The Kotanga Valley and the Kotanga Timber Tramway.

[Rowan]

Hi Annie, I found a helper for you... and he has a friend that, close up, appears to have the same eyes as your avatar.............



The eyes certainly have it...




Cheers
 

[Annie]

Ooooo that's the bird eating Hobgoblin from the Spiderwick Chronicles, - I really liked that movie and I've got it on DVD 

Ha ha, - it seems that the eyes do indeed have it      That's a really nice young lady you've found too, - I have such terrible trouble trying to find small folk to inhabit my layout.

[otherunicorn]

I have no trouble finding inhabitants. I just have trouble paying the $10 to $30 these shops want for them! The dollar ain't worth nuffin these days. Little wonder I buy what I can from the op-shops (goodwill for those not familiar with op-shop).

[Annie]

Disaster!    Bill fell off the layout board and now he can't be found anywhere.  I've been searching all over my room for him and he just seems to have disappeared.



Sidney upset Chloe by saying that my cat might've got him; Jim is nursing a black eye after having Bill's Mum wallop him one with her handbag because he wasn't looking hard enough for her, 'dear little lad.'  Jim's brother George has taken over working on the Ewings loco for the present moment because it really does have to be finished and ready for revenue service fairly soon.
George was last seen looking at the loco,scratching his head and saying, 'Lad is either a blinding genius or a raving madman......'

[dmaynard]

I hope Bill is found soon, maybe he just took a well deserved break and will come wandering back once he is well rested.

'Lad is either a blinding genius or a raving madman......'

Yea, sometimes the fine line between the two is impossible to distinguish. 

[Tommy Two Strikes]

Annie, Does "Bill" have to worry about prowling a domestic Felis catus or maybe Canis lupus familiaris

Either way my hope is Bill finds his way back to the shop!

Tommy 2XX

[otherunicorn]

My little people have something a lot more dangerous than a cat to worry about. There's this great lumbering giant who is messy and muddleheaded who keeps misplacing them.

[Annie]

Usually I don't have to worry about Mr Patches my cat messing about with my models so Bill should be somewhere in my room.  Mr Patches however has said nothing, and for the present time he's been told not to leave the District until Bill is found.

Um, - I might need to consider the lumbering giant theory as well at some stage 


Roberta has been doing her best to comfort Chloe.


Jim has told Pauline the Policewoman about Bill being missing and Pauline has promised to get a search underway at once.

[Annie]

I thought I'd show you what Bill had done to the Ewing's loco plans; - it might just work too 



George says he'll do his best, but he's not promising anything........

[dmaynard]

I always liked walking beam locomotives.

I guess I was born in the wrong century

Well maybe Bill will start a signal fire and start sending up smoke signals. As for my folks, since they reside in their own reality I don't usually misplace them, although I would like to misplace Bob. He is the know it all butt-in-ski thats always telling us what we can't accomplish. 

[Annie]

Bill has been found!

I've just found him curled up asleep inside one of my shoes.  His only comment was, 'Seemed a good place for a nap.'  To tell the complete truth he seemed to be a little embarrassed over having fallen off the layout board so I didn't press him further.

I think there is going to be 'welcome back Bill'  tea party later on, only I can't get any sense out of anybody at the moment and the cheering is loud enough to annoy the neighbours.

[Tommy Two Strikes]

Glad Bill has been located curled into a shoe and not under a table at the locale Pub!

[Annie]

Crikey, if Bill had set foot in the local pub he wouldn't half catch it from his Mum   

[Annie]

You haven't heard much from me over the past couple of days because broadband in my area goes down when it rains hard.  This is pretty much typical of the service from the local provider I pay to annoy me with their excuse for Internet access and I just look on it as a penance for the sins of my youth.
The rechargeable battery in my digital camera has also gone u/s so you'll have to put up with my descriptions and wild prose until I can find another one.

Work is still going ahead with the Ewing System loco and it's plain that it's not a job to be rushed at.  The main materials are still cereal packet cardboard and wood (thin ply, ice lolly sticks, bits sawn off scrap kindling wood) well marinated with  cheap Chinese superglue and a certain amount of PVA.  Presently I'm amusing myself by drilling wee holes to place several hundred small pins into so they can pretend they are rivets.  They look good, but it's a right pain making sure they're in nice straight lines or else the effect is completely ruined.
I needed to have the side tanks removable so I can get at the motor and gearbox should anything go wrong.  At first I wasn't sure how I was going to do that, then this morning I caught sight of all the different types of magnets that are for sale in the craft corner of the local emporium.  I'll most probably fit some locating pegs, but it will be the magnets that will be holding everything in place.
The Ewing system is something I'm becoming very keen on and all going well the greater part of my indoor layout will be laid to the Ewing system with just a little G15 and G45 trackwork here and there for experimental purposes.

[G-man]

Annie, an indoor layout based on the Ewing system should really be something to see. As it was a very small system in real life, you can really let your imagination run riot in rolling stock and loco construction. You can base a lot of models on what might have happened if the system had caught on elsewhere and was still in use today. The possibilities are endless. The track work should be interesting also.

When I first saw the Ewing system in the Narrow gauge Gazette, I saw a possibility of it in a modern day setting as a people mover in a large mall using rubber tires as the outriggers. It would loop around the mall, the outriggers always on the inside picking people up and dropping them off throughout the mall. It would be computer controlled of course (what isn't now a days).