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yes we're sure, their financial statement indicates they have about 20 million quid of stock on hand, which is a mountain.

THIS! And I damn well hope everyone on here understands exactly who is responsible for the mess come election time!

It plays well with their core supporters who generally speaking haven't got a clue about the way the industry is structured right now. Its no different to the Torries banging on about cutting taxes (despite there being overwhelming evidence public services need every penny they can get).

Not a shed, but an unheated single skin brick, mineral felt roof outbuilding in SE England, same climate as Oxford. Largely RTR OO on commercial nickel-silver rail track, and it works completely reliably. Untreated steel tools will rust but nothing horrific, all the steel components in the models have been trouble free these past twenty odd years, including the mild steel tyres on MGW wheelsets. However, I wouldn't venture mild steel rail, as an old length of tinned steel rail flexi track I found a few years ago was in a bad way. In the same location, madam's garden shed, all timber, felted roof, on a concrete base, uninsulated, ventilation under the eaves overhang, never any condensation. Given half a chance I would extend the model railway into that with confidence, but the horticultural expert firmly expresses a different opinion on this proposal.

I think - though I could be wrong - that the J39 was cancelled. In 00 that is....

Are we sure they still have mountains of unsold stock or is this a presumption from a situation years ago? Some firms ‘encourage’ payment in advance for pre orders in various forms, often on the pre-text of assisting purchasers to budget for their purchases - however the other sides to this are it enables the company to more accurately predict the order volumes but most importantly resolves their cash flow problem as they get a proportion of direct sales payments well in advance of delivery enabling interest to be earned until such time as they have to pay the factory. I’ve always wondered what proportion of their sales occur in this way - I guess we will never know but from posts on this site, it seems quite a few are happy to pay in advance. P Hornby does not follow this business model - they don’t take your money (or offer to from what i can see) until the model is despatched. I suspect this is generally because they’re not aiming for the same market segment except in the cases of some model locos. I could imagine the outcry if they did (though those companies that do this don’t seem to get negative publicity, surprisingly)!!

Marginally! Mike.

My go to decoder is Zimo, followed by ESU Loksound. Digitrains and YouChoos are good suppliers. John

One weakness of using a copper clad tiebar is that the solder joint of the blade fatigues over time. Norman Solomon (the guru of trackwork) used bent brass pins as hinges for tiebars. A bit tricky because you have to drill the tiebar exactly to get the right blade spacing. Speaking of which, Peco's blade spacing is horrendous, designed to suit all manner of wheels standards I assume. If you build your own turnouts you can adjust the blade to something more reasonable. There are pictures of Set Track points on Peco website with dimensions. https://peco-uk.com/collections/100/products/turnout-2nd-radius-right-hand?variant=7435698044962 John

A Statler and Waldorf moment! Mike.

If anyone is going to Model World Live and manages to find out anything about the 120’s, please can they let the rest of us know on here please - thanks!

In other news, here are some shots of the train set… Molehaven takes shape. The slate wall is a plastic planter from B&M… or was! a shot of Voley Island (Lindisvole) from the 5’ swing bridge… and a slight turn to see Rattersby Station. then back the other way to St. Bead’s chapel and to the distant village of Rattersby. collecting suitable fake bonsai trees and plants is hard going!

I wasn't sure....nobody noticed any blue lights......just the squealing!

Thanks for the heads up Fatadder. I’ve added my contact details to the inform when back in stock section, so hopefully they might run some more of these.

Essentially this was a single commodity block train of empties, London to South Wales, presumably without intermediate stops, possibly with a couple of loaded ones the other way [loco coal and domestic coal separately], run that way because there was enough traffic to justify it. Smaller numbers of coal empties from local stations on the way out of London would probably be picked up by local goods trains and, at a guess, be collected at Acton yard and form part of another through train to South Wales, not necessarily made up only of empty coal wagons, perhaps with intermediate stops. Both trains would be classified as through goods, but, as you imply, rather differently organised, because meeting different needs.

Waiting for the proverbial paint to dry! On with building up the livery elements so a couple of progress pix. Work bench clutter ! Its half way through building up the yellow element, using Railmatch Warning Yellow 2202 acrylic. Be honest, I don't rate it, for a start its "too orange" for my liking, but was happy to live with that, but even nicely thinned down it goes on awful, very patchy and poor flow. I had already done 3 thinned coats of white primer for a good base for it as well. Today, it was out with my trusty Humbrol RC 407 Yellow acrylic, its brilliant, flows and covers lovely even when thinned down. Trouble is, they dropped the "RC" paints range and I am eeking out my last dregs of my "precious pot"! No doubt Precision enamel yellow is ok, but I am trying to lessen my use of enamels where possible, so I might try a few different shaded of Citadel (warhammer) yellows to get a match, I am very impressed with Citadel acrylics, they cover and flow very nicely. Anyway, that's the yellow front end and cab base applied, (and the roof grey done), started on the black. Attempting to hand paint the curve above the windscreens as its well nigh impossible to create a nice smooth masking tape curve. So it will be ever decreasing rework circles till I am happy with it. The nose requires masking, but I want to wait now and let the yellow harden before messing with tape. Chassis wise, the mini ploughs are finished and started on the buffets and buffer beam. Need to limber up to do the ETH sockets and pipework, but overall this is fast progress for me. Cheers D.

No, as the old Hornby Black Five and Princess were very dated. What's more they are guaranteed sellers which has been proven as the Princesses have sold out quite a few runs out of a class of twelve. We'll wait and see with the Fives, but there were only 842 of the things and there are nearly twenty of them still in existence and most of those are running about, many on the mainline. Even with "lampgate" they will sell. Also see the 8F and Fowler 4P 2-6-4T. They definitely need total new tooling to modern standards. Hundreds built and got everywhere. For the record I did say the Hornby 9F was pointless as there is nothing wrong with the Bachmann version. But they do sell, so Hornby probably did get that right. But that was their choice, with their money taking the risk if it flopped. The Hornby/Airfix/Mainline/etc. Manor, Mogul and Prairie were also very dated. The Airfix Prairie is nearly fifty years old, the Mainline Manor and Mogul were over forty. So it was time for new ones. Is there really demand for tens of thousands of a new Collett Goods when there is a tooling that only dates from 2007? I seriously doubt it as everyone's probably got enough. Three or four people saying they will buy one doesn't guarantee anything. Jason

How far off are the 142’s now Charlie?

Copied across from the 'prototype question' thread, my 3D printed diorama of the iconic station once located by the famous Liver Birds back in the days when there were four rails on the LOR. The scale is 1:300, so this is a very small diorama, making the closeups especially cruel. The train represents one of the original (and pioneering) three-car wooden sided multiple units.

I've posted stuff and someones re-posted it on the same thread a couple of days later.

Anything that puts a new livery onto Thameslinks 700’s is good by me.

Early Morning Broad Gauge Cheer Up Photo: "Eupatoria" was one of the second round of renewals, outshopped in November 1878, and seen here in brand new condition. Take note of the Armstrong roll-top chimney - this was probably one of the last Rovers to be fitted with this chimney as William Dean had taken over as Chief Locomotive Engineer just a year earlier. The location is Westbourne Park. The building in the background is Westbourne School. Image courtesy of the Broad Gauge Society,

It didn't work for Network rail - which started as exactly that. But because Govt guaranteed its debt (how else could it have borrowed money?) that ultimately that it became a state owned company.