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Good morning all, Blue sky and sunshine here. A warm and breezy day is forecast with the chance of the odd shower. 12°C rising to 23°C. The visit to Sainsbury's that was postponed the other day is now back on as there are a couple of things on special offer that The Boss has decided she really does need. After that my intention is to stoke up the pressure washer and jet wash decking and paving in the rear garden. That will probably be enough for one day, the block paving at the front of the house will have to wait a bit longer, as will the car which is in dire need of a wash. Time for breakfast and then we'll wait until after the school run before heading out. Have a good one, Bob.

I have bought various Collectors Club items from model shops in the past, and they had numbers of them, I think the manufacturer decides on the shelf life of a CC edition and then unloads them as a job lot. I don't think there's anything untoward going on. Mike.

Whatever floats your boat. My ideal Roast Beef Sandwich is medium rare beef, sliced thinly on homemade "white sliced" bread spread with mayonnaise not butter with a good swipe of Colman's English Mustard (there really isn't anything out there that compared to Colman's) and - possibly - creamed horseradish (which is very German, but nice). If I wanted the sandwich hot, I'd change the sliced bread for a bap and add a mound of slow cooked, caramelised, onions (plain or cooked with a touch balsamic vinegar) As for the role of lettuce, tomatoes, gherkins or even beetroot slices or pineapple rings in this tasty production, it's very much the case of "don't call us, we'll call you"

BTW that’s for the oil lamp lit version. The 2 different gas lit types need more work. D

This is a view you can't see from the normal viewing angle, which is probably just as well given the slight gaps in the back scene. The buffer stop is the end of the headshunt

The year of the cat - Al Stewart

If City are innocent, which I accept they may be, there is one simple and easy thing they can do. Bring everything out in the open, comply with the EPL requests and simply call the EPL's bluff. Not doing so damages their case and reputation, clearly there are vast sums behind City which in itself is not an issue. Unless they have broken the fairplay funding rules. The fact that you have chosen to ignore is that City have been charged with 115 offences under the Premier League rules, which is 115 charges more than any other teams, and I think 35 or them I believe is down to City being uncooperative with the EPL However according to reports City's ownership and funding is held in a myriad of offshore companies and deals behind closed doors out of scrutiny of the authorities

Perhaps there should be a sub forum for people who can’t spell Thomas 😉

Good morning Rob, The problem was exacerbated by the driver immediately behind the trailer not 'daring' to overtake because either his/her car was puny or because the Fosse (at this point, despite being of Roman origin) is sinuous, and any straight bits found a car coming in the opposite direction. And yes, it was about ten miles. Eventually, the puny car turned off, but there were still no opportunities to overtake (at Halford, the blasted tractor just crawled!), until, at last, I got by - aided by the performance of my Focus ST (not quite as rapid as the TVR I used to own, but fast enough). Regards, Tony.

They were due on 17th, but someone mentioned the 21st, so hopefully this week. I have 50040 on pre-order from MSL Germany.

Back to his original idea of cherry picking trains to run!

The Great Western Society painted 3650 blue in 2020! Paul

In case of difficulty, just ask for Lea & Perrins.

Deffo 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

The E19 cad is finished and it prints satisfactorily except the roof which sometimes warps so I’ve added transverse strengthening and need to do a test print. I’m also working out how to best do the windows - or indeed how not to do them. D

The Tide Is High - Blondie

Not quite what I fava😉

What about the E19s that sometimes ran as a kind of early B set?

