RJS1977

Or fill them with gold and hide them in a tunnel...

Given the comments about the small size of Locomotion,maybe it's bigger on the inside...

Agreed - a point I believe I made much earlier in the series, though it should be borne in mind that the prices of the GBL models are excluding VAT as they are for tax purposes a free gift with an expensive magazine! That said, even allowing for VAT and the cost of better quality control I don't see why bodyshells shouldn't be able to be produced for around the £15 mark. Providing motorised chassis and final assembly would be more difficult of course, perhaps as far as the diesel models are concerned Hornby should commission Kato to produce them for them - if they could produce 00 chassis to a similar price/quality as their N gauge ones it ought to be possible to put Railroad diesels together for around the £45 mark

I guess track appearance like most things is subjective. One of our club layouts has hand-made track with 4mm/ft sleeper spacings and - to my eyes at least - it doesn't look right! I don't know whether that's just because I'm so used to Streamline or because the sleeper spacings on the hand-made track aren't in proportion to the track gauge.

All you need to know about building a shed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTUveQdpukE

Surely 00 is the combination of both scale and gauge (i.e. 4mm/ft on 16.5mm track), just as H0 is the scale/gauge combination of 3.5mm/ft on 16.5mm track and 009 is the scale/gauge combination of 4mm/ft on 9mm track.... Any item built to 4mm/ft can be said to be to "00 scale" as it is the same scale as 00, and anything designed to run on 16.5mm track is to "00 gauge" as it is the same gauge as 00.

Some of those weren't particularly "Great" locos though (e.g. 29), and the 59/66 and 67 aren't British...

Yes, the solar system does that.In fact,it's never stopped circulating...

I haven't seen any foundation markings at Cholsey (last time I was there was early August) though since my "promotion" I don't spend as much time on the platform as I used to! Likewise there has been no modification to the canopy so far.

I also remember one of PDH's last articles on the THLR made mention of the fact that having lived through the wartime shortages it always horrified him to see people throwing things away that were suitable for further use.

Genesis 2:19 in all probability....

As regards the supposed "demise" of the operationally intensive layout with lots of tracks, as opposed to the "scenically nice" layouts it must be borne in mind of course that this is based on what one sees in magazines and at exhibitions and does not necessarily always reflect the "layouts that never leave home". A friend of mine has a model of Cannon Street in his loft. From CS the main lines do a 180 and pass through a junction station, then do another 180 to pass through the other side of the station before diving below/behind Cannon Street to storage loops and a reversing loop. In a departure from prototype, two lines run through Cannon Street to another reversing loop, creating a continuous run (though never operated as such). Throw in two MPDs and some low level goods lines and you have a very intensive layout, but one which has never featured in a magazine nor has been (or ever will be) exhibited. Personally I think Buckingham in particular managed to capture the best of both worlds, especially once the branch line was brought out into the open.

The main station building is alongside the Up Relief (Platform 4) - and includes my occasional weekend 'office'!

Viewed from the village side, the station building itself could act as a scenic break at one end, and there are trees along the embankment which could act as a scenic break at the other.

Absolutely- I've occasionally contemplated building a model of Cholsey station (as it is today), either to ring the changes for my Wallingford layout or to be run in conjunction with it. Even omitting the fast lines (which means the fiddle yards don't have to hold an HST!), the branch run-round loop needs to hold three coaches, by the time you've allowed for pointwork and a headshunt you're already talking 5'. Add the station building as well and you're now up to 6', and you haven't even got to the far end of the platform yet! Add in two fiddle yards each long enough to take a Voyager and you're up to nearly 15'! And that's for the modern version of the station - start adding in the goods yard and the sidings at the west end and the layout's considerably longer!

That was much later and wasn't Minic Motorways, nor was it compactible with normal Hornby railways. Essentially there was a special reversible plastic road/track (railway track on one side/road on the other!) plus a level crossing and a bridge, and a battery powered Thomas and Bertie. The track could be laid out in any configuration - the reversible nature of the track meant the two circuits didn't have to be equal lengths! - and the crossing gates were arranged in such a way that whoever got there first pushed the gates open and held them that way (holding the other vehicle back) until the first had passed through.

As there is only one yellow HST, I think there's a vague possibility that might be the case....

Somebody obviously had a good time at Pecorama...

The church I attend has a bewildering array of corridors and side rooms and on a Sunday morning even has two services going on simultaneously in different parts of the complex. So the period after the services end can be quite chaotic as people head for tea & coffee, go to the loo, go to collect their children from their activities and go to socialise with people who were in the other service. One Sunday I passed a married friend I'd known for about 15 years in the main corridor. "Can't stop," he said, "I'm trying to find my wife." "So am I," I replied. He stopped suddenly. "Have I missed something?" he asked. "I don't remember you getting married." "I'm not..."

I suspect t-b-g might be able to help out with the design of a low-relief manor house too...

Reminds me of the one about a passenger in a dining car who complained that the after dinner mints on the menu were unavailable. The waiter replied "It says 'Winston Churchill' on the side of the engine, but it doesn't mean he's driving it!"

Two children were playing a game nicely in their living room when suddenly it turned into an argument. Their mother walked through from the kitchen to find out what the argument was about. "We're playing rock paper scissors", said the little girl. "I played scissors, he played paper. I said I win because scissors cut paper. He says he wins. Who's right?" "You are," replied their mother. "Scissors cut paper. It's the rock that blunts scissors." "It's a silly game anyway," said the boy, getting up. He took his mother's best dressmaking scissors from the sideboard and started cutting up a newspaper with them. "Don't do that!" cried his mother, aghast. "You'll blunt them!"

My father was quite surprised some years ago when he answered the house landline and heard my sister's voice on the other end,because he knew she was in the house so couldn't understand why she was ringing him on her mobile,until she said "Dad, I've run out of toilet paper - can you fetch me some more from the cupboard?"

The Fruit D is ready for use - Norm did a great job of repainting it last year (so I know it's got the Tare weight on the side!)

The name rings a bell now you mention it, but I couldn't be bothered hunting through all my old RMs to try to find the letter again! I believe the model passed into Sydney Prichard's ownership, who took great delight in showing its defect to people!