Update - No.28 - 02.03.12
Originally sent as an email to friends and family only in Mar 2012
Hi Guys.....Did you miss me?
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| Man that's cold! |
I
hope you enjoy the photos this time. I thought I'd share some local
wintry scenes (minus 16 degrees....brrrrr!) and some shots taken during
recent trips to Lincoln
and London because I'm told not all of
you are completely engrossed by my photos of ironmongery and wiring. I
personally don't understand how ironmongery doesn't excite people, but I
am a man who listens to his fans and I have even included a shot of a
cute pussy cat for the ladies...ha ha!
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| It's cold in the other direction too |
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| Lincoln re-signalled |
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| Lincoln re-signalled |
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| Tammy |
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| Waterloo of course! |
Poor old Mrs Corky
missed out on the last update and was feeling pretty low. Then Rooster,
during a recent get together, showed Sarah how she could get the Corkscrew-Lines
updates via her clever, swanky phone!...You can see her delight at
being able to keep up to speed with ironmongery and baseboard
developments at any time wherever she is. You'll also see how Lesley's
face lit up when I told her the next update was only a couple of weeks
away...Dreadful! Don't forget I'm only here to serve all you wonderful Corkettes!
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| "Oh look, it's the Corkscrew-Lines on the internet...fantastic!" |
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| Lesley is so happy to be a Corkette! |
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| Hellfire - Wibble reporting for duty! |
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| Wibble's new toy! |
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| Tractor power - load 13...What a beast! |
Construction Progress - Taming The Helix - Helix Tamed!!
Phase one of the helix from the storage level to level 2 is now complete and functioning perfectly my friends. Oh yes, the very heart of the Corkscrew-Lines is beating strongly with a full 5 turns of double track main line now installed.
Does it work?.....Can typical trains climb it without incurring a hernia?.....Oh yes, it's a complete success.....Dreadful, Oh my Lords, Hellfire, and definitely - Phew!
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| The Helix with 4 turns added - Nice! |
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| The Corkmeister Himself deep within his lair! |
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| Test running with the first Helix phase completed...Groovy! |
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| Round and round it goes...deep joy! |
New Arrivals on the Corkscrew-Lines
Those Corkettes who have good memories (and actually read these updates....lol) will no doubt remember I waxed lyrically over a wonderful preserved W&M railbus last year which I travelled on during the North Norfolk Railway diesel gala. Well, at last, the Heljan model of a similar machine has now been released and one is sitting in the layout room waiting to be chipped for DCC. First impressions are nothing but good....it's gorgeous, and oh my word, it's heavy. You'll see her in the photos and hopefully she'll be trundling around the Corkscrew-Lines in a few days time.
I sold 5 Heljan class 52 "Westerns" recently via Ebay and made quite a healthy profit. I don't think everybody realises a new state of the art model of a Western is due shortly from Dapol and my expected low interest in these elderly Heljan models never actually materialised. I decided to start a rolling program of upgrading my loco fleet with the installation of improved DCC chips and the fitting of Kadee couplers. Using the cash from the Westerns I have purchased a small batch of DCC chips to evaluate and test before I settle on a standard chip for my fleet. You can see the chips in the photos along with another piece of DCC hardware....a Tam Valley Hex Frog Juicer - yes, it really is called that, I kid you not! This is my second Frog Juicer and a wonderful piece of kit it is too. This clever little box of tricks automatically detects and then cancels the short circuit which is inevitable when you have balloon loops on a layout as I do and the outside rail becomes the inner rail. I can now proceed and produce a second "portable" balloon loop which will let me begin continuous running so I can just watch the trains go by....again and again and again!
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| Railcars, Couplers & Chips...Yummy |
A big thank you to my oldest friend, and my best mate at school - Mark Lyons. I've known Mark since the late 1970's and in our teens we travelled all over the country chasing trains and buses like there was no tomorrow. We took literally thousands of colour transparencies and black and white photos and then spent hours suffocating ourselves on developer and fixer chemicals in makeshift darkrooms under the stairs....those were the days! I've just started the process of scanning all my early photographs and I found one shot of Mark posing next to a wonderful road sign in Scotland in 1987. Check out the totally bemused Allegro driver in the background...priceless!
Thanks for all the great memories Mark and I'm delighted you are now embarking on a model railway project of your own (East Devon in the 1950's.....good choice) so I'm looking forward to numerous running days to come.
In the next thrilling instalment...
As I touched on in the new arrivals section, my next move will be to construct another "northern" balloon loop so trains can climb the helix and then descend it without having to stop or be run-round. The northern loop will be movable as I progress up and around the room being nudged forwards again and again as the scenic sections are completed. Watch this space my little lovelies....Hellfire!
That's all for now folks!!
Corky
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