Dutch Group show reports and website updates

[tedp]

Ted, I had a quick look into this issue and the first thing to say is: you can ONLY use CSS to change BACKGROUND-IMAGES.

You can do a lot of other things - including re-sizing and re-colouring text and lines - but (sadly) you CANNOT alter the settings of <img> tags.

I though I should tell you this, to stop you hunting around for solutions with respect to <img> tags.

However, if you are game for re-implementing the "buttons" with something that incorporates background-image elements (I do not know what, yet) or possibly do away with images and have text-links (which can be scaled via CSS) I can help you get started with the CSS coding.

Thanks for the offer, Harry, much obliged. I haven't done much in CSS, but I expect I will find my way there - if I run into a problem I'll be happy to ask you. Usually it's a question of adapting something found on the web. I'm a bodger in web design as much as in modelling!

I'm not sure I will want to change settings on an existing page, and I'm really in the process of changing from text to button links (the other way round). What I would probably want is a device-dependent change to a different framing format, using a parallel set of files, since the index bar is an HTML file and the frame split is controlled by a separate file incorporating the 'frameset' operator.

The present format is split left-right, with the vertical menu bar taking up a fixed 125 pixels width. This is OK for computer screen use. On a telephone size screen you'd probably need to change to a different layout as Hugh seems to be doing. His menu changes from a bar on the left with text links to a horizontal bar at the top with button links.

What I propose is that I look at Hugh's implementation first and see where I end up. I'll keep you posted.

Hugh, if you'd be so kind to send me your notes, I'd be very grateful. I think you have my email address?

[tedp]

Some of you may have wondered where I have been. Others may have been glad I've been away, but I'm back!   

The reason for this is that during the past weeks I spent whole days at the computer to make a huge change to the Dutch Group website. Often this went on from early morning to late evening. I focused on the early years of the Dutch Group, and the years the late Reinier Hendriksen and myself may well have been the only ones working in 009 in this country. There was no Dutch Group at the time, although Reinier tried to get one off the ground in 1992.

I processed an enormous amount of material and tried to improve access and picture quality. The early years covered are now (roughly) 1990 to 2004. Some of the new material shows early photos by Reinier Hendriksen and 1990s videos of Moors End, which I suppose many of you will be interested in. In view of the huge amount of work, the 2005-2013 pages will have to be postponed, since I will be away in April and time is lacking to complete it beforehand.

Future improvements will concern changes in the website

[tedp]

I have just been given the green light to publish the scanned articles by Reinier Hendriksen in the 009 News, 1992-1999.

The direct link to the history page is here: http://www.009dutch.nl/archive/1990/pages/eearlydays.htm

At the bottom there is a button which connects to the PDF files on the website.

[tedp]

This morning I uploaded another revision of the Dutch Group website for the 2005-2006 pages, with new photo albums and a better page layout. In addition, some pages were combined and new ones added containing material I found in the vaults. If you still see an old page, hit F5 to refresh the page.

To sum it up, I have been rebuilding the site since the start of February to improve access and readability. There is a lot of interesting archive material in there, some of which almost couldn

[Harry Mantheakis]

Thank you Ted!

[tedp]

Today I uploaded the changed pages for the years 2007-2008 to our website. This includes show reports and project pages. The following pages may be of special interest:

Craig & Mertonford Locomotives Abroad, describing the visits made by several Craig & Mertonford locomotives to my layout, several of these having been restored by Rod Allcock. The page includes video buttons featuring short video clips of several of P.D.Hancock's locos at work.



2007 show reports including photos of the late Tony Mortlock's 'Schmerz an der Oggel'. Another of Tony's layouts is 'Hayesden', featured in the 2006 show reports. Click on the Valkenburg album buttons to view the photos in these pages.





Interesting projects for 2007 are Jan van Mourik's 'Uivernest', Henk Wust's Mariah

[tedp]

The Dutch Group website has finally been updated.

I managed to get all the events pages in line with the new format started last winter. In addition, the latest events attended by members of the Group have been added to the 2015 page - the Valkenburg show, our visit to the RTM steam tram and my visit to the railways of the Frisian islands. They were all mentioned on the forum, but now I have assembled all the links to photo albums and videos in one page. In addition, all the photo albums accessible from the site are now to the new easily browsed format.



There is still a lot of work to be done. In a few albums the captions have to be added again, and there are several project pages that have to be re-written. There is some new material that hasn't yet been processed, including Henk Wust's new 'heresy', Smeerdijk - a chemical industry complex served by standard gauge that may be known to several forum members.

English language access here: http://www.009dutch.nl/main/eframe.htm

Please report any dead links or bugs encountered.

[tedp]

Another update of the Dutch 009 Group website. I now re-wrote most of the project pages since 2009. Pages updated are the ones by Jan van Mourik, Bert van Rhijn and Jaap Stuurman.

