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Well this place has indeed been busy since I was last on. I’ve not been on rmweb since December last year. Which indeed is when I last did any real modelling, well other than in the mind ofcourse. Unfortunately my mother passed away on two days before Christmas and then my second and hopefully final wedding on the 31st of the same month. Then moving house twice in six months. All that has left no time for anything, barely time to scratch anything! Mind having said that I spend 80% of my working days sat on it driving so no chance haha. it’s nice to see so many projects on the go. I cannot wait for shows to start again, indeed the last show I was Model Rail Scotland 2020 where Tony I had the pleasure of running some of your models on my clubs Newcastleton layout. After more than 15 weeks of being stuck in the house wasn’t exactly good for the old mental health when I had dementia to deal with on a daily basis. Literally the only thing that kept me going and occupied was my modelling. So I gained three Nu Cast V2’s, together with and A3. All of which were bought cheap (via a certain well known auction site) and I put my scratch building head on and made a NBR class C16 from a Hornby Adams radial tank chassis and a much butchered triang m7 body. This cost me next to nothing and I’m very pleased with it. I’ve since got hold of another chassis to do another when I have the time. I have perhaps put some of these up before but think someone may appreciate them. So I’m posting a couple of the models I’ve made.

A few more of 5078.

Between trains at Rotherhill, East Sussex

As the C12 reverses away, the Norseman appears. We know that is what it is, as someone has found a headboard in the dark recesses of a cupboard, something the loco very rarely seemed to carry. I did though find, just a few days ago, a photo taken in July 58 with the headboard attached, so I decided to include it now and again.

Our last surviving C12 has had a trip down to the carriage sidings, and has propelled the stock for the 1033 to Kings Cross into Platform 2.

I should have taken yesterdays storms as a sign of what hit me coming into work. My team has talked about moving away from an old and rubbish system to a new one for months on and off. On Thursday, I took the initiative to start the transition. What did I get? Backlash, people removing themselves and "this is a rubbish idea" basically. Talk about feeling unsupported by the other members! Don't know why I bother sometimes - people seem to take it as a personal attack on them.

The Type 80 radar used a mercury arc rectifier, normally known as the Mekon. I only did a little work on a T80 during training. The descendant T84 radar on which I'm qualified used valves. The descendant of that the T88 / T89 radars on which I'm also qualified on on used SCRs . I changed all the SCRs on one occasion something like 16, as once 1 failed you knew the rest wouldn't be far behind. I still have them. That's because I painted them up as marker buoys to use on a table during sailing instruction. The Mekon. Oh for scale the glass dome of the Mekon is around 18inches across.

Morning all from red dragon land. Wet out but now sunneeeeeee with blue skies. Will try and pull up some more crocosmia later if it dries up enough. Interesting day on the CVR, yesterday. Sun at the start of the day (hot and sticky), then sun and showers, then dark cloud with a heavy downpour. When it had dried out, I agreed to do the last but one passenger train, only for it to rain on the way round - did I hear a little wheel slip approaching the top of the hill? Then, on the trip back to the shed, a pair of rabbits decided to dash about across the track and between the rails in front of me. It is bad enough when they play games on the level, but on the steep bit round the curve it is not very sportsmanlike! Ah, yes! I could, possibly, just run them over but just think of the mess, the probability of having to re-rail a derailed train, or faced with a band of protesters waving their 'be kind to animals' banners... Some other interesting moments. I spotted this on the Museum wall, thinking 'I know of someone who might like this,' and 'Oooo! I've been on that!' (Port Erin to Port St Mary) - camera held high at arms length to get the exhibit as square as possible...So much interesting stuff in there, it is nice to stop for a few minutes when passing through to have a look. I was just about to make my way from the workshop to the station to help out with the train when it started to drizzle, so I went to get my waterproofs and then the heavens opened - big time. Workshop on the left, Shed on the right, Buffet Coach Cafe with extended outdoor eating area centre. Whilst sheltering from the rain, a little birdie popped into the workshop. One from last week. Don't take your eyes off the road, Jack! Just found out they do a black snood.... Time for a bit of toot on the flute. Fitt and Elfie doing alright. Take care all and play safe. _________ Best wishes Polly

