Flying Pig

You'd expect more offset between the coach ends there, precisely because it is a reverse curve and they are swinging in opposite directions. The maximum amount of offset is determined largely by the track spacing and the divergence angle of the point. You may be able to reduce the divergence angle a bit by trimming the point if it is curved through the crossing, but most Streamline ones are straight there.

I had to rescue a robin the other day. It was lying in the road looking stunned and I picked it up fully expecting a gory mess. Fortunately it seemed intact, so I put it in a hedge and an hour or so later there was no robin in the hedge, but one was foraging in the gutter. So I showed it one of those road safety films with Tufty and the voice of Bernard Cribbins and hoped for the best...

Bats in the UK do carry a form of rabies and there have been deaths (though it is treatable). https://www.bats.org.uk/about-bats/bats-and-disease/bats-and-disease-in-the-uk/bats-and-rabies https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/rabies-risks-from-bat-bites/information-for-individuals-who-have-been-bitten-by-a-bat

If you were building this throat, there are a number of things you could do to improve it that just aren't possible with unmodified Peco. For a start you could tighten up the scissors (could also be done with Streamline and a razor saw). You could use a shallower crossing in the turnout to platform 3 to ease the reverse curve. You could even change to an outside slip to ease the curve out of platform 2. Carefully chosen curves throughout the formation could also be used to smooth the transitions. See for example https://www.scalefour.org/scaleforum/2017/minories/minories-010.html

Of course, if you drop the need for arrivals and departures at every platform, the throat can be just a trailing crossover and a point for a bay on the departure side: that's three points and only two points in length because the bay point overlaps the crossover. There's only one platform for arrivals and all trains are shunted to await departure. Very economical and plenty of play value for a solo operator.

The constant is more likely to be the distance between the boiler centreline and the foundation ring at the firebox end. There's more scope for variation between smokebox and cylinders - compare LMS standard 2P and 4F which I believe share a boiler. Moving the boiler and firebox up and down is going to alter the position of the grate and hence the firehole, though. Was the height of the footplate adjusted pro rata, or did the fireman just have to cope?

It's a pretty engine but access to the motion seems very restricted. Could the boiler be pitched a little higher? Might need a less outsize dome in the process.

Barad-dûr - I always knew it was in London.

The word dates from the late Middle English period at least, as a two word phrase 'clere storey' and would originally have been pronounced something like 'clairr-e storey'. On it's own, the word 'clere' evolved to have the modern pronunciation 'clear', but it is possible that didn't happen here. If the phrase had already merged into a word pronounced like 'clerr-e-story' before the vowel in 'clere' began to change then maybe it went its own way, A modern descendent 'cleristry' in a community where the word has been in continuous usage until today seems at least possible. So on that basis 'cle-res-tory' and 'clear-story' must surely both be modern re-analyses of the written word by people unfamiliar with it, in the manner of 'Where is the aleebi?'.

I think Compact Minories with a single slip on the arrival route is shorter (2 points plus the slip) and cheaper (just needs the slip and 3 points). On the downside it has slightly fewer parallel moves than yours and more reverse curves. Probably discussed in more detail on the General Minories thread if you have the time to search.

See the first minute of Shunter Black's Night Off. Note the use of the brake stick.

Something...something... EFE Bloater.

That reminds me of the very early days of RMweb, when weathering Bachmann rats was a popular sport and a ?coolant overflow as seen here was de rigueur. Will the new Bachmann models lead to a resurgence?

1922 map, showing Newburn still in existence: https://maps.nls.uk/view/106026616#zoom=5&lat=8871&lon=10328&layers=BT 1947 map. The house is gone and the sidings have been extended over its former location, apparently under cover: https://maps.nls.uk/view/106026619#zoom=5&lat=8931&lon=10577&layers=BT

Nope, you've lost me there. What is this concept you are trying to describe?

Except, perhaps, unnecessary.

I was once part of a very rapidly aborted scheme to build a layout in a cellar that had a floor with a profile like the Alps. That wasn't the reason we gave up, though: several sessions of scrubbing the walls that just generated more and more brick dust suggested it wasn't an ideal location for a layout.

I thought Sam's second review gave useful insight into the headlamps, particularly how easy they are to change. One of his blanking lamp irons wouldn't come out at all; one came out easily; the bottom centre lamp came out, but residual glue prevented it or a blanking piece being fitted (cleaning up by the buyer would no doubt fix this easily); the smokebox lamp came out but the blanking lamp iron does not fully block the light feed; one of the additional lamps supplied was incomplete and couldn't be attached. Not a fully developed system, I feel.

The recent Bachmann model shows what a 37 would typically look like in the later 1970s. The 'domino' headcode places it from 1976 onwards when headcode indicators went out of use. https://www.kernowmodelrailcentre.com/p/82781/35-303-Bachmann-Class-37-0-Centre-Headcode-37305-BR-Blue And here is the brdatabase entry for it, which shows it may have based at Landore: https://www.brdatabase.info/locoqry.php?action=locodata&type=D&id=6605&loco=6605

I confidently expect that the motion on Eric Treacy will be the usual bright nickel silver plating. It doesn't represent steel that well, but it will be no worse on this model than on any of the previous ones.

Yes, of course. Just as mineral working on the steam age railway was shaped by outside factors. My point in this instance was that long trains and large locos are not per se impossible within the confines of Britain.

Model the fiddle yard as the inner end of a set of exchange sidings and you have the full branch, with the added bonus of shunting at both ends.

As others have pointed out, it's more nuanced than that. Block trains of high capacity wagons hauled by 3000+hp locos have become the norm in recent decades and Britain hasn't grown in the meantime. What has changed utterly is the traffic and the operations and infrastructure that support it.

Ah, sorry. If you look at the main Black Five thread there are recent photos which show it in this livery with polished smokebox hinges and motion, so I guess the answer is still yes - the model depicts the current condition.

The loco was named in preservation, so yes.