Lecorbusier

My understanding was that if your job was defined as a profession you were held to a higher duty of care towards the general public than the standard caveat emptor (Buyer beware) under english common law. I know that as an architect if I express an opinion which might be acted upon (irrespective of the relationship) then I can be held liable for the outcome and sued accordingly. So any comments that could be construed as uttered within a professional capacity (even within a social setting) need to be carefully considered - professional liability is much more onerous than standard liability. This comes with a legally protected title and in the past a protected fee scale (removed by Thatcher in the 1980s) suposedly ensuring a disinterested level of service.

Value is such a curious concept. What is a model railway or a collection of stock worth? In some ways insurance is the most simple form of valuation - so long as it relates to replacement value .... ie what would the estimated costs be? But even here it starts to get complicated where irreplacable items are concerned .... items with a history/no longer available/the maker is no longer alive etc etc. Then of course we have the value as dictated by the market ... we all know that this is no real judge of intrinsic value - in fact values can fluctuate massively from week to week and things of real value become worthless over night! ... as an example my Uncle was an Artist and art is subject to the vaguries of fashion - so one decade his paintings would command high prices where as in the next or previous they became hard to sell at all - the paintings hadn't changed. Of course now that he no longer paints they are in limted supply and have become assets which can be traded. What about personal value or emotional investment. What a minefield! ....and of course money is such a narrow and silly way of defining value .... as they say about the money men - they know the cost/price of everything and the value of nothing (though I have met many who were extremely discerning, whilst at the same time being sanguine about the system within which they worked!). Hey Ho!

It's also clear that as you go up the scales with weights and stresses increasing so too does the level of robustness/engineering required and with it the cost .... My VW gearbox is £1699 - Horses for courses as well!

Having Watched Tom's video on assembling the gear box .... 20mins with speeded up working and elements done off screen .... I can see this being daunting for a beginner. Having it done for you as part of a commercial opperation ... £30 plus? For a non beginner... a good option.

What is the cost of the DJH box in kit form without motor? I note Chris at High Level is now offerring his own range of smaller motors .... for £9.50 a pop ... does anyone have experience of them? .... beats £27 - £30!!! Using these you can escape at £25 ish for box and motor

What a strange Gearbox discussion we are all having? From what I can gather the DJH offering is very good and simple to install .... tick. A little on the large side so perhaps only suitabe for larger locomotives? Some say pricey. Perhaps more robust than the High Level? High Level Gearboxes are very good and have a significant range of combinations and can be configured to suit pretty much all applications. They take a touch more skill to put together (though perhaps not if you buy the DJH box in kit form for the lower price - though can't find this option on their website?) On balance they also appear to be a cheaper option when comparing like for like? So two excellent options .... horses for courses perhaps? ... with a dose of personal preference and wallet size. Voila!

That depends on what you think telly is for ... education or entertainment. Initially it very much served as education and betterment with an emphasis placed upon such things. I would suggest that since the 1980s there has been an increasing emphasis on entertainment and ratings and a systematic dumbing down and cutting of non profitmaking elements ... coupled with this has been the consistant rise of commercial competitors to the BBC. A perfect storm if you like. I am not one who subscribes to the necessity for conformity and linguistic correctness outside the classroom ( the 19th century (I think) French rigidity in the rules and purity of their language is seen by many academics as having been a limitation). As the standards and norms change in society as a whole, it is unsurprising that this is reflected in the present offerings of the media. Would I like the BBC to return to its former remit ... ?

For me it has to be High Level. The DJH offerring is simply too large and inflexible ... Rolls Royces are after all big and heavy luxury cars! With High level I can usually find an arrangement which will fit and a gear ratio that suits ... even when I have to accommodate a battery as well in a loco as small as a Johnson 1F. Horses for courses maybe?

Pulling capacity is an interesting area (as is battery life) in the realm of radio control. As everyone is aware, battery life between charges is a consideration. The way Protocab are going seems to be to link charge life to coal/water capacities on the controller display (as far as steam loco's are concerned). The idea is that - like on the prototype - driving style can be monitered in relation to relative fuel/water (battery) consumption ... will be interesting to see how this develops over time (it is all still in the pipeline!) On haulage capacity, as we know different classes had differring capabilities. With battery power a far wider range of motors become available than using DC/DCC - (small and large/Powerful and less powerful) - across the voltage ranges. Given the increased choice of power options, maybe the ultimate goal would be to have power related to prototypical haulage capacity? Presumably in this scenario you would also have to engineer the weight of the loco such that wheel slip occurred once a given weight of train had been reached? You would also have to standardise the weight and free running of the stock. Not sure if any of that is at all feesible .... but it is an interesting thought experiment. I suspect you would run into problems relating to the none scaleability of mass and inertia?

If by that you mean that it is open to misunderstanding or misinterpretation I could not disagree. However if both the nuance and meaning are clear and concise, then I tend to be more relaxed.

During the recent test series against Pakistan they have been playing archive recordings of lunchtime discussions from the past ... the two I listened to were Peter O-Toole and John Cleese ... both in conversation with Brian Johnstone. Very entertaining .... but also very much period pieces which to my ear tipped ever so slightly into Parody. No doubt if the discussions were contemporary they would have come across stilted & odd! I like accents and regional variation ... I enjoy idiomatic english and the myriad of local ways that grammer is 'twisted and butchered' from a purist standpoint. That said there are certain accents which I find jarring and unpleasant, which I think in the end is down to taste. I have recently been watching some of the early Fred Dibnah offerings on Youtube ... in purist terms he certainly 'butchers' the queens english, and I suspect even at the time there was an element of self parody in the programmes ... but for me they are of considerable merit none the less and I appreciate the regional richness of sentence construction and vocabulary. God save us from bland uniformity. Of course, one person's treat can be another person's poison.

