Our world in miniature, hobbies

Hi again Morgana Another pic off our railway.

Looks great Philip love how it looks realistic.

I second that Philip, hope you have a hedge trimmer for all that beautiful greenery.

Hi all So much sad news this year, constant reminders of me/us getting old & older. My long-time dedicated model railway shop proprietor is retiring this weekend from his shop in Sutton Coldfield so I & my son paid a visit along with a few bottles of wallop. We have to travel quite a few miles now for a model railway only retailer. There has to be a market for this trade, as Pete employed two assistants. The business has been bought, but will be moved to another location. Anyway, I could not leave without a bye, bye loco so the latest Bachman 0-6-2 E4 southern region tank, has arrived in Coventry. One is preserved on the Blue-belle railway. I have always liked them. So here is Coventry's own E4, now fitted with vac & heat pipes. I hope you like.

It looks very smart Philip especially being black. Lovely you and your son taking a bottle of wallop for Pete on his retirement.

Hi all I hope that you like the sound of this, as it should at least sound familiar, (laugh). The bank holiday period allowed the closure of the Hounds Hill branch, so that the Penny Park viaduct track base & point-work could be relayed & aliened in readiness for ballasting. Whilst waiting for paint, glue & so on to set on the viaduct, I continued with Hounds Hill town scenery, using some of my new trees which arrived from China. That area is where scenery & reality meet, as it is necessary for the operators to see both of the mirrors, which show the fiddle yard status. So I cannot just stick trees anywhere.

I trust you had sorted out a replacement bus service during this vital work, Philip.

Hi Mr D-Di, With you in mind, this Crossley crash box double decker was hired from Llandudno. "Anymore fares please & hold tight" Ding ding! For a while, Coventry's white lady, GKV100 was fitted with a Crossley engine & crash box transmission. It caused a few sparks to fly from drivers unfamiliar with it. The good drivers handled it well.

Hi all Just a bit of an insight to the railway workings & why we need mirrors. The picture above is recorded from the central operating seated position, the picture below is the same but enlarged onto the two mirrors. From the mirrors we can see the occupation of the 6 large fiddle yards in the right side mirror, as well as the uncoupling ramps that provide auto uncoupling of the loco from its train. The small mirror on the left shows the occupation of the three small fiddle yards. In addition, we have another three through fiddle yards that lie behind the sandstone face adjacent to the operator. We have a trapdoor mirror to see in there. The picture below shows the sandstone face, where the three line through fiddle yard or loops are hidden. The trapdoor can be seen to the left of the picture, looking like a road going to heaven as it is shown in the open position. We occasionally do manual uncoupling there, but is easy as it can be reached from the operator position. The railway really works reliably well, the only issue is when I forget to change a point or run a train out of sequence. The fiddle yards are semi-automatic & work better than me.

Hi all The Hall Brooks railway summer timetable is in operation, & sees the return of the Fridays only through service to Bournemouth. The first coach entirely booked up with our forum members. The same train, but photographed from Hounds Hill town square. You will be pleased to know, you will, you will, that The Wheel tappers & Forum Shunters Committee, worked deep into the night in order to secure this service, making reference to paragraph nine, subsection six of the breakfast menu. In the meantime, whilst Pam & I have been removing weeds & cutting grass at home, here at Hall brooks we have been adding the stuff. Even the wooden surround has received a fresh coat of varnish, all-round. Have a good day all.

So good to get some sea air after a long cold winter.

I was an apprentice fitter at Coventry transport when the white lady (GKV100) entered service, it was a crossley , it had a crossley engine and a brockhurst turbo transmission not a crashbox, it only had two gears, forward and reverse. the drivers didn't like this as to engage reverse gear you had to stand up in the cab to push down a pedal with your left leg at the same time as pulling back a lever to select reverse gear.After a short time it was only used on the inner circle route as this did not require a terminus where reversing was required. Even this meant that it could only be used on the anti clockwise route as it couldn't climb Cash's lane hill when Louded. after about three years it was sent to AEC to have an AEC engine and AEC crash gearbox fitted.This lasted until the GUY buses where withdrawn in 1961.This left 100 as the only bus with a manual gear box and as the bus was in such goodcondition it was converted to the same transmission as the Daimlers which where fluid flywheel and pre select gearbox . I had the job of doing this conversion . 100 was finally with drawn in May 1965 due to a cracked chassis.The Crossley engine was given to the Coventry Technical college for student instruction.

Hi Philip, it's business as usual then at Hall Brooks, great to see the WFSC have been hard at work and what a great job they do. Do you get many homes for sale in Hall Brooks ? I never see any 'For Sale' signs up, but then who would want to leave.

Hi all, Thank you Dreamtime & Tricia. I love the reality to fiction of our forum railway. Talking of reality, thank you Colcov for your post regards GKV100. That is brill. I have copied your post on to the Coventry transport topic, as that is the most comprehensive informative info that I have ever read about that special Coventry bus. Hope that is ok with you. Thank you so much.

Hi all Added an access shunt signal to the Three Spires outer home signal. Shunt signals were of all shapes, sizes & positions. Many were positioned right next to the points to which they were signalling & are referred to as ground signals even though sometimes they were on a pole or bracket. Like this one that used to be near Leicester.