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Good moaning from a still rather cool Charente, where the dawn chorus is in full swing. Our friends came for lunch yesterday. We haven't seen them for several years but Mathew's sister now lives near Cognac, so they came up from there to see us. In the evening a good friend made us dinner. As we ate we watched a bright orange moon rise, it looked great. Today is hospital admission day for Beth. We are setting off later this morning to have lunch in Angouleme then will head for the hospital. I will probably stay and watch trains for a few hours before heading home. Her op is some time Thursday. Regards to all. Jamie

Enough about pigs, here's a couple of Panniers to start your day off with a smile....?

He had to go to the animal hospital for overnight monitoring the first night after the operation and be monitored at the operating vets surgery for a few days. The nurses said he was such an observant dog , he knew where the treats were stored and stared until he got one. He had so many bloodtests he learned to put his paw out so they could take blood from his leg. He had negotiated this I think by making it quite clear they were not going to take it from his neck. I think this was because he really didn’t like the syringe up the nose for kennel cough vaccine. He really was a good dog and was always happy to go to vets apart from the kennel cough.

Moaning awl. Where's all that time going?! Dull and overcast but slowly getting warmer again after a chilly spell came across the land. Though TBH, I prefer cooler temperatures. FiL has been somewhat rough recently after his chemo session resulted in a follow-up infection with sepsis. That could be successfully treated but had left him weakened and at times slightly delirious, from which he is currently recovering. His GP (who is also mine) will be making a house call later today. Thankfully, FiL is visibly improving, but of course still taking things slow. Certainly makes one think about how fragile one's health may become when elderly. Stay safe and sound...

Hope the procedure goes according to plan Jamie and recovery is swift.

