RJS1977

There was the '85 San Marino GP where everyone started running out of fuel. Along with several turbo engines grenading, the fuel issues meant only 5 out of the 26 starters actually finished the race. Prost eventually won, ran out fuel on the cool down lap and was subsequently disqualified for being underweight handed the win to DeAngelis. Boutsen got 2nd even though he ran out of fuel just before the line as he ended up pushing his car over the finish!

How come Boutsen wasn't disqualified? Surely he would also have been underweight....

Don't forget things like Group Save, Family Railcard or Two Together Railcard though, or the various 2-for-1 admission deals in London which are available on production of a valid train ticket - many of which (if travelling from somewhere like Reading with a railcard) actually save more money than the cost of the train ticket!

 

Iam not going to forget Trix, on there own there plastic 1:80 coaches look brilliant and very free running, but I remember at the time the odd scale of 1:80 put us off.

 

 

I may have one of those somewhere - I can remember assembling it as a boy and being disappointed when I realised it was under scale!

My brother today told me a joke.

 

In the days of the old Soviet Union when one wanted to buy a car one had to pay the total cost up front then the car was built for you.

 

So this man has saved very hard and he goes into a car dealership to buy his car. The salesman says, "OK that's all good come back to collect it in ten years time".

 

The man says to the salesman, "morning or afternoon".

 

The salesman says, "well it doesn't really matter to me just come back in ten years time, unless it's important as to why you want to know whether the car will be right to pick up in the morning or afternoon".

 

The man says, "well it's important to me because I have the plumber coming in the morning".

That one's been around a while... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mN3z3eSVG7A

Cheers Tinker!

 

It's worth doing but I did have to psych myself up to do it - the chains took a long time to do with frequent breaks otherwise it drives you completely nuts!

 

All the best,

 

Castle

Did you listen to Fleetwood Mac (or watch the Grand Prix) while you were doing it?

Dummmm..... diddle-um diddle-diddle-um-pom!

Which year was it where several cars stopped on the last lap of the Monaco Grand Prix, leading James Hunt to say he was in the slightly embarrassing situation of being at the finishing line of a race seemingly nobody wanted to win?

1982

[Link removed as I had linked to 1984 by mistake, which was *not* a dry race!]

Did you click on the 'discover' link on the page;

 

"In 2017, Morris Commercial will re-launch the iconic J-Type as an all-electric light commercial vehicle. The vehicle will have a real world range of over 90 miles and a top speed of around 90mph."

 

I think your B still trumps it in the classic stakes...!

So who owns Morris Commercial now? BMW or Shanghai International?

I don't reckon the BBC News will make much mention of the winner of the next series of the Great British Bake Off either...............

 

Interesting that Sky aren't using their news platform to promote one of the components of their "you have to buy everything to get the one you actually want" sport package, though. It's not usually a trick they miss

 

Largely Unsurprised of Devon

If it had been a "highlights" race, BBC would have splashed the result all over the news before C4 had chance to show the highlights! (BBC even did that when it was them showing the highlights....)

Well, did you ever witness a dry race finish with such last minute changes? Crikey. 

Which year was it where several cars stopped on the last lap of the Monaco Grand Prix, leading James Hunt to say he was in the slightly embarrassing situation of being at the finishing line of a race seemingly nobody wanted to win?

And do we, the public, actually give two monkeys' twizzles about how many engines and other key components a team uses? I suggest not. This is F1, FFS! And the idea that motor sport should have green credentials remains ridiculous - the attendance at any one GP generates far more pollution than the entire F1 grid in a whole season. Another Ecclebum blind alley.

In theory at least, the idea behind the engine and gearbox penalties is to prevent the wealthier teams from using a new engine and gearbox every race to build an even bigger advantage over the others. Unfortunately in practice it doesn't seem to work quite that way.....

My understanding is that the old setrack curved points were inner radius 1st, outer 2nd and the streamline ones are inner third to outer 4th. It sounds to me as if the new setrack ones are inner 2nd and outer 3rd. All three types have their uses.

I seem to remember that there was one time back in the 80s where both PECO and Hornby were advertising their track as being 'The only track which conforms to British standard geometry'!

