woodenhead

TT120 only exists because of the hole Hornby got itself into, if it could make OO pay and those dang competitors stopped nicking it's models then there would have been no need for TT120. And then there will be the money it has borrowed to create TT120, has that been paid back yet because by no means is TT120 fully profitable yet. It needs to keep re-running models and selling those out too.

Or two of every steam loco, if you can't afford that how about one side half empty and the other side full 🤣

Can you not model all half empty and then have an extra coal load you can add on top after the loco visits the servicing area?

What's wrong with just drinking out of our hands?

Which reminds me of a sketch by Stewart Lee where he talks of a certain leader of a certain political party asking the brightest and best people who arrived in boats throughout the ages not to come to Britain bringing their language, skills, cuisine and wares. "The brightest and best fish need to stay in the sea and concentrate on making it aquatically prosperous"

Some might argue that's a superpower not a disability. 😄

Speak for yourself, my ancestors were fish that left the water. 😄

You know we cannot talk of those people on this forum, they are always watching and will come down on the mods like a ton of bricks to remove any reference to them. Our Masters and Overlords is the correct description.

It's interesting that simple designs can be interesting to operate as complex ones. But I think it's important to operate them in a manner that elicits interest, an example is a model I saw operated at Stafford, it had no fiddleyard and represented the end of a small short line. This first time I saw it I spent a good half hour or more watching the shunting and it really got the brain juices going to replicate it myself. Then I saw it again very recently but a different operator driving this time and the shunt moves were just too quick, the locomotive would run too quickly and then it would be on with the emergency brake; I just walked away in less than a minute. Completely different feeling about the same model with the same stock but operated like a 1970s train set with just stop and go being the two speeds.

The redesign is something along these lines: Top four lines are basically Chester Northgate, the bottom four I've added. I see it operating something like this from top to botton: Main platform for mainline services Siding for parcels Siding for parcels Parcels and occasional passenger Parcels Local services Local services Local services The fiddleyard if a traverser would hold 11/12 parcels and mainline trains plus some using some points to store my dmus allowing also for a class 120 when RevolutioN get around to it. I also hope to be able to put some loco stubs on the main baseboard to store locos (off scene) via the traverser. A traverser also allows electrical continuity easier that having to plug cassettes to something when shunting of some elements of the existing layout, great when I am using sound. But before I head off rebuilding I actually want to construct the roof and the station building as I will then build the platforms and track within it. I've got the trusses so I know how each span impacts each platform etc and it will be in the style of Chester Northgate albeit double the width as more platforms. I've got enough images of the station to create a pastiche of it as well. I like the reduction in points, it has a more flowing feel than the present layout that is too cramped for the size of station and I especially dislike how trains currently leave the top line across a complex throat with a lot of points that I really liked in the design stage but didn't seem right once built. The extra platforms are not to create a busy station, in fact the opposite, I want trains to be able to arrive and dwell for ages and more platforms allows for that as I don't need to have one train exit for another to enter - though to be fair I can do that now too lol. I sort of want a 1970s Manchester Victoria vibe - a lot of station but not always busy.

@Wickham Green too Blackburn has received some TLC in recent years though https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~owend/interests/rail/stnpages/blackburn.html

Were you at the caravan park? Mablethorpe was very nice

Still in the doldrums. Do I rebuild? Do I go 2mm fs? Do I drop cassettes for a traverser? The urge to rebuild is strong. Two reasons, I feel I’ve crammed in the throat to make it all fit in the scenic space, which in turn has crammed the station. I’ve designed a slightly different version with less points, I will accept there are more points in the world beyond the break. I’ve also added three platform faces in the design whilst retaining the original Northgate design as well. The reasoning is I want the local services to have their own platforms in my world. It’s still up in the air how I will proceed but I have now purchased roof trusses to build a roof to cover the platforms at the station end. In my version the station building will be turned and placed at the end of the platforms as well. Plasticard has been purchased and I will build the station first and lay the track around it. The 2mm and N gauge track building urge is still here and @Izzy’s latest mini project and foam board base is interesting. But I am tangenting when I should be sticking to one project. Then there is the fiddleyard, if I swap to a traverser I gain a second spare board for whatever other project I fancy, I might also be more inclined to play trains if I don’t have to manoeuvre a four foot stick every train movement. So little progress but some green shoots and despite me writing this on the internet, I am actually spending less time online and more time reading and doing other stuff than vegetating on a machine. Back to the Iain Rice plastic structure book…..

