Great British Train Show 2004

I just had a copy of the show guide for proof reading. Looks like 18 dealers and 21 layouts.
N, 2mm finescale (which is not N), TT, OO, EM, P4, S, O, 1, G, Gn15.
Hornby Dublo, Tri-Ang, Trix Twin.
And a couple of buses.
 
When I read the title, I thought -- great, now I can meet some people. WRONG, it's too far away.:(

Hope you enjoy it all.
Shamus
 
We are only a half hour from the Toronto airport, a quarter hour from the VIA rail station -- direct service to Toronto and Chicago.
The show is a gathering of mostly British ex-pats getting together for mutual aid and re-inforcement. We try to bring in all the dealers who specialize in British products. When we started there were only about a half a dozen of them in the whole country!
 
sleepers?

This may be a good thread to ask a question that i've often wondered about.

From where did the term 'sleepers' originate? I just learned what a 'platelayer' is; this begets the question. I believe 'sleeper' is a British term for what is called a 'tie' or 'crosstie' in other parts of the world.

Did a web search on 'sleeper', didn't get the specific answer but found a lot of neat stuff on the history of railroad track and the different methods and rail styles used over the centuries as railroading was developed.

Can anyone shed some light on the origination of this term? And in your own country do you say 'tie' or 'sleeper'?

Here's a guess - if you saw the movie and/or read the book "The Great Train Robbery" (historically detailed by author Michael Crichton), there was a brief scene/description of a type of 'flophouse' where homeless persons would pay a pittance to spend the night sleeping while hanging their arms over a rope stretched between the walls to support them upright - literally 'on the ropes'. The visual impression of the horizontal rope and the vertical sleepers vaguely resembles a rail and ties. Again, just a guess, but possibly the term could have come from this.

Or maybe simply because they lie horizontally on the ground?

Trivia, yes, but historical details can be interesting.
 
Glen:
I'm not sure about the origin of "sleepers". Some of the early roads used stones under the rails. Recently they started using small concrete blocks joined across by metal rods, and it looks the same.
In Canada, we generally use the American terms, unless we're trying to mislead them. ;)
Just checked Webster: "sleeper ...2: a piece of timber, stone, or steel on or near the ground tosupport a superstructure, keep railroad rails in place, or receive floor joists..."
 
Sleeper - Norwegian root sleip - a timber

some info on my sleeper question

From another list and more digging seems that the term 'sleeper' may have come from the Norwegian word 'sleip' for timber, as well as the horizontal position that resembles a sleeping person . Maybe long ago someone put the two meanings together and coined 'sleeper' as a result, along with a good laugh at their pun.

Now we know. Sleepers - i like that. A tie is something you wear around your neck, or a hockey game score, or something you do to a knot.

Now is a railroad cross tie called so because it 'ties' 2 rails together?
 
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