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Just an observation… its been 13 days, 16 pages since last time we saw a picture from a purchaser of this model (not a youtube review). Even then its only 2 confirmed sightings, and both are on page 28. The thread has had 98k views. Compare to the 2MT which turned up on page 25 of its thread, and had 20 different purchasers images over the next 16 pages, which has had over 125k views. This feels a little underwhelming for a brand new tooled model of a very popular prototype… Is anyone excited by a new Black 5 ?

Israel.. everyone is armed. Got on a train, this little old granny sat down, put her bags to the floor and leaned her rifle against the side of the carriage!, no one even noticed but me… younger ones, t-shirt, jeans, backpack and assault rifle..sure.

Selling Flying Scotsman tat I think would be an interesting episode of The Apprentice…. I can see it now… Alan Sugar voice… ”The national railway museum needs your help. You have been brought in to help sell a range of steam engine branded products. Each team will pick one locomotive theme. Either the world famous Flying Scotsman, or world record holding Mallard. Your task is to find buyers for all this clobber. The team that sells the most at the highest profit wins. At least one of you will get fired. Off you go”. Que loads of excited teeth whitened plastic grin smiles of fake excitement to the task. One estate agent looking candidate says he runs a hair dressers and is good at selling, so wants to be PM. Another one confesses to having never been on a train, someone from Belfast claims their dad drove it in Ireland, so should be the project manager too. They take a vote on it and the hair dresser wins. Next is followed by dismay when they see the range of tat on offer, including mouse pads, shower heads and a Scotsman toilet seat. Discussion on finding the most expensive item, a gold plated £500 scotsman to try and flog, but failing to recognise its a profit task when they drop it and only get £50 for the remains. The Mallard team dont do much better, first trying to flog Mallard soft toys at a Duck sanctuary, before going to Crewe and impress train enthusiasts, where they find a hardened 70 year old guy who likes LMS through and through and kindly advises them to stick their Duck up their a-la orange. Back in the board room, a range of tat is on the desk, where Alan asks if they got steamed up, and how they chose their choo choos. Karen makes some quip about her Crewe Alex days and how making a transfer might have been better. Alan reveals he’s a secret enthusiast, bought the £50 Scotsman, fixed it up on his yacht and sold it to his mate for £500 thus winning the task himself and fires the lot of them.

My late fathers, from c1948/9. Well used, I recall trying to melt some chocolate on the cab and eating in the late 1970’s… strange child I was… motor still turns, not bad for c75 years old. I reckon fitting this with DCC is easier than converting it from 3 rail to 2 rail back in the 1970’s. I also reckon it’ll pull more than either 9f above or the new Black 5.

The late David Randles site maintained a list of approved rakes, uksteam.info it lists every tour, operator, loco, date, times and set numbers it also lists coach numbers, set numbers and liveries as used on each railtour, this is probably the most authoritative record you will find. chose your year, chose “coaching stock” link which takes you to the explanation at the bottom of the page. Heres 2000… http://uksteam.info/tours/trs00.htm and 2000’s rakes.. http://uksteam.info/tours/trs00.htm#chs you can go forwards/backwards from 1996 to 2019. For example DateRouteBookings Sat 01-Jan THE MILLENNIUM SCOTSMAN [CANCELLED] Kings Cross-Edinburgh (BN93) 4472: Edinburgh-Kings Cross BN93 was (BN93)Rail Charter Services BR Mk 1 set "The Pride of the Nation" LNWR Black/Light blue livery (Air brake only) FO: 3097,3120/21/41/46/47/49 BCK: 21269 RBR: 1680/98 Very nice guy was David, passionate about updating this site relied on by thousands of enthusiasts…updated it several times weekly in between duties at the WSR/6024 which he also supported, as well as to be seen at many galas and railtours.

