Page 8 - November December 2001

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UK enthusiasts are also denied the op- portunity to buy desirable pieces.
To protect against this irresponsible be- haviour the British market should be en- couraged. I’d suggest that enthusiasts try to sell their unwanted goods privately, such as at Bring and Buy tables at meets where items are on view to larger num- bers of fellow enthusiasts and the table levy will enhance club funds. Provided trading is prohibited before official opening times, everyone gets an equal chance. Possibly these well-stocked ta- bles would also encourage higher meet attendance. Another alternative is Roundhouse’s excellent “Beanery” Sales and Wants feature, though possibly dis- advantaged by time delay problems.
We should discourage the continuous drain of valuable items from the reach of UK modellers - sell items privately; it might take slightly longer but a buyer’s offer will almost certainly be higher than that from a professional, and the more interesting items will be retained here for the benefit of those who follow in our footsteps.
CSX #5003
Does anyone have a very up-to-date CSX roster and can tell me what loco #5003 is? It appeared to be one of the new AC6000 type and had the vertical lightning flash at each end of the cab number, but all the other 6000 hp locos seen had road num- bers in the 600 series.
Homebase Baseboards
A few weeks ago I had occasion to get a piece of hardboard cut to size in my local Homebase. The cutting machine they use is amazing - it reminded me of the old wall bars in the school gym, but with the additional function of being able to shorten your legs. It very much set my two grey cells discussing the prospect of having my next baseboard, or at least its component parts, produced by Sains- bury’s. The bit of hardboard proved to be very accurately cut, considering its di- mensions required odd quarter inches. How easy it would be to have 4mm ply cut to make a baseboard top and the 4” deep sides and end pieces. I noticed that however many cuts you have (and they limit you to only a handful for free) you purchase the whole sheet and take away leftovers regardless of what you actually need. So it would pay to sit down with paper and pencil and see just how an in- dividual sheet would cut up to suit your needs.
From Steve Quick...
For the few of us who were there, discus- sion at the AGM earlier this year touched on the benefits of belonging to the NMRA. Obviously one massive historical and ongoing achievement is in produc- ing standards which allow the mixing of stock and equipment from different
ticularly good issue, but if anyone ever needed encouragement to produce seri- ous realism in N scale, this magazine would just about push you into the near- est suitable model shop.
David Riddles writes...
Dear Martin,
Re. the letter in the October 2001 Round- house. The information regarding the 110 volt converters is a little out of date. The two items Stock codes NJ98 and NJ99 have both been discontinued as have items RN62 and RN63 in the cur- rent catalogue (page 479). I would sug- gest that members get in touch with their local store and find out if they have any left. The web address is also incorrect. It should read www.maplin.co.uk. I am able to check this out as I started working for Maplin 5 months ago.
Tony Martin writes:
“May I express my grateful thanks to all members of the Convention 2001 com- mittee (pictured below) - Barry Bennett, Calvin Everitt, Les and Glynis Keuneke, John Lowe, Steve Quick and Mark Sweat- man, for their months of hard work. They have endeavoured to prepare and pro- duce a Convention worthy of our mem- bership. They made an excellent team and it was my pleasure and privilege to
work with them. I would also like to thank my wife Jenny for all the help and encouragement she has given me, and for the refreshments she sup- plied to ‘keep us going’ during the long hours of planning meetings
held at our home”
Norman Carey...
...sent in a “Daily Mail” item (10/10/2001) that follows on from my mention of ‘no cellphone’ “quiet cars” on Amtrak. In the UK, GNER introduced a similar idea. Within three minutes of the train starting, the first cellphone was in use. By the time of the eighth call (10 minutes later) there were train staff standing a few feet away, doing nothing. (What else is new?) The duty manager, when queried, said staff were only able to “request” passengers (sorry, cus- tomers) not to use their phones. (Well, even that’s asking for a fat lip!) The cor- respondent wondered if Amtrak would police their quiet car any better?
Robert Smith...
...writes about a worrying aspect of model trading. He remarks that some years ago the government stepped in to regulate over-enthusiastic exporting of antiques, and now a similar problem is appearing on a smaller scale (deliberate pun) with respect to N scale freight cars. Apparently certain “traders” are buying up items over here at what are normally considered reasonably fair trade-in prices then selling them at auction in the USA, with rarer collectors’ items going for sometimes 10 to 30 times that price. In “N Scale Collector” Sept. 2001, two Micro- train boxcars from the standard 20000 se- ries sold for over $400 each.
Such cars sent over from the UK are most likely lost to us for good. The original owner was, in his ignorance, offered an unfair price - the exporters know the true value or they wouldn’t be doing it. Other
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