RJS1977

I hope that the layout will come to East Anglia sometime, 

Especially since Wilbert wrote several of his books whilst living in East Anglia. (There's apparently now a G scale railway in the garden of his former rectory at Emsworth, where a certain tank engine puts in appearances from time to time....)

  The teak finish is poor too. 

At least they got it the right way round though, which is better than they managed on the first batch of full-price ones!

I have no idea how the Railroad teaks work out in terms of whether they have the wrong bogies/are the wrong length etc. As the prototypes were gone before I was born, I have no memories of them to compare them to (other than photos in books of course) so to my way of thinking provided they look the part I can live with  possible inaccuracies like incorrect bogies if it keeps the price down, or being a compartment short if over a train it means I can get an extra coach in!

Again, not an expert on LNER train formations but two brake coaches (at opposite ends of the rake) and four compos sounds like a good start, though a restaurant car would probably be needed too. I'm sure Hornby used to do one, but they're not currently listed.

  

Apparently... 10/11 (55p) in 1962 is equivalent to £8.20 today. Now, that seems very reasonable! I'll have a dozen!

Imagine how much one would cost if Hornby were to release one now. Probably about five times that! (And made overseas!)

It's surprising really that triang sold the sets so widely.

For many years Bachmann have produced models of American prototypes but they aren't exactly widely available

If they're not widely available, they won't sell many....

And Alan Partridge in a pear tree!

 

 

Now dropping Year 3 for some models will inevitably mean a reduction if you simply roll forward with new models every year but in theory it will probably lead to price increases in order to get the return in more positively in Years 1 & 2 (assuming they bother with Year 2 of course). 

The trouble with this is that the shorter run and higher prices could lead to fewer people being able to afford the item, so Hornby still end up with as many left over...

Last Friday the Reading Modelzone also had 25% of Bachmann, however there was not a great range in stock and sadly nothing that I wanted.

I've noticed that the floor/shelf space taken up by ModelZone in Reading is gradually diminishing, suggesting Smiths aren't too happy with the arrangement. Though I can't help wondering if Smiths got things wrong by stocking too few/the wrong lines. Most modellers aren't going to buy locos at RRP from Smiths if they can order them at discount prices from Hattons. What modellers are more likely to buy from a local shop these days are the lower ticket items (point motors, backscenes, cardboard kits, Wills scenics etc) which aren't cost-effective to buy mail order. Not saying they shouldn't stock locos & rolling stock at all, just that the range seemed to be skewed towards the more expensive items.

I can see the comparison that Il Duce, sorry Andy, is making here. Small but perfectly formed locos from Hornby are a bit of a tradition and it looks like the Peckett is to continue this in it's various forms.

 

As an aside, comparing the price of the Peckett to that of the Electrotren offering is not a good thing. The standard of the Peckett appears to be far and away superior to that of the 0.6.0T. As such, you gets what you pay for. If it's value for money you are after, stick with 'Smokey Joe'.

 

 

 

Rob

I didn't really get to see the quality of the Electrotren as the samples I saw were boxed and the glazed packaging wasn't easy to see through. However as they were a similar price to the Hornby Sentinels, I would assume that the quality though perhaps not top notch would still be adequate for most modellers. High quality is only relevant if you can afford it (and if you're going to repaint the model or convert it into another variant - as I might have done if the Pecketts were a little cheaper - then high levels of detail are not necessarily a good thing).

Has anyone else been getting an annoying 'Related Products' ad keep appearing over the right hand side of the browser when using RMWeb (I haven't noticed it on any other websites). If so, does anyone know how to get rid of it permanently? It makes the 'My notifications' and 'My content' parts of the website unusable, which are the bits I use the most!

(I'm running Torch on Windows 8.1).

Many thanks

Richard

21st century Polly and Nellie.

