The Latest Distraction

 Apart from the ongoing house move saga, a new distraction has entered:

Kandy

An emergency phone call at 6 a.m. four weeks ago saw us taking this beauty into our lives by 9 a.m. Unbelievably, she is a rescue case, despite being a pedigree standard poodle.  We had actually just volunteered to take in one of fifteen, yes, fifteen, horribly treated adult poodles rescued from another "registered breeder." who was effectively a puppy farmer.  We were incredibly lucky in that we were the first people the rescue team thought of to adopt her when she came in at the same time.

I could rant for some time at this point. Instead I'll just say Kandy has been an absolute joy to adopt. She is going to be big, and she is probably the cleverest of our five dogs. So it is going to be fun. So far she has been so easy to train. Recall, heel, sit, wait, down and have all been mastered before our first proper lesson with her. I know it won't last, teenage poodles are hard work!

The house move? Well things are happening, but we've been here so many times before.

I do wish the new house had a bigger garden. 

As for indoor plans...I found a 4' x 2' baseboard I'd forgotten about, which is making me think of a few ideas. As usual with me I also like to model something relatively local, which, if the move happens, give me a lot of options

I would also have a large converted attic space, which is good, but limited access via a narrow hatchway, which is bad.

Options I'm considering:

A OOn3 version of my much missed OO9 Hales layout. Much scaled back from my thoughts had we purchased the last house we were considering

An O gauge East coast light railway. A cross between the North Sunderland and the W&UT. Possibly with a narrow gauge potato railway connection.

A small OO gauge shunting laying to make use of my growing collection of small industrial locos. With a NSR single track line in the background.

Revisiting my original Apa cameo on a slightly larger baseboard and in EM 

A very generic OO GWR layout.

A classic OO9 rabbit warren 

A TT120 or N  bitsa station cameo of a rundown urban terminus.


Whilst that seems a long list, I don't think it is ambitious if I work out a project plan that maximises synergies between them.  I already have most of the stock and the baseboards. The first and last on the list are probably least likely to happen

Unbelievable

Was this really in 1991? and is 1991 really so many years ago?

Unbelievable

Anyway, what is unbelievable to me is that I have just left a facebook group having faced a tirade of personal abuse.

My crime?

Pointing out that a  canal feature on an unspecified layout, not mentioned to the group, was physically impossible in multiple ways, and whilst individual elements were really well modelled the overall scene showed zero understanding of canals.

It turns out that saying two narrowboats can't pass each other in a canal only as wide as one narrowboat is rivet counting. Who knew? Me, I thought it was only possible by a strange quirk of quantum physics.

The name of this group?

Realistic Railway Modelling.

TBF mostly it does what it says on the can, but people still post pictures of what are essentially toy train layouts and don't get the negative comments I did. People were invoking rule one "It is my railway" in a group that actually says rule one is not valid.

Anyway, my top ten crimes against canals on layouts

1: Impossible bends that no 70ft long narrowboat could ever make

2: Locks that have the gates at the wrong ends or are otherwise  incorrect

3: Models of President, a short-lived steam-powered experiment that only ever operated on one route. Most narrowboats were either horse-drawn or Bollinger powered. Having President on a layout is like having a model of Rocket.

4. Not quite as bad as 3, but only having models of No 1 boats, ie the colourful owner-operator barges rather than the more numerous company boats or even cabinless day boats

5: Incredibly short pounds between two locks

6: The whole canal being modelled at the same width as a narrow lock. The only places a "narrow" canal is narrow is in the locks and at bridge holes

7: Wharves that it would be physically impossible to get a canal boat into or out of.

8: A mismatch between how loaded a barge is and how low it is lying in the water. a fully loaded narrowboat with heavy cargo might only have 6 inches above water. And obviously, an empty barge tends to be down at the stern, where the machinery is, but when fully laden will be more level.

9: Confusing features found on butties with features of powered craft, especially rudders

10: Ridiculous geography and a failure to appreciate the canal usually came before the railway