Pandora

i think the continental modeller does have greater expectations than we Brits, look back at the high quality products of Fleischmann the DB V200 Warship etc, they were simply unaffordable to us in the late 1960s/1970. Today look into the camera locos from Roco, a small digital camera mounted up front and relaying an image to the operators screen for a drivers view of the layout. We have a long way to go to catch up!

Working electrically conductive pantographs on the Triang overhead locos permitted the independent control and runniing of two 12V DC trains on the same track, one drawing power running entirely from the running rails and the other the overhead plus the negative return on a single running rail. Surely such a technique is obsolete due to modern DCC controllers and decoders.

The class 90 and the 86, does anyone have the diagrams and headcodes for their runs over the North London line through Canonbury etc? I'd like to look them up on Real time Trains and pay a few visits to see them pass through the station

the front does look too flat and box like, perhaps this may be corrected by taking metal out of the moulding tool to create a curved surface for the cab front ,.... you can remove metal but you cannot put it back!

Those early images of Falcon are 50+ years old, and colour photographs and negatives are unstable and deteriorate with time, the dyes in the images deteriorate at differing rates (from searching web for history of colour photography)

The explanation of a B&W print or negative which has been hand-coloured makes sense. colouring of B&W prints is a well known technique in photography. Ladybird Book of British railway Locomotives, does anyone still have a copy? (from my childhood ) I recall a good number of the shots in the book had a "hand coloured look about them

according to a source, Invoicing and Credit control went awry, Goods arriving without invoices, and retailers with "history" as to credit receiving goods by the pallet load

If the Class 47 website is checked, the gallery and write up shows Falcon in all over light (lime) green including the cab side window area with only the "solebar" in a darker green, later the cabside and solebars were in darker green, then those two darker areas were painted in the well known chestnut

I have my Falcon and it is delightful model, It is the best release from Heljan to date? The three liveries, according to Class47 website, there were four. The lime greenchestnut was originally two tone lime and dark green. The dark green areas were overpainted with chestnut brown. Also suggestions that the lime green /chestnut brown acquired small yellow warning panels for a very short time before a full repaint in two tone green. http://www.class47.co.uk/c47_feature_424.php (click on liveries tab) https://www.flickr.com/photos/55919985@N06/5643178258 (lime/green /chestnut with yellow warning panels)

. Each TORTOISE will draw 15-16 ma. at stall each output pin of the Arduino can source 40mA of current, therefore each output pin can be a 5V 40mA power supply if you wish, eg digitalWrite (13,HIGH); // 5V at upto 40mA, or digitalWrite(13,LOW); //power off

I agree with your opinion, I am one of the "greys" who are stimulated to buy models having a recall of steam at work in the 1960s and was also around to witness long gone diesel and electric locos being delivered and working alongside steam. The modern railway scene is quite frankly boring, even 25 years back, friends who were haulage bashers were heading off to europe looking for a more interesting railway scene. Today there is even less to become excited about. The work situation you describe is known as "the polarization of the labour market" The labour market is polarised so there are more jobs at the top, more at bottom (zero hours etc) but the middle ground, ie the desirable ones with career/company pension/valuable in that you will not be laid off in a downturn, have been eroded away.

Perhaps we ought to lobby Toyota to come and look over Hornby and teach Hornby how to organise and manufacture, Toyota having reached #1 in the industry due to their relentless drive for efficiency and reduction in wasted effort "muda". Toyota have achieved: 1) Some of the highest productivity figures in the car industry, 2) Some of the lowest warranty rates in the industry 3) Shortest design stage to manufacturing development time in the industry Toyota production managers and engineers rescued the near-bankrupt Porsche in the early 1990s. Toyota went over Porsche with a fine toothed comb, reorganised Porsche for efficiency , today Porsche have one of the highest profit margins per car in the industry

I agree that the two markets can co exist, my considered view, to-days "small boys" have probably dropped the interest in trains before they commence their teens, therefore "small boys" may be a market limited to a handful of years, ( 8 to 13 years of age in my estimate), long gone the era when boys ( myself included ) still requested Hornby trains as Christmas and birthday presents all the way to leaving school at 18 years of age. The adult market, there may be fewer adults to sell to, but they are present for the long haul, 50 years + of purchasing, so which is the more important buyer to Hornby, young small boys or old small boys such as myself?

