RJS1977

But the majority of cars, clothes, and food sold nationally aren't at the luxury end, even though they may be of a higher spec than years gone by.

Even in Reading, the Oracle (built 1998) has lost its two biggest retailers (House of Fraser and Debenhams) and the multiplex cinema is struggling. It's on the cards that much of the site may be converted to flats.

Again, genuinely shocked to hear of this and condolences to the staff, particularly those who have handled my orders in the past. It seems inconceivable that no part of the business was deemed to be viable. However Hattons "Bargains" are no longer the "Bargains" they once were and their secondhand side seemed to be massively overpriced and contained quite a lot of "tat". And managing to fall out with their two biggest suppliers must have had an impact on sales. We know how much model prices have risen in the last 15-20 years, even when wider inflation was relatively low, which will have impacted the number (if not volume) of sales. I have suggested for a while that the move towards more expensive models is not sustainable in the long term, and I wonder if this is the start of that particular bubble beginning to burst.

I can! I mentioned one not long ago..... ;-)

Not just an issue with railway books at preserved railways either. In my younger days, I collected Blue Peter annuals and amassed a pile of about 30 running from the days of Chris Trace and Val Singleton through to Konnie Huq and Zoe Salmon. As my parents are planning a clearout, I called in at the shop in Reading that specialises in TV memorabilia and asked what they might be worth these days. "Can't give 'em away" was the reply.

We have A LOT of secondhand railway books in the shop at Wallingford (some more specialist than others), in large part because people keep donating them and nobody's buying them.... (If you're looking for anything, please feel free to call in and take a look in the shop when we reopen at Easter!).

I have modelled it (but don't have it to hand at the moment so no photo). However it will be running on my model of the current Wallingford station at the Kenavon (East Reading) show on 17th February.

Unfortunately I think station pilot moves are out owing to the adjacent "handover" section. Once a train has departed the terminus, it will wait in the "handover" section until the operator at the other end is ready to receive it, preventing any pilot moves from entering that section (and if the section was empty, an ECS move into the section could be mistaken by the other operator as a train being sent to them.

My plan is very much an "inspired by Ramsgate" rather than a slavish copy. I added the runaround to the bay to increase capacity in the station, and connected it to the turntable because it happened to be there - although it also means goods locos can be turned easily.

Yes, I only used one that big because it was the only one in Anyrail.

Actually, perhaps the simplest solution would be to flip it through 180 degrees: This has the added advantage of bringing the goods yard closer to the operator(s) to simplify uncoupling. My only concern with doing it this way round is that the next board is the "handover" board to the rest of the layout, so if the operator up the far end is slow in taking over a departing train, all movements on and off shed are blocked. (Or the other operator could see a light engine arrive on the "handover" board and think it's for them to take).

Currently considering this idea, loosely inspired by Ramsgate Harbour. As depicted in the plan, a loco coming from the top of the layout would cross on to the arrivals line then run on to the shed. The obvious solution would be to move the trailing crossover outside the facing one, but that would take it outside the confines of the two 4' baseboards, or would squash the station up so small as to be unworkable.

My club are considering building a new double track terminus next year (which can be bolted on to our main layout with operators passing trains between the two). Some shunt moves (e.g. accessing the loco shed, or possibly ECS movements, depending on the plan chosen) will need to be made outside the confines of the terminus and encroach on the "main line" connecting the two layouts. Is there any hard and fast rule about whether such moves should be made on the "Up" (i.e. departing line) or the "Down" (arrival) line?

Surely all the space in a depot is only needed when the line is shut. Bakerloo Line trains run through Queens Park depot (presumably with trains stabled on the running lines overnight) so something similar could be done at Morden.

Our friends at Grundon have recently returned the Dogfish to us, having repainted it: (Photo: Kaz Lewinski) We have made enquiries with Heljan regarding the possibility of getting a run done in 00 - any takers?

I've often wondered about the possiblity of redesigning Morden depot to include a couple of terminal platforms to allow some passenger trains to terminate there, with a pedestrian link to Morden South (and possibly also to Central Road via the mosque car park.

Now we can all have our own episodes of "The Architecture the Railways Built"

To quote a very wise Scottish engineer: "The more they overthink the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drains!"

Thanks for this. ASLEF seem to be making quite a thing of this, claiming that it happened because GWR used a driver manager to run the train, when to their way of thinking GWR "should" have cancelled all trains and not attempted to run a service at all. You have confirmed my thoughts - that the dewirement was in no way the responsibility of the driver. One small point though - as I understand it, it was BAA, not the Treasury, who paid for the electrification from Paddington to Heathrow.

Just out of interest, when the wires come down like that, what tends to cause it? It's been said that a train "brought down the wires" - but how does that happen?

It's interesting that most of the truly "vintage" layouts of that sort of period are fictional/might have beens - Borchester, Buckingham, Craig & Mertonford, Madder Valley, even Pendon itself. Indeed, I'm struggling to think of many "great" layouts from that period that were based on prototype locations. By the 70s, we had Garsdale Road and a little later on Chiltern Green/Luton Hoo and then Copenhagen Fields and Gresley Beat, but not much before about 1970 other than perhaps Gainsborough.

If you are capable of assembling electronic circuits, then Roger Amos's "Complete book of model railway electronics" contains several circuits for generating sound effects on analogue.

Given that the technology exists to send text messages to all phones within a given area (as per the emergency message tests earlier in the year), perhaps a text message could be sent to everyone in Hall 5 at the time of the announcement! However I suspect the cost of sending 20,000 text messages at once would be prohibitive....

Indeed it happens quite often with my own show that I will agree an expenses figure with an exhibitor beforehand but when I go round at the end of the show they say "We've had a great day - don't bother with the expenses!" - which of course is gratefully received! On the other hand, I've had some local exhibitors ask for "Just petrol" at the time of booking which has turned out to be £40 for a 20 minute journey!