The ideal for this sort of 'classic' layout is for it to go in some sort of 'permanent' venue (i.e. like the Madder Valley at Pendon or at a Heritage Railway) with a dedicated group looking after it and housed in a structure which is owned by the group rather than an individual member (i.e. not somebody's shed or garage). Whilst I'm not saying it shouldn't go to somebody's personal home if they want to look after it (as Buckingham has), the trouble with that approach is that the venue only lasts until such a time as the new owner dies/goes into a home/moves to be nearer family, when another new home has to be found for the layout, after which time it will be 20-30 years older and correspondingly more fragile. Although of course an extra 25-30 years' life for a layout is better than a skip!

It probably depends who you ask. If you ask people standing in the aisles at 8:30 in the morning whether they'd rather travel on a train with fewer seats and more tables or one with more seats and fewer tables, you'd almost certainly get a different answer to if you ask a mid-day leisure traveller.

The road engines looks to be a McLaren - very clever that.

They're probably quicker than certain other McLarens I can think of .... ;-)

Wolff blames the team for letting him down. The headrest in Baku, the gearbox change in Austria.

From what I hear though, Nikki's been sticking the boot into Lewis which is bound to get him down.

I don't know how far in advance the London event's been planned (from what I gather it was only announced in the last couple of days) so maybe Lewis's no-show is just something as simple as having a prior personal commitment he didn't want to break.

When/where/what is it?

 but who knows what September will bring (shorter days, and mist).

January brings the snow,

Makes your feet and fingers glow.

February's ice and sleet,

Freeze the toes right off your feet.

Welcome, March, with wint'ry wind,

Would thou weren't not so unkind.

April brings the sweet spring showers,

On and on for hours and hours.

Farmers fear unkindly May,

Frost by night and hail by day.

June just rains and never stops,

Thirty days that spoils the crops.

In July the sun is hot,

Is it shining?

No it's not!

August, cold and dank and wet,

Brings more rain than any yet.

Bleak September's mist and mud,

Is enough to chill the blood.

Then October adds a gale,

Wind and slush and rain and hail.

Dark November brings the fog,

Should not do it to a dog.

Freezing wet December, then...

b***** January again!

Or AIMREC, perhaps?

In reality of course, it's F1/Liberty who are doing the 'fleecing' - BRDC need to keep prices high to pay the ever-increasing costs of hosting the race.

I think the shrinking market is having the slightly odd effect of making niche models ever more attractive. In years of old when production runs were measured in many thousands and tooling would be re-used year on year for decades companies were loathe to make oddball niche types as the sales numbers would be trivial. Now with small runs and models expected to amortise development costs across these small runs (first release?) and a market which has adjusted to accept higher prices with a demand for quality it seems that if anything oddball niche prototypes are more attractive to some manufacturers than the common-as-muck types that provide the backbone of the real network. Heljan seemed to be the first manufacturer to appreciate that there was a market space for prototypes and types many had probably never even heard of and made a name for themselves making models of pilot scheme diesels and prototypes. Now all of the suppliers seem to be open to types that were once assured would never be offered RTR.

Though I think Hornby missed the boat somewhat with the MetroVick Co-Bo. Prior to the announcement of the Heljan model there would have been an obvious ready market for a low-fi version:

1) As a 'Thomas' loco.

2) As a budget-priced diesel for those unable/unwilling to buy a premium loco.

3) As the only available model of the loco for anyone else who wanted it.

Whilst obviously 1 and 2 still stand, most people who specifically wanted a MetroVick will have bought the Heljan one (if they could afford it).

Just thought of another one - the experimental pneumatic/atmospheric underground railway that was built under Crystal Palace park.

There's also an underground monorail servicing a cable tunnel in north London.

Does the Solva waterworks railway count? (Although most of its length is underground, both ends are on the surface).

The former Kingsway tram subway in London springs to mind, as does the Northern City line which is no longer part of the Underground network.

Also the construction lines on Crossrail.

I'm sure I've read somewhere that there's still rails through the Woodhead tunnels - well one of them anyway! After the steam tunnels were abandoned they were used by the national grid to run power lines through. I'm certain i read they at some stage there was a narrow gauge railway alongside for maintainence purposes. I don't know if it was temporary instillation or more permanent.

 

Given my memory I might be making this all up!

Definitely not making it up, when my father worked for CEGB he travelled on it once!

Seen at Newton Abbot station where building work to install a gateline is underway.

 

IMG-20170704-WA0002.jpg

 

Just 2 letters round the wrong way changes the message completely.

 

 

Dale

Or alternatively the use of a capital letter at the start - with the logo it would alternaively read "XXXX Rail apologise...."