GeoffAlan

The Germans were building 2-10-0s before WWII. The KPEV G10 was pre WWI for some of the class were built in 1910, more followed right up to 1925. During the second war they built a number of 'classes' which were Utility versions of earlier classes.

Spares box bodge-up.

Royally Failing are a weird company. Tied by a 'must deliver everywhere in the UK' clause, they must have difficulty making some deliveries pay a profit..... BUT! Recent experience of a lost 'Guaranteed Next day by 1pm' delivery, sent by me before Covid struck, and over the years several parcels that simply don't arrive. (Thank goodness for the eBay money back policy.) I would choose almost any* courier over them for a vital delivery. *Obviously not Yodel. As has been said above, DPD can give you real time tracking down to a few minutes of your parcels. So, if you're paying £7+ for a Guaranteed service why can't RM.

Yes...... Always a difficult call for any Society. IF potential members can't see, online, what you do. Then why should they join? Against. Do you want outsiders to see your group's 'dirty washing'. (It does suggest from your post that there is dirt to be seen.)

I gave up after the the fourth soddering, sold that got a game of soddiers, I thought.

While using a flogging spanner, I was taught never to say... 'When I nod my head hit it!' In case the hammer user was a bit thick. I do know someone who was erecting a farm fence, using a sledge hammer to put in the uprights. He was holding them and his large (Think brick outhouse.) son was belting them in. Having got one in he stood up to ease his back and without thinking put his hand on the top of the post. You can guess the rest! He lost two fingers, had a permanently damaged thumb and somehow forgave his son.

Big rectangular thing found by apes, they start eating meat, Another found on moon, Jupiter expedition has windows update failure. New species born in space.

I've seen far worse in 1:1 scale videos!

Yes. As a vulnerable person with an extremely vulnerable wife, we are keeping ourselves to ourselves. My photo club has decided to not even try to reopen until 2021, so many of us are old and are carrying several conditions not conducive to catching 'the bug'.

Several locomotive books I own, one written by a friend, have photos with notes, roughly along the lines of.... copyright untraceable, please contact the publisher if you have any information. If a publisher is happy to do this then, with their financial clout, they are happy to pay reasonable costs, or fight unreasonable claims. Then the balance for an individual is.... Do I take the risk?

I use this sort of thing with several trays stored in a cardboard box, which comes with them. But only for none powered rolling stock. Locos, DMUs etc are stored in their original box/package. I do 'ease' some of these as bitter experience has shown that some are too tight for the good of detailing. These boxes are stored in drawers. As Sunnisyde, my layout, has room for about 20 locos on the board at a time, the other 200+ locos and rolling stock are under the layout, stored in such a way that I can, in under an hour, completely change all the stock on the layout and put away the stock removed. I'm a N gauge modeller and have been since the mid 1970s.

Yes, I'd forgotten their insistence on such items as wheel bearings that were already too small on the 4F and were positively 'the weakest link' on the Garratts. At least Swindon were able to change when change was needed.

I'm not a great fan of the Great Way Round, but that's a complement to the GWR's early adoption of a kind of standardisation. A limited number of Boilers, a few different wheel sizes throw them in the air and you get an express, mixed traffic or goods engine. It took a long time for other companies to follow suit.

They're like that though. I had several innocuous posts* deleted by them over the years. When I had the temerity to question one of the mod's about one of them. I was told the decision was final and they didn't need to tell me why I'd been deleted. So I left them to it. *As in not even slightly controversial, I posted the self-same post on two other fora and they didn't raise any objections, no dissent from the other users. It was a mild criticism of one of the bigger manufacturers delivery times, from product announcement to able to buy and get one delivered.

Not just Humph'. Practically everyone she met had her! She is what used to be called....'No better than she ought to be!' At least if Humph's excuses for her leaving the show early were correct., Her replacement Sven seems to be of same ilk.

I can think of a few 'worthy candidates'.

I think you've nailed this. The treasury have looked at the figures and those that didn't keel over with a coronary have acted. I don't see any other explanation for the rush back to normality currently under weigh. Being in the extremely vulnerable category, we'll be staying home until either there's a vaccine or the bug evolves into something far less dangerous, I'm not sure which will happen first!

I only met Dave at one exhibition, and spoke for a short time about the proposed N gauge Class 17, of which he had a prototype static model in grey on the stand. I don't now why I didn't stump up the money for it then, but I'm very glad I didn't! In the next few weeks of me pondering paying up front to Dave, I came across a Kato model that was, very similar to the Class 17. I bought two of them and repainted them, one in green, the other in blue. What we forget with this kind of deal is that it's possible to find your money is gone and no comeback. I currently have three part paid for model locos due. Two from the N gauge Society, which I'm pretty much confident of getting, given the Society's record on rtr models. Plus a loco from Sonic models. Their partner in this is RevolutioN, a company with a proven track record. I do hope that crowd funding or whatever variant of funding seems applicable continues, and I will be making further ventures in the future, at my own risk.

I think the Crosti Boilered 9Fs were classically ugly. They even looked a bit odd when they reverted to normal boilers. Whereas the normal 9F looks great.

Oh dear! Since they broke from Graham Farish/Bachmann and changed to the new site it's all gone bad for me. I'm having a deal of trouble finding anything I'm looking for, even their search doesn't seem to work as well as before. I'm just hoping they have my Garratt pre-order still on file. Not to worry, apart from the pre-order from Hattons, Rails' site works well and has Graham Farish items too!

Yes I suspect that malcrosby7 is a dealer. I've bought several n gauge items, including locos with absolutely no issues. In fact he's one of the sellers I look for when wanting an item.

Apparently all the Durham pubs are reopening, not for the locals, but so government advisers can get a drink before going back to London.

When you said you'd go e barking mad I expected something quite Ruff! But these are lovely! Getting my coat.

Yes, Whitby used to have a DMU shunting the yard, usually on a Friday IIRC. The was an occasional Pick up goods, Steam hauled at first, but every so often the yard needed a 'shunter' and a visiting DMU did the job.

RM seem to be running a few days late, but running none the less. However other couriers seem to be pretty much running as normal. I even received an eBay item from Germany in the normal time-frame via DPD. I'm making a point of ordering my usual number of items, as I want the traders to survive.