Tartaruga

The article gives no mention of him other than he modelled LMS and Midland which made me presume the link with Nottingham.

Hello Jim, Was this Peter Dobson? I was looking at his locos from card in March 2005 RM recently if so. Very impressive.

Yes the grab rails and the wipers are too thick. I really wanted a 50 but the pictures have put me off. Weathered up and in the flesh it may look the part so I'll wait and see.

I've had the same problem with my MN and also Castle, whereas my Jinty can pull almost anything. Does anybody know of a way around this? I was hoping my MN would pull a decent rake. One of the reasons I wanted a smaller scale.

When did large Model Railway Exhibitions start? I presume they were started by MRC's and grew from there but were there many pre-war?

As mentioned above just use a credit/debit card for buses and tube and is capped at a daily amount. Depending on when in september there is the Transport Museum Depot open day (21st - 24th) in Acton - https://www.ltmuseum.co.uk/whats-on/depot-open-days Again depending on the date; Kirkaldy Testing Museum is a bit niche https://www.testingworks.org.uk/about but an interesting story following the Tay Bridge collapse. Also near Tate Modern which is free. Hamleys does have model railway but just Hornby I seem to remember and yes overpriced. The shop isn't what it once was. Tooting Model Shop is still there. Santander bikes are another way to get about. Also other bike hire available such as Human Forest and Tier.

Great work as usual. Are the ends of the tank from the pipe or styrene?

I've always thought it was a shame there is no national archive for images of landscape and architecture. All depends on how good the local archive is. As you said Newton Abbot has a good library collection. I think it would be good for a national diary archive like Italy has. - http://archiviodiari.org/

Not in my local charity shops or boot sales 😒

Agreed. I have no local model shops or model railway club as a grapevine. I do belong to a national society and so the only way to ask a question is online! My Dad however still prefers to speak to people via a phone even if he can use a computer. On the other side I miss the presence of shops/businesses for a bargain. I do shop online for groceries but I still go to supermarkets for the discounted items at the end of day/week. I remember when small businesses or shops, on occasion, would chuck in something extra for free.

How big a company financially are Kato?

I presume as it has been taken up so readily by current modellers that their costs are being covered and they will advertise in the lead up to Christmas as planned last year. Newspaper advertising does seem a little strange though if trying to attract a younger market.

But if you are buying secondhand that can get you a lot of locos and rolling stock for a year.

I've just heard. Good luck in his retirement and yet again my prevarication has left me empty handed. 😫 I presume 2nd hand prices will increase too although I'm told they last forever

I don't think I've ever found a bargain on Ebay. I've seen a couple of items that i'm gutted missed but everything else still seems to go for silly money.

There is definitely less variety but I would say the same if I went on a car journey now. I have a colleague at work who goes trainspotting and I don't see the attraction compared to when I was his age over 30 years ago although I can see why people who saw steam think lesser of the time I spotted. (I still find it strange I was born eight years after steam and 4 years before the Class 43). Last year I went up to York by train and saw how different things were from 20 years ago when I probably last travelled regularly by rail but there were still things to see. On one side it may be duller but it is far safer and more comfortable, if the train isn't overcrowded. I enjoy train travel in Italy because they still have locomotives and large goods yards but less comfortable.

Still going. Currently in National League North. ( Apologies - Folded in 1970 after losing their league status and reformed as a Sunday League team)

I think that the date you give is key. Prior to 1933 the world was coming out of a recession and with the advent of Hitler rearmament started in earnest which enabled money to be spent on new designs. You mention the FIAT but the Gloster Gladiator trumped the original Spitfire for approval from the RAF in 1937 ,but Mitchell refined the design to what we recognise today, and the Gladiator was still in service at the begining of the war. Poland was one of the largest spenders militarily in Europe and had some modern designed aircraft but by 1939 their frontline fighters were obselete being designed in the late 20's and produced in 1931. The P11 was a monoplane while RAF were still using biplanes.

It does seem more of the same without an addition of a steam loco. Marklin's range does look good.

I think Hornby missed a trick here. If the idea is to make for people who don't have room for a permanent layout, such as myself, kato/tillig track is much easier to put together for an afternoon than Hornby track.

If Hornby releases everything in their catalogue there will be more available than 3mm TT devotees have had to play with from the Triang range since the 60's so as you say it is here to stay in some capacity. I think the market would proabably have been more favourable if they had managed to realease their sets before Covid hit ( In the way that my Dad has already bought his youngest grandchild a OO set and why would we now buy another set in a different scale). And if it doesn't work for Hornby Tillig would still have a domain to enter to claim. One mistake I think Hornby have made is not produce the Kato style track for people who can't have permanent layouts which is where Tillig could use theirs to claim an entry. Added to which if in the unlikely situation no other company gets involved in 1:120 somebody could do as Revolution did in N and crowdfund a pendolino in TT @Revolution Ben 😉

On looking at Hornby's new TT catalogue my first thought was that it is not too disimilar to the Hornby catalogue I have from the '80's. The main difference being that they haven't issued an clockwork locos this time round.🚂

fat thumbs

I'm surprised too but they do already have the maroon Mk1's and a Hall in the pipeline . I guess the TT project was delayed due to Covid which also means that for those people such as myself, who got back into Railway Modelling during the crisis, have already invested in models. So time will tell how the project goes and I hope it is successful. The OO Hogwarts has what I consider fiddly bits that can come off with kids handling them and hopefully a TT version won't have those.

And it is a good size for people with less space and bigger than N for smaller fingers. I'm really surprised how much they have been are going for it; I for one am impressed. I hope they make some European models too. 🐢