Travels with my Phone

It is one of the oddities of modern life that decisions about what mobile phone to choose rarely come down to how good they are at making phone calls. I don't tend to upgrade as often as many people, and when I do it is with some trepidation and the reading of an awful lot of reviews with particular attention to the camera. Even so, I've had mixed fortunes over the years. As with compact digital cameras, I've had some phones that punched above their weight and some, such as my last one, that have been pretty indifferent.

This time I've gone for a Huawei Mate 10 pro, for those who care about such things. So far I'm very impressed. So much so that my Sony compact camera hasn't been used once since making the change. In fact I'm still exploring what the phone can and can't do. It certainly has weaknesses but so far I can live with them.

So here is a selection of photos taken with it, first of all from the Manchester Museum of Science and Industry, and the second set from its equivalent in Milan

Manchester

Milan

Spalding Model railway Show 2017

We recently had the sad news that there isn't going to be another Spalding Model Engineering Show. But at least we still have the Model Railway Show. And if today's crowds were anything to go by it remains extremely popular.  I suspect the time of year and the proximity to an outlet shopping centre help enormously in getting non-enthusiasts family visitors through the door.

At the other end of the extreme, it highlighted that shows really need to take into account the age, health and mobility of visitors. This is something the 16mm AGM  does really well.

This year the show also suffered from a lot of people stood in front of layouts pontificating and seemingly unaware that other people might want to see things. When taking photos I go out of my way to try an avoid making life difficult for others. This year just one person offered to move so I could get a better photo.

As for the layouts, well the usual mix, with everything seeming to be popular with someone. The disappointments in my eyes were definitely the N gauge and narrow gauge lines. Last year Tony Hill's 16mm layout showed what could be done by modelling the narrow gauge with the real thing as a guide.

The stars were the big name layouts, Hospital Gates and St Merryn, and Outwell Basin, which attracted a lot of attention for being both well modelled and a local prototype. In fact it would have looked very familiar to anyone with the Wild Swan book on the Wisbech and Upwell.

Uppingham was very well modelled, and I liked a lot of things about Wolfe Lowe


Hospital Gates

Earls Court 

Uppingham

Lee on the Solent 

Wolfe Lowe

St Merryn 

Leavesden

 Outwell Basin

The World's Railways Part 2

Having been worried by how badly my copy had deteriorated I got hold of a second hand copy, complete with dust jacket. So here are some more pictures from it.

I never dreamed I would one day see this for myself.

The World's Railways

The last few months have not gone well. Partly that is because I've spent a lot it working in Milan. That wouldn't normally be so bad except the first week I was there I picked up a chest infection and three months later I still haven't got rid of it. On top of which Issy has been ill as well. So basically we've been feeling rather sorry for ourselves. Even the regular sight of Peter deWitt trams isn't really enough to cheer me up

Something which has, though, is this. Spurred by a recent post from Phil Parker  I dug out from the depths of the engine shed my old dog eaten copy of "The World's Railways"

The dog who did the eating was Oscar, my childhood dalmatian.

What with that and the passage of time it isn't in the best of condition, but it brought back so many memories. This is the book that taught me, as the sub-title says, how railways work, with superb illustrations.