The Great Forum Railway Inspection

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philipy
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The Great Forum Railway Inspection

Post by philipy » Sat Feb 23, 2019 10:32 am

Peter's comment on one of the other threads reminded me that many years ago ( well about 7 to be precise) we had the Forum Great Railway Inspection running. This was a lighthearted 'critique' of members lines and visited locations, written and posted by themselves.

The 'Inspector' was a gentleman by the name of Mr Victor Isles and was a small, scale, figure wearing a abowler, an anorak and eventually a Hi Viz jacket and clipboard who would submit a report on the state and operation of each line, complete with photos of himself at work, before being posted to to another member to repeat the process. Many of the reports were hilarious and eagerly awaited, but then one day he disappeared in action after being sent to one member, and was never seen or heard of again.

It really was a shame that it stopped and I'm wondering if there is any interest in starting him up again?
The original thread is at https://gardenrails.org/forum/viewtopic ... it=v+isles
Philip

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Re: The Great Forum Railway Inspection

Post by tom_tom_go » Sat Feb 23, 2019 6:17 pm

I am sure I can enlist an official GRF toy figure if people want to start this up again.

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Re: The Great Forum Railway Inspection

Post by Tom the blacksmith » Sat Feb 23, 2019 9:19 pm

Champion idea! I'd love to see the inspections resurrected, it was a fantastic read and great fun. Probably less contentious than the photo competition.

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Re: The Great Forum Railway Inspection

Post by RobRossington » Sun Feb 24, 2019 9:14 am

Yes! I loved reading through the inspection thread when I first joined. Would happily take part if it is restarted.

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Re: The Great Forum Railway Inspection

Post by ge_rik » Sun Feb 24, 2019 10:08 am

Great idea. I'll be interested.

Reminds me of something we did on the old G Scale Mad forum. A boxcar was sent from one member of the forum to another and photographic evidence of it running on each line was posted on the forum. Each member graffiti-ed the name of their railway on the van. I think it travelled on around 70 railways and clocked up 36000 miles (mostly by air).

Here it is on John Robinson's railway in New Zealand.
IMG_0586.JPG
IMG_0586.JPG (119.07 KiB) Viewed 8031 times
And here's a map showing its travels
boxcar map.jpg
boxcar map.jpg (77.81 KiB) Viewed 8031 times
Probably be more difficult to replicate on this forum as we have a mix of 45mm and 32mm railways

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Peter Butler
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Re: The Great Forum Railway Inspection

Post by Peter Butler » Sun Feb 24, 2019 10:59 am

I don't know enough about the operational requirements of real railways to be able to give a report on garden lines, however, a figure sent to various members could take his/her passport to be suitably stamped, pictures of his/her visit to the line, and other excursions, could be shared with a report posted on the Forum.
There would be plenty of creative opportunity to place the figure in dubious situations and generate comment and competition.
I would be willing to participate if it could be lighthearted in this or similar manner.
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Re: The Great Forum Railway Inspection

Post by philipy » Sun Feb 24, 2019 11:23 am

Peter Butler wrote: Sun Feb 24, 2019 10:59 am I don't know enough about the operational requirements of real railways to be able to give a report on garden lines, however, a figure sent to various members could take his/her passport to be suitably stamped, pictures of his/her visit to the line, and other excursions, could be shared with a report posted on the Forum.
There would be plenty of creative opportunity to place the figure in dubious situations and generate comment and competition.
I would be willing to participate if it could be lighthearted in this or similar manner.
Peter,
Lighthearted was pretty much the only intent afaik. Not much knowledge of real railways was necessary. Take a look at the thread link I posted and you'll see the 'reports' generated!
Philip

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Re: The Great Forum Railway Inspection

Post by Tom the blacksmith » Sun Feb 24, 2019 9:12 pm

Love the travel wagon idea, but probably wouldn't work well hear with all the mixed gauges.

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Re: The Great Forum Railway Inspection

Post by Peter Butler » Sun Feb 24, 2019 9:27 pm

Tom the blacksmith wrote: Sun Feb 24, 2019 9:12 pm Love the travel wagon idea, but probably wouldn't work well hear with all the mixed gauges.
There could be an increased cost implication (for some) in posting large items around the world if the next recipient on the list became their responsibility. A single figure, plus 'passport' would be much more economical and cause less issues with security descriptions etc...
I'm all for taking part but it needs to be kept simple.
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Re: The Great Forum Railway Inspection

Post by philipy » Mon Feb 25, 2019 9:17 am

Garn... I'll volunteer to get the ball rolling since there does seem to be some interest.

