Vaughan

Indeed, and they still work well after 45 years, although I have been inside them to clean the rheostat sliders and solder a few weak connections. When we lived in Norfolk I had a fairly large layout in the loft of a bungalow, but I built it too quickly, without thought of moving house. So when we moved I just had to demolish it, although I kept all the track, electrics, a lot of small fittings and the rolling stock that I had built at the time. All this has followed me around in boxes to wherever we have moved since then and now finally, I can use it again. So all of the track in the storage sidings and round the "off scene" areas, comes from my original layout. The scenic part is in C&L Finescale track which, although OO gauge, looks very realistic. For those interested in the electrics, I can show you what "goes on" under the storage sidings : These sidings are known to modellers as the Fiddle Yard, as this is where you fiddle about changing the make-up of trains, changing engines, connecting fiddly little couplings and making sure all the wheels are on the track. I have arranged this in three lifting sections, which can be unbolted and stood on their side, to work on the wiring underneath. It looks complicated but in DC analogue it is just positive and negative, at the end of the day. At top right are the switches for the point solenoids, which are pushbuttons, to throw the solenoid one way or the other. At centre are switches which change the polarity of the point crossings, known as "frogs". At the other end (which is out of reach) I am using Tortoise point motors, which are more of a servo motor, so that when you make the switch, the motor travels until it reaches a limit switch, and stops. At the same time, a microswitch inside the box will change the polarity of the crossings. This is easier at this end, but the wiring is a lot more complicated when it comes to the switches on the centre board : Here at right, are the "double pole double throw" switches for the 6 point motors. These have to be wired so as to reverse the polarity of the current to the motor, to make it go backwards and forwards. To left of these are the switches to insulate the sections in the fiddle yard, in order to select a train to run. The yard will take 14 trains, which sounds like a lot, but it may not be enough! Over to the left, the thick white wires are standard household 3 strand lighting cable, which provide a positive feed to each of the "up" and "down" tracks, with a common negative return. These wires go all the way under the layout and the feed is taken from them to each length of track along the line. Known as a wiring "bus", this assures that good power is available at the far corners, where the trains have to struggle up a long gradient. This bus is arranged to give power to three separate sections of the layout - known as power districts - and where they disappear into holes in the board they are connected to the controller, which has 6 switches, so as isolate each of the 3 districts, on the up and down lines. At the moment, the two tracks, up and down, are electrically separate, which means in future, with two controllers, I can run two trains at a time. If I want to have a crossover anywhere on the layout in future, that will need what they call "cab control" and I am not going to get into all that at this stage! I prefer traditional DC analogue control as it is more like running a real railway. All the same the way it is wired, with a central bus, means that anyone with their own DCC locomotives and their own controller, could easily run trains on the layout. You could even have one track on DC analogue, and the other on DCC! So that's how it works. Happy modelling!

Has it been that long? perhaps it has. We have now moved house and I have found myself with a ground floor which is entirely garage and workshop. It was originally a stables. So I have the ultimate "man cave"! I spent about 18 months decorating the new house and then decorating the old one for sale, so then it was time to build a railway! Here is the station area, as built in our old house, and now installed in the workshop : And here is the rest of it : I spent ages doing line drawings of the space, to try and fit something in until it dawned on me that a lot of modellers fit in the storage sidings on a lower level, under the scenic area. after that "penny" had dropped, it became a lot larger than I had imaged. The scenic part of the layout will be just over a half mile in scale, so there will be room for genuine signalling, of both home and distant signals. Just at the rear of the train above, the scenery will rise gently to form a cutting, with a road over bridge to allow the train to disappear round the corner. This what is called a transition curve, which starts at 15ft radius through the station and then reduces through 11ft, 8ft, 6ft and 5ft, where it joins the wall and runs down the gradient. This gives the illusion of a train disappearing off into the distance. The scenery will fall away slightly on either side of the curve, before rising gradually into a shallow cutting with a road bridge at the far end. I am hoping this will look rather effective. Another thing I have always sort of promised myself, was to run a 10 coach express train of Gresley main line coaches, hauled by a "Britannia". You wouldn't normally have seen a train like this on the line between Dereham and Wymondham but so what? As they say, it's my train set, after all! Last year, none of this was started when my family visited us on holiday but I sort of promised myself that I would get something running all the way round before my grandchildren came this year. It actually ran, about a week before they arrived! Happily, my nephew and his young family have also been to stay, and also enjoyed it. It has been a bit of a challenge, as all of my locomotives and rolling stock are hand built from parts of kits and have never run on a layout before. So I have had to work out, when a coach comes off the track, whether the problem is the track or the coach! There is now going to be a lot of adjustment, as well as installing the pointwork to complete the station goods yard, so from here on it will probably be another few months before I can say I have it running reliably. Only then, can I start on the scenery!

