Author Archives: snitchthebudgie

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About snitchthebudgie

Secretary of the East Surrey N Gauge railway club

London Underground: 150 fascinating Tube facts

Or how to bore your travelling companion on the bus during a tube strike.  These are taken from the Daily Telegraph.  Here are my top 30 (or so), avoiding a very long post! 1. There is only one Tube station … Continue reading

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ESNG PlayDay – 12 July 2015

July’s PlayDay was a successful afternoon.  We had 10 punters in attendance, including a pleasant surprise in Sean.  Sean had been able to leave work early from driving trains on Southern due to a convenient replacement bus service.  (What, don’t they … Continue reading

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Long and winding road – the shed

In the mid-sixties, I was in need of the larger back bedroom in our 1930’s 3-bedroom semi, so my father invested in a SHED.  This 9′ x 8′ empire was carefully built by my father, saturated with wood preservative, insulated … Continue reading

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Off my trolley – North Shore in ‘N’ gauge

I recently came across David Milburn’s layout on the web.  His layout is unusual in that it: Is traction, a model of the North Shore (CNS&M) interurban out of Chicago. Is in ‘N’ gauge. Is British. It’s also very, very, … Continue reading

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Long and winding road – beginnings

A while back, I posted some photos of some of my old kit and scratch built models.  Those posts didn’t include the path that I took to get from there to here.  I was thinking about this in the context … Continue reading

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Obituary – Ian Allan

I spotted this obituary in the Daily Telegraph.  In the UK and for those of my generation, Ian Allan was synonymous with train spotting books and quality transport books.  Certainly in my teens and early twenties, Ian Allen was THE … Continue reading

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AGM and wrong kind of sun?

The ESNG AGM occurred yesterday.  A good turnout of members, and all business was concluded with no heckling and very few snores.  It’s not that the committee object to being pelted with fruit, but prefer the members to take it … Continue reading

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A charming Japanese story – and an idea for the AGM

Can you resist the newspaper headline: “Cat stationmaster Tama mourned in Japan and elevated as goddess” This turned out to be a charming story of Japanese culture and a railway success story: The calico cat was appointed stationmaster at the … Continue reading

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“This is not logical, but it is often true.”

According to Spock, anyway.  The Chairman sent me this picture, culled from Facebook. “Set the phasers to stun!”

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A good ‘believe it or not’ scenic feature?

Anyone can model a car crash or lots of emergency services on their layout.  However, this would really stretch the viewers belief. From the Daily Telegraph: Last Wednesday, Mr Xiang was driving along the Chongqing-Guizhou Expressway in central China when he … Continue reading

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