Good morning all, Sunshine and mainly blue sky here but there is the chance of a shower or two. I really don't know why I stay in this country. Apparently it's carp! The people are carp. The NHS is carp. The food is carp. The transport system is carp. The TV programmes are carp. The weather is carp. I'm probably carp as well! Oh I know why, I was born here and I love the place even with its faults and will never ever leave. Whenever I get a train (very rarely these days and not at all since the beginning of Covid) I always try to get to the station at least 10-15 minutes before the due time so 30 seconds here or there doesn't bother me in the slightest. Good day yesterday doing nottalot. Steve visited, delivered and set up the new Iphone for The Boss. She is not very comfortable with any sort of technology but seems to have got to grips with this phone a lot quicker than her old one....in fact she never really got to grips with the old one! Inspected the gouges on his car which have gone right through the paintwork. It is a metallic colour but he's had a quote from a guy (who has come highly recommended) which is not as bad as he'd first thought . Both doors will have to be completely re-sprayed and it's booked in later in the month. Fingers crossed that it comes out OK. He stayed for a long chat and watched the first half of the rugby match. After that I stayed in my armchair and watched the rest followed by the end of the T de F stage. Steak was prepared and consumed about 6.15 and the new bottle of wine has passed the GDB acceptability test with flying colours. Just as well as I bought 6 bottles! After that I watched the F1 but managed to doze off during that. Today after breakfast we'll be going for a walk which will include a quick visit to Asda. This may be followed by a visit to The Shed where toys may be played with. I may even do some muddling in the form of spreading stony stuff on tracks. Have a good one, Bob.

Laxey rectification in action - last day in service. Turns out a 'couple of years ago' was 2011. This is Manx Time in action! When we say its 1958 here, we don't mean the time , but the year.... I can't find my slides of the ones at the Harton Electric Railway in South Shields, not sure where they are.

Greetings all from Sidcup where the sun has emerged between the clouds and it is warming up. A relatively quiet weekend that was over far too quickly. We enjoyed the football. We watched the F1 highlights. One the laptops (purchased March 20) has decided to stop charging up. We think it is the internal battery. It is on a Curry's care scheme and I duly arranged for it to be picked up by them today for investigation/repair. I made sure I told the person that it had to be after 9 because I am on a school run. They followed up with a call yesterday morning and I again emphasised the time. I got a text late last night suggesting that it would be between 7 and 11 this morning. At around 5 to 8 while with Younger Lurker I got a call saying they'd be there in 15 minutes time. I had to explain to the courier who clearly did not speak English as a first language that it had to be after 9 o'clock. But now I have no idea if or when they will actually come. I will give to the end of the 11 o'clock window before having to try to follow up.

Aagh! Saw one of those in a lab about 50 years ago. I did my HNC at Worcester. They had recently taken over the Radar Establishment school at Malvern and we did most of our course there. How things have changed. My communications lecturer was involved in radar development during WW2 and my electronics notes included half a page about the new-fangled 'Integrated Circuits'.

Well said that man. A few light showers remain in North Somerset, but we are basically waiting for the rather nasty looking low pressure to the SW to flatten our garden with a combination of strong winds and heavy rain. We have already had the average rainfall for July, and that included 20mm yesterday, much of it during our street party, which was held under awnings in the organisers front garden. Everything seemed to go well....lots to eat and drink and many of us discovered the names of people living at the other end of the cul-de-sac. Eventually, though, the increasing frequency of heavy showers meant that there was very little space under cover, and apparently F1 racing was about to start; therefore the event drew to a rather haphazard close, but there was talk of repeating it around Chri**m*s time. One suggestion was that from 12 days before the 25th until 12 days after, we would assemble in the garden of each house in turn to eat mince pies and drink mulled wine. However, as this might easily result in a street full of obese alcoholics by January 2022 I don't think the idea will be taken up. The big question today is, will my front grass dry out enough today to allow me to cut it late this afternoon?

