Talking of space

 This could well be my new modelling space. It is going to be fun fitting everything in...

Watch This Space

What a stressful couple of weeks.

Our cottage is once again SOLD STC. Not that I'm getting excited after the last time.

Which led to an emergency househunting trip back up in Shropshire.

On those annoying, endlessly repeated, TV property search shows they always seem to include a wildcard property that isn't what the "clients" have specified.  You can't help thinking a local estate agent pays for the promotion of a property that isn't an easy sell.

We went to see our wildcard.

Literally, until we parked outside, we were asking ourselves why we were bothering.

It is in a town, on the main road through it. Admittedly it is a very small town. It has a lot of rooms. More than the house we originally downsized from eight years ago. And the garden is just downright odd.



We haven't made a decision yet.  I suppose one thing it has highlighted is how our lives have changed over the last eight years. Back then Issy had empty nest syndrome, especially since I was always working abroad.  Since then the family has grown and continues to grow to the point where we can't find beds for everybody at family events. At some point, we might also need to care for the previous generation. We both now work from home most of the time, and in jobs where confidentiality is important. So we need two rooms we can both lock behind us.

As for modelling...

The ELR would still be restricted to a very short demo line with no practical purpose and only occasional operating days. I might be able to use my 5" portable track to build a circuit for the grandchildren.

Talking of grandchildren, I can certainly fit in a basic 16mm track in a raised bed, and if it has child-sized infrastructure it might pass as an 18" gauge 7/8ths line.

But Peter Jones and my James Hilton locos might have to stay as showcase locos unless they have a home on an indoor layout...

...So there is a large converted attic. A lot of restricted headroom, but even then it is pretty much as big as my current combined office/studio/workshop and I would have a separate office.

The house is somewhere in this photo. And yes, it did once back on to the goods yard

Bearing in mind all the ifs and buts my gut feel is I would have to re-evaluate what would make most sense. 7mm would definitely be back on the cards, even a 7mm version of TAoC. 

Update: Offer made and accepted. Next stop Wem...

Bother

 

To be honest, my actual language has been much stronger.

The day we were due to exchange, having been delayed by a firm of incompetent conveyancers, our buyer pulled out.

So we are back to square one since we will almost certainly have to start house hunting again.

The good news is I've had a good clear out and the skip is nearly full. The bad news is that if we are staying we need some things at the bottom of the skip.

The Final Countdown.

We now have a  date for our move to Shropshire. Unfortunately, a bout of post-Xmas illnesses means we are woefully unready. Today we are very sadly saying goodbye to our feral cats, who are being rehomed. It wouldn't have been fair to move them to a house with a small garden in the middle of a village. It is pretty heartbreaking. One of them is staying with us because she has become my office cat.

My next job is to move the remains of the ELR. Thank goodness I built it so all of it it can be carried by one man.

I'm expecting it to be a long time before trains run again, in any gauge. On the ELR - now the Ercall Light Railway- I'm going to have to rethink coaching stock as well since the ruling radius will be even tighter. Whilst Tug is definitely too big for the line I think I'll need a BE loco as well for the sake of the neighbours.

Back to Xmas. I thought I had escaped the curse of well-meaning presents that are railway tat. My wife disabused me of this on our second Xmas, with the children.

Trying it out for size.

 It is a long time since I dabbled in OOn3. So to get a feel for size I treated myself to a Shapeways purchase. Unfortunately, my wife mistook the opened box for rubbish so before I could come to any conclusion I have to go through the dustbin bags. Not nice, but it did take me back to the days when I would do that as part of my job. At least this time I wasn't trying to reassemble shredded computer printouts in search of frauds...

I think I found most of the parts.

It is a Blanc Misseron . How it is meant to have found its way to Shropshire will require some creative thinking. 

Thoughts on track plans are also developing, and I've identified a possible second site to be modelled. Trawling through old maps to select it has also thrown up a major surprise: An area I've always known as woodland was once watercress beds, and as we all know, watercress beds need an 18" gauge tramway to serve them.

Pico Pogress

 

Can you tell what it is yet?

Stage one of my experimentation is prototyping a very simple interlocking and route indication system. At some point I'm going to have to figure out how to add servo control of the point motors.

It is a new experience for me, combining coding with the logic of external hardware.  When to use a hardware I/O rather than software is something I'll be exploring.

Down another Rabbit Hole

 Anxiety about the house move and the future of the ELR is getting to me. Today Teddy comes home, seven years after his first arrival, and tomorrow I start track lifting.

I had a dreadful dream about it last night, but all is not doom and gloom because the nightmare also included, incongruously, an idea for a micro layout.

Actually, I can see how my unconscious mind came up with the key concept, an on-scene fiddleyard. I've been reading lots of back numbers of Railway Modeller. Fiddleyards were much less common than today. many layouts ran from station to station and had all the track on display. My plans for the Tern Valley have also deliberately avoided identifying the fiddleyard boundary whilst I figure out how to arrange it. I've considered the idea once before, for an HO layout with a car float acting as a side facto fiddleyard. 

I've no idea how the idea in the dream could be made to work, it would certainly involve some visual trickery.

Thinking for the Tern Vally has also progressed

I'm increasingly keen on the idea of access to the foreground goods yard, engine shed, and carriage shed being from the fiddleyard. It was actually part of the original plan in Voie Libre. It would simplify a lot of things and make operation more flexible.

At this stage, the White Rabbit still hasn't made an appearance.

Ah, here he comes, late as always.

When I was a teenager I used to look through the Maplins/Radio Shack catalogue at the electronic components and kits. I never had an actual use for them, apart from once building an electronic dice set.

I also used to spend my lunchtimes coding, initially on punch cards, in the school computer club. Coding played a big part in the early years of my career as a statistician, IT auditor and lecturer.

And then I stopped.

New and very different languages came along, but I had no real reason to learn them. My view of coding was always as a means to an end and I simply didn't need to code anymore.

I must admit that the Raspberry Pi piqued my interest when it appeared, but it was back to the days of the Maplin catalogue. I saw interesting projects, but nothing that would be useful for me.

Recently though I've been thinking about how I'm going to control any future layouts. Especially if any one day expand beyond being micro layouts. My day job means it would be remiss of me not to build in long-term maintainability and resilience. 

DCC seems the obvious answer, or even radio control going forward. But that doesn't solve every problem, and much of my narrow gauge stock will never be DCC.

At the Spalding show I was both impressed with the digital displays on St Ruth, and worried by the number of comments from operators that related to mis-set turnouts and isolating sections. If I ever exhibit a layout it will likely be singlehanded, and that is when you make mistakes.

I'm beginning to think about adopting the MERG CBUS system, or at least elements of it.

And now we follow the rabbit.

So somehow I now own a Pi Pico. Unlike the original Pi which is a computer on a single board, this is an even cheaper microprocessor on a board. How cheap? £5.





I'm still at the playing stage, getting to grips with Micro Python and Thonny  But I can see real potential. In particular, it can control multiple servos for point control, 16 from a single Pico, and integrate with different sensors.

Given that wireless and Bluetooth can both be integrated I'm also wondering about possibilities in the garden. I'm mostly using Loco Remote for the battery locos, but I could imagine using the Pico to change points.