I am just throwing this out as well, with no inside knowledge but I wonder whether a future planning situation might be lurking in the background? How much of the land access will be lost when they eventually manage to re-house the Little Whirlpool Ramshorn Snails which have, for years, held up the widening of the Acle Straight and the re-siting of the adjacent drainage dykes? Surely this cannot be put off forever, even by the tree huggers. And what happens when some government finally gets around to dualling the road, as has been constantly demanded?

Agreed and also think about the wattage. The average boat fridge will be rated at about 60 watts, which means about 5 amps when starting. On a medium thermostat setting this fridge will use (according to Electrolux) around 45 amp/hours in 24 hours. This means your boat needs to able to supply the capacity of one domestic battery, on its own, just to run the fridge. Sorry, but it's true! A larger fridge/freezer of around 120 litres, will be rated at 80 watts or more. As for plug in 12 volt, portable cold boxes, these should only be used on a boat when the engine is running, just as they are designed to be, in a car. If not, you will soon regret it when the batteries are flat the next morning.

I remember years ago, when they built the shed for the new electric pump house, which I presume replaced a diesel pump in one of the outhouses. The mill was being completely restored at the time and had no sails. When the sails were refitted, it was discovered that the new pump house had been built too close to the mill and the sails couldn't turn. This is why the pump house now has that peculiar scollop out of one end of the roof!

I didn't say they do. My point was that the word whistle, in maritime regulations, usually refers to a ship's whistle, rather than a referee's whistle.

COLREGS, Rule 15 (sounds and shapes) From the Admiralty Manual of Seamanship, Vol 2. - Affectionately known as the "Steamship Manual". In case I appear as a dinosaur on this forum (again!) I point out that ERCD regs, Cat D, (although I can't be bothered to look them up!) also specify that vessels must carry a means of sound signalling, which can be a simple "corne de brume" meaning fog horn but very similar, in French, to a hunting horn. What the BSS says about it I don't know, offhand. Probably nothing.

I see in the EDP today that the salvage operation on Daisy Broad is about to start, to raise the wreck and try and find out what happened. A very messy job, that I don't envy them!

I can't help wondering how they intend to keep the roof over their kids' heads.

I think the word whistle in this case refers to a ship's whistle from the days of steam, so it still means a horn. On most waterways a handheld fog horn will suffice and all you have to do is blow through it. I imagine you would find one at a good chandlers.

Unless you bring them up in the business, just as my parents raised me, on a boatyard. Offhand, I couldn't name all the family businesses on the Broads who go back for generations but think of a few : Landamores, Moores, Simpsons, the Thwaites of Barnes Brinkcraft, Len Funnell and his family - the list is a long one. Even the Richardsons (and I mean two Broads families, not just one!). I believe Jeckells are already in their 4th generation. And that's not just the boatyard owners. There are many families on the Broads who have been working in the yards for decades. We have a member on this forum whose grandfather was probably the most famous foreman boatbuilder and designer of all of them. You know who you are, sir. We are talking about a business tradition and a working life that has maintained this wonderful area of holiday pleasure, for literally hundreds of years. I appreciate, Fred, that times have changed and that motivations, in life, are not what they were. Let us just hope that a better life/work balance and the "human rights" that go with it; will be able also to maintain the tourism and the local businesses, upon which this lovely and unique place that we all love, so vitally depends. I very much fear that we are going to find that out, sooner rather than later.

It gets rather better on trial runs in the afternoon, though : The French will offer a glass of chilled rosé ; the Yanks get out the Jack Daniels ; the Germans - "Haf a bier!" ; the Austrians get fuelled on Slivowitz but the worst are the Danish who offer round a glass of Gammeldansk. If the engine won't start, it will do that as well!

That would include me, then. I haven't commented on what Clive has told us until now, as I found it quite stunning. What on earth can this mean for the future? We are in the holiday business! That means when everyone else is on holiday, you are at work, to serve them. That's the way the "cookie crumbles". I can honestly say that in all my years in the job I have never missed a Saturday at work in the summer season, not even as a boy, still at school. On all the yards I have worked for and managed I have been at work 7 days a week and on call 24hrs, for 6 months of the hiring season. You take your own holidays in the winter! That's the Job! It's also what gives such great satisfaction when you do a good job and give customers a good holiday. In other words, it is a passion. If you don't like that, go and do something easier. If a yard now has to stop hiring on Saturdays because the staff don't want to work weekends, I wonder how that stacks up with all the theories that tourism brings income and jobs to the Broads. What is the point of promoting that, if the local people don't want to do the jobs? I find this quite exasperating. It really makes me wonder if all our efforts to try and bring more customers to the Broads are actually worth it, if the local people can't even be bothered to make a bit of effort.

Oh, pur-leese.

But only by Le Boat. I won't say more than that . . .