Yes @grandadbob despite its many strange ways of doing things I ltoo ike where I live especially when I am visiting other countries which are real disorganized chaos when it comes to day to day life. It continues to chuckitdarn here.. means next doors "builder" won't be starting their extension with a bit of luck..unless his digger can float! Dr Eldest Herbert has chosen the cover photo of his magnum opus.. he has a couple of changes to make then it is off to the printers..ooh eck! Who would have thunk it? The great grandson of a miner writing a big book with no pictures in it! Breakfast is now calling so TTFN! Baz

I had a bit of a surprise yesterday. I just happened to mention of the O Gauge Facebook site that I was selling up my 2, O Gauge Layouts and ALL the Stock and by 2pm, I had sold most of the wagon Stock and a couple of the Locos. Never expected that

The first T80 went into service in 1954 (RAF Ventnor) the last left service in 1992. (RAF Buchan) There were at least 41 T80s built, but many were withdrawn shortly after introduction and some never made it to their intended sites due to cutbacks, hence there were plenty of spares for training sites. Mooring Awl, Bin a bit busy again at work, there being 2 major systems due this week. I went out one door of the outer lab, for tea break and came back through the same door... However the door had moved 30 ft sideways in the wall. The wonders of modern modular construction.. Feeling a bit rough this morning, I definitely moved too many slabs Saturday. I assume Tigerburnie did his apprenticeship at the AEI buildings in Leicester, I went there once for a job interview, Not enough money and the place was very depressing. I also felt like a foreigner in the area.. Of job interviews we have a candidate arriving Wednesday / Thursday From MK by train!! The excitement of the day is collecting spuds from a farm shop on the way home. maybe some onions and carrots too if I can stand the joy.. Time for the next measurement.

I don't know about you but I always have this fear that I will do the buffer beam numbers different to what is needed. The number is laid out on the bench before I start so I don't pick up the wrong one and work in sequence from the buffer headstock as this is a fixed point. Crew have arrived, just waiting for the number plate.

Good moaning from a grey and cool Charente. Yesterday was much the same and we did have some Welsh sunshine. The Pintard was not sacrificed in vain and the remains may well be curried tonight. First job today is to take the Volvo to be looked at. The rear offside wheel is getting a tad warm. I suspect that something is amiss with the handbrake. Modelling tokens could be involved. If it stays dry, which is not a certainty, the hedge at the front needs a good trim. The blackbirds have fledged and gone and the bees appear to have finished so it's time to get the hedge trimmer out. Apart from that I may well exercise my remaining grey matter trying to work out the interior layout of a public toilet. The explanation for that activity is on my layout thread. Jamie

Greetings one and all Yesterday was unremarkable. I watched some DVDs, or to be strictly accurate some tracks from a DVD, and paused for lunch comprising sirloin steak followed by apple tart anointed with evaporated milk. At some stage in the proceedings I picked some m*d*ll*ng requisites, sighed and put them down again. Today I shall venture forth to buy my donation to charity, aka the lottery tickets, and should really catch up with the ironing, for there is enough of it. Later in the week, ie tomorrow, there is a Zoom talk given by Christian Wolmar. I am beginning to long for the days when such events were held in a church hall. Later today there is to be a press conference given by those who rule us. I hope that the diligent journalists who have disclosed the details have come close to getting them right. Whatever is announced from the Downing Street lectern cannot please everybody but a little hope can go a long way. Best wishes to all Chris

