Re: Shuntomatic System 3000 - 2022 edition
Posted: Sat Jan 15, 2022 5:37 pm
The local Odeon will be showing it as a Newsreel, narrated by a plummy-voiced chap hailing "a breakthrough in Great British innovation and efficiency"...
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The local Odeon will be showing it as a Newsreel, narrated by a plummy-voiced chap hailing "a breakthrough in Great British innovation and efficiency"...
There may be some truth in that - although, I did buy myself a beautiful new jigsaw at the weekend, so I'm all ready to cut out the parts for the meat van that I drew onto ply a couple of months ago. It's progress, of a sort...
That's outside of Shunt-o-Matic's remit, I fear - that avoids attempting to choose suitable locos altogether, largely because I haven't really go any. I might just manage it with the Slomo-fitted Russell, but I think it's really a job for battery powered locos, and neither of the current ones are at all realistic for the WHR - it's something I really must get round to...BertieB wrote: ↑Sun Jan 16, 2022 8:39 pm Not too much scope in my back garden to use System 3000 sadly (limited rolling stock and no actual destinations served) but perhaps the developers might deliver a simplified add-on — System 3000/1, Determining the most appropriate serviceable locomotive.
I’ll be wanting to link it to my website, so I can have fun with the branding and contrive an excuse to introduce pleasing robot images (I’m focusing on what’s important here).
Are you okay Andrew? Have a lie down in a darkened room and sip some camomile tea...Andrew wrote: ↑Mon Jan 17, 2022 8:56 amThat's outside of Shunt-o-Matic's remit, I fear - that avoids attempting to choose suitable locos altogether, largely because I haven't really go any. I might just manage it with the Slomo-fitted Russell, but I think it's really a job for battery powered locos, and neither of the current ones are at all realistic for the WHR - it's something I really must get round to...BertieB wrote: ↑Sun Jan 16, 2022 8:39 pm Not too much scope in my back garden to use System 3000 sadly (limited rolling stock and no actual destinations served) but perhaps the developers might deliver a simplified add-on — System 3000/1, Determining the most appropriate serviceable locomotive.
I’ll be wanting to link it to my website, so I can have fun with the branding and contrive an excuse to introduce pleasing robot images (I’m focusing on what’s important here).
I think what you need for your task is Shed-a-Tron, the robot Shed Master that was actually the only original proposal of the 1954 BR Modernisation Plan. That plan had to be doctored significantly in a cover-up operation when the prototype Shed-a-Tron went rogue, accidentally scrapping 18,000 steam locos with the death ray designed to deter schoolboy trainspotters, and necessitating the hasty purchase of often unsuitable diesel and electric locos in their place.
Alas, the next version was even worse... In recognition of the PR disaster that Shed-a-Tron had been, the powers that be decided to give the next version the least offensive name imaginable, and to dress it up in the guise of human - they opted for the avuncular "Richard", and managed to provide the new robot with a vaguely passable likeness of a rather supercilious bank manager. As history records, this one was only finally stopped when it had ripped up a third of the rail network, in the process having become the inspiration for a whole genre of dystopian "the machines have taken over" films, such as Terminator and The Matrix, and given rise to the conspiracy theory that, in fact, humanity is now reduced to nothing more than an organic steam heating boiler round the back of Willesden engine shed, while our robot overlords spend their time merrily recreating their favourite scenes from Thomas the Tank Engine amid the smouldering remnants of civilisation.
I hope that helps?
Andrew.
Oh, Wow. This is the sort of stuff I want to hear about! Thorough and detailed — you need to update Wikipedia.
It's too much time in darkened rooms that's the problem, I need to get outside!
Like you say, focusing on what's important...BertieB wrote: ↑Mon Jan 17, 2022 3:23 pmOh, Wow. This is the sort of stuff I want to hear about! Thorough and detailed — you need to update Wikipedia.
But I must have already signed up. Shed-a-Tron / Supercilious Richard* will have been behind the recent ruthless clear out here at semi-scale BR, coincidently transforming, perhaps, what survives into a future heritage attraction (and offering the scope, for example, to run inappropriate locomotives like Caledonian Sleeper 73s).
(*I’ve seen the videos)
Thank you. If I want to make new stuff (and I am) it’s prudent not to leave earlier examples provocatively scattered about all over the house, I find. The front room “is not a workshop”.
I hope you haven't discarded any favourites