Today on the CFHC

Have a great weekend.

clive_t wrote:

GWhizz wrote:

So time for one last dip in the pool before heading to meet him and Pierre at Angouleme

You can go off people, you know!!!

I jest, of course - can I make my now traditional request for plenty of pictorial evidence of good times being had by all, etc.

You'll just have to get organised and get over here and join in the fun!

I imagine it's not at all easy with your work and family commitments!

So we'll just keep the pics coming and up the jealousy stakes

I hope you all have a great day

Well...It's Saturday the 15th, its 08.00 (a third of the way through the day)...Any pictures yet?

Don't think you'll hear much from Brian and Laurent this morning, Carl - they're too busy playing!

Caroline

Have spent some time customising my Playmobil coaches to bring them into line with my Edrig ..

Respray coach dark red and roof black


Chopped the Playmo handles off the seats and relocated
before...

after


and painted the buffers


I think they look a bit less toylike now?

Yep, I'd say they were getting there. I have one such coach myself, the body of which is now grounded, but still awaiting some sort of re-work.

Is that a chopper coupling at the end of the painted one? How easy was that to fit?

Hi Clive
Yes a chopper to couple with the Edrig.
I found you could remove the whole axle assembly and reverse it so no cutting.
Then with two holes drilled in the buffer beam the chopper coupling was a doddle to fit.
A ten minute job!

Had a very pleasant late night interlude. Berthe one of our French neighbours came round with her grandchidren Ryan and Sara

They both soon got the hang of the controllers and we had the Mallet and the Stainz running around for half an hour or so!

Kids just love the sound of the locos and the fact they can operate it all remotely.

Shame they couldn't make it last Saturday, they would have been great company for Pierre.

That's an intriguing photo Brian. Their expressions of concentration.

Out of curiosity does this local French family originate from your area? Are they true Charentais including the grandchildren?

The don't look Parisien!

How do they get on with you and vice versa and what do the children's parents and grandparents do for a living?

The concentration comes from them having just been shown which buttons operate which sounds on their respective locos. They were having great fun with station announcements, horns, squealing brakes and whistles. this is where the play value of digital comes into it's own!

My neighbour Berthe must be well into her late 60's and she's she's a local girl born and bred. She was telling me that she was born in a house next to the Charente River which is now underwater when the area was flooded to create our two huge local lakes " Les Lacs de Haute Charente"
More interestingly she remembers the branch line that went from Montbron to Montembouef and the steam trains that ran on it! Apparrently where our local decheterie is now sited was a coaling and water station. I shall investigate further.

As to the kids ethnicity I'm not sure, their mother Sandrine (Berthe's daughter) was born locally but educated in Paris and the kids certainly have her good looks. I've only glimpsed the father once and he certainly has some colouring - North African maybe. Anyway they are two super kids and Ryan is coming this morning to see the live steamer.

Berthe is estranged from her husband and retired, keeps chicken, ducks and sheep and an excellent Potager. Caro and her operate a kind of vegetable exchange that keeps us both in fresh veg.

The visit last night was to present me two lamb chops from her latest sheep cull.

That's life in the Charente for you!

Great story, thanks.

At least they didn't present you with some chevaline!

The Rougier's returned thhis morning for more playing ...

The fat controller, Berthe, Sandrine, Sara & Ryan


Ryan loves the Mallet ...


Sara would rather play with the dogs ...

Unusual for French kids not to have traditional french names, but nice looking family!
BTW did you know theres a grey squirrel attacking your chin Brian?

Mikey

mikeyh wrote:

Unusual for French kids not to have traditional french names, but nice looking family!
BTW did you know theres a grey squirrel attacking your chin Brian?

Mikey

The names are my phoenetic intepretation I don't know how to spell them properly. Anyway they are not French - Egyptian origin apparently, the names that is!

As for that squirrel, if I catch it, I'll skin the bas***d, fancy ruining a nice photo like that!

Actually if you've got any of that Sepia dye handy, I could try colouring it!

I've spent a happy hour or so creating a new page on my website for pics of visitors.
Unsurprisingly many of you are featured! Though you'll have seen many of the pics on this forum anyway!

Dont worry about it Brian, its the 'distinguished' look. Whenever i've tried to grow a beard its a mixture of ginger and grey!!

Mikey

Being a lovely evening with good light, I took a few night shots this evening - these are the best of about 70 trial and error shots with different manual camera settings...

I liike no 5 best but they are all good!

mikey

Very nice Brian, number 3 is my fave - it looks like snow.

Nice photos Brian. I must get some lights sorted out !!!

Thanks for the comments guys - I think the real trick here, is that it was far from dark when I took these - still dusk and overriding the automatic and stopping down the lens to get darker pictures. And No 5 was from track level Mike.

I'm going to try again tonight and see if I can get a "steam" shot !

Some great shots there Brian - especially the two down at track level.

Getting "night" shots of steam is going to be very challenging. Of course I should have realised that steam won't show up in silhouette against the night sky and my previous techniques won't work.

Another problem is actually producing enough steam to see - the warm dry evenings although fantastic are not conducive to good steam production. I had to resort to cheating, jacking up the loco on blocks for the trial shots.

In the end I resorted to flash, but I am going to have to spend a lot of time balancing the output to put less on the loco and far more on the steam plumes. Bright flash also shows up all the scratches on my now well worn Edrig! and the mis-matched paintwork on the cab!
I think a snoot ( a card tube) around the main flash aimed at the steam plumes, and a small fill in flash for the loco might work.

I will continue to experiment!

Here's the best of a bad bunch from the trial shots this evening!

Hi been fairly quiet on the CFHC lately, just spent time running trains and exploring the operational limits of controlling four trains simultaneously.

Have taken advantage of the last two days of wet weather though -

Made real coal loads for my hopper wagons


Made platform signs for the main station


Made new hand rails and sign for the Moulin bridge. The old wooden handrails were destroyed by falling apples (the tree has now been pruned back). The new ones soldered up from brass tube should withstand any FFRT's (further fruit related threats).


And the weather was welcomed by the occupants of the pond who grow in size daily