I found this topic so interesting I ended up registering so I can comment. Warning: You can tell this is written by an accountant. If you have a problem with beancounting you may want to skip this one... TL:DR version - main points are the sentences in bold. Looking at both the recent stock market update and the previous financial statements, there are some pretty clear problems at Hornby, but comments such as those by Simon Kohler in Railway Modeller actually don't touch them, they focus on the wrong problem. In fact the final Outlook section of the trading update Hornby issued does a much better job at actually telling us what the issues are - high stock and high overhead costs. It's not about the competition or the innovation from smaller entrants or any of that. It's not about firebox lighting or headlamps or detailed underframes. Sure those drive up the cost of the product and the sales price, but they do that for all manufacturers equally. They're not why Hornby is in trouble. Yes, there are newer, smaller, entrants to the market. Normally smaller entrants are more agile, but the larger incumbent players have a massive advantage, which is simply size. Being larger simply allows Hornby to do everything more efficiently and therefore more profitably. To blame new entrants into the market for changing the focus of the market, whether it's quality features, wider liveries or larger rakes of wagons, whatever, none of that is really the point. Hornby can make the exact same moves and do it more cheaply due to their ability to scale up. Ultimately all of the companies are playing the same game, there's no secret advantage, no technology that can't be copied, no significant exclusive product that makes them unique, no monopoly on the market. They're not Microsoft or Apple with a product you can't live without. Whether large or small, the products and the processes are pretty much identical. Research -> Design -> Engineering Models -> Tooling -> Production -> Sales (and repeat). With few exceptions (Dapol and PECO) that production is largely happening in India and China, so costs should be expected to be broadly similar regardless of which company is making the model. The only advantage the smaller companies have that the market has different expectations, they can rely more heavily on a pre-order funding model that reduces their need for costly stock holdings. That's their agility in play, and it's much needed as they simply don't have the cash that Hornby has to invest in production runs that clear the shelves more slowly. Of course recently Hornby don't have they money either which is why they're struggling (it is happening somewhat though and I think the TT120 market is probably a good example of this shift happening with Hornby simply not having the excess stock on hand, though whether that's by design or by mistake is a matter of opinion). So if all the players in the game are broadly selling the same goods for the same prices with the same underlying costs, how is it Hornby are struggling so much? Hornby should have the advantage, they can make larger batches, more product, have more efficient distribution, wider marketing and other theoretically more efficient overheads, so they should be making more profit than the smaller competitors, not less. Fundamentally Hornby are left with two problems then, which are exactly as Hornby have disclosed in their statement. 1. Their higher stock position is costing them money. This one is all about cashflow. When you have spent all your money buying stock that's sat in a warehouse, that money isn't doing anything useful, like buying more tooling or paying more designers. Instead Hornby are borrowing more money to pay for that, and borrowing costs interest, so it's a double whammy, your own money is doing nothing and it's costing you to use someone else's. In fact Hornby have a huge and persistent stock problem caused by what I can only assume are bad decisions in their past (railways or other brands, I don't know for sure). The latest statement indicates their stock level is around £20m (down £3m from previous disclosure which was £23m). Based on their 2023 account they had £21.3m of stock and turnover of £55.1m that means they have a stock ratio of about 39%. That means they have effectively about 4 months worth of sales value held in stock doing nothing for the business, not generating a penny. This is a level so bad that they have removed the Inventory graph from the 2023 annual accounts. If you look back over past accounts this used to be reported with a pretty graph every year. In fact between 2004 and 2018 the average stock level was closer to 22% of sales. And this was with a business model that Hornby acknowledged was on the princple of selling things more slowly over time (the opposite of the current market trend). So you'd expect Hornby to be reducing stock in line with market trends, not increasing it. In fact Hornby have doubled their stock level since 2019. To even get back to their previously levels of efficiency in stock, Hornby need to offload about £9m of stock. It's no coincidence that the level of bank debt has increased by £14m in the same time period and it's clear that the naysayers can't just blame that on tooling up for TT120. It's caused by stock not selling. We've all seen the fly on the wall documentary with Simon K and Montana at a fete trying desperately to offload unwanted garbage steampunk sets and the like. Think of this as at kind of problem but on a massive scale. It's simply stuff no one wants. Whether it's bad or just expensive I don't know. But it's costing Hornby money in bank interest (nearly £700k in bank and loan interest in 2023 when that debt was less than half what it is now). 2. Their overheads are out of control. Hornby should be making the most profit out of the players in the market because they can do things more cheaply when they do them on a larger scale. Partly this seems to be driven by the obession with online direct sales. We know from the announcement that around 18% of all sales are online direct sales. These should be making the most profit out of all sales because they're selling direct at RRP and not having to sell them at wholesale prices to retailers. Even the points discount is barely a dent in their profitability here as it's only the same as Retailers discount at and those retailers must still make something out of the deal or they wouldn't buy the products. On average Hornby have around a 48-49% profit margin on the actual cost of the product that covers these overheads. In the 2023 accounts digital sales were £8.5m, which was 15% of total sales. So those digital sales contributed about £4.3m of profit margin towards the overhead costs of the company. At the same time the cost of winning those digital sales in overheads went up by £1.9m, so actually those digital sales only contributed £2.4m toward the rest of the overheads - a little over half what they would have done if those sales had simply come from retailers instead. Yes, this is longer term investment for the future, but between 2023 and 2024 the digital sales share of the total has only moved from 15% to 18% of total sales. That 3% is around £1.6m of extra sales. Yet total sales are pretty flat at only 2% growth (around £1.1m), so quite a lot of those new digital sales have come from taking market share off of retailers, not from growing new sales/new customers. And because of this massive investment in digital, they are actually making Hornby less money, not more. Ignoring the one off exceptional costs (writing off bad investments and refurbishing the visitor centre) then these two things alone would have been the difference between turning a profit and the loss they actually made. Also, for what it's worth, last year when Hornby lost all that money, their departing CEO's pay went up from £241k to £617k. So that's a £375k pay off to someone they wanted out. Who says you need to make a profit to get rewarded eh?

Following the work on the wheels and couplings I painted the insides of the new Rapido PO wagons with Revell matt black and tested them in the coal empties train. All was well so I toned down the outsides and underframes using Vallejo black wash, applied in downward strokes with a flat brush. In one or two places where the white lettering resisted the wash I added a little Humbrol black weathering powder. Ah, that's better. John C.

Earlier you were talking about Fairburn tanks Tony. The DJH O gauge Fairburn is a nice kit, but riddled with errors I'm afraid. Principally, the cyclinder in the kit are too small and the slide bar bracket is too far back making the slidebars ridiculously long. I built mine with modified 80000 tank cylinders and valve gear and added extra castings ( principally for the Ivatt ) from the Laurie Griffin range to improve it, including a cast rear bogie to replace the 'tea tray' as well as a cast front pony truck.

Been awake since half four - feeling knackered already

Ey up! Hope Beth's op goes well @jamie92208. And I hope your train arrives on time @woodenhead. (Not something I can bank on with Late and Never Early!). first up today a visit to the new dental hygienist, followed by hoovering and tidying ...pah. Day should be completed by a trip to the MRS before my trip to Beamish tomorrow. Busy, busy, busy Have a good day/night/ morning wherever you are ERing in the world. Baz

The above reminded me of a sign on the bulkhead (at eye level) in one of the heads onboard the USS KITTY HAWK CVA-63 that stated: "if you can p!$$ above this line, the special fire-fighting team needs you."