Apologies for anything I have missed over the last few days but now back to the world of proper internet connections after a few days mountain biking and the delights of a rural connection. I think that if someone in the village logged in to Netflix everything else dropped out. After last night's rain today started quite well then went downhill rapidly. The grandsons managed to get their cricket match in between the showers, and I got a couple of decent pictures. Oh the joys of having rapid fire digital photography. As soon as the match finished I went round to Rose Hill station to see the Crank-Ex arrive. It was very late and by that time the rain was proper northern. I moved on Marple Aqueduct but the rain was so bad I couldn't even open the car window for a picture let alone get out. After trying some video at Dinting I abandoned. I intended going out later to get some shots in the Hope Valley but had second thoughts due to the weather. It was probably fortunate the route seemed to be altering on the 'VSTP+ a bit more' basis. It was very late and then looks as if it spent about 90 minutes at Earles Siding. I suspect the 37 had failed there as a loco went up from Peak Forest to Earles whilst it was there.

I feel your pain But you may find some solice in this thought: "It's far easier for some to criticise other's work than to generate original ideas themselves"

Good morning everyone The sun has just come out it looks like being a lovely day here in England’s northwest. However, the ground is far too wet for any sort of work, so I’ll give that a miss! Not that I’d have been do ping any today anyway, as we have Vickie calling round mid morning, as Ian is working today, I’ve volunteered to take her to collect Charlie’s birthday cake. After dinner Charlie is calling round as he wants me to show/help him make/paint some model figures etc. Finally we have one of the grandkids that wants to learn some modelling skills! So yesterday after I’d put the boxes in the new storage area, I cleaned and mopped the cellar floor, set up and cleaned a temporary table (the workshop is unusable at the moment due to the amount of stuff being stored there) and cleaned the chair I use in there. I really looking forward to this afternoon. Stay safe, stay sane, enjoy whatever you have planned for the day, back later. Brian

Morning all from Estuary-Land. I stayed up last night to finish reading a novel. So late that dawn was breaking when I finished. Now back to bed for some sleep, be back later.

Rather later than usual, some photos on the ECML in Northumberland. Acklington Class 56 down coal June 93 J13915.jpg Taken when there were still opencast mines, now long gone. Buston Barns 45104 down p w Oct 87 J9320.jpg Buston Barns 47558 up pass 4th April 89 C11837.jpg Buston Barns 43053 up 3rd Jan 92 C16661.jpg Alnmouth Class 254 up Nov 84 J8217.jpg David

Morning, damp here but not as damp as Edinburgh thankfully, thick sea harr, looks even more like autumn, still we had at least two weeks of summer, not bad for up here lol. Talk of where you live, I have been a proper nomad in my time, Holland was ok, Belgium was meh, France was lovely, though most of Paris was a tip, Luxembourg was ok too. London was interesting, Devon folk were not friendly at all, Derbyshire was nice, Staffordshire was ok in places, Leicestershire where i was born was/is a nice county but the towns were all dumps and Scotland is glorious. The problem is not the places, it's the people......................... Q in the 1960's I used to build type 40 radar amongst other things as part of my apprenticeship, spent months milling wave guides too.

Proper morning this time. Already at work, but due to interrupted sleep feeling a little under the weather. Office C@ckwombles and F@@kwits watch out..... Stay safe, sane and well. Back later.

Wet here this morning. It means I cannot do any gardening.. great! Train travel in Indiabinvolves "ish" time ... while there is a timetable trains may be up to (and more) 24 hours late.. On our services , particularly from Kings Cross, platform 0 at Leeds and Manchester stations the train doors are closed 2 minutes before the train departs. It is only of concern if you are late..ie not ready to board the train for an on time departure. I like to be at the station at least 10 minutes before the advertised departure time.. it can take a while to transfer from one platform to another at Leeds. In other news... TV production is going on in the UK. Things take a lot longer to prepare but around our area mysterious signs appear on road sides (think a pink, fluorescent green arrow sign) with "LOC 2" or some such written on it. One item filmed around Adel has already been screened on ITV. Stay safe! Baz

Morning (or is 04:00 still night time)? Either way I shouldn't be awake without good reason and right at this moment I can't think of one. :(

I recall when I read Janet Auel's "CLAN OF THE CAVE BEAR", I was lying on the sofa with only a small light shining down on the book. The phone rang; I was so into the book that I was sitting around the fire with Aila, the mog-ur and the rest of the clan, that noise was so foreign to my perceived environment that it really scared me! Edit: That book was one of the very few that I literally could not stop reading!