He’s ordering breakfast from the restaurant car.

Went this morning, Coppell and Barton Rd are the standouts for me but a good mix of scales and eras. Parking was a bit of a mare despite there being a lot of area to park in, but I guess that’s what comes of going on the Saturday morning. One thing I would say and it’s not limited to this show: don’t put trade on the stage as it loses passing traffic, the chap did not look too busy unlike the other trade.

I also love that CoPilot loves to reference Stack Overflow in preference to MS Learn, typically it's early example code and referencing is Stack Overflow and then somewhere down the list it refers you to the Microsoft pages.

The company I work for develops applications that use Generative AI, I see what it does and I am impressed. It's very clever and clearly it is a massive leap forwards that will make big changes in how we interact but it still makes mistakes and when a guru advises you to check everything it does carefully because it lies / hallucinates, making up it's own references at times to justify it's answer, then you know it's got some way to go. There are lots of applications for the technology and it will replace jobs in significant numbers when the truly good applications come to full fruition.

I bet the NCB shunter driver at Bold couldn't believe his luck when he came on shift and was presented with all kinds of steam traction to do his HAA marshalling with 😄

I didn't call LLM AI, I made a statement and followed it up with why an LLM is not AI. They are a sophisticated guess the next word model, that is very good at what it does, but it is not sentient.

So the Jacobite is running (or is it) https://westcoastrailways.co.uk/news/jacobite-seats-available-to-book Cash only, pay the guard on the platform if there are seats available. So if you are not in Fort William and the train happens to be in the platform and is allowing passengers to enter then you're not getting a trip. Has it actually run since Monday? Edit: it did run today, it arrived back 18 minutes early from Mallaig and went off to the coach sidings 25 minutes early

Some analysis of the service that failed? Has the train actually run since Monday?

Large Language Model - what AI is apparently. Actually it's not, it just a bloody clever guess the next word in the sequence model. They call it AI so lay people think it is, but it isn't. The LLM cannot think for itself, cannot decide for itself, it's all built on rules. But what it does do is learn, it does guess the next word well and it can draw things, it can also find a needle in a haystack. True AI is a self thinking machine that makes it's own decisions, so far we haven't been presented with any true AI, or at least we don't think we have.

Most companies are fully aware of the dangers of AI LLM using personal or sensitive data for training the models so take steps to obtain locked copies of the LLM that sit within firewalls so the main source LLM cannot train of it. Companies who want to consume AI products want to be sure their data is safe and those selling reputable AI products who know that security of data is paramount and have to invest in locked LLM models that will not be training other LLMs using someone else's data. In terms of redundancy, the scary bit is that most CEO and senior people think they can dispose of developers as the LLM will be able to do that job instead and make no bones about it, which is great for me listening to senior leaders in my company talking about this in front of me. The talk is all about enriching everyone else's work experience not redundancy, but really it comes down to doing more with less people, they just don't talk about 'automation' in the same language anymore but it's still the same. Microsoft is now promoting a product that will actually replace the developer, manna from heaven for any CEO, but the question then comes what happens when the LLM/AI develops it's own language to do stuff because it's more efficient and the few developers left cannot fathom how it does stuff - i.e. who fixes it when it breaks. There are some good uses for LLM/AI, not going to deny it, but to make out it is going to do everything and our lives are going to be so enriched is typical bluster. The one thing I learnt recently and this is from an LLM/AI guru - don't trust the output, you need to check everything, and how do you do that, you have to check that it's references are real because LLM/AI make things up to justify their findings - really it makes stuff up. We are doomed!!!

Might be helpful if your diet has been lacking in fibre and you need some assistance....