rockershovel

You seem to be arguing in circles, against yourself. The clubs are not viable. They probably never will be. The PRL is a racket. It was set up for the purpose of a forced grab of International revenues, and that's still its main purpose. Let the RFU offer a centrally contracted Regional structure, with about 40 players on retainer and the rest paid per game. Let them play an 8 game season with no matches conflicting with 6N etc. Players from outside the Regions to play for whatever their clubs can afford. No imported players to play in Regional structure, unless centrally contracted. Let the PRL do anything it can afford to do, with the proviso that commitments under RFU Central Contracts have priority. This clears the deck for a centrally contracted players pool of eligible players about half the size of the PRL. The plain fact is that the RFU and the handful of senior clubs ownerships have been at each others throats for thirty years now. They have achieved nothing. Its time for one or the other to leave the stage.

I'm unclear quite what your point is. Certainly an organisation like the RFU is guilty of gross, systemic incompetence and dereliction of duty. No-one has ever really argued otherwise; they were useless and self-serving in amateur days and still are. My point is that the RFU don't need the clubs. They could run a centrally-contracted Regions system above a Championship and dispense with the PRL entirely; how many players would stay with the PRL if it meant missing Test paydays? There's a hard rain a-gonna fall. The PRL isn't solvent now and won't recover.

Why would you expect anything else? The whole relationship is based upon the PRL trying to stick its fingers in the International till, which us where the REAL money is. Half the clubs in the PRL are effectively insolvent. They undermine player development by importing key positions. They undermine player fitness by over-playing them. The RFU would be better off with a structure They control; the club owners simply form a chronic, festering sore on the flank of the national squad. The new generation of "blazers" at Twickenham are coming to realise this. They are getting consistently defeated at RWC by better organised countries, at huge cost and they don't like it. Let's see what develops.

How does the national body ensure a supply of Test level players from the clubs? Send a fact-finding group to the Southern Hemisphere; they seem to know all about it. Clue; it starts by the National Body being willing to ACT like one. Sell Twickenham and lease it back? Don't give them ideas, for God's sake. You have to have faith that the Byzantine fsction-fighting there, combined with the sheer opacity of the structure prevents it.

My wife is watching one now! I'm unclear what is happening but it looks fairly predictable. In these "socially correct" times it does rather look like Fresh Prince of Bel Air meets Phoebe from Friends.... Oh, here's another one. An agency waiter in a small, but expensive looking NY hotel proves to be the Ruritanian princeling whose "official visit" is awaited with such anticipation... or does he?

Given Gresley's American connections, perhaps he was hankering for a "deckless cab"?

All those things really come under the heading of "technology will be obsolete before it pays for itself" or "doesn't fit in the loading gauge"

Well, yes. At the risk of re-stating the obvious, rugby isn't football. Rugby developed a highly successful international format without developing a club format capable of supporting the professional game; one might argue that it still hasn't. Look at present coverage of the soccer Internationals. Much of it can be summarised as "let's get this nuisance over and get back to proper football" - ie the top-level club game which is the real focus of excellence in that sport. Ultimately the RFU could dispense entirely with the clubs, who act as a drain on resources (ie, revenue) to third parties. A 6-team, franchise type league would provide much better security and player development for the Test game. Whether people who don't appear to be capable of running a Cornish pasty concession should be left in charge, is a rather different question. Then we come to the Championship. Given that it makes no useful contribution to supporting the bloated flotilla of polished mahogany desks at Twickenham beyond a not-inconsiderable subscription revenue, and has no real connection with the paths into that Sancta Sanctorum, Twickenham really doesn't care about them. It's a sign of the times. Our political leaders isolate themselves from the mass-membership organisations which bear their names; local authorities spend local revenues of diversity initiatives, not emptying dustbins and filling potholes. Our national football head coach is best-known for his rather spiffy waistcoats.

Isn't that a red herring though? There were obviously means by which these locomotives could be turned where required ?