Afternoon all Rain has stopped outdoor activities for most of the day. So admin tasks have been done including re applying for my driving licence.

Good evening everyone Today’s weather has remained changeable all day. Rain up until dinner time, then it stopped but remained quite dark. We had a little sunshine mid afternoon, luckily it remained dry whilst I washed out my mop and bucket. Then it started to rain again around tea time, stopped for a short while, only to start up again just as it was going dark, but we then had some lightening, but no thunder, it’s still chuckinitdarn now! One of Sheila’s Zumba friends was taking part in a sponsored bike ride today, the starting line was in Salford and the finishing line was in Blackpool, I don’t think she had the right weather for that! Anyway, back to the storage area, the floor is now complete, the final 2 thin strips were cut and fitted this morning. After dinner I started putting my model railway items in there, it took me most of the afternoon, but the boxes are safely stored now, close to where they will be needed. Next, I’ll turn my attention to getting the shelving in the shed dismantled and the re-assembled into units that will fit in the storage area. I currently have 2 units, 5ft tall each having 5 shelves, when finished, I’ll end up with 5 units, 2ft tall each having 2 shelves. As for the storage of paint, I’ve stored paint for over 40 years in the cellar, the worst that has happened is a metal tin rusting through and leaking. This area is basically an extension of the cellar and there is good airflow in there, so I don’t foresee any problems, as most of the paints I use now are water based and usually come in plastic containers. I used to have to maintain mercury arc rectifiers when when I worked in the steel industry. There were 2 x 1kA mercury arc rectifiers and 3 0.75kA silicon ones, all housed in a building we called the converter house. They had several dark blue windows that you could ‘watch’ rectification taking place. The mechanical guys used to call the building Frankenstein laboratory, due to the constant flashing they used to make.

Conwy Valley Railway, adjacent to and over the bridge from Betws-y-coed Station (Conwy Valley Line from Llandudno Junction to Blaenau Ffestiniog, connecting with the Ffestiniog Railway, narrow gauge) with its Class 150. Hope this helps.

Correct, Blackbird Road in the town and Golf Course Lane in New Parks, that's 5 years I shalln't forget in a hurry for a variety of reasons, Blackbird Road is now a housing estate. I started on £2 and 18 shillings for a 40 hour week in 1965, my first wage as a skilled man in 1970 was £22.00

I once went to an early Microsoft Windows preview. I said it was going to do well and was told by everyone else at work I was talking rubbish and it would never sell

They take me back, they look like the ones I used to maintain many moons ago. We used to refer to them as octopuses.

Very true. Here is a picture of next doors cat.

Now Monday in the UK. I know what I will be doing when I wake up. It's finally manic Monday. Glad it's not middle Sunday. Everyone plays on Monday. Apologies to the Bangles.

Excellent. For the six months I was there in 1969-1970 I used to see the Harton Electrics almost every morning while walking to college. I never saw its mercury arc rectifiers but I went on an MRC visit to the Post Office Railway at Mount Pleasant in the late 1970s and saw them there. AFAIR they were in the lower part of the station tunnel under the platforms. I'd earlier had a glimpse of them working at the BBC World Service transmitter site at Daventy in about 1976 during a visit by Bush House Studio Managers to learn what happened to our output after it had left the studio.