The Ffestiniog Railway for this morning. Tan y Bwlch Earl of Merioneth 22nd Aug 70 C243 Tan y Bwlch Hunslet Linda Dduallt to Porthmadog Aug 72 J3034 Tan y Grisiau Hibberd Upnor Castle 6th Aug 79 C4680 Tan y Grisiau Hunslet Blanche Porthmadog to Tan y Grisiau 6th Aug 79 C4693 Tan y Grisiau Hunslet Blanche Porthmadog to Tan y Grisiau 6th Aug 79 C4694 David

I thought there was nowt going on, but there's been a fair bit of figuring out what I need to do and importantly what order I need to do it in. Unfortunately the White Rabbit has been giving me lots of stick about all the other things I need to do. He isn't the slightest bit bothered that in this Wonderland, Alice isn't a precocious little blonde girl, but a potty little brunette with access to unstable chemicals...

70 year old motorcycle components in fact! I haven't given up on Aston or completely disappeared down the rabbit hole, I've been up to my ears with work, home and getting the 500cc BSA Star Twin put back together after the fire last summer. Of course, it became a complete rebuild of the "I might as well do it now because the bike is totally dismantled" variety. I've also acquired a couple of 250 BSA's from 1951 and 53, these had been dismantled forty five years ago and partly reassembled with no regard to what part came from what bike. I'm actually looking forward to making some more trees!

Evening Awl, MRC went well , got rained on as I arrived back home.. Arrived home to the vet calling... Ben's results of the blood tests. Raised protein and calcium levels. Not good. Parathyroid disease seems unlikely as he has none of the symptoms... Which leaves kidney disease or cancer or ? The ? Is because the vet is struggling to find a definite cause to match Ben's results. So what do we do? Ben is 13+, a border Collie's life span is 12 to 15. It would be unfair on him for anything invasive. If it's cancer chemo at his age probably not worth the suffering he would get from the chemo..

Feels like quite a while, most of the recent action has been over on the Pre-Grouping, Modelling & Prototype thread. Anyway, here's the last of the Slaters MR/MSJS 6 wheel carriages I've been building: This is actually the second one I've built, this time though went for the MSJS livery: They are lovely kits but quite time consuming as there are a myriad of small parts. At first glance a bit expensive but the quality of the castings etc. are exceptional. My only gripe really is the underframe, can't get this as free running as the LNWR 6 wheelers from LRM. Anyway, here's the group photo under the footbridge at Carlisle Citadel 🙂 The passengers have been waiting so long for the layout to be finished - their fashion sense is now looking decidedly out of date!

Is it retirement beckoning or end of teaching?... Dr Eldest is also having similar problems.. as in can't sleep so it may be a common theme for lecturers. Next up.. dissertation marking and reviews.. Baz

We have "community" mailboxes. Today there was no mail in ours despite 3 visits. It may have had to do with this: Guelph Post Office

My good wife was never an enthusiastic traveller, but happy to travel as long as she didn't have to organise anything, navigate or drive (outside UK, at any rate); no camping and no sleeper trains. Her various tribulations of recent years have quite extinguished whatever flame there was and I no longer bother to suggest it. I travelled widely for work and (mostly) enjoyed it, but there were quite a few places I was happy not to return to. Top of the list, Sub Saharan Africa. I had a few enjoyable stop-overs but on the whole, nope. The North African littoral, particularly Tunisia could be good fun, but that has changed greatly in recent years. I missed out on a contract with BP in Algeria in 2010 which ended in guns and helicopters, not sorry to have missed that. I dont care for the Far East. Don't like the heat and humidity. I've heard very various things about South America. I did have a highly enjoyable stop-over in Argentina, when i was involved with Rock Hopper. My cousin did two deployments to Belize and loathed it. I did have one trip to Venezuela and it wasnt much fun. On the whole I tend to feel that I've missed that bus. I'd like to see more of the US and Canada. Japan was fascinating. I had a good time in the Caspian region. Especially Azerbaijan.

