RJS1977

Whilst a full reopening to standard gauge seems unfeasible, it does strike me that a narrow gauge line from the car park and the iron bridge to the vicinity of the Tile Museum would not be beyond the realm of possibility.

The only show I've ever booked in advance for was Warley (and occasionally I think Ally Pally), partly to avoid the queues but also to get in half an hour earlier. TBH at the moment with the rail unions liable to call a strike at two weeks' notice, I'm quite reluctant to purchase an advanced ticket for anything.

However a rail season ticket between two stations also enables the holder to travel to intermediate stations. When I commuted regularly between Reading and Bracknell, if I wanted to go to Wokingham on the Saturday, I would use my season ticket to go there rather than buying an off peak return, so the two are analagous. My real concern though with regards to VAT is for those railways who sell a booked ticket where you have to return immediately on the same train you travelled out on - often with insufficient time between arrival and departure to step outside the confines of the station. To my mind, that no longer constitutes "public transport".

I'm going to be contrary here and say that Signal 1 would be better placed before the bridge, as otherwise the bridge will obscure the driver's view of it (unless it's a tall signal with a co-acting arm). If the signal is before the bridge, there would likely be a white patch painted on the bridge's brickwork to make the signal arm easier to see, which I always think is a nice touch on a layout.

Looks to me from that photo to have some rail supports, rather than just being a wooden beam bolted to the wall.

One of the original models of the Starship Enterprise, which was used in filming the original series of Star Trek and which was kept in Gene Roddenberry's office until it went missing in the 1970s has now been rediscovered and returned to Gene Roddenberry's son. https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/long-lost-uss-enterprise-model-returned-star-trek-109386944?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTAAAR08G32QShRG3oAzPiMwbgrYpIwRDTjaJjsnVd8tfJQnYuP8v1nUWX-YJTQ_aem_AdUuUUjS5Urmcxa5MZMZKdMXn4E2nh-qyvPX-mq97UhuimXjlLsjmrQAtZ5Np2ZnG2e-bgni2hmTEVQh7lm9108W

Reading through this discussion, I wonder if perhaps what's needed is a 16.5mm version of the Kato chassis that are so common under 009 models these days.

Jonathan Agnew used that one in a practical joke on Brian Johnston in the early 90s. A Test Match had just concluded and Johnners was to announce the presentation party on to the pavillion balcony to present the trophy and medals. Aggers gave him a list of members of the party to read out, but Johnners didn't notice that Aggers had added an extra name to the list until he had read it out. "The Managing Director of Cornhill Insurance. Mr Hugh Jars."

It's quite common for heritage railways to be split into an operating company (whose accounts are published on Companies House) and a Trust/Charity who hold the assets. That way, should the operating company get into financial difficulties, the assets are safe, avoiding the scenario that happened at Llangollen a few years back.

Did he want to build a model of Salisbury station as well? Making a model of Television Centre out of Mr Curry's new carpet is one thing....

That reminds me somewhat of the 009 Society area group that organised a "Car Boot Exhibition" at the time when outdoor events were allowed but indoor events were not!

There was an article in the "Destructor" many years ago giving advice on purchasing either a redundant single decker bus or a large van such as a pantechnicon and converting it into a "railway room" that could be driven to shows. More recently someone was advertising trailers designed to look like railway carriages that could have a layout built in them, again with the intention that they could either be parked up as railway rooms at home or towed to one of the larger exhibitions. I heard nothing more of either idea. I suspect, apart from the expense, that building a railway room on wheels might just be too easy to steal!

Back on the subject of IETs, I don't think the timing issues are just a simple matter of the units being underpowered when on diesel. Looking at today's entries on Realtime Trains for Up trains calling at Reading (deliberately chosen over Paddington to avoid any recovery time that may be in the schedule between Reading and Paddington), it appears that most trains (whether from the SW, Bristol, South Wales or Hereford/Worcester/Gloucester/Cheltenham were either on time or only a couple of minutes late. There's certainly no consistency of lateness to suggest that being underpowered is an issue. Neither did there seem to be any indication of a lack of power going over Dainton or Rattery. In fact of those trains from the SW that were significantly late, the most consistent stretch for losing time was on the downhill, electrified stretch between Newbury and Theale!

Unfortunately the frequency on the Reading-Birmingham route hasn't yet got back to pre-Covid levels in that most of the Reading-Newcastle services (the ones that went direct between Leamington Spa and Birmingham) aren't running. I think the original decision to run half-hourly shorter trains between Reading and Birmingham came about because of the then requirement to turn cross-country services in platforms 3 and (the old) 7 at Reading to free up capacity on the through lines. This increase in frequency resulted in an unexpected 40% increase in passenger numbers! The downside of the half-hourly frequency with shorter trains was that only half of the trains called at Birmingham International (owing to lack of capacity between Leamington and Coventry) meaning that they could get very crowded if there were big events on at the NEC.

Scott I've just noticed those rather nice-looking coaches in the background of your photos of the castle. They look too long to me to be the Hornby or Hattons generic coaches - so what are they? Richard