RJS1977

It's struck me that as the accounts are based on the April-March financial year, the overspend would likely have happened in February or March of 2022 (i.e. during pre-Season testing or the Bahrain and Saudi GPs). Therefore much as it pains me to say it, the punishment should really be in relation to this season rather than last.

Of course, Laurel & Hardy made a film called "Liberty". (Incidentally, their previous film "We Faw Down" was originally nearly 40 minutes long, but Hal Roach decided this was too long, so the best part of 20 minutes was cut from it. Rather than waste the footage, Stan Laurel filmed a new opening and added it to the footage to create "Liberty". "We Faw Down" is largely forgotten but "Liberty" is often regarded as one of their best short films).

I caught a couple of trains into/out of New Street earlier this week. Still not much to see at Curzon Street other than clearance work, but work has started on the West Midlands Metro extension to Curzon Street and Moor Street. (Though it does seem strange to me that the recent WMM extension to Edgbaston wasn't routed that way between Bull Street and BNS in the first place).

Though it continued well past Monty Python and on into at least the 1980s. I can remember "makes" on Blue Peter using cornflake packets with the brand name covered in black tape (but not the rooster on the front of the packet!), sellotape being "sticky tape" etc. Famously "Top Cat" was referred to in the Radio Times and continuity announcements as "Boss Cat" even though the cartoon itself, including the theme song, was not amended. This is also why the bank in Dad's Army is usually referred to as Swallows Bank (apart from a couple of fluffed lines where it is referred to as Martins - a real bank). As Columbia Pictures were not bound by these rules, the bank is called Martins Bank in the 1971 film.

I'm not sure every problem is necessarily insurmountable. Many Network Rail stations don't have tactile paving - although there is pressure for more to be installed, and it is installed on all new-build stations, the ELR stations aren't new build. Signalling can be "switched out" (and I presume is when the ELR is operating a one-train service). I would imagine a half-hourly commuter service could be maintained with only a signaller at Bolton Street.

I would have thought that was plenty fast enough already! ;-)

My understanding is that the rule regarding reduced points for shortened races was rewritten last year following the debacle at Spa to stipulate that at least two racing laps should have taken place in order for any points to be awarded. Unfortunately the official charged with rewriting the rule missed out a vital phrase in the rewrite, leading to the situation today where if a race runs out of time, the full points are issued. I think most people in the paddock (including the stewards) had failed to appreciate this omission and assumed that reduced points would still apply. It sounds as if it was Johnny Herbert - himself an occasional driver steward - who noticed the change and realised that this meant Max was WDC (at least provisionally until tomorrow!). Credit to the officials though for following through according to this rule when the change was pointed out to them. I notice that even Christian Horner has said that he will be pushing for reinstatement of the correct wording next time the rules are reviewed. Incidentally, the official responsible for the rewrite was one M. Masi.... (To show that it isn't just F1 who make errors like this, I can remember some years ago on - I think - the American version of Robot Wars, one robot had a rapidly rotating flail arm. The opposing robot came out with a cardboard box on top with "A present for (name of robot)" written on it. The flail robot proceeded to open the "present" by attacking it with its flail, only for the contents of the box to turn out to be a net which entangled the flail and enabled the opposing robot to get close enough to flip it over. The owners of the flail robot appealed the result claiming that the rules stated that "entanglement devices" were not to be used. Their opponents pointed out that that particular rule was not included in the rules for that season, and the officials admitted that this was an accidental omission. IIRC a ruling was given that entanglement devices were still not to be used, and the match was re-run. The "entanglement" team were not punished as as they had competed according to the rules in good faith.)

Is it me, or are the children's jokes in this thread funnier than the "grown-ups" ones?

Just out of interest, where did you get the spotlights from?

More photos from the 1940s event: https://www.heraldseries.co.uk/news/23018592.wallingfords-back-forties-event-pictures/?fbclid=IwAR3RQhwzN2euDcIAm5z85NwYeHCbFqcrr8qJ2Lfsj6JIqvGaWSAtX28Wgtg#gallery14

Although most models are marketed as "recommended minimum 2nd radius curves", some of those will manage tighter curves - though it may put more wear on the mechanism. For example, I have seen a Bachmann Class 70 negotiating 1R curves on one of the layouts at Horsham Model Worlds. In terms of "bigger curves look better" (talking about layouts here, not anything else...!), it's not uncommon for some layouts to have tighter curves in non-scenic areas, particularly where reversing loops are involved, in which case appearance doesn't matter. That said, my only real regret in redesigning my father's layout when he moved house in the late 90s was the use of 1R curves on the reversing loops - just before "minimum 2R" became the default for new models. That said, we haven't bought much in the way of new locos for that layout since then anyway!

I used some PL11s when they first came out as they were useful for putting in places where there was a baseboard frame under the point and not enough room next to the track for a PL10 mounted above the boards. They were particularly useful for burying under station platforms. However as DCB has predicted, they did have a habit of occasionally shaking themselves to bits. SEEP make their own equivalent point motor with a metal casing, I've used several and they don't seem to self-destruct so they're now my go-to motor for above board work. However the SEEP has a slightly larger casing than the PL11 so there are a small number of cases where I've had to use a PL11 for clearance reasons. Note that with both the PL11 and the SEEP equivalent, the motor needs to be set up at exactly 90 degrees to the tie bar if if is to function correctly.

The alternative of making drivers wait until the safety car period is over is arguably even less fair as it would mean the driver would drop a lot more places once the field has been bunched up.

That's not a Liberty Media rule though - that rule's been there since at least the late 1980s if not earlier.

Taff Vale 153's so good they've got it twice! ;-)

A lot depends on exactly what you want to do. If your fiddle yard is a conventional fan of storage loops, I personally would feel it's a lot easier to change a couple of points (which you would have to do anyway with DCC) and possibly a couple of switches,every time you want to change trains, rather than squint at a loco number and type it into a keypad. And if you want to set the loops up so that when a train has entered one loop, the points change and another one sets off, that's probably a lot easier to do in analogue than DCC, especially if you don't mind abrupt starts and stops on the 'non-scenic' part of the layout.

Three Very Important Passengers at Wallingford Station today (photo CWR): (I already have Churchill on my Wallingford layout, but when I do a web search for a 4mm scale Princess Elizabeth, I get something completely different....)

Delivery from Hattons arrives at the Gwili Railway: (Photo from the Gwili's Facebook page of two recently-restored coaches out for a test run).

It really is a shame that having survived into the preservation era, such a rare vintage carriage was scrapped rather than preserved.

It's interesting that in this situation a relatively light penalty (e.g. docking Max 10 points from last season) would also be a big penalty in that it would take the World Championship away from him.

Perfectly possible to do so - in October 2012, Lance Armstrong was stripped of all his cycling titles from 1998 onwards. If he could be stripped of titles he 'won' 14 years earlier, stripping a team/driver of a championship they 'won' less than 12 months ago is quite recent by comparison!

You might want to fill those gaps with Araldite, to prevent thermal expansion from closing them up.

No, the Lledo van models are overscale (the buses are underscale!) - so if a Lledo van will fit in the road, a scale model of a van will.

The Walkers Crisps van is not entirely out of place. We have two brothers who drive for us on the C&WR who used to farm the land around Cholsey church. At one time, they grew potatoes for Walkers!

That seems likely. South Oxfordshire District Council purchased much of the branch trackbed when the line closed and leased it to the C&WR, but this did not include the "red zone" at Cholsey, which remained with BR and was lifted.