dibber25

I'm trying to track down any scale drawings of a Kent & East Sussex station building - preferably Bodiam, but if not, any of the similar Col Stephens design buildings will do. I felt sure I had something in a book but I can't trace it, so it may have been a book I no longer have access to. Not looking for illegal copies - just point me to a book and I'll buy a copy. (CJL)

Absolutely agree, Phil. I've just reviewed an O gauge loco. I reckon I've spent around a week on it, spread over two weeks. Studio photography takes an afternoon. A trip out our nearest O gauge layout to test it takes another afternoon. We had a faulty example, so another had to be ordered. It arrived on Christmas Eve. Another trip out to test it. The review had to be complete and the page designed by 6 Jan, so much had to be done over 'the holiday'. I'm not a fount of knowledge on that class of loco so I needed to do a lot of research to get my wagons in a circle. Dismantling (to find out what motor etc it has) and re-assembly took another couple of hours. Over that time, the review is built up, often sentence by sentence. Then there's all the measuring up to be done, not to mention finding a source of dimensions of the real thing (internet sources usually provide just the length and wheel diameter if you're lucky) and that doesn't provide nearly enough info, so you have to resort to books - often having to borrow from someone else. In our business, 'slagging off' a model or a manufacturer is simply not done. We have to meet and communicate with the people whose work we'd be slagging off. You haven't lived until you've taken a phone call from a manufacturer who is unhappy because you didn't give his model a 100% rating! A review is designed to inform the customer and allow him to decide whether or not to buy. It is not a means to convince him not to buy. In a court of law any whiff of malice in a review can be very expensive! I'm always wary of the fact that I'm a jack of all trades and, whatever I'm reviewing, there will be someone out there who knows more about it than I do and will be looking to tell me I've got something wrong. I know. I do it myself whenever someone writes about the Staines branch, for instance. I was taught how to review models and write reviews by Alan Williams, who was responsible for establishing the reviews in Model Railway Constructor as the best of their time. It is something that has to be taught - you can't just pick it up and that's what most on-line reviewers try to do, hence 10minutes opening the box and two minutes admiring the model and that's it. Finally, of course, modern studio photography by expert photographers provides print magazine reviews with sharp-throughout, full-colour photographs which five minutes of a moving loco on Youtube just can't match. Print, in our time, O Lord, Amen, simply because some things are worth paying for. (CJL)

This question was asked at the press day. The answer was that the tilt arrangement will be the same as it was on the earlier model. (CJL)

I first 'did' the Canadian Toronto-Vancouver in 2011. I then went all the way Halifax- Vancouver by rail in 2012, and made two more trips (one Eastbound) in the following years. There are usually 3-4 dome cars in the summer formation. The tail dome car (the bullet lounge as they call it) is without doubt the finest way I've ever travelled and provided you had a sleeping car ticket you could use it. There was fruit, cookies, tea and coffee available 24 hours and it was all free. That changed around 2015 when some philistine decided to hack up the tail dome cars to put in massive picture windows, paint the letter boards a dreary brown and charge astronomical prices for a 'Prestige' bedroom with exclusive access to the tail dome lounge. The massive price hike was coupled with a spectacular timekeeping disaster because VIA Rail trains aren't legally entitled to priority over freight trains (so they get no priority) with one westbound Canadian arriving Vancouver 45 hours late. Folk who had paid the massive prices got rather better treatment than the rest of the passengers but even so there was no compensation for missed cruises, connections, or missed flights home. I liked the tail dome cars so much that I even considered paying the absurd price to travel but I can't risk having my trip wrecked by late-running and VIA's unreliability and cavalier attitude to customers whose trips are ruined means that, at my age, I simply won't risk it again. (I did the Budd RDCs, Sudbury to White River in 2017 and that was brilliant and on time/early but its a different kind of trip, and not touristy) (CJL)

A seasonal pic of a 121 and DMS, standard formation for the branch, taken from the Windsor relief road. I have no date for this - not even sure if I took the picture. My brother might have taken it. (CJL)

I think I may have written the script for that one. (CJL)

Mmmmm, thinks, I wonder how payment works for that? Presumably some bulk deal with publishers, so individual magazines get little or no financial benefit for the use of their content. (CJL)

Abc 31,196 in 2018. (CJL)

