Ian J.

Agreed. Despite Tesla's desire to do everything through a touchscreen, I really feel other manufacturers need to keep in mind that someone human is actually doing the driving, and needs to have switches for everything comfortably within reach of the driver, and the displays need to be comfortably visible such that only the slightest peripheral vision is needed to be able to have that one eye on the road ahead. Tesla just don't get that need at all.

The problem is the U is two or three different footplates, and therefore at least two distinctly different models which would share some details. I think that might be what's putting of the manufacturers.

Ease of renumbering is something I remember from Lima's stuff in the 80s/90s, where a piece of 'sticky backed plastic' could be used to pull the numbers off without damaging the underlying paint at all. I don't remember if it worked well with nameplates though.

And my pre-order is in. I will weap my wewenge!

If it's not asking to spill the beans on secrets, how much work have you had to do to get the 66 up to AS standard?

LL to cantrail stripe would be roughly 78 to 86, I think, though in the early years few locos would have had it, so 81 to 86 sounds about right for this. I will have to see about a pre-order.

All modelling is approximation. We need to remember that.

Could be on its way to SW:CE this year over Easter in London...

While I'm not a fan of FS, if it makes Hornby money enough to stay in business, then I think that's a good thing. From my point of view, though, if they want my dollars, they just need to up their game in response to AS and other new kids on the block to make sure they produce high quality, high fidelity models that can appeal to the likes of me who are more concerned with accuracy and quality than having a complete collection of R numbers. Of course, it also helps if those models are of prototypes I'm interested in. Right now, there's virtually nothing coming that I care about from them.

Nice. I'm actually able to consider a first release livery too (Freightliner, for the freights to and from the docks on S&P in c2006 form).

A bit off my radar in most scenarios, however i might just be able to justify an EWS one to go with the secondhand Hornby one I only just got... 🙄 😉 But, paying for the 56s I have on order will have to remain my priority.

"It's only a flesh wound..."

I seem to remember, sometime after the release, a comment from Chris at Kernow (though I am really not sure about it) that he felt that the three car should have been done, even though there were reasons not to (possibly financial in being able to afford the tooling). I gather that sales weren't as good as hoped, at least at the time, and that the three car was a missed opportunity to capitalize on the interest. I am sure if I'm wrong (and I may be) that Chris would correct me. Of course, any new run, especially in three car form, would not be cheap. But then, what in RTR in our hobby is these days?

Ah, but that was about a bird, not a shaggy dog... 😉

Any new release would probably need a decent upgrade for lights, details, sound, etc, to fit to current and future standards. It obviously should also have the centre car. That was the big 'mistake' of the original release.

I take it there's been no re-tooling to fix the slide gap on the roof at the back? It certainly looks like no change has been made for the lamp iron protrusion on the bunker to allow correct size coal rails to be fitted.

Seems to me like the two miscreants should have shouted "See you, copper!"* 😉 *See you = CU

I have in mind to get one 56 of my three on order to be sound fitted already, then the other two will have to have projects from other suppliers, Legomanbiffo will probably be one. Not sure about the other. Are there any differences between the Romanian and later build variants vis a vis the sound the real thing makes?

Unfortunately I'm not actually fitting the plows so it's about the remnant brackets for the centre plow part being visible and also looking the part.

37 in a 31 thread...?

37 409 is in current condition, but is it possible it never received the West Highland Terrier logo when it was in normal service in the 1980s?

OK, I think I see the differences now. I was looking under the buffer beam for the snowplough brackets, not on the buffer beam either side of the coupling: I'm not sure how easy it would be to create such brackets, so I might have to find another candidate.

I've tried to identify the difference between 057 and 115 in available online pictures, however apart from the height of the (?) multiple working plug, I can't see what the differences are. Can you/anyone perhaps describe the differences in the pipework and snow plough brackets in more detail (if not somehow show them on a picture)?

My wallet's breathing a sigh of relief. I need Blue/Grey without any prefixes/suffixes for c1985 Waterloo-Exeter stock, so there is time at least for it to gather its wits.