Its funny how some are harking back for the return of what some used to call “satans cable”.. the jst from tender to loco. Whilst the past has a habit of becoming nostalgic.. the ability for 1 wire to unhinge from that jst, making it useless and needed extensive dismantling and soldering, or the jst male pulling out the female off the circuit board and becoming ugly with it has not diminished over time. i suspect why the jst has gone isnt Hornby benevolence, but that the number of wires needed has exceeded what a jst is practical for.. I count a minimum of 8… 2 each for track feed, leds, smoke and motor… the Bachmann 9f above only needs 4.. Track Feed and Motor… it was only a decade ago we needed just 2.. track feed as everything else was under the boiler.

There is a range of mugs.. Corgi, Scalextrix, Airfix and a Tin one for TT120. we digress.

i blame it on the mugs… Far too many

Shhhh protect the future. When DCC models are all dead on ebay, DCites like us will have a cheap source of models to feast off and no qualms of ripping bits back to the minimum “2 wires” thats all thats needed for DC approach.

I was at Kings Cross coal yard yesterday (now an urban trendy shopping mall / bars etc). However on the coal yard offices BR(E) enamel sign still hangs warning traffic to drive slowly… I was surprised to to see this, last time I was here (c2000) the yard was derelict, and the good shed home to a dodgy Australian/Kiwi bar called “The Church” which only opened sunday 10am till early afternoon and was a realky rough/ready joint featuring a dentists chair for shocking unsuspecting antipodeans with shots…. And the sign was obviously hanging back then, and was surprised it had survived at that point.

All metal can definitely oxidize in damp conditions… It wasnt unknown for loco wheels to be rusted to the rails they sat on at Barry. its not unique to model railways. I once had a 1990’s era Hornby black 5 brought to me for repair… rusted solid motion to the wheels to the chassis. It took some effort to get the motion and wheels off, oddly the plastic bushes on the insulating side was fine, but equally the tyres had rotted to the wheelsets too… it had been stored in damp for sometime. There are pictures of oxidisation on models in various parts of the forum, invariably bare metal thats been touched by greasy fingers starting to react over time, often confused for mazak rot, but its decay rather than cracking and easily treated if caught early. My experience of the hobby is whats killed most locos has been the nylon axles of Bachmann, mainline, replica and some Dapol models of the 1970’s - 1990’s… fortunately theres solutions for that too, but low value, better replacements has turned many of them into binware. Triang, Hornby, Lima keeps going, until it gets binned, or stripped for spares, I dont think they get binned for want of traction tyres. Imo DCC will kill many of todays models.. electronics board failure, and things we are already noting, like the couplings. You can’t replace that tender coupling on todays Black 5 with a paperclip, a cutting off an anchor butter container, match stick, wine bottle twine etc etc like you used to…

U have to wonder why models arent using usb-c connectors… its an industry standard, cheap as cheaps, easily understood and of course an EU standard. its not charging anything but its still more pins than a model will need and robust and smaller than the current solution too.

I still have approx 50 Lima locos hanging around, they are all still on original tyres, and all still work, though need a nudge sometimes because the brushes stick with none use. The youngest is at least 30 years at this point. And those tyres go back to the days of cheap elastic band types, not the refined ones used in Europe. I dont think I can complain. The most troublesome part of a Lima loco is the buffers actually.. they seem to evaporate with age. Everyones experience is unique, but judging today based on 1980 is flawed, at a minimum compare it to those countries using them today… and theres not forum fulls of complaints in HO about them. A lot of my locos spend long periods out of use, and one thing I can say, is the wheels on my stock has never gone egg shaped from standing still…I think your stretching it a bit with that one. 😀

The wagons behind it would benefit a retool too imo.

I found them by accident to, I read earlier that v1-4 were back in stock, but saw they were out of stock again, them I was looking at the A/S 37 and just stumbled across v5-8 and thought oh thats nice. noted they swapped at which one has the tail lamp this time, its the Cappagh v8, last time it was the unbranded v4… suits me as I want to recreate the 6Z35 Chessington flow, which was all Cappagh and spotless at the 2 runs during the reopening week.