Jan van Mourik describing Mouburg as it has appeared on exhibitions in recent years: http://www.009dutch.nl/archive/ejavamo.htm

Jaap Stuurman describing his Welsh-inspired layout Mae'n ddrwg gen i which appeared at Chatham in 2013. http://www.009dutch.nl/archive/ejaap.htm

Of particular interest to rolling stock builders will be Bert van Rhijn's rolling stock projects which once appeared in the 009 News. Four pages of interest (construction tutorials) from a master rolling stock builder: http://www.009dutch.nl/archive/ebert.htm

What's left to do now is the five Nixnie pages which wil follow in due course.   ::)

P.S. the whole site is accessible from here: http://www.009dutch.nl/main/eframe.htm

[tedp]

And finally, after many days and weeks of work, I'm happy to announce that the Dutch Group website has been re-structured. Probably in a few cases something has been forgotten, such as captions in photo albums, or I may have left foreign language texts in place here and there, but these will pop up soon enough.

The last pages to be upgraded were those describing the construction of Nixnie.

The site can now be used with far more browsing devices than it used to - it will even display on most mobile phones. I hope you like the new format.

Now I can finally go back to modelling... I hope... although there are several new projects to be added soon.  ::)

http://www.009dutch.nl/main/eframe.htm

[tedp]

The Dutch Group website has been updated with the reports on Expong and various local excursions we made last weekend, including photo albums and video.

Direct links:

http://www.009dutch.nl/main/eframe.htm

http://www.009dutch.nl/archive/2015/pages/eevents.htm

[tedp]

Yesterday, January 30th, we had an excellent meeting of the Dutch Group, the first of its kind for a long time, with about 15 members attending at my place in Leiden. Several had managed to travel from as far afield as Maastricht and Groningen - three hour journeys.

Here are a few photos.

Jaap Stuurman's new layout - the tar and oil depot, is taking shape. Note the beautiful ships and industrial scene:



An Emmett-like bash of the Backwoods steam railcar by Len de Vries, who had been invited by Gerbrand Haans:



Glyn Valley time at Nixnie. Bert van Rhijn's kit-built GVT locos next to my Fourdees model:



Bert's freelance tram engine Glyndwr leaning into the curve at Dunalistair:



Some scratchbuilt 0 scale narrow gauge models by new Dutch Member Wolter Daniels, who wants to go into 009 or H0e:



A radio controlled and 3D printed H0e Henschel 'Fabia' by Hedzer Durksz - Hedzer is combining two 21st Century technologies into his tiny models, and they do work very well:



Radio-controlled Deutz diesel at work in Dunalistair:



New member Marco Balk brought two Fourdees GVT locos, which together with mine made quite a crowd at Nixnie:



Michael Staats is building a miniature brickworks layout. His Minitrains Gmeinder is now fitted with a DCC chip:



Rob Reinders brought his 'briefcase' layout - a U-shaped piece of track on which a diesel railcar does an automatic sequence:



And here is Jan van Mourik's scratchbuilt Fairlie speeding out of Dunalistair, heading my L&B coaches:



Finally, we became a little silly and ran Jan van Mourik's converted Amsterdam city tram (by Atlas Editions, with a Kato chassis) up Creag Dhubh. Here it is seen groaning up the Ridge:



The most important thing that must have come out of this meeting was the decision to turn more attention to local activities, next to the annual meeting and one or two excursions. The travelling distance is very great for some of our members, and it's not an easy thing to scrape together a large number of members for regular full size meetings. So what will be added? Think of small local group meetings and projects, and operating nights on working layouts. We are going to make an inventory of address 'clusters' on a map of the country, and work from there.

The full report including a photo album is here:

http://www.009dutch.nl/archive/2016/pages/eevents.htm

A video is being prepared.

[tedp]

A video has been published here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oV3XcBOrsBw

[Jeff Schumaker]

Some very nice work by the members of the Dutch group.

I can understand the difficulty of getting members together over long distances. Members of the Great Lakes HOn30 group are as far as 500 mi (800 km) apart. We set up the layout together about 2-3 times a year. "Local" gatherings still involve 2+ hour drives for some.

Jeff S.

[tedp]

Thanks Jeff. 500 miles! 200 is more like the maximum over here, but still it's too much. Anyway, we are already planning more local activities, which in our case involves 1-hour drives at the most.

[tedp]

Today I added web pages to our website describing The Corn Mill, by Henk Wust and John & Jane Jacobs, and the new (mainly standard gauge) industrial layout called Smeerdijk, by Henk Wust and Jan van Mourik. Text, diagrams and photos mainly by Jan van Mourik.





The pages can be found here:

http://www.009dutch.nl/archive/eindex%20project.htm

Specifically:

http://www.009dutch.nl/archive/2016/pages/ecornmill.htm

http://www.009dutch.nl/archive/2016/pages/esmeerdijk.htm