Given the success of the 2-8-4 configuration in last-generation US steam, and the LNER success with high-performance 2-6-2 and 2-8-2 types, one might conclude that; - any further development of 8-coupled locomotives on LNER would be in the direction of a 2-8-4 - the LNER 2-8-2 and subsequent BR 2-10-0 types showed that the practical, usable limits of steam on British metals had been reached - it was also acknowledged that existing 2-8-0, 2-10-0 and 4-6-2 types presented routes and diagrams at the limits of hand firing (ie, with the traditional 2-man crew. Boys Own Paper style accounts of crossing the Drakensberg on gigantic Garratts with 2, or even 3 firemen don't count)

I've been to Leicester v Northampton, or vice versa a couple of times. It's a well-supported fixture between two teams within easy travelling distance, with a long tradition of playing each other but it's hardly a "local derby" in the football sense.

Surely all the details are established? The "Hush-hush" 4-6-4 had its frames shortened by 18" and was fitted with a boiler (presumably including the firebox, under the circumstances) based on the 2-8-2 "Wolf of Badenoch". The firebox was extended 7.5" but subsequently shortened again. Which all suggests the most common, photoshop variant of the Gresley 4-8-2 - an A3 with an extra boiler band and double chimney - is not far out. For the really pernickety, add about 3mm to the firebox at the leading end, and prepare for a long evening with the fretsaw making sense of the splashers!

Inside cylinders with outside valve gear never really rang any bells. It remained on the margins of European design, flattering to deceive for many years - the LNWR once experimented with it - but to no real effect. Exotic boiler designs were another European chimera which never really justified themselves. Chapelon was a real genius, a true innovator and his keynote designs look rather magnificent.

Well, yes... but the whole thing, rods flapping around, no running board,...

That Italian loco... I don't know what it is about Italian steam locomotives, but the national genius for style and design seems to have entirely left the arena.

Speaking of "giraffe cars" and the like, it would be interesting to know more about the interchange (of ideas, at least) between Tri-ang and Lionel which was obvious around that time?

That's not quite the issue. I do cook sometimes, but neither of us can cook without ingredients.... and I still work full time, after all. No, we've just had our fortieth anniversary but there are still times when I have no idea what's going on in her head...

At least three days a week, my good wife (who is retired) "forgets" to take anything out of the freezer for dinner. Results can be .... varied. Yesterday's effort was a "vegetarian chili". This sounds good, but like many things she produces, it was bulked up with coarsely-cut carrot and tinned sweetcorn. I quite like carrots.... but not like this. She also tends to add far too much liquid, so that many dishes appear swimming in a weak liquor and must be carried with care. It was hot, and because she left the rice on too long, that at least had some texture. Otherwise it was disgusting. I've never been able to dissuade her from this sort of thing.

I take it that's OO9?

Out in the Fens, where the sky comes right down to the ground.. near Wryde Drain, Guyhirn.

I don't see anything "bizarre" about that. IMG are an American operation which seems to be applying a tried-and-trusted formula to a fairly minor sport in a foreign country. They don't need a team in London. They want a workable formula playing to an established demographic. The mid-level management delivering this want some good ROI numbers to give them a boost towards a promotion. They don't want any financial scandals. They do want defined market penetration for their perceived demographic. Welcome to the wonderful world of US sports marketing, where sufficiently established team brands move from Oakland to Las Vegas, Indianapolis to Baltimore on a whim, new teams appear from nowhere to balance the League structure or re-use vacated branding slots *turns out they did have a market for 2 teams in Texas!*

I've been very lucky with long-term effects. Assorted aches and pains but nothing requiring surgery.

Those are rather good; one has to wonder why Tri-Ang didn't produce a 4-4-0, given that they had all the parts on the shelf. I think the Vanderbilt tender is too late, rather than the wrong size

A whole new unwanted feature of Xmas since lockdown, is that the Cathedral appears to have found a new vocation as a promotions venue. The actual conduct of services of religion seems to be something of am afterthought; "Shoppers and office workers Carols" is now relegated to a Tuesday in mid-Dec rather than the last working day before Xmas and the Carol Service before Xmas isn't even on the schedule this year. However if I want to pay £15-20 a head for one of several "Seasonal Concerts and recitals" I am spoilt for choice...