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  2. The Re6/6 with the poseable (ie plastic) pantographs are 'Kato', not 'Hobbytrain'. There is a subtle difference between the two brands.
  3. Tasmanian Huon pine has a very high oil content, methyl eugenol, which renders it impervious to insects, and it is waterproof. It grows only in the Southwest forests of Tasmania and is not actually a pine and is the only member of its family. It grows extremely slowly, averaging just 1 millimetre in girth per year, so are not viable as a plantation timber although specimens have been found that are 2,500 years old so it could be a very long term proposition. The felling of green Huon Pines stopped completely in the 1970’s after a consensus that it was neither sustainable nor prudent to cut down trees that were 1000 years old. However, a careful stockpiling operation was begun when trees were felled and collected prior to the flooding of several valleys to create dams for hydro electric schemes. For decades these logs were tied into huge rafts and left to float unperturbed on the water until needed. The stockpile created when Lake Gordon was flooded in 1972 still supplies the majority of logs released for use each year. Only 3 sawmills are licensed to process the logs. The retrieval of stumps left over from old logging is another source of salvage timber and led to the discovery of tons of ancient buried Huon pine logs, some dated at 38,000 years old and still intact despite being buried in the damp earth all that time. In addition, perfectly millabe logs are being recovered from the bottom of Macquarie Harbour which were lost due to capsizes and mishaps when it was being cut down and transported by convicts in the late 1700's and early 1800's. It also smells amazing when cut or worked.
  4. Has AI been used for the "Expert Reviews" 'headline' at the bottom of the cover? Or someone from the lower end of Tabloid journalism?? "Be the first to find out which new models you need to buy".... Seriously?? Such over the top hyperbole fails on two counts - "be the first..." yeah like all the other readers who buy the mag - or saw reviews online well before the mags are published anyway!! - and secondly "new models you need to buy" - well I'll decide for myself thanks very much what models I need - and speaking personally, the models I'm most likely to buy won't ever feature in BRM anyway!!! Which also blows out of the water the strapline across the top - "The only railway modelling magazine you'll ever need"...??? Sorry, not in my case, or, I suspect, quite a few others. Someone at Warners needs to calm down a bit when writing headlines for BRM. Or change the colour behind the BRM logo so they remember they're not writing for a tabloid 'red top' audience...... "Don't judge a book by it's cover" is an old phrase with more than a grain of truth to it. The content itself of BRM is usually good, even if often it doesn't make it a 'must buy' for me, due to my mainly 'foreign' interests, but o.t.t. 'headlines' on the cover really don't help, to my mind anyway.
  5. I did my master’s dissertation on reproducing historical locations on film. I made a recreation of York station in 1957 mixing footage shot at York station in 2015 and the Pickering on the North Yorkshire Moors Railway, plus CG elements and matte painting. One of the conclusions I came to is that you cannot get everything right when it comes to experts. On this forum we have far more knowledge than the majority of people do about railways, so we wonder why they cannot get it right when filming railways. I suspect that if you watch ‘Downton Abbey’ with an expert, or collector of plates and dinner services, they would point out that some of the plates they are eating off are far too late for the period of the programme. Similarly, for anything that someone is an expert on. TV shows are telling a story, they are not a documentary of the history of railways, costume, cutlery or whatever your own specialist knowledge covers. They do their best within the budget and the expertise of the crew. If it were a documentary on the history of railways during the World War 2, then I would say they should get it right. Some shows do go to great lengths to get things right, ‘Band of Brothers’ made sure that the tanks used were the tanks in the story, or with the Tiger tank, they build a very close replica from an existing tank (one too few wheels along the tracks I think). Railways are too expensive to buy the exact rolling stock and bring it to a film set, they simply have to use a preserved railway within reasonable travel of the shoot’s location. They could use CGI to recreate the trains, but it would not be cost effective, unless say it was a drama about the Mallard’s record breaking run 90 years ago, so for most people if it is a steam train and not a diesel or electric that is good enough. At the end of the day, if you are invested in the characters and plot enough then it is fine, and if you are not, then everyone can just have fun picking apart the what you are watching. Film and TV drama is based on ‘the suspension of disbelief’ and if you by into it then good, if not then it won't work anyway. Just to say , this does not mean I give film makers a free pass, the HSTs in the background of many shots in ‘Quadrophenia’ set in the 1960’s really jarred with me, but then I didn’t like the film, so my suspension of disbelief had already gone, in fact I liked the HSTs better than most of the characters. As for the tanks in 60s World War 2 films………… Here is a still from my master's project 'York 1957', it has many inaccuracies, but I hope feels about right. That shot took me about 2-3 weeks to plan, shoot and put together on the computer. Plus camera and sound and travel and research (which I already had a head start on for the railway information). I doubt a TV show, or even most films would have the budget for one shot to cover that, unless it was the key element of the film. If it is just someone getting train back home for the weekend, then a ‘steam train’ will do. I found out later that the wooden ends of the main roof were replaced in the 60’s. I know the trolley and boxes are too near the edge, but I had to mask the feet of the people on the Pickering platform. The modern light on 76079 still bugs me, I may go back and fix that and the end station roof one day, but NYMR had it on that day. Link a to short video of the ‘build’ for that shot. http://www.jamielochhead.co.uk/York1957/StationBuildv01.mp4 Link a to the 1 minute final piece, there were three different versions all had different mistakes to ask research questions about. http://www.jamielochhead.co.uk/York1957/York1957Blue.mov Jamie
  6. I appreciate I’m throwing a massive hand grenade into the mix here and it’s nothing to with naming BR 7MTs but wasn’t there a plan to name something after a certain DJ from Leeds several times and that got vetoed?
