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The "Look What I Made!" Topic.

Today is a special day Scottish railway heritage in which 30 years ago this, the Kingdom of Fife Railway Preservation Society was formed and to mark this occasion, I have specially made this half hour documentary for them.

Hope you enjoy and even learn something new, I have been working there for the past 19 years and this has been my life in some ways.
 
So, my folks know I'm a fan of little projects so for my birthday they got me an old BR Bardic lamp in non-working condition missing the battery, filthy and missing the retaining screw for the lens switch.

Setting about scavenging from the pile of electrical bits I keep, I rustled up a USB power bank where the USB port and case had been smashed and removed, some wire and a switch. Throw in some consumables I had laying about and some loving time with the soldering iron and we have this as an end result. Total repair cost? A grub screw for 85p.

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Im more of an engineer hobbyist curently building the lickey banker in 1:8th scale
Little details
Length 10 foot
Width 14 inches
Weight 1.5 metric tons
Wheels 10
Cylinders 4
Bore 2.25 inch
Stroke 3 inch
Time spent currently on it 25 years!!!
I finally acquired the boiler barrel!!!!!!
9" od copper tube at 3/8th thickness (just dont ask the price!!!)

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Well then, with the main hot topic being on public transport in this country on TS, that just so happens to line up with something on how to help out the poor transport links with Alton Towers but not in the way you imagine. That's right, as railway consultant myself, I'm going for a rail link proposal that doesn't include using the Alton railway station as what 90% of people would think and instead, I'm going for an out of the box approach by going from a back to front approach via Uttoxeter which will not only be a far better alternative for public transport but will also see Ashbourne regain a rail connection in the process with all trains to it and Alton Towers all starting from Derby.

Please note that this is very rough outline and doesn't include the many problems that that would take place in buying up land but to I'm using the UK rail map website which includes many railway lines past and present and the blue line you see is the original routes while the red line you see is the proposed new route which doesn't following the original route in places but takes a new and faster route. So let's begin starting from Uttoxeter...

alton rail 1.png
As you can see here, the yellow line is the current railway and our new route in red takes a new direction that avoids going through the town and avoids any costs of buying up track bed back and goes behind the town in a straighter route before it joins the original track bed just north of Rocester, this all helps having any train achieve a faster speed.

alton rail 2.png
First off, sorry for cutting off the bottom part, that was a mistake I overlook but you probably get the idea where we are right now, anyway then...at this point the line then separates off two directions in which one-way swings eastwards towards Ashbourne but takes a different route before turning off at a new station site that doesn't lead into the original location that has been since taken over by other developments which might be a wee bit out from the town is actually needed to allow the big car park that any new station needs and this would be no exception. Regardless though, Ashbourne has its railway back and now we look west for the new route to Alton Towers which utterly avoids that original track bed as getting it back into use with the major restrictions in place is useless plus is not fit for modern use so once again, a new route will take place that avoids it for the most part until it reaches the original track bed very briefly before it swings up towards the car park beside the hotels. Now for a closer look...

alton rail 3.png
And there we are, the new route goes through the woodland which honestly could be very tricky to get approval knowing the restrictions in place however the station (likely the island platform design with two tracks on either side of the platform would be in place) that can be themed if Merlin chipped in for their part of the bargain though as you can see it would be right alongside the Extraordinary Golf course and is right next to the Monorail station which is important as this would mean the latter will finally have a useful purpose of acting as an actually legit bit of transport for the park in which guests can easily walk from the train to (hopefully a refurbished) monorail which would take them right to the gate of the park.

So yes, something I come up in just 10 minutes, but I was thinking outside the box for a proper rail link to the park which while this might not please the purist who would like the original station back in use, it is too far from the park entrance and not to mention most of the locals wouldn't want a train link so instead here is a new route that bypasses them completely and instead is a far more direction route to the park. I'm unsure if such an idea is even possible, then again even the easiest rail link is hard to get approved off, so God knows where this fits in.

That said, if put in place, this would really help the park with a new form of transport that would make it easier to get to by train, albeit it in slightly more roundabout way. So there we are then, hope you liked this little thing I made. :p
 
Keep up the good work.

On another note, what happened to Royjess? Haven't seen him post for a while. Hope he is alright.
 
My friend asked me to make a new set of 1940s(ish) garage doors for his garage so took a few hours and 2 week ends (we cleared b&q out of there wood first time around lol) but finally done
 

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