A layout in progress, slow progress...

You were lucky Keith, you were not alone when you decided to go for look at the ground...

A few years back I did the same thing, landed on the ground two or three times over a couple of days, absolutely no idea what was happening at the time and pretty disconcerting. Several checks by the doctors found no explanation and fortunately have not had any re occurance over the past 8 years or so.

Not good news Keith. Could the initial fall be down to blood pressure dropping? I used to pass out as A teenager due to this. Here's hoping the concussion symptoms aren't long lasting. Get well soon.

Hi Keith.  I can only emphasise with you, believe me I have been there, more times than one could imagine, I usually end up looking like a black and white minstrel, or after going several rounds with Henry Cooper.Best wishes Kevin

Hi Keith,
 
I'm very sorry to hear of your unfortunate tumble and hope the damage is now fading. The reasons for the fall will be more troubling for you and Margaret, but hopefully the medics will monitor you and continue to find you able to carry on regardless!
 
Good to see you posting again and the timetable progressing after so many postponed services.
 
Take care of yourself and those closest to you and enjoy your marvellous railway.
 
Best,
 
Scouser Bill

:cheers

Hope you're feeling better Keith.Take things easy for a while mate.The layout will still be there when you get back to it, most important thing is your health.
Cheers,John.B.:thumbs

Wow - sorry to hear you took a tumble Keith.  Could you have tripped on a tree root or even a protruding stone ?

I knew nothing about my fall off a ladder a few years ago but I understand shock can do funny things to one and is not necessarily immediate.  Hopefully, it was just one of those unexplained events but best to be checked out.

As others have said,  take things easy until everything settles down again - John has promised the layout will still be there… :cool wink

Keith - more T in the G&T perhaps  

Seriously, take care and make sure that, during your recouperation, there are plenty of Rock Ferry stoppers, through freights and light engine movements to deal with. I hear that they are the sort of thing that speed any recovery!!

Barry

Sincere thanks everybody for the good wishes, much appreciated by both of us.

Strange times here as this concussion slowly, if somewhat erratically, subsides and the real world starts to take over. Looks like it is going to be at least fifteen days rather than the ten originally suggested.

Did manage a short session in the loft yesterday afternoon, a good ‘therapy session’, but all those switches were a bit much for my still slightly frazzled grey cell, and it is also right at the start of the rush hour which is a test for the grey cell at the best of times. Progress was really slow, even slower than usual, but at least a few trains moved. I hope to have another go later today.

Onwards and upwards, well perhaps onwards and sideways will have to do for now…..

Keith

I think I mentioned on here that I had a fair old crack on the head when I fell off my trailer when I was driving lorries. This was back on 2006/7 and I tried too early to get back to normal = more falls, luckily no further damage done, but I did end up with benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV) I've still got it so like me, take no chances. While it's good to get a bit of relaxation in the loft, don't go up or down on your own. You never know what's going to happen next. Lecture over and apologies for carrying on, but I know what can go wrong.

  S’mae Pete

  Apologies totally unnecessary, and thanks for the advice.  I do have a rail and bannister to use when getting up to the loft, so it is just about idiot-proof.
  While things are starting to very slowly improve here, in my current ‘spaced out’ state I am acutely aware that ‘back to normal’ is still quite some way away.

  Keith

Sorry to hear about your fall and that recovery is a bit slow Keith. Hopefully things will improve dramatically for you as the weather improves and you can get back out into the garden to tackle the missus’s list…. ah… Sorry…. get back into the loft and get that timetable running again I mean 

Chin up.

  Right second time Marty!


  Keith

  Meanwhile, as I continue in my improving disconnected state - if that makes sense - I noticed that Hattons had a few of the first batch of the Dapol Churchward Moguls available again. I missed this model when first released, by the time I got around to placing an order they had sold out, so this time I did get my order placed, and it is now safely tucked away in my ‘trunk’, and should arrive here next week sometime once I have added a couple of additional items to the order. I know that there is an improved version in the pipeline, but the original will do fine for me.  This is mainly for the forthcoming ’56 run of the timetable which I hope to start as soon as the current timetable is completed. For most of the ‘50s there were around ten of these engines in the Birkenhead area – well three at Birkenhead and seven at Chester West – but the Wrexham examples were still to be seen in the Chester area and very occasionally Birkenhead into the early 60s – so it might well get a run before the ’56 timetable is started. I really should make a start on the green bits before thinking about the ’56 timetable, there again there are lots of things I really should do…  Just a few more bits and pieces to add to my order, when I can get the grey cell firing properly, and the Mogul will be on the way. 



