Oldddudders

Deb and I rode one line, in 1979, I think. It was very jolly. But very expensive to set up, no doubt, and dependent upon a good season every year to pay its way.

I was only 30 the night I needed adrenaline!

Indeed true. But a large percentage do not bear repeating on a family forum like this!

Is he the canary in the coal mine?

As a mild asthma sufferer, 2020 is my best year in more than 40. I generally use a steroid inhaler during late July and August, but simply didn't need it this year. My mother, from whom I inherited it, found her asthma disappeared with the menopause. Perhaps at 72, I am heading in that direction!

I don't have that book, but have huge respect for Trains's integrity as a magazine. And the DPM years were surely its heyday. I have a couple of Beebe & Clegg volumes which are impressive, but perhaps they needed a Rosemary Entringer to bring a little more order to things.

The whole Solent to South Wales corridor is one that, as a free-pass holder, I try to avoid, especially Fridays and Mondays, when students are typically numerous and have each paid through the nose for their travel. Sherry and I did travel Westbury to Southampton a couple of years ago - it was unavoidable - but the train was very full. We returned a week later, and time no longer being of the essence, went via Reading.

I refuse to be shamed by my appalling French. I did my A Level in 1966, and hardly used the language until 2004.

Using an ordinary multimeter to test voltages on DCC is unreliable, because the DCC rails are conveying more than just traction voltage. Your frog measurements should simply be of resistance, checking the expected continuity between stock rail and frog. But the polarity does not change when the points move. As has been said above, the change is triggered when the first wheel with pickups hits the frog. Since the Gaugemaster product uses a small relay, you can hear a click as the changeover happens. I have about 20 of these and am delighted.

Or even voila.

Presumably the GOG hardcore is delighted that the vanquished troublemakers have cluttered off to do their own thing, and peace has broken out.

Decoder in the tender requires cabling between the two parts of the loco - tender-drive only excepting! I have read complaints about that on here, with people finding the plug and socket a challenge. Having dealt with my first in 1999 - a Bachmann HO 2-8-0 to which I fitted sound - I have learnt to live with them. And if the speaker is in the tender, too, I have read comments that most loco noises come from the front end. But if you put the speaker up front and the decoder in the tender, that's now six wires between loco and tender. I do not deride the DC brigade, and never will.

The patronage on the Meldon passenger service would be very dependent upon weather and time of year. TOCs are simply not in that sort of business. As far as they are concerned, the Goretex brigade will be delighted to get to Okehampton, where walking and cycling opportunities abound, and Meldon would add very little inducement.

Could it be that lighter locos cost less to ship?

Yet the latest Bachmann 158/9 models have a deliciously easy access to the decoder socket through the underframe. I know DMUs have lots of gubbins hanging down there, and EMUs far fewer bits and pieces, but even so.