chris p bacon

As someone that lets others in I can't stand it when drivers do that. half the time they carry on up the road with either the left or right indicator on completely oblivious to their dashboard. Indicators....it's all in the name.

Looking forward to seeing how you get on with the Coronation kit, I was speaking to Andrew (Wizard) at Warley about the the other GN coach kits in the range but ought to clear the bench before adding yet more. I also have the J3 as well as a J6 and a C1 in the "to do" pile but I've done enough locomotives for a while so they can wait.

Thanks Ian. How did you make the moulds for the coach sides etc ? I only have a limited experience of resin casting and so just make one master to cast from.

My local shop stocks C&L and I know of a few others. No offence, but are you in any way (other than a customer) linked to Peco?

I guess the answer to that is that they are at present planning and building East West rail, and the business case so far has proved its worth. There is also the point that in the early 60's when BR looked at quadrupling through Sandy, the amount of traffic on the Oxford to Cambridge precluded it, only after it was closed was the ECML quadrupled. The present day up platform to London is about 4 feet forward of the old down platform on the Ox-Cam.

That's higher than I thought it might be, although what it actually retails for might be very different to the RRP

You'll have to excuse me but I've never seen such a thing.....well.....not in this house. We've some activity in the garden on the feeders with lots of the smaller birds stuffing themselves. Went to Welney yesterday to see the Swans, an enjoyable day out. Also saw plenty of Duck (Mallard, Pochard), Widgeon Snipe, Stonechat, Sparrowhawk and Barn Owl + other.

Just a thought, but if you wanted to continue with the C&L why not lay a thinner cork under the turnout? it overcomes the rollercoaster when joining to SMP.

Mistle thrush and Jackdaw squabbling over the mistletoe berries, Gold finches passing by as well. Usual Robin, Wren, Blackbird etc

We think it's just here but none of this is unique to us or our time. My own house which was built in 1893 increased in value by 40% over it's first 30 years then by 400% over the next 15 years with no changes to it that reflected the increase in value, the population in the area hadn't changed either. When it was built the land was about 10% of the eventual sale price (£550) if now the land would be 50-55% of the sale value. As we are on the projected East West route I wonder what the future will bring.

A file isn't required as they work fine.

I heard a comment but can't remember where, it was along the lines of people moving out of London and commuting in. In London they were all in a block of flats occupying an area about 100'x100' but in the countryside the same people from the flats occupied an area of 4 acres with the high density building that takes place today, if it was the same density as the 1970's it would be 8 acres. I remeber doing a back of the hand calc and it was about right.

The money is in the land. Sure there is profit in building but after you've paid for the land then achieved planning, paid your section 106 payment or Community infrastructure levy to the local authority before being allowed to start and then built the place there aren't the huge sums that people think there is. In this area which borders Bucks, working farmland achieves between £8,500-10,000 per acre. If it's designated for building then it rises to in excess of a £1,000,000 per acre. A typical site for sale near me is 2.4 acres and has permission for 24 houses, along with the houses come the service roads and infrastructure, the cost is £2.4 million which means every property has cost £115,000 before a spade goes in the ground.

Just going to correct you on this point. The percentage of houses and their size is determined by your local planning department and ultimately central government. As a developer we have to negotiate with the relevant planning authority and they decide what you build. Here in Central Bedfordshire the percentage of social housing varies from 30% minimum to 40% on developments of 4 houses or more and trust me you don't get rich building them. In fact you can have problems selling your more expensive properties due to the social housing being mixed in. As for developers being greedy I take exception to this claptrap which I just put down to envy and jealousy, unless all others that go to work don't do so to earn money, but do so for purely altruistic reasons.

This isn't meant as tactless but my Father died on Xmas eve in 98, we think he was aiming for Xmas day just to prove it was just another day but by going on the eve it meant he didn't have to send cards out......I wonder if it's in the genes, might explain my brother.

We make loads of pickles and piccalilli some of which we sell for charity, we were asked a week ago if our Red cabbage was 'Vegan'....eerr it's Red Cabbage and vinegar....

Did you forget?

And the punchline is.....

I run a Merc C class, the light's are Automatic running from sensors, The fogs are manual though and when selected there is a big enough light on the dashboard for you to know they are on, you can select just forward facing or forward and rear. When the lights are on there is a big enough light on the dash for you to know they have activated, and the dash itself has several lighting modes. One good feature I do like is if there is someone behind you with fullbeam, the mirrors automatically "dim" to reduce the glare, this means you don't have to keep moving your eyes from the line of sight of the mirrors.

Mine were in the post yesterday, they're very nice and they've joined the build queue but I wonder that you'll finish first. Keep us posted.

A Squadron of Long tail Tits passing through earlier with the usual Great Tits and Blue Tits mixed in too. As they moved through we realised that we had about 10 Sparrow on the feeders as well as a couple of Robins and a Wren bouncing around, Managed to snap a pic.

Lets just say that if you sing that with a bit too much enthusiasm you'd be part of "Yew Tree". I will say that I have never been, and don't ever intend going to a panto, Lady Bacon has tried without success......she'd probably say the last 3 words summed up my workbench as well....

Fibre optic cable maybe, you only need one light source to power them all and if attached to the base it might make the unpainted parts glow. You're definately going down the "night time" modelling peiod to avoid lining everything then...............

There really is a God, all my prayers have been answered. All I need now is a fog machine from a 70's disco and I'm away.

I purchased several gearboxes from HL recently and he is working through his existing stock of Mashima motors.