Life has been getting in the way. Since 17 May I have been making frequent visits to my parents, who, I find have not fared well during lock-down and need support. There has been a lot to do, which is difficult to organise remotely, and some days I seems to have spent all day on the 'phone. Hopefully, within a week or two, things might settle down. In the meantime I have got behind with my (finally picking up) work and my billing and have had to endure the annual purgatory of preparing my business accounts. This has left things stuck at the point I left my four GER Diagram 16 5-planks on 16 May ... Within the next fortnight, I hope some modelling time will start to become available. Assuming that the weather improves, however, the priority will be to get out and about to give the kids something of a summer holiday. I'd like to walk some of the Wall and visit some of the sites along it. This will be generally out-doors; I need to be physically active and I am also increasingly concerned that our populist government will make an irresponsible decision regarding face-masks. Only today I hear the egregious Daily Mail egging on relaxation by moronically condemning ''doomsters'', which, one must assume, includes the BMA and other representatives of The Science. Well, transmission rates are climbing at a very rapid rate and the point about masks is that wearing them protects other people, rather the wearer, from infection. The BMA has been very clear on this. HMG are talking about making matters of social distancing and mask wearing as matters of individual responsibility. It seems to me, then, that I will, once again, be at the mercy of the unthinking half of the population who have all had enough of experts. How does this affect modelling? Well, it means that, aside from carefully considered, largely outdoor, excursions with the kids, I think post-19 July I will be less likely to go anywhere and mix with people than I was post jab while everyone had a mask. Now, I'm not such a fool that I do not know that more is going on here. I have rather introverted habits and, despite a couple of moments when the isolation got to me, on the whole I have rather enjoyed lock-down because it relieved me of any pressure I might feel to make the effort to get a social life. I realise that I could be using the face-mask/rise in transmission issue as something of a pretext to keep myself to myself. And there are other things that I am fleeing from. Mothers will always be mothers and mine keeps nagging me to start dating. Sadly, my mother is no longer up to the task of presenting me with a succession of plump and pleasing persons, so at least I get to dodge that one. What I'd like is to have some regular modelling time, and some time for writing, which I took up during lock-down. For that, I need to stay in!

The Sun is out. No its not. Yes it is. No,,,,,gone again. But at least its dry. Have a good day one and all, stay safe and keep well.

Just found out we have one! You just wait 'til I get it on...

My spare parts have now arrived its tinkering time

Track, Turnouts and Point Rodding When I started construction of Tavistock, many of the current products sold by the 2mm Scale Association did not exist. Easitrac in its current form for both plain track and turnouts had not been invented nor had many of the etched chair components. For plain track, I used the original version of plastic track. This came as a 6cm long sprue of sleepers with integral moulded chairs – 2 sprues would make up a standard 60-foot length of track. The main difference from the current Easitrac was that the chairs did not grip the rail in any way other than friction – the inside faces of the chairs being straight sided. The rail therefore had to be glued in place and for this I chose to run a thin coat of quick setting Araldite along the base of both bullhead rails and then push them into the sleepers, using roller track gauges at each end to hold the rail upright and adding weights to hold it level till the glue had set. With Easitrac, the rail can by threaded through the chairs and pieces of complete track fixed to the baseboard. With the older style of plastic sleepering, I found it easier to glue the sleepers down first, add ballast and weathering before inserting the rail as the final step in the process. For straight track, the sleepers could be kept in line by using the edge a steel rule pushed gently against the side of the chairs as the glue set. For curved track, I used Tracksetta curves to line up the chairs. This does mean that most of my original curves were limited to 24”, 36” and 48” radius. The picture below shows the appearance of the old-style plastic sleepers on the 24” curve at the Launceston end of the station, transitioning to straight using short lengths of 36” and 48” radius curve as it crosses the bridge over the Old Plymouth (now Whitchurch) Rd. For turnouts, I elected to use the white metal chair pins that were sold by the Association - if I remember correctly, originally available in packs of a 1000. My reason for choosing these was that I didn’t have much confidence in my ability to make neat solder blobs to represent chairs and the chair pins were the best thing then being sold that had a reasonable resemblance to a chair. Sleepers were cut from a sheet of black plasticard, glued to the baseboard and ballasted as for the plain track. The white metal post (pin) below the chair was about 0.7mm in diameter so in order to give some scope for adjustment, I drilled larger 1mm holes into the sleepers and through to the baseboard below. The chair pins were glued in the holes with pva glue and then adjusted into the correct alignment and held in place by using a piece of rail positioned temporarily in the chairs. As with the plain track, the rails were subsequently glued in place with Araldite. In the picture below, it can be seen that the chair pins give a smaller chair then the plain plastic track but at normal viewing distances, this is not too obvious. Also visible in this picture is my representation of point rodding. Back in the late 1990s when this track was built, Laurie Adams had not developed the latest system of etched components. Instead, I followed the method described by Peter Wright in the Feb 1990 magazine. This involved using pieces of N scale flat bottom rail to represent the stools, with narrow slots cut across the rail into which the appropriate number of rods would be slotted. For rods, I used nylon fishing line which was held stretched taught while a layer of epoxy glue had time to set across the top of the stools. Nowadays, I would probably use lengths of wire (steel guitar string) soldered to the stools but at the time, I had plenty of spare fishing line and it seems to have survived OK. The various cranks were filed up from bits of scrap etch – nowhere near as accurate, nor prototypical as the currently available components but they give a reasonable illusion of what should be there. Finally in this post, a picture of the signal box, mainly to show the adjacent point rodding. Some of the rodding has suffered over time and is not as straight as I would like but at reasonable viewing distances, it's not too bad. Best wishes John

