petes blog

SVR had a flying pig out in the sun shine for all to see. The tender was built by us at Crewe. The loco will be out in a couple of weeks.

6201 Getting ready for the week end at Crewe and number 9 thats not going any where.

If you set yourself up on a model railway web forum as an expert the first thing you should understand is the market  you’re talking about. Thats pretty fundemental.  I have been astounded by some of the stuff I have seen in the last few weeks. There seems to be lots of experts after the fact, although they’re never there when you need them,  but they’re always there to tell you you got it wrong. For instance take a recent review of our Guv. The main critism being we’d missed the chalk board – which we had. It took us less than 20 minutes to correct this and dispatch the required parts – job done! Now thanks to that review all modellers get a better model, but it still begs the question on why the reviewer didn’t speak directly to us to tell us about the error so we could put it right.  He could then put it in his article and everyone would be a winner.

With the diesels we have always worked with people like Brian Daniels who tell us about the product as we go along,  not after weve done it.  We always show photos of work  as we’re making it and a quick email puts us right.

Now the big thing that has to be kept in mind is how many can we sell. Take the full brks, firsts and restaurant/buffets cars  – they dont sell. So what do we do?  Never do them, or do the bodies and what we think is right for the running gear? And then work with the modellers who want them so others can get them spot on. As more people model these items so they come together it would be impossible to do some of these coaches if we tried to do it like Hornby.  We may sell 6 -  they may sell 60k. JLTRT is not Hornby, 7mm is not 4mm. If you want to open the box and place it on the track dont come to us.

We are modellers and have been so for 50 years. Stop carping and start to help others, its not about you, its about taking the hobby forward.

A turn as fireman at the SVR on the 22nd of Aug. Fun fun fun.

Here’s some photos for you from this weekend which saw an 100 years of the Garratts in Manchester . I also popped into Tescos in Gorton  –  amazing what you can get with your points card!  

The photo shows the worlds oldest Garratt back at the factory where it was made 100 years ago to the day. Even though the factory closed in 1966 it looks just like the workers have walked out the door for lunch. Next stop was Texcos car park – where we stayed for 45 mins so the local people could see what their grand fathers worked on – it was packed,  including a lady, who at 80, started in the war on the big drop hammer making the rods.

The Manchester Museum of Science and Industry had around 15000 visitors over the week end. Every little helps! After Tesco the loco was taken to the Peacock Church where wreaths were laid in the maysoleum and  there was was minutes silence.

Over the past few weeks there have been a spate of incidents on the railway of dropped plugs. What shocks me is the lack of concern there seems to be about it. A dropped plug is a disaster,  yes a disaster. Let’s  say why for all those who have never worked on steam but love to see them. We have not had a loco boiler explosion for over 60 years so there’s no one still around who knows what it  looks like. So Read on. The explosion of the boiler on the steamboat  Sultana’s in 1865 was the largest loss of life in US maritime history. On March 18th 1912 a loco of the Galveston,Harrisburg and San Antonio Railway waiting outside of  its shed in San Antonia to go on to a train exploded. It killed between 26 to 40 people and injured upwards of 60 including non railroad persons. This was a conservative estimate. The reason why the numbers were vague is because of the mutilation of the bodies. The body parts were spread over a mile. Parts of the engine including a 1600lbs piece of boiler were hurled 270ft in the air and propelled over a quarter of a mile away from the explosion. The shockwave from this completely flattened all of the buildings in the immediate vacinity. Civilian deaths were caused by shrapnel and flying debris from their own homes, such as flying glass, and the roof of one house which was hit by a portion of the crown plate. This is what happens when a boiler explodes. The first part of this explosion in the UK is the dropping of a plug. This is not a safety device but a warning of what’s about to happen. Dropping a fusable plug on a steam locomotive is a serious crime. We have to get through to all volunteer crews across the UK the responsibility of the lives of the people around them. Being a volunteer is no excuse for not understanding the job, just because it hasn’t happened before doesn’t mean we dont have to be vigilent.

A WORD TO ALL LOCO CREWS – WATCH THE WATER LEVEL

Ive been every where man so the song goes. Thats not  factually right but will do. Still getting mail on the Word of warning blog £9 for a child on a Thomas trip well it seems a little heavy.