  Keith

Great to hear your are recovering well Keith and ready to come off the bench ready for the starting 15  :thumbs. (Sorry, I am also a Rugby tragic!)
I have one, probably silly Aussie question, but was does "S’mae" stand for/mean? :hmm

Cheers, Andrew
 :cheers

S’mae Andrew

I reckon once they saw me the other 14 would be looking elsewhere…. apologies for the delay, we’ve finally got some decent weather here, so I can get on with some ‘outside’ jobs……

It is Welsh, just a general greeting rather like ‘Hi’. When we moved here back in 1999 we decided that we should learn the language, all the real locals here are first language Welsh speakers. Having become fairly fluent, and although my Welsh has more than a hint of Scouse, we were teaching Welsh (introductory levels) at night school. Then along came my heart attack, and everything changed – the teaching stopped and the following year work on Woodside started.

Keith

  The Dapol mogul duly arrived, first impressions not that good – the tender coupling was loose in the box, as was one of the front buffers, and the front vacuum brake pipe is an odd shape with the end painted in the buffer beam red, not sure about that. The shape is somewhat reflected in the line drawing on the cover of the Owner’s manual, but the line drawings on the box lid show the more standard shape. The buffers do seem to be quite a slack fit on the front buffer beam and I suspect that I may well be adding some adhesive to the buffers. That said the actual model is really very impressive…. but such fine detail, and it really is fine, is perhaps not best suited to my less than nimble 'Railroad' fingers. Confirmed when I attempted to reshape the front brake pipe, holding the front of the loco…. I broke one of the boiler stays. I fancy that commendable as such fine detail is, it is not really suitable for Woodside or its operator - I dread to think what will break next if for some reason the loco derails in one of the more inaccessible parts of the layout and has to be ‘rescued’ by hand. I'll just have to try to ensure that that doesn't happen.

  The manual details a comprehensive list of spare parts available for the model, which is very good – so I have ordered a couple of sets of boiler stays, just in case, and a spare pair of buffers. Turning out to be an expensive engine already…. and it hasn’t made a revenue earning trip yet! That may well change if the Hall, currently on 6C, inexplicably morphs into the Mogul, before returning South to Granby and Shrewsbury with the milk empties later in the evening.

  Keith

The mogul saga continues…. The spares arrived promptly, and comparing the new buffers with the original very loose buffer it is clear that some of the red plastic surrounding the back of the original buffer is missing – hence the loose fit. New one is fine, but a disappointing start for the mogul.

Tried the new boiler stay, but managed to break the first two, and then settled for a decidedly iffy job of gluing the two pieces together in situ, rather than breaking any more – my patience, not my strongest point at the best of times, had long since expired. Surprisingly, after a couple of failed attempts, it looked better than I had expected, so it may well become one of those temporary repairs with a fairly long shelf life. I did e-mail Dapol to ask about fitting the stay.… somewhat unexpected response that neither the factory nor their service agents had any experience of this, and no method of doing it suggested. Looking at the stay I think that the top lug which fits into the base of the smokebox is overly long – easy to locate the end of the top lug of the stay in hole at the base of the smokebox, but with restricted space you need to turn the stay through quite an angle to get the whole of the lug through the hole…. it is while trying to do this the breakages occur. Anyone out there who has fitted one of these stays, please let me know how! Before I do make another attempt with the second packet of stays I think the top lug needs to be trimmed back somewhat to avoid stressing the stay again. I can’t really see the need for such a long lug, the lower lug which fits into a hole on the buffer beam is sufficient to hold the stay in place. Further thoughts on this, a possible reason is that the stay is fitted into the smokebox before the buffer beam is attached in the original assembly process. Suffice to say my enthusiasm for the mogul has waned somewhat, but I fancy the mogul may well appear on the Granby milk empties.

For now at least, I’ve got a railway to run…. once all this good weather ends and I can get back in the loft of course ….at least the forecast is starting to look a little more promising!

Keith

Would it be worth not only shortening the lug, but reducing the thickness with a modellers flat file? Doing this might make it possible to twist without binding and snapping. I mention this because only yesterday, I did just this with the hand rail posts on the signal box that I've just finished. They wouldn't easily go in to the pre drilled holes in the planking around the box.

S’mae Pete


I had thought about filing down the lug, but given the size of the stay (less than 1mm diameter) I wasn’t all that confident of doing that without losing a couple more stays in the process. In the end I settled for keeping the stay flat on the workbench so then I could file a couple of flats on opposite ‘sides’ of the stay.  Additionally there is also reducing the size of the lug to about one third the original size. When the stay reaches the top of the priority queue, I’ll do both – just to be on the safe side. For now I’m getting quite used to the ‘slightly bent’ stay on the mogul …. and if I ensure any photos of the mogul are only taken from the good side and/or at a suitale distance, I may well leave it for a month or three. As I’ve said many times before, I’ve got a railway to run….. if only the weather was on my side!



Keith