So that means there won't be a sudden influx of English accents among the staff on Sydney Ferries then?😉 (unlike among the staff in Sydney Emergency Departments.. ) Actually, just looked up deckhand pay scales on Sydney ferries, turns out its not too shabby given its a government award rate - average base salary is $78,637 (£41,000). Thats for a 38 hour week, any extra hours attracts overtime, pushing the average to £46,000 to £54,000. Plus they apparently get 10 weeks annual leave. The annual leave attracts a holiday leave loading of an additional 17%. And they get to spend the day chugging backwards and forwards on Sydney Harbour, taking pretty young things to Watsons Bay, Manly and so on. I'd be in it! (I dont' think public transport in NSW has ever made a profit but then that's not what public transport is meant to be about..)

Human evolution: 1. Beaker people 2. Tumbler people 3. Cup people 4. Cut glass people 5. Mug people

Yep, so hopefully problems were resolved. There was some national media coverage of this issue recently in relation to preserved lines in general. Here's the train at Bewdley. It's some yesrs since I visited the SVR so it was great to walk along the train looking at each vehicle before it moved off. The Hawksworth coach in the foreground is of course the youngest in the rake. John C.

Morning, from a rock that is almost spring-like. Almost. 11c is a bit under where we should be to say the least. Best wishes to Beth and Dom's FiL, indeed age creeps up on us with all it's nefarious tricks to make us less well. My Tuesday morning pal, who is living with C anyway but has been OK for some time, isn't well currently, another worry. Today is one of our fasting periods s no brekky, but lunch will be enjoyed. A pal is coming for a ride, complex bloke, Belgian and of Polish descent, his surname is one only Andy SM42 would attempt - begins with a Z. Poor lad is always last to get anything! He's also Mrs NHN's Pilates teacher, smashing guy, despite riding a Harley. Well he has a Moto Guzzi of enormous dimensions too for days when it may rain. The Harley's very, very shiny indeed and takes some keeping that way. It's also very fast, it is quite special internally, surprises some other riders. I hate to think how much all that cost.

The formation of the 8.00 Leeds/Bradford. Mk1s to start with.BSO CK. MK1 SK, two compartments reserved for passengers joining at Hitchin, who back then would almost certainly those compartments empty, whereas now they would be full of sullen looking interlopers, who would refuse to move. Then an all door Gresley SK. Another all door SK and a BSK, these two and the previous SK to be secured by KX. FO and RK, the latter one of the few to be seen in 1958. These came off the previous days 1145 Up Leeds. Now the Bradford portion. CK, again one compartment reserved for those joining at Hithchin, and a BG. Finally, MK1 TSO. For some reason on Bradford portions these were often placed outside the brake vehicle. Bonus J6 as well.

Good morning, The absolute minimum radius this big engine will negotiate is 3'. The rear frames are fixed to the main chassis. With a swivelling inner truck carrying the pony wheels (there is precious little side-to-side movement, but enough for 3'). Anything less, then it's a ghastly RTR-style whole-swivelling unit or flangeless pony wheels (the later pair of Ivatt 'Princess Coronations', with the 'Delta' truck beneath the cab is better in this respect). This 'Semi' was travelling so fast on Little Bytham that this was the best I could do to 'freeze' it! The weight of Geoff Haynes' lovely painting obviously slowed it down a bit.............. Regards, Tony.

Not required so much nowadays: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-14789036

Fortunately it wasn't them. Stop using them when it took them four attempts to test my eyes- took them six months to repair/find an operator for a piece of equipment. Now go direct to a chap who grinds the lenses. Saved a fortune in not having to buy 'designer' frames each time.

Good morning everyone Another sunny start to the day here in the northwest corner of England, although it has suddenly gone very cloudy! The plan for today is to head off to RHS Bridgewater for a walk in the gardens, hopefully we’ll see the apple trees in blossom and we might even get a walk through the woods too. Of course after all that activity, we’ll need some sort of refreshment, so it would be very rude not to have a drink and a slice before we head back home. There are no firm plans for the afternoon, so a spot of reading might be in order. Back later. Brian

Jamie, I hope Beth's operation and recovery go well. I woke this morning to the sound of rain, fortunately it was only another passing shower. As I was eating my breakfast I saw a jackdaw fly very fast across the garden through the rose arch - no mean feat as it is very close to the greenhouse. There was a female sparrow hawk in hot pursuit, she ended up crashing to the ground under the arch. Then she sorted herself out and flew to the top of the arch and spent a few minutes getting her feathers sorted out and looking round. Suddenly she took off and headed very quickly away, as she went the jackdaw was chasing her. I wonder what happened next? Apart from that the garden bin has been emptied so I can now cut down the rest of the heather. The next job is to scan more old photos, today's seem to be mainly photos of me up to the age of about 7 or so. David

Early rise, didn’t go to bed to 23:30. Off to the big smoke for a long day. Getting light early now

Consensus is that prior estimates of up to perhaps Ca 13,000 years ago for the Clovis peoples are certainly not the "oldest". There is little consensus on actual "oldest", though Ca 23,000 years is a common conjecture. There are plenty of online sources to support this theory.

