Legend

A good reminder of Eric Treacy . I’d bet he’d be thrilled there will be locos on his name whizzing round model railways - especially Lime St

He never got stuff to review from manufacturer. He buys the models himself which is why it’s an independent review . And frankly he’s equal handed when it comes to any manufacturer . So he had a model that had faulty tender connection and we now know he is not alone from another YouTuber above He had glue marks on a £200+ model that were clearly illustrated He stated the lights were glued in , which others have confirmed they are . I suppose it depends how much glue is used as to how removable they are So a verifiable review . Not exactly an unfounded “absolute kicking “

Not saying they’ve done it in past, although the much maligned BR did give us a pretty good Inter-City Railway . At one stage I think we had more 125mph trains than anywhere else . But I’m thinking not for profit co that plough any gains back into the business

Becsuse it extracts money from the railways . Yes as a pensioner with investments I take your pension scheme points. But surely for the benefit of railways and the travelling public as a whole it’s better to plough profits back into the railways . Benefits for the many not just those privileged enough to be shareholders , whether that’s direct or through pension funds . I’d also say Water , Gas and Electricity but that’s probably trampling into politics

Someone has tooled a 313 . It must turn up soon surely !

Just a bit of accounting here Mike . Goods can’t disappear between paying out money for it and receipt in stock . As soon as you pay for it it’s out of cash in your balance sheet , so the asset needs to be accounted for as “goods in transit” which will form part of their stock figure .

It would be interesting to find out exactly what this slow moving inventory is , remembering it could be Corgi/Airfix/Scalextric as well as Hornby . Standard accounting practice is that it should be valued at the lower of cost or Net Realisable Value (ie what you can get for it) - surely we must be on verge of some large write offs ? Agree with maximisation of tooling and getting as many liveries out as possible . The lack of blue/grey Mk1s this year and more liveries on the 50 (eg Banger blue) is an example . Also by having blue/grey mk1s they could have stopped valuable tooling costs of mk2e/fs as there would be something for blue diesels to run with .Introduce mk2s later when scale has settled in . Also , while it is early days , according to their 2024 TT120 catalogue they only intend launching Class 37s initially as era 6 (green?) and era 9 (EWS) . Surely if you want to maximise cash flow you would also go for standard and large logo blue ones . TT120 needs critical mass .They seemed to have figured this into their tooling yet won’t get the benefit of it till later . This is a company that needs cash ! it looks like they’ve decided to make too much of the wrong stuff in the past . But I still think a significant issue is lack of manufacturing capacity which is stopping the maximisation of their tools . They just can’t get the manufacturing slots .

I suspect the Swiss take vegetation removal much more seriously than the UK. Much tidier railway over there .

Wow . Learn something everyday . I assumed that drivers went round when train was stopped not when not was in motion . That would have given the ORR something to think about .

Yep , these box tops take me right back to my childhood . They could excite a person even before opening the box Happy Birthday Roy Cross

argh you know how to make a Scotsman cry . I paid £121 for mine . Quite happy though , it is a lovely smooth runner but at £102 it’s even better !

A nice interview. I really enjoy your chats . It’s like talking model railways down the pub .

I think a lot of people just need to “chill “ Take a “Helicopter view” and “run the flag up the pole and see who salutes” . Let’s see how it “feeds through to the bottom line” “at the end of the day” Recently retired and don’t miss the corporate spiel at all .

Good to know the transformation at the coal face . It just might take awhile to feed through to their figures

But I'll bet you are a sensible guy that doesn't stand at the edge of a platform when a train comes in . We seem to be designing rules that compensate for lack of common sense , whether that is the guy standing on the platform , who shouldn't be close to edge or the guy on the train that shouldn't be opening the door . Now don't get me wrong .There are rules in place and WCRC seem to be doing everything possible to circumvent them . Is this the type of organisation we want on our railway ? I also remember people falling out of trains , but from memory these were people in high speed trains and inter city trains before CDL where doors could appear to be shut but were on the latch . So yes these trains obviously needed them . I think that's different from mk1s puttering up and down to Mallaig . it's difficult to distinguish between rules on a heritage railway and the Jacobite . Yes I know one runs at 25mph and the other at 40mph . is that 15mph so significant? As I've said before , more people die going up Ben Nevis than are injured on the Jacobite , should we stop them going up the mountain , maybe put railings up ? There surely got to be a place for common sense somewhere . You can't legislate all lunacy out