Flying Pig

Quite a number of people have used the Electrotren chassis which as you day can look very good indeed. I'd completely forgotten about this item. The working signal impressed me at the time: I guess it was a very simple mechanical linkage, but it still looks like fun.

I get rather tired of the Waah! that Flying Scotsman attracts. It's the only A3 that made it into preservation and without it we'd have none of Gresley's original Pacifics (insert arguments about it's not an A1 here).

Fortunately this one was sold out or I might have been tempted.

You might be interested in this old thread:

I've read claims by Hunter pilots that they used that effect to fake supersonic overflight of US bases. The Hunter would go supersonic in a dive, but was firmly subsonic in level flight.

I'm not sure Hornby understand it either. This (below) looks ominously like they're looking at new rabbit holes to dart down. They really should have learned that lesson by now. From the reactions it has attracted, the Black Five is clearly a mess - if they'd just designed it like the Princess Royal it would have been fine and probably cheaper to develop and produce. I don't know why they feel they need to chase novelty.

Yes possibly, but designing a tender isn't rocket science and Hornby generally do it very well. It's not as if the Stanier type is particularly small either.

They used to pass just south of me in North Wilts and if conditions were right I could follow them westbound all the way to the turn onto a southwesterly heading down the Bristol Channel. It was particularly dramatic just after a late autumn sunset if a Concorde was leaving a sunlit contrail.

If you follow the Rock Family Trees histories of Napier and Paxman, by the mid 70s they almost were. It was all Poached Paxman Diesels in a White Wine Sauce at that point, before the inevitable split.

I'm not crazy about the tender underframe - diecasting certainly seems to be a rabbit hole in this case and I don't think the result is as good as on earlier all-plastic models, certainly not as crisp, which I think will show up in normal use. There also seems to be less daylight than there should be through the frame cutouts. They had a good Stanier 4000 gallon tender underframe with the Princess and all they needed were some 9 ton bodies to go on top.

Or indeed whether they are able to gain anything from the course. In this case I suspect it will be like sending a dachshund to a 100m hurdles workshop.

Two years, suspended, and a two year disqualification, amongst other stocking fillers, apparently. I like the requirement to complete an "accredited thinking skills programme" within 20 days. https://www.thamesvalley.police.uk/news/thames-valley/news/2024/april/15-04-2024/man-sentenced-for-dangerous-driving-and-child-neglect--m40/

But it should. In the future we will have holographic soundscapes from arrays of speakers attached to the layout that yield all the correct sounds for the listener's position and stop neatly just beyond viewing distance. At last it will be possible to correctly simulate the doppler effect of a Deltic passing at speed and the etched hens on Wansbeck Road will be able to cluck. Even better the same technology will be mandatory for all domestic and automotive sound systems, so we won't have to share the listening choices of people who think WOB WOB repeated endlessly at maximum volume over frantic shouting is music.

https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=17.4&lat=53.79543&lon=-1.55675&layers=168&b=1&o=100 https://www.s-r-s.org.uk/html/LNERDiagrams.htm (look for Leeds 'A') From the concourse to the scissors crossing 340m (~2.8m at1:120); to the River Aire 460m (~3.8m). Still quite a lot of compression needed, I think. Some of the pointwork will need to be built or redesigned to use proprietary items. Probably better to design an "inspired by" layout with some of the features of Leeds Central.

Largely due to the availability of cleaners. I don't believe the tales of Polish refugees at Top Shed. I think he had a secret gang of Oompa Loompas that the Home Office didn't know about.