My new project - Baymouth Town and Baymouth Quay

[Bealman]

I agree, and it's really just a simple matter of posting it in the general section.

[Bob G]

Thank you everyone for your kind words.

It's hard stopping work and retiring. You feel a little bit worthless. I'm struggling with that.

I had thought that I had chosen the right place for this Orribly Oversized thread, but if you think there is a better place, then fine. But I don't feel drawn to add anything to it any more, right now.

The NGS Helpline Coordinator role ends up being you doing it all. The only person I'm coordinating is myself. It's easy if you are talking DC, but DCC is not yet my forte, and I hope that I actually learn something playing with DCC sound in OO. I've never wired up points with dropper wires or used slow action point switches either, so that's new too. I had thought that everyone could benefit from my learnings, especially as this is effectively "from scratch". But it doesn't matter now. 

Currently, my whole heart is affected by the lack of fairness and the level of bullying and cruelty there is in the world. I gave up my Pilates class before Christmas because the trainer wasn't making any concessions for my abilities (I've replaced it with Syston MRS and their local chip shop).

When we went to the Caribbean before Christmas, I deleted LinkedIn from my phone so that, just in case the US immigration looked, they would not find my support for Ukraine and disdain for the current administration. The idea that on a whim, I could have been turned round, terrifies me.

Driving to TINGS last year, a wannabe vigilante filmed me sitting in the middle lane of the M69. The vigilante made it known on his dash cam video that he didn't like BMW drivers, sent the film to the police, and they wrote to me indicating they would prosecute me for spending more than 30 seconds in the middle lane without pulling in. After a written statement and last week a voluntary interview, I have accepted a training course to help me improve my driving. I will have to be good for 3 ½ years or I can still be charged for the original offence. I wonder if the vigilante, whose dash cam footage showed him eventually overtaking me at 75, was let off his offence by reporting my offence? Or is it now allowed to exceed the speed limit to overtake?

It's like Minority Report. I am now scared to go out of the house, imagining all the surveillance on me, from people you would not even expect to be filming you. When we got a video doorbell, a few years ago now, there was a huge fuss being made about making sure you didn't video beyond your property boundary, because that was an infringement of people's civil liberties (and I don't want to have videos of all those dogs and their walkers weeing on my garden wall). Now, when there was a recent burglary three doors down, the police asked us if we had any video footage of the burglars in the street. I don't like the way the world is going at all.

So, because I'm feeling out of sorts with the world, please no more jokes about my height or weight, or even my straying into the world of OO.

Oh, and things like lighting circuits and switches break in OO too, just in case you thought it just happened in N.

Thanks again to those on here who have found time to send me messages of support, both here and in my PMs. It is truly appreciated.

[Newportnobby]

Topic moved to General Discussion as suggested

[Cols]

I am so very pleased to see this thread preserved and moved to General Discussion, after all I understand that this section of the Forum is set aside for a wider range of topics other than those more directly related to our Gentleman's Scale.  Frankly, I am intolerant of folks who are intolerant of the good efforts of others - more power to your elbow Bob G! There are enough bullies in this world as it is, without them rearing their ugly heads and shouting on this excellent Forum! Keep us up to date Bob G!

Rant over!!

I, for one, will be interested to see how Bob G gets on with his new project - it doesn't matter what scale it's in, after all he's currently talking about baseboards and so forth... and in any case, most model railway techniques and principles are universal regardless of scale/gauge! I'll be quite curious to see how the third-rail aspect will be tackled (and, yes, I do know that Peco make the relevant bits).  When I was planning my own N-Gauge layout, called Trewenn, my son, on learning that it was going to be a joint Western/Southern Region layout, became quite curious as to how I was going to deal with the conductor rail - and when I said that Trewenn was set in North Cornwall, where the third rail never went, he seemed quite disappointed; my other excuse is that I'm trying very hard not to invoke "Rule One"... So far, so (fairly) good!