Category Archives: Out and about

Almost a model?

A picture from the BBC website, of derailed engineering trains in Scotland.  This looks remarkably like our ESNG layout on a bad day (and I suspect most modellers will identify with the incident!) According to the article: Two trains carrying ballast … Continue reading

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London Bridge rebuild

Our local paper the Sorry Error, whoops, Surrey Mirror published these aerial photos of the London Bridge rebuilding project.  This rebuild will increase the capacity of the through tracks that feed the Thameslink lines through to north London.  It will … Continue reading

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Up the Junction

Just before we went on holiday, I made my last visit to offices in Kew Bridge, reviewing designs of the river crossings for a gas pipeline in Turkey.  This has been a regular trip, from Redhill to Clapham Junction and … Continue reading

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Five things you can do to be happier right now

Most people are wrong about the things that will make them happy.  Professor Paul Dolan, speaking at the Hay Festive, said it’s actually quite simple.  I’ve adapted them for model railway use – I think they still work! Listening to a … Continue reading

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Exhibitions, are they worth it?

Julias Modelopolis  (Julia makes marvellous 2mm fine scale models, with some 3-D printing thrown in for good measure) recently commented on taking your layout to an exhibition.  The money comments were….. Browsing the interweb forums I always stumble across people … Continue reading

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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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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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Direct train to Europe

This is a good post to follow our Berlin adventures, and explains why we had to fly EasyJet rather than get a direct train London-Berlin.  In this article, the BBC looks at the new Eurostar service to Marseille and gives some … Continue reading

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