150234 Going to the Looe

Looks like it’s a vegetarian pick-your-own buffet again😉

I've been asked to restore the photos of this loco, I think I've found them all but couldn't work out how to alter the original post so here it is again. Since then the big KTM motor has been replaced by a TA12 can in the same place and 49801 is back in the works again after failing on Chapel en le Frith at the LMRS open day on Saturday - the front unit has jammed up but I've not got round to investigating it yet. It was suggested that that we might put out a kit for this...... In view of the interest this loco provokes at exhibitions - usually along the lines of "what on earth is that?" - I am putting some details, photos and drawings on here. The origin of this is a diagram prepared at Horwich in 1923 as an alternative to the LMS Garratt, it was published, along with several other very interesting proposals, in "Chronicles of Steam" by E.S.Cox. Below is the drawing I made from this (many years ago, long before the CAD age) to build 49801. Those with long memories will have seen 49801 on "Leeds Victoria" and more recently on "Cwmafon" and "Herculaneum Dock". According to my records I finished this model in 1985. The drawing office kept the wheelbase to a minimum in order to fit on a 60' turntable, it would almost certainly have been unstable at the front end and Cox was of the opinion that a pony truck would have been added if it had been built. For my purposes fitting on a 60' turntable was a distinct advantage so I left it as it was. The tender in the drawing is an extended version of that fitted to the L&Y Dreadnought 4-6-0 but in view of what happened to the Crabs I thought this was unlikely to have been built. The standard Fowler 3500 gal. tender looked even more ridiculous with the Mallet but I had a spare 4000 gal. tender from an original Princess and this looked just about right with 49801. Minimum radius on my layouts is normally 28", 49801 will get round this but the throwover of the boiler looks rather excessive. I made no attempt to fit the steam and exhaust pipes at the time but I have thought about adding them since, if only to hide the front unit's worm gear - clearly visible above. The boiler is supported on a conventional saddle on the rear unit and on a slide on the front unit. The loco is LH drive but the leading unit's reach rod is duplicated each side from a rocker on the rear unit rod. None of this was shown in the original diagram - all my own design but based on Horwich practice of the time. With the body removed this is how it works. A large KTM motor fits easily in the huge firebox and drives the leading axle of the rear unit directly by a Romford gearset (no gearboxes in those days). On the end of this is a cardan shaft to the leading axle of the front unit. Cylinders were made from the white metal castings which used to be available from W&H, motion from Jamieson parts. Frames would have been sawn out of hard brass sheet at this time - about .015" thickness. Close up of cardan shaft The articulated joint was made as shown in the drawing, designed to be very rigid but I had to slacken it a bit in view of the total lack of springing or compensation in the frames. If I was building it now it would probably be compensated. The view from underneath, wheels are very old Romfords, uninsulated mazak on one side, it mostly picks up from the tender though. OO gauge leaves plenty of room for the motion. Boiler unit and front unit footplate. There are side control springs on the front unit slide, the lump of brass between the springs locates in the slot in the underside of the boiler when assembled. This shows why I split the reversing mechanism, a single weighshaft at the front end would not have been possible. BR did something similar much later on the Crosti 9F. Close up photos show off Barry O's excellent weathering. I hope this has all been of interest. Michael Edge

It would seem to be an obvious candidate; high maintenance costs, high operating costs, little internal traffic.

A fairly easy one to sort the photos for today, a day trip on a Saturday in September 2006 to Berlin to tie in with an Open Day at Potsdam tram depot. The availability of information about such things in advance via the Internet or local contacts being a distinct advantage, plus the Ryanair flights to Berlin at that time were fairly easy to get seats on cheaply, even close to the departure date. A couple of views at Potsdam Hbf of then current and preserved stock...... A preserved Gotha built tram/trailer set was on display at the depot..... ...along with the driver training car...... ...and this Combino in an odd livery, which may have been a demonstrator on loan...... Problems were still being experienced at that time with metal fatigue on this type of car across several operators so that may have been the reason it was at Potsdam, though I don't think they were as badly affected as some places. There was also an interesting display of maintenance equipment as well..... I was actually off to Berlin a week later than this trip as well, though for a full holiday covering a lot of rail interest in the area, so that will be the next posting in a couple of weeks time, but this can act as a taster in the meantime....

Eight miles high - The Byrds

Any update by anyone on the metadata class 50/Mk2 dates? (Don't know how to access it...) I've got a couple of 50s pending and my bank requires confirmation of purchase on my phone for online spending, so I'll have to keep it close by. The child in me doesn't want to have to wait for restocking if Hornby sells out (I'm suspecting that the 50s will be as popular as the HSTs seem to have been). Cheers, Michael