 

 

With respect, no. Polly and Nellie were designed as 'entry level' models, with the intention of getting as many people (primarily the young) into the hobby as possible. Beautiful models as they are, the Pecketts do not fall into that category.The Electrotren tank locos for sale on another stand at £59 (or £100 for 2) are closer to that category, though even they are twice as much as Smokey Joe/101. Had the Pecketts been offered at the same price as the Electrotrens I would certainly have put my name down for one (possibly two), as it is I am still wavering as to whether or not to buy one. 

You've done a good job there, Scott - you can come and paint ours when you've done!

Post deleted as I posted it before I saw Indomitable's request to keep the thread on topic. :-) 

Your statement is incorrect. In travelling many thousands of miles on trains in the UK since 1972 I have never known this practice to occur: Not once, ever. If it did, the timetabled departure time becomes meaningless.

I know SWT normally start to close the doors 30 seconds before departure, but that is hardly "several minutes".

In contrast to yesterday, today's been quite productive. Backboards have started going on and the apron has been trial fitted.

 

Looking pretty good.

 

image.jpeg

I thought the plan was to model it as it was before it collapsed....

 

 there were always plenty of the bodies standing around idle 

 

I've worked in places like that too....

Not only is there good reason to think it is not fiction, I suspect it was totally legitimate. There were several test trains that were authorised to travel at high speed, there were probably half a dozen or more drivers that had travelled at that speed or more officially.

 

 

Indeed, I reckon I 'clocked' an HST at 140+ in the Didcot area 20 or so years ago although as it was by timing mileposts, there may have been some error involved. Either way though it would have been more than 125.

closed.jpg

Rather reminds me of how when the railings round Palmer Park in Reading were taken away for melting down during WW2, the park keeper still came round and locked the gates every night...

That photo of the Austin Seven reminds me of the story about my grandfather finding two scrap Austin sevens after the war, bringing them home (which was a job in itself as he didn't have a trailer and they only had four wheels between them!), and building one good one out of the two. The unuseable parts were buried in the garden when he filled in the air raid shelter.

Throughout history, four American presidents have been assassinated and various other unsuccessful attempts were made on the lives of a number of others.

 

Can you envy the Secret Service agents, on hearing gunshot near the soon-to-be President Trump, having to yell "Donald, duck..."

Strangely, every American president to have died in office was elected in a year divisible by  20:

William Henry Harrison (elected 1840, died in 1841, a month after taking office)

Abraham Lincoln (elected 1860, assassinated 1865)

James Garfield (elected 1880, assassinated 1881)

William McKinley (re-elected 1900, assassinated 1901)

Warren Harding (elected 1920, died of cerebral hemorrhage 1923)

FDR (re-elected 1940, died of a stroke 1945)

JFK (elected 1960, assassinated 1963)

There was an unsuccessful assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan (elected 1980).

Sorry, I disagree - the price of model railway items didn't drop 90% when Hornby moved production to China - if anything, prices went up!

There's a slightly sad irony that The Bridge at Remagen is making its public debut so shortly after the passing of Robert Vaughn, who starred in the film of the same name.

During today's Tiny Trains Day at Reading Museum, the Berkshire N Gauge Society became concerned that somebody may have stolen their 'Please Do Not Touch' sign....

(it turned up when they were packing up).

Whilst agreeing with Woolmar in this instance, it's probably about the first time! I've found his magazine articles tedious and repetitive, irrespective of the subject of the article.

The level of his research can be seen in his ill-fated attempt to break the Tube Challenge record earlier this year. It was readily apparent that he hadn't contacted Guinness for confirmation of the current record or of the rules because his website quoted an earlier record as the time to beat, and he broke at least two rules in the process (not using the District Line during his visit to Kensington Olympia, and counting a non-stop pass-through of Tottenham Court Road as a visit).

Just a clarification for anyone who finds wiring up a plug confusing. There are three wires in a (UK) plug:
A green wire - this wire brings all the electricity from wind turbines and solar panels into your applicance.
A blue wire - this wire brings all the electricity from the hydro electric power stations into your applicance.
A brown wire - this wire brings all the electricity from the dirty fossil fuel power stations into your applicance. If you want to cut your carbon footprint, you must ensure that this wire is not connected to any of the terminals on the plug.