Only one rule, the Inspector may not spend more than ONE month as a guest of any one member before being forwarded to his next assignment, and then he must be posted 1st class. This is to avoid him going MIA as he used to occasionally, previously.

If you want to take part, please PM me with your screen name and name of your railway ( no address). I'll then compile and post a list, in the order that PM's are received. It will be up to the sender and recipient at each exchange to pass the next address BY PM ONLY, NOT a public post on the board.

I see no real problem with non-UK members taking part if they want to.
Philip

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Re: The Great Forum Railway Inspection

Post by SimonWood » Mon Feb 25, 2019 1:19 pm

Tom the blacksmith wrote: Sun Feb 24, 2019 9:12 pm Love the travel wagon idea, but probably wouldn't work well hear with all the mixed gauges.
There has been an HGLW wagon wandering around for a couple of years (Tim's Wonderful Wandering Wagon, Facebook) which I think is 32mm. I've been keeping an eye out in case it comes anywhere near Wales, but I believe it is currently in Hong Kong...

I do like the Inspector idea.

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Re: The Great Forum Railway Inspection

Post by IrishPeter » Tue Feb 26, 2019 4:03 am

Hopefully by the time he has made a few other visits there will be enough of the Far End Tramway running for him to come out to the Former Colonies and take a gander. The Skebawn and Castleknox is outside of his jurisdiction, unless there is a McVile kicking about.

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Traffic Pattern? What pattern? Spuds out; grain in, but cattle, sheep and passengers are a lot less predictable.

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Re: The Great Forum Railway Inspection

Post by philipy » Tue Feb 26, 2019 6:39 am

Quick up date:

I must admit that personally I didn't see a whole lot of point to Peter's suggestion of a 'passport' for the inspector. However, it looks as though he actually might need a real one sooner than expected because of the 7 inspections requested so far, there are: 2 in UK, 2 in USA and one in Russia! :lol: :lol:
Philip

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Re: The Great Forum Railway Inspection

Post by ge_rik » Tue Feb 26, 2019 9:12 am

philipy wrote: Tue Feb 26, 2019 6:39 am Quick up date:

I must admit that personally I didn't see a whole lot of point to Peter's suggestion of a 'passport' for the inspector. However, it looks as though he actually might need a real one sooner than expected because of the 7 inspections requested so far, there are: 2 in UK, 2 in USA and one in Russia! :lol: :lol:
The way things are going, he might soon need one for Scotland and N Ireland ...... :shock:

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Re: The Great Forum Railway Inspection

Post by Keith S » Wed Feb 27, 2019 7:16 pm

I don't have a railway for him to inspect yet, but I am hoping to get something started in my so-called "garden" sometime this summer, if I can. I'd love to support this fun activity in some way. I loved the old inspection thread- some of it was very funny. At the present time he could do a "works" visit at my house as a "consultant" rather than an inspector, or conversely if the timing could be arranged, I could take him on one of my visits to England, visit someone else's railway and do a cheeky "inspection" before posting him on.

I'm posting this here rather than on a PM because I don't know if these two ideas are rubbish and maybe I should wait until there's some rails actually in my garden.

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Re: The Great Forum Railway Inspection

Post by philipy » Wed Feb 27, 2019 9:38 pm

Hi Keith,
I see no probs with your suggestions, so could you drop me a PM please and I'll put you on the list in sequence. At present you'll be about 10th so he won't get to you until later this year at the earliest, I imagine.

I'm hoping we'll get things rolling sometime next week. Mr V. Isles, the previous inspector, seems to have permanantly retired, but I have been recommended to a Mr I. N. Spectre and he will be joining us as soon as he finishes with his current employer, at the end of this week. :D
Philip

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Re: The Great Forum Railway Inspection

Post by FWLR » Thu Feb 28, 2019 8:33 am

Will be giving it a go, hopefully he can give a few pointers on the station line..... :lol: :lol:

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Re: The Great Forum Railway Inspection

Post by CSL » Sat Mar 02, 2019 10:53 pm

I'm in! PM just sent. Looking forward to contributing, whenever it happens.

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Re: The Great Forum Railway Inspection

Post by Big Jim » Thu Mar 07, 2019 9:22 pm

Yes please, I am sure a yard of the PMR could be resurrected for inspection or possibly my local ME track.
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Re: The Great Forum Railway Inspection

Post by ge_rik » Fri Mar 08, 2019 7:31 am

I don't know what others think (why do we say that? It's bloomin' obvious!), but I'd be interested in seeing a pre-build site survey. I'm sure there's plenty of opportunities for insights and humour in seeing how forward thinking might be going.

Rik
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