RJS1977

Would be even more confusing if they were the Pilning piling teams...

I think part of Fifth Gear's problem was that it was on Channel 5, which generally has fewer viewers than BBC anyway. I guess the question is "Should the BBC be producing popular rubbish or less popular quality TV?" At the moment it sounds as if it's producing less popular rubbish.... As to reviews, I think there was an element of that in some of the later reviews in Proper Top Gear, Clarkson often ended his reviews with comments like "This is a good car, but don't buy it, it's got a Ford (or Rover) badge on it, and it'll make you look boring" (a factor which may well in my mind have contributed to Rover's collapse a few years later) Yet when Skoda started building better cars under VW ownership, it was a different story.

No, it's a grant from the British Government, not from the EU: http://www.kentonline.co.uk/whats-on/news/heritage-railways-get-a-boost-96586/ The Chinnor & Princes Risborough have also been awarded a grant under the same scheme to get back to P.R.

Have to say though that I am very surprised - given how far behind the project is - that there hasn't been a blockade of at least two lines this weekend. Apart from a couple of members of the Orange Army inspecting a mast near Goring, I've seen very little sign of activity the last two days.

Having a large 'cast' with a central presenter can work - that's pretty much how Countryfile works - not every presenter is on it every week but there is a central presenter who opens and closes the programme and does a segment or two in the middle. And (before your time) it's how Proper Top Gear worked too. William Woollard would usually open and close the programme and do a segment but there would be a 'cast' of other specialists who would do their own bits as and when required. Those I can remember are: Chris Goffey or Jeremy Clarkson - reviews Tiff Needell or Vicki Butker-Henderson - motor racing Tony Mason - rallying (including the much-missed Top Gear Rally Reports for what was then the RAC Rally). Steve Berry - bikes Quentin Willson - buying/selling a second hand car (quite interesting to watch when I was your age, with one eye on learning to drive and buying a car). etc Personally I think there is room in a one-hour programme to include parts of the original Top Gear format along with the less ridiculous parts of the Hammond/May/Clarkson era like Star in A Reasonably Priced Car(*). When I first saw that they were moving towards the 'large cast' approach I thought this might indeed be the case, however the trailers suggested otherwise and having completely forgotten that it was starting on Sunday and having read the reviews here and elsewhere I'm not particularly inclined to go look it up on iPlayer. (*) Jeremy Clarkson is on record as having said that personally he'd have liked to have put some more serious segments back into Top Gear, bringing back Goffey and some of the others, but he wasn't sure how keen the fans would be on it.

Sorry, looking at the map again, probably not as close to Scours Lane as I thought but certainly some wires for a short distance east of Tilehurst.

My CWR colleagues and I have now been informed that we should regard all the installations as live as of Saturday evening (even the wires that aren't there yet!), and most of us have now signed a disclaimer(?) that we are aware of this. We have also been told to stop our passengers at Cholsey carrying children on their shoulders, waving selfie sticks about or any other activity which may bring them within nine feet of the wires. But as Stationmaster has pointed out, there are no warning posters/signs to this effect for NR/GWR users. At present the Down Main and Up Relief at Cholsey are wired (though the Down Main earth wire seems to be held in place by bungee cords in some places!). We have also been informed that the platforms will be extended and the canopy on platform 4 will be cut back (wouldn't it have made sense to do this before the wires went up and became nominally live? - a similar situation also appears to apply at Pangbourne). Wiring of all four tracks exists between Moulsford Bridge and just west of Goring, where the gantries are in place but register arms are not yet fitted, and there is wiring on at least two tracks from east of Goring as far as Scours Lane. As yet the feeder station at Pangbourne does not appear to be connected to the overhead. One thing that puzzled me - in places there appears to be another wire suspended above the electrification gantries and insulated from them - what's that for?

