Hello, Hola!

Buena mañana y recepción Via Estrecha.

Glad to have you here Martyn.

Buenas dias Martyn, como estat ?

Hola. quatro salados pescado ,quatro cervezas por favor. how embarrassing; thats all i know (lived on fish salads for 14 days!!

Mikey

mikeyh wrote:

Hola. quatro salados pescado ,quatro cervezas por favor. how embarrassing; thats all i know (lived on fish salads for 14 days!!

Mikey

Actually, sounds to me like you lived on cervezas for 14 days. In which case, another phrase probably came in very handy: Donde esta el bano? (After returning from a trip to Belgium, a friend asked me if I had learned any Flemish. I told him I knew how to order a beer and, more importantly, how to order another beer.)

Bienvineda, Martyn.

Ah Senor el bano esta en la casa

And also to José from Madrid!

Thanks very much - pleased to have arrived at last. I shall not embarrass myself by trying my dreadful Spanish or Catalan in public!

I took up my original tiny line about 18 months ago, with the intention of re-landscaping our little back garden. Sadly still no sign of the new line, but the main civil engineering should be done this year with some track going down over the winter and I have ambitiously planned a quiet week in April next year to do the wiring (whilst wife and mother-in-law go on a Nile cruise - a drastic plan but needs must!).

The new line will be effectively 2 concentric loops at ground level with a graded branch to the original station; about half the length of the loops will be set out as double track. The setting is supposedly a metre gauge operation in Catalunya in the early 1960s and most of it is recycled LGB, Bachman and Aristocraft stuff via eBay.

If I can work out the image attachment thingy, I'll post a pic of the only clue present at the moment to what the garden will contain.



Think that worked. The tunnel is rather fittingly a length of conduit donated by the contractors replacing the lamp standards at my local station - it can just accommodate a pair of tracks. The remains of the old layout can be seen against the fence in the background (elevated on plywood base).

When there is meaningful progress, I'll post another pic or two.

Carl Hibbs wrote:

And also to José from Madrid!

Thats my mate I sent him here ' he is thinking of ........................ I'll let him tell you about it.

Ola Jose

Martyn - you have a plan that is VERY meaningful progress. Its about time the "french " stronghold was broken, we have a quorum at last.
Ok only joking but I was very lonely being the only remotely Spanish connection.

Hello everybody.

I am Jose, live nearby Madrid, and I have plans . . .
to build a garden railway !.

I am in the strategy phase . . ., that is, collecting lots of info
from different forums, books, catalogues, etc. And buying rolling stock.

It all begun with an Lgb starter set for my son, 15 years ago.
The kid has developped interest in writing, history and economics, and
no interest what so ever in model trains (gggrrrrr). So, I will go ahead
on my own, with the help of wonderful collaborative people in these forums.

Thanks to Patrick who introduced me to this forum.
I will be happy to contribute in the future.

Cheers.
Jose

PS: I do have an N scale layout and am familiar with DCC

Welcome in person José;

I am very happy to foster Spanish interests. There is no other forum that caters for that!

Thus it is your forum and up to you to use it to discuss and share.

We all like to see pictures and if you have any difficulty with posting please let me know.

Despite once having a girlfriend from Madrid (the beautiful, busty brown-eyed Rosa-Maria, but that's another story...) I'm not very good with the Spanish language but willing to learn so I don't mind if you post in Spanish, we will translate it.

Carl Hibbs wrote:

Despite once having a girlfriend from Madrid (the beautiful, busty brown-eyed Rosa-Maria, but that's another story...)

Carl, I would like it to be known that not one word of that sentence surprises me - apart, perhaps, from the word 'once'.

I do think we need another forum category for all these 'other stories' you keep hinting at... I am guessing it would need some sort of minimum age limit though

Oh, and a warm welcome to the forum, all you recent new arrivals, from Clive on the South Coast of England.

Agreed clive. i'm beginning to think that CGT stands for - Carls Girly Triumphs!!

Mikey

I'm not sure if that's a reference for naff motorcycles Mikey?

I may not be an oil painting but that army uniform did a lot.

It was my time in the elite SAS* that did it. .....Martyn might want (or not... ) to add something there.




*For SAS read 'Saturdays And Sundays'

Did you ever see any OMO packets in the quarters windows or is that a myth?

Mikey

Where did you get that from.... ?

Hehe. years ago in the met i dealt with a domestic in married quarters. the wife was leaving an OMO packet (on my own) in her kitchen window 'cos she fancied a bit while hubby was away!! Anyway we believed the story so didnt nick anyone!!

Mikey

Yes...you're quire right Mikey there were a number of 'signs' like that.

I confess that it happened to me.

I was busy doing my bit in some far flung corner of the crumbling Empire on one of Maggies bucket tours only to come back early and find.......

A pair of boots where my old boots should be....

The strange thing was the boots were only size 4 1/2 and I am a size 10.

Oooooh.