I may be way off base ... but I suspect that what many who find today's spoken world somewhat painful might actually want, is a contemporary updated version of a past, which chimes with there own preferences (prejudices?) .... and in reality they might find a return to the days of yore not exactly what they have selectively remembered. I find it facinating how often I return to something I enjoyed in the past to find it markedly differrent from the memory and often jarring - not always, but often.

A counter position .... I do find when viewing News etc from years gone by (the year that was), the presentation now sounds affected and stilted to the point of parody.

if he had ... would have been more like this... bye bye quaint pretty buildings-hello heroic modernism

Way back when, I promised to post a video clip of my Johnson 1F running using the Protocab system. Work and life I'm afraid got in the way of me finishing the installation untill this weekend gone .... anyway, better late than never. Here is some rather amateur footage of it up and running prior to dismantling ready for the paint shop.

Matlock Bath - (little Switzerland)...... Early Le Corbusier - (The Swiss Jura)......

My thinking for looking at the waterslide idea was that you can carry out the lettering on a flat surface ... rather than lettering directly on the the wagon side .... which should in theory give a crisper and more regular outcome. Like with loco lining I would normally spray up the transfer with body colour first. When I finally get round to it I will let you know if it is succesfull or not.

I have vaguely wondered if it would be possible to print lettering like this as a fine black outline onto a sheet of waterslide and then block in the colours very carefully by hand. Then apply like any other transfer with microsol. Wondered if you might have tried this as a technique? It would then be possible to set up the lettering quite accurately in CAD working at large scale and then reduce to 4mm scale. Might that work?

Thanks Stephen ... your ability to find the relevant passage never ceases to amaze! I suspect that for a routine ballast train pootling between Rowsley and Buxton/Chapel-en-le-Frith it is perhaps unlikely that shiny new stock would have been prioritized. More likely some older stock perhaps even with some woodenbrake blocks? If it was older stock, would it have ED lettering ... or perhaps more likely the standard MR? Same perhaps for the brake van?

So ... let me understand this further. Is there a start date for the painting of ED wagons in red? You suggest the 20th century being the start of the tradition? You intiate that for 1902 on the Monsaldale line I should be thinking in terms of grey for both the 3plank wagons and the ballast brake? What date are these do you think and what colour?

Somewhere recently there was some discussion about ED wagons on the midland and paint colours ... red oxide or grey - could you point me to the relevant page please, I can't find it!

In case this has not been mentioned ... Knuckles of Sparkshot fame is now producing wagon bodies that might be worth a look at ... sorry if this is old news to all but me https://www.shapeways.com/shops/sparkshotcustomcreationsscc?section=4mm+Rolling+Stock&s=0

Already done that to no avail ... hasn't been in steam for a fair while so no one with a working knowledge. I did ask about the 4f on the West Sommerset mid 2018 and got this response.....

I think the conclusion I have come to is that range is a massive variable dependent on topography and train weight .... irrespective of either coal or water capacity. Taking the 1f half cab as an example (because I am musing about the range of its duties) I wonder how its typical shunting duties in a set of sidings such as at Rowsley might have impacted on usage - no climbing or coasting, constant stopping and starting, widley varying loads and minimal speeds. I hazard a guess that crews would have had a good handle on when/if refueling and watering would be required based upon time (as well as observation) ... particularly if a loco were rostered to shunt a remote siding where coal and water facilities were not avaiable (if this was ever done regularly?) - I am sure I read somewhere that Buxton half cabs used to shunt at Millars Dale where there are no formal coaling or watering facilities. It would be nice to know if it was typical to work a half day ... or even a whole day between fuelling and/or taking on water. In examples like ...... where the 1f appears to be working a train of 10 - 12 8-ton wagons, consumption would depend on whether they are empties or loaded and the location - whether the route had significant gradients or not - again I suspect Crews would have had a good handle on this and that it would have varied. One thing I have wondered is the significance of distance between watering facilities (after all in extremis coal can always be accessed from a conveniently placed wagon in a siding). Were the facilities at Rowsley, Buxton and Chapel-en-le-Frith spaced this far apart originally to ensure that the smallest range loco under expected working conditions would always be in range? .... ie, was it the loco and the type of duties to be carried out which to some extent dictated water availability rather than the other way around (it wouldhave been possible to provide a water column at Millers Dale if required). There would seem to be some milage in this idea. My rough calculations (extrapolated from data gathered ... see my linked thread) suggests that a 10 - 12 loaded train of 8-ton wagons working hard (ie climbing gradients such as between Rowsley and Buxton) would have had a safe range in the region of 22 miles ... the water columns are set roughly 15 - 18 miles apart. Mybe way off base as a theory .... but just a thought.

I have just been pointed in the direction of this discussion and don't know if it has been wound up now .... but if anyone is interested we had a similar debate with relation to a Johnson 1/2 cab on my Monsaldale thread. There may be something of interest here, and also people might have some coments/critique on the thoughts expressed. .... anyway just thought I would post it .... see here https://www.scalefour.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=63195#p63195