locoholic

I'm booked on 563 tomorrow - what do I get for my money? It doesn't look like there's time for a run over the whole line - is it Swanage - Harman's Cross and back, or Swanage - Corfe and back?

The cost of EDI is not trivial, and neither is the demoralising effect of being lectured and browbeaten about stuff that denies reality. It's quite insulting to the vast majority of a workforce to be treated as unconsciously bad people whose redemption is only brought about by brownie points from Stonewall and the like.

As the GWML showed, electrification doesn't just take time - we simply can't do it any more, sadly. I still find it impossible to believe that the wires still don't reach Oxford or Bristol Temple Meads.

Excellent article on the Spectator website today by Sean Thomas, detailing the "comprehensive" Equality, Diversity and Inclusion policies of HS2 - nice to know that they've got EDI all sewn up, although perhaps if they concentrated on building the railway, the costs might not have spiralled out of control so spectacularly.

Is there any chance of a second run of Accurascale Manors, as I thought I'd ordered one, but apparently I didn't. Maybe some different names/numbers?

I still can't believe that Hornby have never made the J15 0-6-0 in the Great Eastern blue livery that it had for a while at Sheringham. I though Simon Kohler was a big fan of blue locomotives? I'm still waiting for a BR black M7 with the front sandboxes below the running plate - they look so different from the usual M7s - I believe only an SR olive green one has ever been produced. Similarly, I don't think a BR late crest Schools with original chimney has ever been made using the new tooling. I always wish they'd do a set of Black 5s in the liveries tried out by BR soon after nationalisation, too. And as for the late crest J36...

Just to advise anyone who wanted to order the Footplate Models limited edition brewery loco and was told by their website that it was sold out, to try again, as they've upped the number available for sale. It's not easy to find on their website - I had to search for "Hawthorn" and it was towards the bottom of the search results.

The BBC is reporting that the Infrastructure and Projects Authority says of HS2, "Successful delivery of the project appears to be unachievable". What on Earth does this mean? What does an unsuccessful delivery of HS2 look like?! Horse drawn trains from Old Oak Common to Brackley?

Surely the solution to this sorry situation is for the Scottish Government to nationalise the WCRC West Highland operation? A brand new fleet of "heritage effect" carriages with seat-belts on every seat to prevent the intellectually-challenged passengers hurling themselves off Glenfinnan Viaduct, and solar panels on the roof, pulled by an eco-friendly battery powered steam locomotive (a replica of the tartan-liveried North British engine which honoured Queen Victoria) - all delivered on time and on budget.

One bizarre effect of the Nuneham closure was to give Cheltenham its fastest trains to/from London - one (very) early morning train from Hereford to Paddington ran via Cheltenham, thence to London, omitting the Gloucester reversal and stops to Swindon, giving a journey time of less than two hours for Cheltenham to London. The train in the reverse direction ran in the early evening, with the same route.

The current edition of Rail magazine has a news item about the Nuneham Viaduct. They are trying to pin the blame for the problem on some unspecified aspect of climate change, whilst noting Network Rail's habit of dumping tons and tons of ballast on top of an embankment with known stability issues in order to maintain track alignment. Climate change is a very handy tool for deflecting blame!

To judge by my teenage son, that's quite the fashion these days.

And yet something very similar remains available in the Bachmann Thomas the Tank Engine range.

Got my pack of three today. They look good - I can overlook the axleboxes. I think they would look better with loads - does anyone make the brick pallets that they carried in 4mm? KR Models are to be congratulated for making a model of a distinctive and unusual prototype, in contrast to the seemingly endless tide of five and seven plank wagons that has hit us from other manufacturers.

Excellent - I've cobbled together a rake of Graham Farish teak suburban coaches for my Heljan Met electric loco, but would invest in some Dreadnoughts, or the Chesham set that ended up on the Bluebell Railway.

I appreciate these wagons are a step up compared to the generic offerings from Hornby and Bachmann, but I do wonder whether the market is nearly saturated, and even more wonder why liveries have been chosen that Hornby and Bachmann have already done. Having said that, there are a couple that I'll buy - hope that's enough! I would also echo an earlier comment - one thing I'd love is a rake of colliery wagons with different numbers, as seen in so many photos of old colliery sidings.

Collected my red set from Derails. They look good... apart from the wheels, which are shiny silver, so will need a coat of grot. Given these are not cheap, I do think EFE could have spared us the trouble by toning down the wheels before assembling the models. Intrigued by the reference to Kernow Models on the back of the box.

I would love a RTR B2, being a one-time resident of Framlingham, but I suspect the problem is the tenders - second-hand ones from various classes of scrapped engines - expensive to tool for an obscure and uncharismatic class. Having said that, I suspect Royal Sovereign in apple green would sell well.

When I first saw this story I assumed that the £50 million must include building the shorter route from St Dennis Junction to Burngullow, but I now realise I was being very naive, and the rail industry can easily swallow £50 million without blinking, and certainly without delivering anything much in return. Who in their right mind would travel by train from Newquay to Falmouth when it's over 40 miles by rail and around 25 miles by road, anyway?

Same here - if RTR models of the 1970s EMUs that operated out of the Liverpool Street of my youth were available I would buy them.

That NSW model looks good. Those Aussie branches like Batlow were full of character.

Marketing-led rather than product-led? That sounds ominously like spending money on passing off old or below-par stuff, rather than making things that people actually want to buy. MBA buzzwords are no substitute for quality and innovation.

Your reply is, of course, correct for an individual modeller. But for Hornby, who have paid for the tooling for the J36 and have stubbornly resisted making one of the versions with the greatest sales potential, and therefore the greatest potential to profit from their investment, the situation is tantamount to self-harm.

They did a version of their pannier tank in LT red, although it was more orange than red.

Instead we're still waiting for coaches for Sarah Siddons to haul!