  7. Google tends to roll out changes, so they're not inflicted on everyone at once, so you may get lucky with avoiding them for a while. If you block cookies it can be a bit random wether or not they're forced on you each time you look.
  8. I raised this exact same issue earlier with Rapido on this thread with a possible similar solution and was told it's a "tooling compromise". I don't like to compare manufacturers but Accurascales J67/68/69 has a metal smokebox but an all plastic chimney that push fits so is complete without join a third of the way up. It also looks like a decent fit. I think we'll just have to accept it. Further refinement may make it less noticeable as these are early engineering prototypes but I'm not convinced. Being told it's a tooling compromise I think closes the issue.
  9. So are you advocating the modelling of wheelslip? Presumably could be achieved by intentionally mismatching the speed of a powered loco to the speed of a powered tender under DCC. Is there a way of dynamically adjusting the characteristics of separate mechanisms in a consist, so that they run in sync at speed but not on starting?
  10. Ride My See Saw . . . . . .Bloody Mues
  11. Well a result in that I figured out that to wire a Cobalt accessory switch you want the contacts wired the opposite way round to the rails! (I’m using the switch rather than the DCC frog option so I can run the points, signals and routes off DCC while powering the rails from DC or DCC). So all wired and tested and adjusted.
  12. Thanks for the explanation on how such a layout would be operated, it helps me plan the shunting sequence to get everything where it needs to be. Just so I understand things fully a train cannot arrive directly into the siding as the ground frame must be locked to clear the signal into the platform, but a train can depart from the siding directly as the platform starter is not interlocked with the groundframe. It's certainly going to be an involving task when it comes time for the milk train arrival, as the full sequence involves a runaround move using the other two platforms before it gets to this one. The fun part will be trying to do it all between the local passenger traffic.
  13. Today
  14. The next seacow has now reached the workbench, this one had been partially graffitied (I can’t tell if they didn’t finish the job or it was partially cleaned off). It also has a white on clear tops panel (yet to be added) and a grey solbar (I used Phoenix Silver Grey which was a pretty close match for the RTR grey) the printed tops panel and the dodgy H&S logos were removed before painting the solbar and graffiti, along with back dating the ohle flashes to match the photo and adding Mainline logos. It now goes back in the box until I get on with the transfers. the Seacow branding on the prototype was pretty faded out, so I’ve removed the top coat of the black which seems to have done the job. looking again at the prototype all of the wagons need some rework on the chutes to add more white to the mix. the next wagon in the list needs the yellow removing completely which is going to be a bit more involved. Given the make up of the ends I’m reluctant to just dunk in ipa…
  15. Sounds like how my Kindle changed last week. Also no longer have my watch list displayed and, whereas previously, the display would stay on full screen for a whole series of videos, it now automatically changes back to small screen after each one. AnnoyIng and unnecessary changes that I haven't found a way to amend.
  16. Well, that's nothing like mine: I don't subscribe to any channels, though. Is this something the channel owner has done?
  17. Plenty of videos on youtube at various locations around the country. Each of these Youtubers have hours of footage from all around the country. Admittingly it would mean watching all of them, but, there maybe something in there that will help with your original question. I watched most of them at work, I got paid too watch these! the names of the youtubers are:- spompeytransportvideo electrarailfilms soi buakkhao old oak trains lineside video productions.
  18. Maybe they're just very kind close-ups (that's a thing, right?!) but those look really very very good indeed. Roping exemplary once again, too. Now, how's about a nice little layout to run them on...?! :)
  19. Oh, yes, I'm sure that it was the Shakespearean connection that led to the loco namings. Gaunt's speech is rarely quoted in full, and is in fact a damning prophecy of the future of the country under Richard II:- '.. .This England, this nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings feared by their breed and famous for their birth, Renowned for their deeds as far from home for christian service and true chivalry as is the sepulchre in stubborn Jewry of the world's ransom, blessed Mary's son. This land of dear, dear, souls, this dear, dear land, dear for her reputation through the world is now leased out - I die pronouncing it - like to a tenement or pelting farm. England, bound in with the triumphant sea, whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege of watery Neptune, is now bound in with shame, with inky blots and rotten parchment bonds. That England that was wont to conquer others hath made a shameful conquest of itself'. Thus died time-honoured Gaunt, at least according to Stratford Bill; hardly the tone of most sceptered isle quotes! No good quoting half the speech, let's have the whole thing... Gaunt never forgives the king for ending his regency, and by this time, has lost his son Henry Bolingbroke to the king's banishment from the realm. Bolingbroke is no hero either, and has Richard II murdered, or at least taken into his custody at Wakefield Castle after which he was pronounced dead, having never been seen again amongst the living.
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