And this is me...

 ... as Mike Yarwood used to say at the end of his shows.

For those who don't know, this is me in the day job.

https://youtu.be/t4IJADnGFa8?si=xwLFbJTe4zd5U5mM

That Time of Year

My year is driven by odd, out-of-sync calendars.

The syncopated rhythm of family birthdays, anniversaries, model railway shows, committee meetings, parades, and conferences.

This was another conference week. and an odd one, because for the first time in the 30 years that I can remember going to it, the weather was dreadful in London.

Which is rather like the ExCel Centre where it is held. At least the Elizabeth line has made it more accessible, but visiting still involves walking miles and struggling to find food and drink without suffering massive queues, dreadful acoustics, and hotel prices that are incredible.

At least I no longer have to go to the accountancy show held next door.

Of course, there is a plus side. I got to meet lots of people, many from outside the UK, whom I rarely see. Some of them even said nice things about me.

A very real positive is that we are relaunching the old IT industry podcast I used to co-host, with 33k listeners per episode. Which is about a thousand times wider than my average post here.

And I ended the week by learning I'd passed an exam I hated taking.

Anyway, here are some photos.

Yes, that is me, yes Ai was involved, and yes, I pointed out why that was an issue.

Drury's in Covent Garden is one of my truly happy places

I seem ridiculously lucky in catching strange workings passing through Stoke

The Demise of Flemish Quay

Having dug out the unbuilt Tim Horn baseboard with Cadeby in mind - I changed my plans.

It just didn't feel like it was the Goldilocks size for the plan.

So now I'm back to building a custom board to fit in the Ikea unit, whilst still giving me the height to include trees and somehow light it.  I'm leaning towards Kato track for simplicity.

Since I want to rebuild Flemish Quay anyway, it makes sense to use the Tim Horn board for that.

The great thing would be making more of a feature of the lifting bridge, but I can see other advantages. The problem at the moment is the lack of HOf track. If I can't find any, I'll cut my losses and build it as an OO9 layout.

As for the scenic board that Flemish Quay was in...

Cadeby Reborn

I have previous form for finding baseboards that I'd forgotten about, and the reason why I bought them.

This week, we are having various disasters with the plumbing in the house. All of the expensive kind .
The silver lining is I had to access the furthest corner of my office - where I found a Tim Horn kit for a 2ft by 18" photo plank, still in its packaging.

I suspect I bought it back at the cottage ready to build the next version of my Cadeby-based, layout. It seemed a timely discovery, given that I'd  just bought the Hornby wooden barracks block. And James Hilton produced a great build of a Fourdees Bagnall kit

Whilst on mute in a particularly boring ISO meeting, I began to explore a way forward.

It is not as straightforward as I thought. 

The extra space is useful, but is it enough?

My original plan was to change from an end-to-end layout with an automated shuttle module to a continuous run. On top of which, I wanted to have a building to sit where what was then the new Rectory, without being quite as ugly. 

I'm not sure that is feasible. The barracks building is surprisingly large.

I could, I suppose, build a pastiche of the layout room, about two-thirds of the size, and use the Hornby one on a pure photo plank.

The only way I believe I can fit a continuous run is to use a relatively extreme radius for the fictional section. Does that matter if the motive power is all going to be small 0-4-0s or the little Simplex and Ruston?

The Rectory will have to go. The downside is that it would have made a good scenic disguise for how short the track is. Could I replace it with something? Even just a line of preserved road vehicles?

The original micro was designed from the outset to be viewable from any side. The Tim Horn baseboard is only viewable from the front. Should I put the platform and the stock sidings at the front, or the back?

I thought it was obvious to put them at the front, so even if nothing was moving, people could see the stock. But I'm having second thoughts. It isn't how visitors could see the line, and the wooden fence separating it from the New Rectory was part of so many photos of the railway.

And one of my favourite views of the layout was standing on the road outside, watching , very briefly, a train, glimpsed through the trees. I think I'm persuading myself to go in that direction. 

The last issue is The Dell, where Sgt. Murphy rested, and I used to play on his footplate.

You'll have to imagine the intervening trees, they don't fit in its current bookshelf niche

Well, that and my actual plan for this weekend was sketching out a TT120 IoW Central layout based on Wootton Station, that I could call The Wight Lines.

Out and about

Life remains busy, I'm spending the bank holiday reviewing a spreadsheet, because the client doesn't recognise English holidays...

I did get to go to a conference in Manchester last week. As well as some good sessions on AI, it was a chance to meet up with some friends in the industry.

I rounded the week off with a quick dash to London to have dinner with friends and a meeting on Friday morning, followed by lunch for one at a little Italian restaurant around the corner from Euston.