locoholic

Looks like some market research has indicated that Classes 31, 37 and 47 are the "centre ground" of British railway modelling, and no manufacturer will achieve supremacy unless they win that ground. That approach is working well in other spheres, after all!

Doesn't matter - if it's advertised as being usable on radius 2 curves, but isn't, the cause is immaterial. For £200 any model should be as advertised.

The 54xx pannier tanks would just about sew up the Western Region of BR. And we shall be spoiled for choice for auto trailers to go with it.

Still no BR late crest J36, or BR green, early crest, single-chimney King? Astonishing! I like the early coaches, though. I can imagine that Royal coach turning up on quite a few imaginary light railways.

Whereas the BR Green Class 70 has been underproduced - sold out everywhere!

I don't suppose it will ever happen, but I would like Hornby to do an accurate D49 - they were named Gresley locos, after all - I know they're a nightmare with all the differences, but it's not impossible. The same criteria would see us with a RTR K4 - I would love a Great Marquess in mid-1960s preserved apple green livery.

I agree - Dublo nouveau Barnstaple and Bristol Castle, and Silver King, too. And it would be great if Hornby finally made an L1 painted the correct colour, black, instead of the inauthentic lined green that Triang produced! What on Earth possessed them to make such an obvious error on an otherwise reasonably decent model (for the time)?

I think people would be willing to queue, rather than just be told to give up and go away, which is Eurostar's current contingency plan. And even a delay of a few hours while staff got things opened up would be better than nothing.

Half service is better than no service at all!

How long before travel insurers refuse to cover Eurostar journeys? The service is now becoming synonymous with unreliability. With a problem in the tunnel under the Thames, Eurostar services should be able to start from Ebbsfleet or Ashford instead, with travellers using the alternative rail routes to/from London. No resilience in the current set up at all.

A hopeful sign recently has been pre-grouping brake vans - MR, SECR and LSWR done, only GCR, LNWR, NBR, CR, etc etc etc etc to go!

Is there any sign of Dapol/Lionheart making any Lynton & Barnstaple wagons, to go with the locos and carriages?

Not everyone else has - heritage lines don't have centralised locking, yet. I fear it's only a matter of time, though. The process of legislating for stupidity has a long way to go still.

It's noticeably different from the models that have been made before. I would buy a couple of 97xx panniers. I can't justify buying any more 57xx or 8750 ones. Demand for the 15xx panniers seems to have been OK, and they're just as "niche" as the 97xx.

If I was a shareholder in Bachmann I'd be furious that they have been so lazy about extracting the maximum profit from their asset, the Class 44/45 tooling. I remember getting the first Bachmann Class 44 at Warley, donkey's years ago. I'm still waiting to buy a plain green as-built Class 44, since Bachmann have never made one. I shall buy a Heljan one instead.

Yes, I think you're right. Looks like they've just given up on standard gauge steam. Meanwhile, their new-tooling diesels are being heavily discounted...

Thank you for your reply - I wish you every success with the project.

After the debacles of the Heljan LMS Garratts and the Lynton & Barnstaple 009 locos there is no way that I'm going to order one of these without seeing it run first! I do wonder whether there is now a deliberate policy of choosing obscure, high-price locos for RTR, as it means batches can be smaller and the expense and difficulty of getting stuff made in China minimised, although doing the U1 in RTR does seem like Olympic standard masochism - not an easy win by any standard. When was the last time Bachmann announced a main range standard gauge steam loco? Will we ever get a Maunsell U Class, a Fowler 3MT 2-6-2T or any of the other mainstream classes that have never been done in RTR?

Excellent news. I agree with Captain Kernow in hoping that the tooling will allow for the version with the smokebox wing plates and sandboxes on the running to be produced in the future. To my eye they were the nicest, more old-fashioned looking, and more easily distinguishable from the C class.

Why does my hear sink at the mention of "innovative couplings"? Glad to hear these coaches aren't imminent - more time to save up for them. It's been an expensive month.

I haven't really been following this thread and I'm rather intrigued by the recent comments, because no-one seems to have picked up on just what a crisis this represents for the whole rail industry. HS2 is just the highest profile failure in a trend that has been gathering pace for years - how likely is it now that electric trains will ever reach Oxford, or run from Manchester to Leeds, and how likely is it that East-West Rail trains will ever get any nearer to Cambridge than Bedford, or even that passenger trains will run to Portishead? The evidence that is currently emerging regarding HS2 shows an industry that knows it delivers poor value for money, and resorts to deliberately under-estimating costs as the only way to get approval for a project. That's a stunt you can only pull so many times, and it's unlikely to work again. That means that the rail network will gradually atrophy, instead of developing to meet the needs of the country, regardless of the flavour of government we have.

Serious allegations of malpractice in the HS2 Property Dept...

the L&B locos have arrived at Hattons...

Made it it Swanage after a 3.5 hour drive. My first sight of 563 was of it stalled on the climb to Harman's Cross, emitting a vast column of smoke that was visible for miles - apparently there were steaming issues, although there was no sign of these later in the day. The main problem was the six coach set used for the normal trains, as this was too long for the run-round loop at Swanage, with the consequent shunt-release manoeuvres causing long delays - my run behind 563 was almost an hour behind schedule. Anyway, the loco looks lovely and I enjoyed my run behind her to Norden and back. My main concern was that there were more people photographing the train than riding on it - there really weren't many passengers, so if you can, visit Swanage - they need your support!

Predictable that yet again Network Rail are blaming climate change for an infrastructure failure. This time, I assume they conclude that the higher concentration of CO2 in the air is enabling the buddleia to grow faster and do more damage. We can therefore look forward to a major programme of vegetation clearance from structures to prevent further such incidents...