Indoctrinating children

[chadbag]

On 6/22/2019 at 11:04 AM, railsquid said:

The Squidlet's unprompted freelance attempt at an elevated station with attached biru in Plarail, Lego (Duplo), wooden blocks and whatever else comes to hand, which is IMHO not bad bearing in mind he's only 4-and-a-half (though purists might object to the Toden tram as a leading car in the E257 formation).

 

 

 

 

That is awesome!  I assume the station bit itself is a Plarail item?

 

[railsquid]

1 hour ago, chadbag said:

I assume the station bit itself is a Plarail item?

 

 

Correct.

 

The roof is in the way but the platform is nicely but robustly detailed, reminiscent of a Tomix N scale one, which is hardly surprising I guess.

[railsquid]

What's going on here?

 

 

Oh, just a couple of preschoolers pulling a 65-tonne train...

 

 

 

 

[maihama eki]

Advertisement for Japanese wheel bearings.

[marknewton]

Sometimes it's not just the kids that need indoctrination:

My wife Paula borrowed our mock-up tram cab to display at her depot family day tomorrow.

 

Although it doesn't hurt to give them some:

 

Sydney R1 car 1979 is in the workshop with its trucks removed for some scheduled maintenance.

 

The two Sydney O class cars 805 and 1111 will be running as a coupled set on Sunday for the Transport Heritage NSW group visit, so we took the opportunity to couple them up this evening and make sure that everything works. It did, which says a lot for the quality of the design and manufacture of these two old girls. 805 was built in 1909, and 1111 in 1912. The O class was numerically the largest class to run on the Sydney tramway, with 626 cars in total. Only six cars survive in preservation, 5 here in Sydney and 1 in Oregon in the US, of all places.

 

Cheers,

 

Mark.

 

[Martijn Meerts]

That O class is great.. I wonder how fast it'd get banned with current safety standards (read: idiot-proofing)

[cteno4]

Well there is still the San Francisco cable cars where you can hang out into the streets on the steps and grab bars! That on streets that if you were to fall off you might roll 6 or 7 blocks down into the bay! It really is amazing there are not more accidents with them. As it is, though, I think it is pretty high accident rate. Really is like how dangerous and potentially out of control system could we design for some really steep hills. It really is an amazing system, a couple of great school trips going down into the cable ways and propulsion stations. Use to be fun driving my 64 VW bug up some of those hills to a stop sign. You get very good using the emergency brake.
 

I have treasured memories as a kid riding the cable cars on the outside with wild abandon. Those days locals hopping on and off for a few blocks (especially up a bad hill) was well tolerated. It’s something to go over the edge from a flat street crossing down a hill hanging off the side, kind of like riding a roller coaster on the outside of the car and also having vehicles coming at you wizzing by!

 

jeff

[marknewton]

On 10/11/2019 at 12:52 AM, Martijn Meerts said:

That O class is great.. I wonder how fast it'd get banned with current safety standards (read: idiot-proofing)

The Os are beautiful cars in every respect. The passengers like their open compartments, and the crews like their big wheels and powerful traction motors.
 

At one stage the regulator wasn't going to allow us to operate crossbench cars like the O on the National Park line because it crosses the highway. They were concerned that someone might fall out and be struck by a car. So we pointed out that the centre compartments have doors, and the end compartments have offside boarding prevention bars that can be lowered. And we also pointed out that the biggest risk was to the conductor, riding on the footboards. They spent a day observing our operations and agreed that the risk was minimal. For once common sense prevailed.

 

Cheers,

 

Mark.

Edited October 20, 2019 by marknewton

[marknewton]

Jeff,

 

I envy you for having ridden the cable lines in those days. That must have been a memorable experience. I've only visited SF briefly when the Muni donated a PCC car to our museum. It was all a bit of a rush, and I only managed one ride on the California St line. I did have a run with the Hiroshima car, so that was a bonus.

 

Cheers,

 

Mark.

[marknewton]

Over the weekend the Campbelltown Steam and Machinery Museum held an open day at their Menangle site. Harry and I went out on Sunday with my mate Dave and his son. There was something for everyone there - a narrow gauge railway, traction engines and rollers, vintage cars, trucks, tractors, motorcycles and military vehicles. There was even a Russian-designed, Chinese-built crawler tractor. 

 

The boys got some quality footplate time on the little Hudson 0-4-0WT courtesy of our friend Greg, and a run around the grounds in a 1960s Toyota truck. As you can see, we had a great day.

 

 

 

 

All the days photos are here:

https://www.flickr.com/gp/184841369@N08/0671r2

 

Cheers,

 

Mark.

