God has a wonderfully gracious way of understanding those frustrating bad news days and offering to lift his people into a better place.
The Peace of God passes all understanding ...
... even if it is a rather silly unavailable tank wagon that became available! It offset fbb's miseries of the earlier day and revived his desire to share - even if it is sharing a blog about tank wagons!
And, in case you wondered, when fbb shuffles off to eternity, his collection will be sold and the proceeds given to TEAR fund, a Christian charity specialising in overseas aid. It works through overseas churches, so the money will definitely get to where it is needed.
For the rail enthusiast, however, please note that real full sized TTAs also come in two types ...
... either with two side ladders or with one end ladder.
More Train Crash Nonsense
Remember these two?
One was simply reversed to headline another blog post!
A new web site posting has just appeared, purporting to show "incredible" train smashes. Here is the headline picture.
Not only has the red steam hauled train come to grief in exactly the same spot as the blue diesel hauled train ...
... but exactly the same vehicles and exactly the same people are on site in exactly the same places to see the mayhem!
Best not believe anything you read on the internet - except fbb's blog, of course!
Next More-Variety blog: Sunday 15 June
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