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DavidB-AU

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Everything posted by DavidB-AU

  1. Going into the kits that were used to make Star Wars ships is another kettle of fish, but the short version is there are a LOT of Saturn/Apollo and Harrier bits in them.
  2. Two fascinating videos about the amount of Airfix and similar kits used in making Thunderbirds models.
  3. I was told about a decade ago that modelling Chinese railways is seen as a "politically acceptable" hobby for the growing middle class.
  4. Somewhat topical. https://japantoday.com/category/national/feature-rise-in-japan's-unmanned-rail-stations-creating-concerns
  5. I read endless letters in railway magazines of the 1970s and early 80s ridiculing suggestions that diesels should be preserved, because don't have the character of steam and don't belong on heritage lines. Now diesel galas are an intrinsic part of many heritage railways. Literally the same views resurface every 20 or so years when another generation of rollingstock is retired. The job of a heritage railway is to preserve railway heritage. While the Pacers ended up doing things they were not designed to do for about twice their intended life, they are nevertheless an important part of railway history which needs to be preserved. Ergo, they belong on heritage railways. The National Tramway Museum at Crich and the London Bus Museum at Brooklands have preserved vehicles of similar vintage to the Pacers (and even buses built this century are preserved) for a reason - they are a part of history, no matter how much some grumbled about them in regular service.
  6. The only preserved Queensland C16 is now main line accredited.
  7. It's a preserved 1943 Madrid metro train on display at Chamartín for the centenary in 2019.
  8. There aren't many sights more impressive than double headed R class at speed.
  9. There was a layout in the pages of MR in the late 70s which did this. It was OO in the front and that new fangled Z gauge in the background. IIRC the Z gauge was a single dogbone with just one train, an Elmar class 47 and some German coaches repainted blue and grey.
  10. Mainly the leisure market. About 75% of business travellers use Eurostar. Where else but Paris Nord? Marne-la-Vallée–Chessy has the required border control facilities and RER connections to Paris proper.
  11. The Inner Circle was nominally complete in 1884. To say the Met and the District both operated the service is a bit of a misnomer - they were fierce rivals and regularly disrupted each other out of spite, e.g. chaining rollingstock to the track. (I could go on about this but Jago Hazzard has many more examples in his videos.) They were both forced by Act of Parliament to operate the line but in a completely ridiculous way. The Met provided the clockwise service and the District provided the anti-clockwise service. If you bought a District ticket from, say, Paddington to Baker Street you had to go the long way around!
  12. A Colonel Stephens layout could work. Minimal track and short trains with small, ancient rolling stock.
  13. Have the storage in the open. There are plenty of prototype examples to adapt. Goodrington, for example.
  14. Restoration of the train line between Londonderry and Portadown is one of the main recommendations made in a new review of the railway network. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-66297150
  15. Passenger operations don't need run arounds. Look at Ian Futers' Newcastle Haymarket, Victoria Park or Oldham King Street.
  16. I'd recommend looking through the Small Layout Scrapbook by the late Carl Arendt. Lots of ideas that can be adapted. https://www.carendt.com/category/small-layout-scrapbook/
  17. There was a real layout based around a combination of that and the Pilbara iron ore railways called Arid Australia. In 1996 it set a Guinness-certified world record for the longest model train, 70.2m long comprising 7 locos and 650 ore hoppers. In HO scale that represents a train 6.11 km (3.8 miles) long.
  18. Here's an interesting one, not much track but the rest isn't just open countryside. It's still just an oval of track with only one train length visible but the focus of the layout is the above ground scenery based on Turnpike Lane. My photos don't really do justice to the magnificent model of the Charles Holden station.
  19. Not British but fits in with "prototype for anything".
  20. Preserved A62 has been returned to service, seen here on a test run with V/Line's reactivated A66 which returned to revenue service a year ago in the classic 1980s livery.
  21. 45112, RFO 1211 and 13 x KAA en route to Long Marston in 2007. Note the flames from the brakes!
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