 

 

Edited October 20, 2019 by marknewton

[marknewton]

Today the Sydney Bus Museum held an event to commemorate the 30th anniversary of Leyland Leopard buses being withdrawn from government service in Sydney. Their collection includes the first and the last Leopards delivered, so it was a good opportunity to get them out and give them a run. Harry and I made the trip over to Leichhardt and met up with my mate Ben and godson Elliot. Ben's been involved with bus preservation for many years, and came dressed for the occasion in Public Transport Commission uniform. The boys had fun, and so did Harry and Elliot! 😂

 

The prototype Leopard, known as "Mr Whippy".

 

Production Mk.1 Leopard.

 

P

Mk.2 Leopard.

The boys.

 

Some old baldy bloke...

 

Cheers,

 

Mark.

Edited November 3, 2019 by marknewton

[marknewton]

My son Harry had his first day of training as a conductor at the Sydney Tramway Museum today. I thought it would be best for him if I wasn't hovering in the background, so I handed him over to the traffic crew and then went about my own duties. I spent the day working on the steam tram and he worked the service trams under the supervision of our crew trainer Scott. Scott reckons he did very well, so this is a proud dad post! 🙂

 

 

 

 

Meanwhile, various projects are on the go in the workshop.  
 

 

Cheers,

 

Mark.

 

 

 

[cteno4]

Congrats Harry! Man he’s growing up fast!

 

jeff

[marknewton]

Yes, Jeff, I wonder where the time went sometimes. On Sunday my mate Ian took Harry and I for a run in his beautiful Kombi camper van to a vintage Volkswagen owners get-together at the beach at Ramsgate on Botany Bay. There was an amazing variety of Beetles, Kombis, Karman Ghias and other VW vehicles there. I'd never been to anything like it, and what really impressed me was how friendly the people we met there were. Everyone we met was happy to share their stories, knowledge and their "toys". I even scored a ride in a Karman Ghia! I think we've both become VW fans...

 

 

 

 

As well as the VWs there was this BMW Isetta "bubble car". The young bloke that owned it told us that it wasn't the most practical car he had, but it was a great conversation starter! 
 

Cheers,

 

Mark.

Edited November 25, 2019 by marknewton

[cteno4]

The grandnephew was over for trains n Turkey (ok we had japanese food — loves sushi and turkey will be tommorow). This is what it looks like after 5 hrs of play. I let him do most all of it by himself and nothing broken! Not bad for 7. Bit of a mess to clean up for big tall jeff...

 

jeff

[Martijn Meerts]

I just realised, I know exactly which part of the house that is 😉

 

[cteno4]

Nice that you were able to visit and remember that! 
 

jeff

[marknewton]

One of the trams in our collection at the Sydney Tramway Museum is Melbourne Y1 car 611, seen here this afternoon with our young trainee conductors. That's me with Harry on the left. I'd replaced some brake shoes and wound the slack adjuster in on the car, so we took it for a trial trip to the National Park afterwards.

 

 

Cheers,

 

Mark.

 

 

[kevsmiththai]

our Brooklyns first rail video. Not a bad attempt with my spare Panasonic HVC 500. Just need to stop him waving it about too quickly!

 

 

I'm taking him to Lancaster station on the West Coast main line over the Christmas holiday so he can practice on pendolinos and our (DRS) intermodal trains whilst his mom and grandma go shopping in town

 

Kev

[Sean]

The Hilton Hotel in Nagoya has a really good model railway they set up in the lobby at Christmas/New Years every year.  Its free to the public and if you are ever in Nagoya over the holidays I recommend stopping by.  Took my kids there last week and they really loved it.

Edited January 8, 2020 by Sean

[cteno4]

A friend just texted me his little boy learning to talk just said pantograph! They were looking at a train at ueno station and he said where panda giraffe? Matthew thought he was asking about the zoo there but realized he didn’t know there was a zoo there and panda giraffe was pantograph! 
 

I am now going to call them panda giraffes from now on.

 

jeff

[Sheffie]

My daughter recently became aware of the layout. For a four year old she’s doing very well at behaving around the trains. The first car she touched was I think a WaMu 1 which immediately fell off the track, and since then she’s been very careful. 

 

It’s early days, but I’m optimistic. 

 

[Martijn Meerts]

Time for some painted trains 😉

[cteno4]

She will get it! I started my grand nephew out at her age with my Ttrak and some supervision and every year it’s less and less supervision. By 6 he was rerailing cars and doing great, just hard to remember the fine details there in things can break off and not like the rest of his toys (definitely not the battle bots!), but consistent and pleasant reminding and encouragement have helped loads! 
 

glad to see she is enjoying it all! Maybe a little plarail to get her more indoctrinated?!
 

jeff

[railsquid]

Trainwatching in the time of the coronavirus.