Our world in miniature, hobbies

Hi all A recent visit by a forum member & his wife to Hall Brooks, has enthused me into making sure that we have the appropriate buildings & so on. None more essential than this for the canal boat people. Often found at canal basins, one at our canal basin in Coventry, although very modern compared to the one at HallBrooks. There is one at Sutton Stop too. It is lunch time so I will refrain from going into detail. When I am working in the railway room, I often play one of our acoustic live recordings of trains & outdoor sounds as it puts me in the right frame of mind, hearing the birds tweeting away, an aeroplane flying overhead & a dog barking. If it wasn't for the central heating, it could be outside.

Hi Philip.. If you want to make your layout look more real, what about some graffiti and litter?...

Hi NormK, It is real in my own mind, or should I say real as to how I would like it to be. It's a safe place, where Mayjan & Tricia are totally at ease, as are all of the other people who are there. On my old railway of thirty years ago, I had a church & a graveyard, very nice it looked too, but somehow I don't want to be reminded of bad or sad things. We have enough of that in real life, so I am more than content not to have graffiti or litter. Actually, when I had finished the canal building, the canal was littered with wood shavings, dust & grass cuttings. Thank you for your thought.

A lovely star on the steeple would be nice for Christmas.

Sometimes, my eyesight is quite good, so I take advantage of such times by adding some of the detailed finery to locos & the like. I get carried away with enthusiasm, sometimes without testing & I was embarrassed recently in front of company when one of our Halls, which had not been on the railway for ages until last week, was misbehaving with the brake gear fouling the auto uncoupler in the fiddle yard. The problem was solved when I removed the rodding. Just realised that the real problem was that I had put it on upside down. All perfect now, so now two Halls are replacing a Grange & a Std Class 4. One is a modified "Hawksworth" Hall, whilst the other, based at Leamington for many years, but recently out-shopped from Swindon works. So, two pristine Halls in charge of the once a day through fitted & refrigerated goods from Redhill to Wolverhampton. In real life, the Granges were smaller wheeled Halls, very sure footed on hills maintaining good speed, whereas the Std Class 4 struggled to maintain timing, more akin to a Manor power output. The Halls, were very versatile locos capable of handling most classes of traffic, almost the Black 5 for the Western Region.

Hi Philip, Why is it you didn't turn out to be an engine driver, a lot of boys lived that dream back in the 'good ol' days ! I hope you are successful with the Christmas star and thank you although there is no pressure on, must be getting busy along those tracks leading up to Christmas. Avaguden !

Hi Dreamtime, Hi all That is a skill that I would never have had, Dreamtime. A mix of technical skill, an art & exceptionally good judgement*** are all essential for such a career. Anyway, I bit off more than I could chew today, when after adding inner-check rails to our sharpest curves I decided to clean the trackwork inside the huge main fiddle yard. Only just finished. These check-rails are everywhere these days on our rail network. This kind of detail has to be complete before we can commence the track ballasting. We can then get rid of those ugly temporary screws. Maybe for the new year. Check-rails are common on sharp curves. Blue Peter Loco Severe Damage The above recording *** shows the result of an unskilled crew, who were unable to handle a situation that skilled crews had to cope with as a day to day event. Not only did the loco sustain massive mechanical damage, the crew suffered severe injuries too.

Hi all All of the work on our railway over recent months has been so time consuming, that we are only now making use of the extra facilities to accommodate trains & develop the timetable. I say timetable, but more a sequence list. Most of us have experienced delays to our real railway journeys, where a broken down train somewhere miles away produces a knock-on affect to where we are. So it is with our Hall Brooks railway. Coventry can only cope with four trains at any one time, which is why the railway industry uses the science of CPA, or critical path analysis, to construct timetables in such a way that avoids conflicts & tries to avoid bottlenecks. With Hall Brooks, a train cannot run if there is no space for it, either through the next station or into the fiddle-yard. This evening has been a very enjoyable play trains session, fitting the new local trains to Hounds Hill through station as well as Longford Park, working them in with the previously existing main-line trains. It works well & is looking good.

Just a few pics from todays play train session. WD waiting to for a clear signal so as to proceed to Coventry & on to Northampton with the daily local up goods. 3F with train heating waits for the signal with a stopping passenger, for Coventry & Northampton. Pannier Tank engaged with shunting the earlier arrived local goods from Northampton up into Longford Park goods yard.

I love it, behind every change of scene there is a story to tell. Thank you Philip for putting us in the picture

The Pannier Tank, simmering away in the yard whilst the crew eat their "piece". All tidy & shipshape Sir!