Want to show my Union Mills 4-6-0 Prince of Wales Enchantress Red Livery operating on my layout and I'm too much of a luddite. Can't figure it out.

**Edit**

Just pasted this link to my YouTube. 

https://youtu.be/EHpFk23DwJc?si=8XkaHMrnycFfNuLA

Quote from: Newportnobby on January 17, 2026, 08:49:12 AM

Quote from: kusojiji on January 17, 2026, 07:40:39 AMAll you guys with all them passports! Kinda like a spy movie! 

Yeah - I can imagine @Bealman lifting up a floorboard and fetching out ½ a dozen passports before deciding who he's going to be - Aussie, British, Sunderland or summat else

The longer I think about this, the funnier it gets. Back in the day, you did need a passport to get into Roker Park.

These days, of course, there's a new bridge over the river to the Stadium of You-know-what

Mrs B's birthday yesterday. No, I didn't take her to Maccas! Local Indian restaurant. Lamb vindaloo. Yummy!

Because I was his science teacher. Fairy nuff, methinks 

I had to look up South Molle Island. I wondered if it was a penitentiary.
How come you got that trip when the student won the prize?

I had a similar problem in 1990, when my parents died suddenly and I had to return. I've told this story before on the forum, but briefly:

My passport had expired. I got emergency travel document from British Consulate here. Got to Heathrow, where they let me in but took it.

Did all the funeral stuff in NE England. Needed new passport to get back here. Trip back to London by bus to get new passport. One week, sir.

Trip back to NE. Trip back to London, running short of time. Got passport. Then off to Australia house to get re-entry visa. Sorry sir, you'll have to prove you live and work there.

Thankfully a student of mine had won a competition by BHP Coal that year, and I had a huge poster of the two of us at Cordeaux colliery in NSW! That worked.

Nevertheless, it was a stressful three weeks, tempered by a week on South Molle Island when I got back - prize the student won in the BHP competition!

I have both N and G (and some HO too). N allows more realistic track plans and the construction of scenery. G stands for grand as well as garden! I especially love watching the valve gear in motion on my ten-wheeler steam locomotive (see below).

The two gauges have quite different appeals. One is inside and the other can be installed outside so they needn't compete with one another for space or interest. If my wife would let me (but she won't), I'd have a G railway right round the back yard and still maintain a full N scale setup.

Scott, I'd go for both, honestly.

Webbo

Quote from: Bealman on January 17, 2026, 04:46:53 AMAll this talk about passports prompted me to look at mine. It expired on the 7th January! It's a UK one and it is a pain getting a new one. As I am not an Aussie citizen (permanent resident) I have to get a re-entry visa which is a hassle and expensive.

I became an Aussie citizen, when my job at the time required security clearance for a particular project, that coupled with the government at the time threatening non-citizens they would have to pay the full price for university, and my eldest about to embark on that journey.

Ironically, I still travelled for a few years on my British passport with the permanent residents visa, until one day, just after returning home for a trip, I was asked to go on another overseas business trip, only to find my visa would expire before I was due to return.

So off I went to the government office to renew said visa, only to be eventually told I could only get an emergency permanent residents return visa at an exorbitant cost as I was expected to have an Aussie passport. The emergency visa was some $500 and a single use, where the new passport was something like $250 at the time.

Next morning into passport office, and the following morning return for Aussie passport pick up.

So after almost 20yrs with no UK passport, I now have to get one so I can go and see the family.

I did explore the other options and found this youtube video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbWd0jKsiXA
explaining it, and from this you can see why the UK passport is the best option for me.

As you head towards 60 O and G scale trains are a lot easier to see.

The downside is that you can't sneak one in when the wife isn't looking quite so easily

I know a retired ambulance officer who started in N (and introduced me to the local N gauge club back in the nineties), but he switched to G and has never gone back to N. In fact he has a G gauge layout which he takes to many exhibitions!

To me, they're just big shiny plastic toys, I'm afraid.