Searching the Internet and reading the Statutory Declarations filed by Hornby, Hornby declared they were doing so well , (thanks to their Microsoft ERP AX system), they filed a declaration last November, they were accelerating their restructure and reorganise ( ie dismiss) their overseas managers etc. Then January appeared and post Christmas sales slumped, hence the profits warning and prediction of major losses / bank covenant breach. Perhaps those "thank you very much but here is your P45" employees were the ones with the finger in the breach of the dyke wall, keeping the goods going out, and the monies coming in.

My prediction: the truly awful Farish 25/3 retooled with a new bodyshell for the Chinese chassis of the 24 etc, a nice low cost project for Bachmann, and it will sell sell sell!

MRP/ERP systems an anomaly of the British economy is that 1) productivity is not rising 2) we are lagging behind many EEA members in terms of GDP/hour, we are only 75 % of Germany and France and 90 % of Italy. My take on this is Brits cannot manage or implement change. Hornby may be an example, they took on a MD who had a track record (ladbrokes) of mis managing IT, IT which would have secured a profitable business ( moral judgements on gambling and gambling addiction ignored) and we now have a crisis, a company whose IT implemenatation has failed to secure the benefits of productivity and advantage, and a company looking into the abyss.

Or, perhaps the journalist is dropping a hint that Bachmann are looking into Hornby!!

Prior to Hornby , Ames directed Ladbrokes, a company who slipped up with their IT and online gambling strategy, see below: How much of he Hornby £6m loss is due to IT strategy shortcomings? I have heard that retailers ceased ordering from Hornby and actually returned stock back to the logistics centre. One retailer had stock turn up which they had never ordered and they sent it back after much fighting, possibly a manipulative effort to improve the figures, is this known as "churning" in accountancy circles? " The news that Richard Ames, product director, has left the firm will sink confidence in Britain’s second largest bookmaker, which is set to announce further costly delays to its beleaguered technology platform this week. The company has already issued a profit warning about its technology division. But Thursday’s half-year results will show delays have eaten even further into the £15m of profits expected from digital - which are less than half the £31m achieved in the same period last year. Richard Glynn, Ladbrokes’ chief executive, has overseen a series of management changes since joining the firm in April 2010. Insiders say morale has fallen to an all-time low, with very little hope of devising a winning strategy that can compete with William Hill, the UK’s leading bookmaker. Last week, William Hill was able to ramp up pressure on its long-time rival by announcing a 23pc increase in online operating profits to £68.9m. Ladbrokes decided to spend £50m developing its own in-house digital technology, a move many in the industry say was its undoing. Almost all other traditional bookmakers teamed up with newer generation technology experts, such as the deal between William Hill and Playtech. "

I have just received an O-gauge catalogue dated 1st February 2016 from Tower Models. There is a printed last-minute announcement: Heljan have taken a decision to start work on a new small diesel project, details to be announced shortly. I am intrigued, Class 14 perhaps?

Travelling between Shenfield and Gidea Park, observed a considerable number of new portals have been erected, the new portals are extremely bulky and clumsy and over-engineered in contrast to the 1950s minimalist "Woodhead" metalwork. It is not obvious why there is a need for replacement, the old portals are still standing true and seem to in good corrosion-free condition. Sinking of the new piling foundations for the new portals caused track heave in at least one location. How much longer before we will lose the last link to Woodhead in the form of the overhead?

I like the drilled wheels of the 24.

The B12/3 is a very attractive model, I hope they paint the tender brake-wheel red as on the preserved B12 at Sheringham. It is said that Gresley wanted Edward Thompson outside the tent and sent him away to rebuild the B12 class for a quiet life.

Has anyone measur4ed up the Bachmann LMS 10000 bogies and chassis for the potentiial to power the Triang EM2 bodyshell? The Bachmann 37 chassis in the conversions, how much work is required, and can the LMS 10000 bogies fit onto the 37 chassis?

JustLiketheRealThing have released the Presstwin wagon in 7mm and it is selling. The Presstwin was a distinctive member of the BR mid-fifties updating and modernisation of the BR wagon fleet. I hope Bachmann sit up and take notice and release a Presstwin in 4mm