There's a lot of erosion going on in Lake Michigan. Some of the most dramatic is cliff erosion in Western Michigan (South Haven - Grand Haven and further north) or Van Buren, Allegan, Ottawa and Muskegon Counties. Houses falling into the lake sort of erosion. It's pretty bad.

Our side of Lake Huron has a number of long, sandy beaches. I think it is Michigan eroding and being washed up along Ontario. I think the far side of the state of Michigan has some sand too, Sleeping Bear?

Unless it's changed since, my experience of German railways while Interailing etc. was that they began to move precisely as the sweep second hand passed he 12. The joke on this Germanic precision was that long distance expresses were often half an hour or so late by the time they'd gone a few hundred miles. I've never been aware of the departure time in any railway timetable anywhere being anything other than the time the train is scheduled to depart not the last time that passengers can board it. Making the published departure time earlier than the actual departure time would mean using different timings in public and working timetables leading to endless work and endless confusion. The same goes for airline timings and even theatres. If the play is due to start at 7PM then that's the time the audience expect to be in their seats ready for the off, not the time they shoould think about entering the auditorium. There is by the way nothing new in this. Note the "Quarter before Seven o'Clock precisely!" From all accounts the Royal Mail coaches were even stricter about timings and their guards really did log their times to the minute. Whether you really could set your clock by the time of the London mail coach's passing is less certain.

I'm afraid we have moved from actually 'knowing' about a subject to 'what can I say or do' that will make me 'famous'. This is particularly demonstrated with museums now a days wanting to 'get a return' on there investment but unfortunately not having the initial financial acumen to realise that they is not always possible or desirable.

Sorry, but I just couldn't resist - there's a certain 'Toy Story' feel to that pic

This evening, I've been attempting to build a 2.25L petrol engine in 1/72 scale. Tricky, as you will see... It's a bit fiddly... Having got the basic shape of the engine, I added the gearbox and transfer box as well: Here they are in position on the chassis: It's not stuck in yet, as I want to paint it first. Thanks for looking, Al.

Evening All, Day went much as planned and we did get to see the special run through the woods where we take Sydney for his morning walk. As we arrived home the heavens opened up and it's rained on and off ever since. the upshot was that I got more paperwork done than expected and then watched the F1 after tea.