RJS1977

Looks to me from that photo to have some rail supports, rather than just being a wooden beam bolted to the wall.

One of the original models of the Starship Enterprise, which was used in filming the original series of Star Trek and which was kept in Gene Roddenberry's office until it went missing in the 1970s has now been rediscovered and returned to Gene Roddenberry's son. https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/long-lost-uss-enterprise-model-returned-star-trek-109386944?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTAAAR08G32QShRG3oAzPiMwbgrYpIwRDTjaJjsnVd8tfJQnYuP8v1nUWX-YJTQ_aem_AdUuUUjS5Urmcxa5MZMZKdMXn4E2nh-qyvPX-mq97UhuimXjlLsjmrQAtZ5Np2ZnG2e-bgni2hmTEVQh7lm9108W

Reading through this discussion, I wonder if perhaps what's needed is a 16.5mm version of the Kato chassis that are so common under 009 models these days.

Jonathan Agnew used that one in a practical joke on Brian Johnston in the early 90s. A Test Match had just concluded and Johnners was to announce the presentation party on to the pavillion balcony to present the trophy and medals. Aggers gave him a list of members of the party to read out, but Johnners didn't notice that Aggers had added an extra name to the list until he had read it out. "The Managing Director of Cornhill Insurance. Mr Hugh Jars."

It's quite common for heritage railways to be split into an operating company (whose accounts are published on Companies House) and a Trust/Charity who hold the assets. That way, should the operating company get into financial difficulties, the assets are safe, avoiding the scenario that happened at Llangollen a few years back.

Did he want to build a model of Salisbury station as well? Making a model of Television Centre out of Mr Curry's new carpet is one thing....

That reminds me somewhat of the 009 Society area group that organised a "Car Boot Exhibition" at the time when outdoor events were allowed but indoor events were not!

There was an article in the "Destructor" many years ago giving advice on purchasing either a redundant single decker bus or a large van such as a pantechnicon and converting it into a "railway room" that could be driven to shows. More recently someone was advertising trailers designed to look like railway carriages that could have a layout built in them, again with the intention that they could either be parked up as railway rooms at home or towed to one of the larger exhibitions. I heard nothing more of either idea. I suspect, apart from the expense, that building a railway room on wheels might just be too easy to steal!

Back on the subject of IETs, I don't think the timing issues are just a simple matter of the units being underpowered when on diesel. Looking at today's entries on Realtime Trains for Up trains calling at Reading (deliberately chosen over Paddington to avoid any recovery time that may be in the schedule between Reading and Paddington), it appears that most trains (whether from the SW, Bristol, South Wales or Hereford/Worcester/Gloucester/Cheltenham were either on time or only a couple of minutes late. There's certainly no consistency of lateness to suggest that being underpowered is an issue. Neither did there seem to be any indication of a lack of power going over Dainton or Rattery. In fact of those trains from the SW that were significantly late, the most consistent stretch for losing time was on the downhill, electrified stretch between Newbury and Theale!

Unfortunately the frequency on the Reading-Birmingham route hasn't yet got back to pre-Covid levels in that most of the Reading-Newcastle services (the ones that went direct between Leamington Spa and Birmingham) aren't running. I think the original decision to run half-hourly shorter trains between Reading and Birmingham came about because of the then requirement to turn cross-country services in platforms 3 and (the old) 7 at Reading to free up capacity on the through lines. This increase in frequency resulted in an unexpected 40% increase in passenger numbers! The downside of the half-hourly frequency with shorter trains was that only half of the trains called at Birmingham International (owing to lack of capacity between Leamington and Coventry) meaning that they could get very crowded if there were big events on at the NEC.

Scott I've just noticed those rather nice-looking coaches in the background of your photos of the castle. They look too long to me to be the Hornby or Hattons generic coaches - so what are they? Richard

I'm slightly late to the party here in replying - but this is marvellous news! And good to hear too that Warley are as delighted as everyone else that there will still be a National Show. Well done to Warley in putting it on for the last 30 years, and well done to Warners for picking up the baton. I know how much work is involved in putting on even a small village hall type show but that must pale into insignificance compared to that needed for the National Show.

Though many of the traders and societies at Warley did use what the NEC provided in terms of the metal frameworks that surrounded their stands and had their names on (I'm not sure if these included tables/shelving or if the traders had to provide them themselves). I've seen the same frameworks used at the LAMMA agricultural show and doubtless they're used at every other event at the NEC as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rI8cTdciChc

When I arrived at 10:00 on the Saturday, the queue to get in was about 100m long, and by the time I got to the front of it, it was 100m long behind me! I heard someone say they'd had 1000 visitors through the door by Saturday lunchtime! Encouragingly after the sad news of Hattons and Warley, there were a good number of children there - at one point I looked over the top of one layout ("Hayling Island" I think) to see 7 little faces looking at the layout behind it ("Portsea").