What do you do when you can't go to the pub or social club?

[whole diary]

[JayMac]

[bobm]

He should get out more ...oh no of course.

[TonyK]

I stay at home and talk to my wife, catching up on things I've missed. Apparently, she's been made redundant from Woolworths.

[broadgage]

If you have, or think that you might have any children, it would be well to ascertain how many, what their names are, how old they are, and related facts. Wives consider this sort of thing to be important.

[Gordon the Blue Engine]

I wonder how many of us have a model railway.  Here is mine, set on the GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) in 1947. Note the GWR stone crusher, Swindon made a few of these you know…

I hope S&TE is impressed that I designed and built in full route-setting and interlocking, using over 100 diodes and 24 relays.

[MVR S&T]

Can we see a photo of the diode route seting please, I have a 7 way route indicator to drive, to decode 7 inputs to 35 leds.

[Gordon the Blue Engine]

Here it is.  I didn’t want to use any decoders etc, just rotary switches, diodes, relays and veroboard.  Not very tidy I’m afraid!  It’s all 12 volt from a lead acid battery.

Designing the circuits was the straightforward bit.  Building it, and soldering 100 diodes to verobard, wasn’t!  The bought-in PCB's are for traction control.  On the main running lines I tend to leave the traction power constant, and control the whole lot from the control panel.  As trains approach a junction they stop and wait for for me to set a route and then I push a button to start the train off.   It's an analogue system: some routes reverse the power supply on some sections of track.  No signals yet, they're expensive!  If I concentrate I can run 4 trains at the same time.

[LiskeardRich]

Burnt the contents of the shed as I can’t go to the dump.cut grass, painted all the worn wood work around the garden

[Gordon the Blue Engine]

The push buttons A – E are entry buttons, 1-5 are exits.  The LED’s light up selected routes, so you see I’ve set up 2 parallel routes B3 and D5.

[SandTEngineer]

Very good stuff.  I'll pass you out.  Personally, I model in 0 Gauge and have my layout under construction.  Pleanty of spare time for that at the moment, so it will progress reasonably quickly.

[MVR S&T]

Go to your local brewery for a takeaway:

From https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/further-businesses-and-premises-to-close/further-businesses-and-premises-to-close-guidance

Off-licences and licenced shops selling alcohol, including those within breweries

[PhilWakely]

I wasn't sure whether to post this here or in grahame's Garden thread, both equally relevant.

Apologies for the very poor quality pictures, but these were taken in the late 1960's with a Box Brownie using 620 film. At that time, I was a young teenager and a member of Exeter Crusaders. We were taken on an outing to the vicarage at Nymet Rowland, near Crediton where the vicar had built his own O'gauge garden railway. If I recall correctly, his layout snaked around the large garden and was several hundred yards long. His pride and joy were his pair of Hymeks. I can't think of a better way to while away the hours - particularly now the sun is out! Such a shame that this layout disappeared some years ago.

[SandTEngineer]

This cropped up on another forum I belong to...... 

[Red Squirrel]

I have created a Virtual Pub...

[JayMac]

When not in my beer garden I do have some N guage modelling on the go. I'm mainly repairing, cleaning and fettling rolling stock at the moment. I've found that OHP acetate sheets are ideal to cut to size to refresh carriage windows. I've also converted a couple of Cromptons to DCC^» (Devon County Council - website) and failed to convert a GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) Castle. Toothbrushes are a necessity. Just don't put them back in the bathroom mug after they've been dipped in meths!

I've done some rough plans for my table top layout too. I'm Probably only at GRIP stage 2, so expect project close out sometime in the 2030s.