In 2017 the hammer price of this model at Vectis was only £110, the same as the Hornby Railroad P2 for some reason!? Listed as professionally built in 1993, painted by Larry Goddard, near mint.

Good evening everyone It seems like quite a while since I’ve done an evening post, but lately it seems that there aren’t enough hours in the day and I just couldn’t seem to find the time to post, keeping up with everyone else was enough. Anyway, back to today, we had some great weather, sunshine but a bit of a cool wind. Despite that, we had a lovely walk at Dunham Massey, we saw lots of deer and plenty of birds (the feathered variety), but nothing unusual. This afternoon Charlie did come round, a bit later than usual, due to him getting his days mixed up! As usual, he continued working on his current model, whilst I built the chassis of what will be a small industrial 0-4-0 locomotive. I built the gearbox the other day and today I was able to install and test it the chassis. It ran well, but will benefit from running in, which I’ll do over the weekend. I also started modifying the body of an old Hornby loco to fit the chassis, but there’s still a bit of work to do there.

Evening all from Estuary-Land. Our (SEERS) AGM on Thursday. At one time we used to run a few coach trips each year but we haven't run any at all in the last couple of years especially last year as coach hire charges went through the roof. This year though they have dropped considerably and trip suggestions will be put to the members. One already on the cards is the Chatham show on the 20/21 of July. I was going to suggest the K&ESR 50th anniversary gala but looking at the prices I'll be suggesting another weekend.

The Beast Of Blacker Lane. Manning Wardle 16-inch Special moves onto the shed road at Blacker Lane D.P.

To bring the topic back to the WHR I thought I might add in a couple of pics at Glenfinnan Viaduct I took away back on 1st June 1963 . This trip was then hailed as being the farewell to steam over the West Highland. It was also the first train to be called 'The Jacobite' which ran to Mallaig - but then with two NBR J37s and not Class 37s. They did fail before reaching Mallaig and the train returned to Glasgow [very late] headed by a Class 27. Apologies for the scratches on the negatives . [Alisdair]

Pretty much what happened to our Lab/Collie cross Sam. He was 14. That was nearly six years ago now and I still miss him dreadfully. Dave

Being a Hippo isn't complaining about 'fresh country air' a bit like calling a kettle black.

Some kind farmer spread quite a large amount of slurry around his fields yesterday. One of the pleasures of living in the countryside are the delightful smells that occasionally waft through the atmosphere. Although my sinuses have new been well and truly cleared out, it is advisable to keep the windows and doors shut for a few days whilst the atmosphere stabilises once more. However, like road repairs, I do wish the local farmers would coordinate their efforts, because I can guarantee that life will just settle back to normal, then the chicken farm will decide to do their annual guano clearout.

And here is my version set up on the dining room table. I am really pleased how it looks. Although there are detail differences, and my bridge is double track, the original single, it really has the look and feel. Despite my diagonal girders leaning the wrong way! Next step is the decking. I have already printed some waybeam track bases, just got to finally pin down how to do the decking. I am tempted to just put sheets of plasticard to make a solid deck that I can scribe to look like planks. Haven't finally decided yet, any insights gratefully received!

The canal

Morning all, A flavour of the main hall from last year. You may recognise a few of the usual suspects.........and one or two of the more unusual ones... I thank you.

The gents in the Union at Nottingham Uni had some good scribblings. To be or not to be. William Shakespeare, To do or to be. John Paul Sartre Do be do be do. Frank Sinatra. Was one. Jamie

Robbie had some tumours removed from his parathyroid. His symptoms really only presented as drinking a lot and elevated calcium levels. He had a parathyroid hormone test (frozen blood sample sent to special lab) . The vet removed the tumours, they were malignant but slow growing. Back then the parathyroid blood test for dogs was quite new. I had the same test for my parathyroid and had to have it done at the hospital. Done at outpatients clinics routinely now.

The replacement Comet frames for the Mainline 75XXX.............. Fitted perfectly.

I hope you got a nice bono biscuit and a fresh bowl of water afterwards.

OOoooh, political.... Unless you are referring to the Snake House at Taronga Zoo, which would be the @polybear solution..

Now this diagram should not need much explaining

It's my turn now!!!