Dunsignalling

AIUI, it was to mislead enemy pilots making low-level attacks as to their true altitude, in the hope they would fly themselves into the ground.

There's a Polish version, too. The board is the same as regular Scrabble but comes with half the number of vowels and a lot of extra Zs.

I, for one, await the next announcement with "baited" breath. U know what I mean..... John

I have no objection whatever to things like the Tri-ang Giraffe Car or Battlespace series; they are clearly toys, and not presented as anything else. My problem is when ostensibly prototypical features are applied to otherwise excellent models in ways that detract from the overall portrayal of the locomotive. FWIW, I consider over-bright carriage lighting just as bad. Hornby get acceptably close to realism (IMHO) with their lit Pullmans, of which I've rarely seen any criticism. Do all their other lighting to similar standards and they'd get no quibble from me. Paraffin lamps on real engines and gaslights or 110v bulbs on the ceilings of coaches, are barely noticeable in daylight. "Night" running is supposed to take place in the dark, or under very subdued lighting, not the glare of fluorescents or LEDs. However, Hornby (in particular) seem to think none of their customers are aware of the availability of dimmer switches for their room and/or layout lighting. Please, do it right or at least stop wasting time and effort doing it wrong. John

Shouldn't be a problem to disconnect the LEDs for my purposes and I have a nice new, sharp pair of Xuron cutters and a tube of filler for the one on the tender. How much hassle is involved will decide the fate of any further orders for Hornby locos with this feature. My gut feeling is to ignore them on release and pick them up cheap after the initial purchaser has lost some of the bits... John

Trouble is, if you put instructions on gates, some people take offence.... Sorry, somebody was bound to do it, and the suspense was killing me. John

You've obviously never contemplated a Nikkor long telephoto. Tony....😉 Regards john

A Milton Jones gag, I think!

Ditto the Channel Islands, or at least Alderney (AY plus 3 digits, so it looks like a cherished number; Jersey and Guernsey are more obvious). My stepfather had a Rover 214 he bought off a relative who was visiting and had found a car he wanted over here. He wasn't made aware of the need to re-register until he scrapped it.

I was OK with the reversed format (e.g. C 515 CTA) but, the present layout, I can barely carry in my head long enough to write it down. It even takes a few months after changing before I can instantly recall that on my own latest vehicle! I've only had three cars with the current registration format. I generally keep them a long time and I can remember their plates with a moment to think about it. The older formats, I can as quickly recall all but a couple dating back to SYB 642, my first bike at 16! Oddly, it's only bikes I had concurrently with cars that have "gone"..... John

Thanks Mike, The ones I remember coming down from Southampton for Exeter and beyond were often formed in a block train, though not necessarily a very long one (some having been detached at Salisbury, perhaps?), with a shorter string of vans at the front of the next through fitted goods. I'd think even a biggish depot would have an optimum number of vans it wanted to receive at once, purely on the basis of the time and manpower available for unloading. I never saw how many vans continued on beyond Exeter Central but from various conversations, I gained an impression of not more than five or six, if that. I interpreted the block train as consisting of as many vans as were loaded and ready to go in time for the first available Q path, with the remainder following by the next scheduled general working. John

The thing with model photography, though, is that the aim is to approximate the DoF characteristics of prototype photos taken on a 1950s/1960s still camera using prime lenses (on 35mm) with focal lengths of 35, 50, or 90mm (e.g. Leica) but most commonly 45 or 50mm (e.g. Kodak or Agfa). That sets a whole different set of challenges compared with photographing full-sized trains. I came to using prime lenses and wider apertures when stacking through trial and error. My camera is of Micro Four Thirds format, what we called half-frame in film cameras back in the day. Advantages arise from that, enabling me to work with, rather than against the laws of physics; 1. An inherently greater depth of field arising from the smaller sensor. 2. My 25mm lens has an angle field of view equivalent to a full-frame "standard" lens but the DoF characteristics of a cropped image taken on a full-frame wide-angle. 3. All that also means my preferred aperture of f/3.2 is, in truth, more like f/6.3 but still clear of the point where diffraction becomes detectable to the naked eye at my maximum print size (A4). 4. Stacking, in or out of the camera, does the rest, and the G9 does it well enough in-camera (for my purposes) that I don't need to use its Focus Bracketing feature (programmable up to a maximum of 999 frames!) and do the work myself in the computer afterwards. John

Southampton, 2020, Tony, before I got the prime lenses. If anybody else is using a Lumix with the stacking facility, I strongly recommend the Panasonic 25mm f/1.7 lens. I use it widely (usually at f/3.2) when stacking but also stopped down to f/22 (equivalent to f/44 on full frame) for rolling stock pictures. It, like the camera body was made in China, whilst all the other lenses are Japanese. Bargain of the century at just £149. new... Example, and one of my makeshift "studio" attached (that was taken on my other Lumix, an LX100 compact). John

And this one was taken hand-held (despite the instructions advising against it) using the 12-60mm f/2.8-4 Leica kit lens that came with the camera). Success rate on the day was about 40%. The superb Sandford and Banwell. Check out the lettering on the PO wagon far right top vs the platform trolley left foreground. Only jiggery-pokery was to remove a backscene join in Paint. John

There's stacking and stacking. My camera (a Lumix G9) does it on-board in about 90 seconds after taking the shot, and it allows even hand-held shooting if the layout lighting is good enough. I find myself using just a monopod most of the time these days. As with all photography, though, cropping should be minimised and confined to improving composition or making your photo fit the paper it is to be printed on. Using the lens with the correct reach is the way to go. I use primes on my MFT body for layout photos; 15mm Leica, plus 25mm and 42.5mm Lumix, (x2 for full-frame equivalence) all have f/1.7 maximum apertures and, when stacking, I generally shoot at f/3.2. Example attached.