woodenhead

Why a lorry, how about simply a container - transfer from road to rail in France, train through tunnel, traction change in UK, onward travel to Liverpool where it can be put onto a ship to move across to Ireland.

What's the space like for a speaker on the next 18 Dapol?

You cannot make provocative statements and expect no-one to bite, even I have learnt that from social media What something sounds like in your head is not how it appears when typed out.

Just been reading an article in the RM from November 1996, some chap called Tim, a Hornby Hymek and the embryonic Titfield Thunderbolt bookshop. How time flies.... Edit: In December I found out it wasn't a real station after all, I was so convinced in November This Tim chap is just like the Good Captain and his nefarious ruses.

Whatever the Government might say now, the dash to gas was not about the environment and all about saving money because it was cheaper to builld lots of them rather than consider new coal fired stations or building on nuclear. Now, and borne out by the Guardian article, a somewhat fanciful thought of 2050 UK being powered by North Sea wind which is already being shown to be ill judged as the two coal fired power stations are being recalled from standby at great cost to keep the power on because not only is gas now expensive but the wind has gone on holiday. Lack of focussed investment is coming home to roost, outsourcing doesn't solve problems it merely shifts them into the future when it's a scramble rather than orderly change. And now a meat tax because the future does not include Beef or Lamb, but it's not the fluffy future our high up politicians want to sell, they only want to be popular and liked so they don't want to discuss the hard bits lest people turn against them in the polls. Maybe we should be listening to what the XR people are saying, maybe their view of the future is closer to the truth than the politicians would have you believe.

Given one of them is the wife of a senior TFL manager (who has since resigned when it became public) then they are not just benefit claimers out for a jolly. It's not just the rising levels but also the excess freshwater from the icecaps that could in theory destroy the thermal cycles in the ocean plunging European temperatures. How far back would you like the sea levels to return, there is evidence that at one time the Earth was very much water covered with little land mass above sea level, I imagine we will all be living on electric boats then, with food being grown on giant rafts.

On current performance more likely from Farish, the only chassis for the 50 and the 68 were sound ready with a speaker space. Other Dapol locos only got next 18 slots - the 73 just got a 6 pin slot.

It's quite easy - there are cars, vans, caravanettes and a lorry.

Note quite sure how the traction matters, once you're not in the coach next to the loco can you actually tell what is hauling you? I would think for most people it is the experience on train - the seating, the catering (if part of the package) and the service provided that add up to the overall experience, plus views of course.

Lets hope the most expensive part - the batteries last.

But back then these were all luxuries that later became mass produce. We are staring down the barrel of a seismic change in living standards and all I still see are incentives for the people who can afford these items without them - it is basically subsidising the businesses to get sales from people already rich enough to afford the tech without it. Whilst it is great to hear Boris setting targets to abolish ICE car sales and the end of the gas boiler, I am not seeing what he is going to do so that everyone who wants an electric car will not only be able to afford it without a government subsidy, but also be able to charge it from their home when they don't live somewhere in the suburbs. Or how the poorer people in society will heat their water and homes when gas becomes so expensive they have to make stark choices between food, heat or light. How are we going to make this country self sufficient in terms of power generation so that the whims of someone many thousands of miles from our shore decides to play with supply. Lots of announcements but no detail how we will ALL get there.

And it will demonstrate their skills but perhaps it is time for some new models, although who knows what Rapido may also turn out and perhaps these are more their niche: Metrotank 517 class 3232 class 2221 class

Probably the start of a bank holiday weekend - caravans to Cumbria plus trippers to Blackpool.

Another pipe in the ground to go with water, natural gas, electricity, fibre etc. If you are going to do that, then the actual answer is to lay insulated pipes and send hot water to the houses from lots of localised heating hubs - relocate central heating sources from within the home to outside the home and piped in. A large decentralised network of heating hubs, using ground source or other methods to heat the water and then pipe it a sensible distance so there is little heat loss to the home at the extreme of that network. Have them interconnected so it one goes down the others can supply a slightly degraded service whilst it is brought back online. This sort of solution is also an equaliser - it doesn't differentiate rich and poor, it is what a Government should do for it's people, not offer incentives so the better off can upgrade their heating whilst the poorer least able to afford heating just suffer more.