Now here's a radical thought - maybe all social media should be 'locked' on public holidays. It's the biggest time-waster ever invented, so an enforced break from it for everyone would surely be good? Runs for cover...... (CJL)

Looking at this from the inside out, I like the permanence of print and I'm repeatedly told that all the electronic stuff will disappear over time. I know that all magazines used to go to the British Library. I'm not sure if that is still a requirement or not. I couldn't imagine having produced any of my books for a purely digital platform, there's something just too satisfying about seeing one's work in print. Yet I don't have copies of many of the magazines I've worked on or contributed to. I don't, for instance, have a copy of Model Rail No. 1 (Autumn 1997) despite the fact that I put so much work into it. I have the odd copy of MRC , TI, Modern Transport, Steam Railway and Modern Railways etc, in which I produced an article I was particularly pleased with, but like most magazine readers, I don't have the space to keep file copies of everything. On the digital front, I did blog for a while but I never really felt that it took off, so, yes, I'm still wedded to print. (CJL)

All the electronic versions should be available on the publication date. The printed copies are subject to the vagaries of the postal and distribution service though the aim is for everyone in Uk to get them by/on publication date. However, if there are any problems, they are unlikely to be rectified during the holiday period (before January 2). (CJL)

Yes, well of course I wasn't present last year, either for the Margate presentation (which I'm told definitely was NOT done at a hotel) nor was I present at the show(s) when the theatricals took place. I did watch the TV documentary but I'll make no further comment about it. (CJL)

Why does it need to be all one thing or the other? The four or five major shows will be lucky to muster 80,000 visitors between them once a year. The model railway media may have declined but still musters in excess of 100,000 regular readers every month. The cost of attending shows is also pretty staggering these days and I can assure you there are no 'cosy theatricals in a seaside hotel', the presentation taking place at the Hornby HQ these days. In the words of the Squire in 'The Titfield Thunderbolt', "We're not asking for a monopoly....." (CJL)

I remember seeing 117s with that arrangement, too. Could never understand why there were different shapes. (CJL)

I have asked for the ducks to be re-aligned.......(CJL)

I have asked Rapido to give me a timeline and await a response. The above is speculation and has not come from Model Rail. (CJL)

I don't recall doing a conversion (that doesn't mean I didn't do one - just that the memory isn't that great these days). I certainly built the Westward two-car kit which went on Lima chassis. Subsequently I mentioned in print that I would like to see a railcar with underfloor drive*. Stewart Hine contacted me and offered to build one. I sent him the Westward model and it came back with a mechanism that Stewart had built, which was under the floor. I still have it. * Looks like, 35 years on, we're soon to get an underfloor powered railcar from Heljan. (Dapol's 121/122 are 'almost' under-floor powered but the floor is slightly raised.

At the time it was suggested as a replacement for Budd cars on BC Rail. I believe it did a run to Squamish although I've never seen pictures. At the time the Cariboo Dayliner was the longest RDC run in the World. Can you imagine 456 miles in a Pacer?!! My understanding at the time was that the draught under the doors and the lack of air conditioning were the main deterrents to Pacers being purchased for use in Canada. In fact, I doubt anyone seriously considered the idea but it did provide something 'modern' to run at Expo, where the railway side otherwise concentrated on a run-by of historic steam. (CJL)

The caption to Michael Wilkie's picture reads: Passenger Extra RB-100 east crossing the Serpentine River at mileage 11.9 Fraser Valley subdivision on BC Hydro Rail at 9.45am June 28 1986. Michael supplied the photo to me at the time. We were corresponding mainly about the railways on Vancouver Island. I believe he passed away some years ago. (CJL)

There are no plans to suspend pre-ordering. (CJL)

I have now tabulated a list of the revisions to catalogue numbers and running numbers of the 16XX models and have included it below. I have simply cross-referenced from the current advertisement to the previous one. Please be advised that I have no idea why the changes were made (doubtless there was good reason behind them) or of the logic behind particular choices, so there's no point asking. I understand that Rapido is currently in process of revising the artwork to suit. (CJL) 16XX number revisions.docx

No.

I don't think many of the 22 choices have changed and I've no idea what led to the changes. I will endeavour to unravel it and provide a list of the changes, but it will take a day or two as I only work part-time. (CJL)

The Vale of Rheidol 2-6-2T is a Model Rail project which does not involve any of the existing suppliers (Dapol/Bachmann/Rapido/Heljan). It is not in any queue. (CJL)