I notice some Top Gear production 'values' seem to have strayed over into Countryfile, namely a race against a train where the non-train competitor wins by a narrow margin, not withstanding that John Craven managed to change clothes en-route. That and the much-vaunted visit of Countryfile to the Welsh Highland Railway using the FR's new carriages, which turned out to be ten seconds at best, and just long enough for John Craven to refer to it as the "Welsh MOUNTAIN Railway"! Thirty years of respect for John Craven have vanished in the space of an hour and now I'm beginning to question everything I ever heard on Newsround....

Never mind Clarkson, bring back William Woollard & co!

I've been inside the "new Didcot emporium" but never went inside Reading Panel! But from what you say, I should think TVSC is a big improvement in working conditions.

I'll be up at Cholsey this weekend - I'll take a closer look! We were supposed to be getting some training from NR at some stage about safety around OHLE but I haven't heard any more of that in a long while.

It's not listed on the heritage-railways.com database of preserved locos :-(

Rather reminds me of this: https://youtu.be/P5sowcqMX2I?t=136

The District Line stations along the Victoria Embankment were always covered over - they were never left open for smoke to escape as the District Line was constructed at the same time the Victoria Embankment was. I'm pretty sure Baker Street's always been covered over, too as the original platforms are directly under the road. Same probably applies for Great Portland Street, Euston Square and KXSP.

The 'nun' in the sketch was Barbara New, who later appeared in Oh Doctor Beeching. "My late husband was an engine driver, you know.."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVWdbO6FFfw

The Bilteezi backscene is more what the Reverend would have used than the PECO ones, which came out later (the market town backscene didn't come out until the 1990s). However I'm not sure why you assembled the Peco ones the way you did - the Peco backscenes are designed to transition in that the edge of any one backscene can be aligned with the edge of any other (the exceptions being the harbour, city and industrial town backscenes which were combined with 'extension' backscenes which had to be cut in half and transposed!), so there shouldn't have been any need to produce the 'collage' effect you did.

I was approached, but at that stage all I wanted was to browse and see what was available and *then* ask if something took my fancy at a price I could afford. By contrast the laptops in Staples were all laid out with all the information and prices clear to see in front of them so I was able to do a comparison and then ask the salesperson any questions I had.

I called into the Reading Apple store yesterday morning. Distinctly unimpressed. Yes, lots of iPhones and pads around to have a play with, and quite a few assistants around, but no indication of specification and prices (for the stock, I mean, not the assistants!). Went round to Staples and bought a laptop instead.

One somewhat battered GWR signal lamp with the door bent and the glass missing, now less than half a mile from its 'birthplace'. There's an episode of Oh dr Beeching where Wilfred drops an identical lamp from the top of a signal onto the station platform. As that would obviously be enough to break the glass and bend the door,I wonder if it's the same one.... A porter's cap,and three GWR buttons...

There's a historical (Victorian) model of Tan-y-Bwlch on the 009 exhibitions circuit, whilst similarly Bryn-y-Felin, depicts the WHR in the 1920s, and of course there's Rod Allcock's Corris. There will be a model of the pre-preservation Tal-y-llyn at the Oxfordshire Narrow Gauge Modellers' exhibition at Steventon in June. I've also seen a 1950s model of Horsted Keynes.

Which it will be if there is a very limited range of sets, at what appears (at first glance) to be quite a high price, and they're the same sets which have been on the go for years with no relevance to what youngsters see today. Now, I've nothing against Smokey Joe/101 and indeed in many ways a simple tank loco and a few wagons to be shunted can have more play value than an HST which can only go round in circles, but they just don't have the same 'wow' factor.

I was thinking more of the people who are take a look at getting into the hobby, see the full-whack prices and take up a different hobby instead. That's not just one sale lost, it's the rest of a lifetime's!

But what happens when the people who've been happily paying £200 start to cotton on that if they wait a while, they could buy 2 for £200 and stop paying full whack when they first come out? And how many potential purchasers on the other hand turn away when they see the £200 price and aren't around to see it drop to £75?

A good project for the 50th Anniversary year :-)