Heat pumps are still a very middle class solution - those who can afford the cost of the conversion. For the millions of people who do not have access to the funds, space, home quality for such a contraption some other solution is required and it is not putting on more than one jumper. Some poor souls already have to do that to keep warm in winter as they cannot afford the current solution let alone convert to something more exotic. It's the same with electric cars - they are mainly for richer people, sorry to say it, which runs the risk of putting a lot of people out of cars in the near future or they run the remaining ICE cars into the ground before giving up. Life is going to get difficult when the haves have their nice warm homes and electric cars and the have nots have to wrap up and hope there is a bus service.

When did it become necessary for locos to stop a few metres from the train it is about to attach to and then move forward slowly to couple up? I remember that a loco would move straight onto the train and stop smartly so that there was little movement, and then just to be sure a second push to make sure the buffers were tight together. Was actually watching a recording of class 86s doing just that at the end of the 1980s/start of the 90s at Euston last night - so when did it change?

I tend to see super insulated homes with wonderful underfloor heating and ground source heating on programmes like Grand Designs - you know where the occupant lives in a caravan for 12-18 months whilst they demolish the existing structure back to a single stone in the ground and then build up from there. The end design is usually very expensive and you wonder how the rest of us folks who are not architects or wonderful with tools would manage in the real world. To me that is the problem we are facing, the number of people who understand alternative heating solutions and have the money and wherewithal to project manage such an undertaking is probably just about the 90,000 people the Government is targetting with the grant. They are also generally better off and are more insulated from the rising cost of gas then the other several million people for whom gas central heating is the only option and remains so - whereas a less efficient electric boiler would be a simple retrofit in their homes/flats.

They are a lot better these days but could be a lot lot better. However, when I were a nipper I remember snapping the ice off the bedroom windows inside the house in winter, think it was the 80s before my parents got double glazing but the house was never centrally heated, just gas fires in the living room and dining room plus a small gas heater in the hall for the rest of the house.

A few months back it was all about Hydrogen, which was going to be a difficult one to implement and now eggs thrown firmly into the heat pump basket. I may be wrong here but to me it seems the future is one of not relying on the grid so much as it may let you down (badly) so solar panels to ensure you are never completely without power (though you may have to forgo some creature comforts), heating to come from some form of electrically run unit be it a boiler or a heat pump and batteries in your garage or some other storage so that excess power generated from the panels is stored. Sort of treat your house as if it were a canal boat and don't depend on a shore source.

As long as you also heavily insulate your home, replace your radiators and / or fit underfloor heating. It doesn't sound like a quick and easy conversion, if anything it sounds like a way for people to make a lot of money out of you and leave you feeling rather let down when it doesn't quite feel as good as you were expecting. Feels like new builds should have this all designed in rather than retrofitting to older houses.

I think the slightly out of alignment drivers side front wing and what looks like rust developing around the front wing on the passenger side might be a bigger killer to it's value. My first car was an ex police Mark 2 Escort - a great car to drive about it, pity about the leak into the front passenger well - cannot believe I sold it to someone who was fully aware of said leak for a few hundred quid to be replaced with a rather nice early Mark 2 Cavalier.

So why not electric boilers? Why heat pumps? Electric boilers can simply be plumbed into the existing system, take up less space, require no venting and do not produce any nasty gases. Just like a heat pump still needs electricity to run but less moving parts and isn't outside in the elements waiting for a bad weather event or as in the case of 30801's office - icing up of the heat pump!!

But not quite enough water

Funny how the memory plays tricks, forgot the RM was mainly black and white until 1995. Thought it was cheap scanning until I stumbled on the 'in colour' sections