I really don't want to sound flippant here but this sounds as though it might be too much trouble so we had better not risk it. I fear that this is exactly what may have been happening over the last 30 years, which has prevented the average boatyard from "thinking out of the box". Frankly, the river through Yarmouth Yacht Station is not the Straights of Magellan. In one week (only one way) there will always be a window of opportunity to cross Breydon. If not, all the yards would have been missing boats on a Saturday morning for "donkey's years". It just needs a bit of planning on a tide table, which can, of course, be covered on the trial run. Between our bases on the Midi of Port Cassafieres and Castelnaudary is almost two and a half hours drive by road in the high season. For the boats, it is a cruise of 157km, 35 hours of navigation with the passage of 64 locks. You have to work quite hard to do that in a week but they all made it - I don't think we ever lost one down the canal. Unless they had a breakdown, of course. The direct passage, with the right tides, between Wroxham and Brundall can be done in a day. The rest of the week is your own, to go where you want. That is the beauty of the Broads compared to other waterways. It's no good thinking it would be too difficult - it's not! I have been running one way cruises on all sorts of waterways for over 20 years. It's easy! Whats' more, the Broads would be the easiest. It's only half an hour's drive between the bases!

Perhaps I didn't explain that there is a premium added to one way cruises to cover the extra admin involved. It's not a lot and it certainly doesn't put people off as it was a mainstay of our business! As to staff costs, it costs the same to turn round a hire boat whether it is in Wroxham or Brundall. If you have 10 boats turning round in Brundall, that is 10 less that need turning round on the main yard in Wroxham. So you distribute your staff accordingly. It is just a matter of logistics. In other words - management.

Exactly. It is just a matter of logistics and I have never understood why they don't do it on the Broads. In CBL, we only actually owned one of our bases, which was the head office in Castelnaudary. All the rest had the quay and/or basin leased from the VNF (Voies Navigables de France) as well as the buildings, if they were not leased separately from the local town hall or vineyard owner. My large base in St Gilles was an old vineyard building, which made excellent boat sheds. The canal du Midi and Camargue had 3 main bases which ran one-ways between them but in most other areas there would be one main base and one - or two -relays, giving a one-way option in each region. It also gives flexibility in a big company, as when popularity, politics or even climate, changes you can cancel the lease and move the boats by truck in winter to somewhere else. So you can react very quickly to changes in customer demand. This is how I came to open up a new cruising area at Chateau-Thierry, on the Marne, by turning a builder's merchant's store shed into a boatyard! The builder's merchant happened to be the Maire of Chateau-Thierry, which did tend to help! I see from their website that Le Boat appear to have closed pretty well all of the old relay bases so they must now offer mostly out-and-back cruises. A pity, since one-ways used to be well over half of our business. This might explain why well over half of their boats in Homps and Trebes have being lying in off hire every week (including today) for the last two years and more. It's not only in Norfolk, where business needs to "buck up"!

Possibly, but Horizon was not far enough away from Stalham to offer a decent one - way cruise. I don't see why in particular, as the marina is already a boatyard with public access. All these things are matters that be overcome in "doing the deal". It is all just a matter of logistics.

They wouldn't have to own the marina - just have a leasing arrangement for the use of moorings and facilities such as diesel, pumpout and water. The marina's own office can also be used for the reception of hirers. A good mechanic and a couple of cleaners, in a van equipped with spares, changes of linen, etc., can happily turn round 4 boats on a relay base, including the trial runs.

In fact it's nowhere near as difficult as it sounds. As long as the yard (let's say in Wroxham) has some sort of facility in Brundall, such as a brokerage or a marina with a few moorings to spare, it can be treated as a relay base and only staffed on turnaround days - which would probably be Saturday only. In winter, the boats return to the main base for maintenance. Remember - it is only half an hour away in the yard van.

The big Jenners operation in the late 60s was designed to do just this, as the Caister Group also owned Herbert Woods at the time. In France, well over half of our bookings were one - way cruises between two bases on the same canal or river. It is very easy to arrange as reservations are now all on computer (which they weren't then) and you simply have to notify the customer about 2 weeks before departure, as to which direction the cruise will actually take. In other words, where the boat will be, when they arrive! In the case of a cruise between Wroxham and Brundall, this would be a full week by boat, but only just over half an hour between the bases, by car! To collect your car afterwards, you would have a very pleasant scenic railway journey via Norwich or alternately, the yard can arrange to deliver your car during the week, for a suitable fee. I have friends in the hire business who have premises in both Wroxham and Brundall and I have often put this idea to them, with the benefit of having run many of these cruises myself. For some reason, they have never taken me up on the idea. A missed opportunity, I think.

Fred, do I "like" your post three times, or will one be sufficient?

I have worked a lot with the press and television, whose results are only good for them if the celebrity presenter runs into something - usually a lock gate. Then they all think it's so funny, when they are actually presenting themselves as incompetent idiots. Collisions, do not sell boating holidays.

I remember her 100th birthday and that was several years ago.