The Nth Degree

It would be interesting to see which areas of the company are failing - it can't be company-wide, I would assume. I personally doubt the company would collapse as a whole, but the covenant could force it to sell individual businesses within the company. The covenant is a binding agreement with its lender/s to operate within certain defined financial constraints. Failure to do this could allow the lender/s to force immediate repayment of outstanding debts or to sell assets (or businesses) within the company. If the price falls below 32p I'm definitely buying - any decisions Hornby is reluctant to make would be made for them and a more healthy business would emerge, eventually.

Thanks Justin for the links. Modelling this site or another East Anglian branch is one of my aims at some point. I need a bigger house though, as I'll be doing it in 7mm scale.

Best of British to you, David, you have a really nice retirement project. Steve

The retail deal will be up to David to negotiate separately. This was one of the questions I asked when negotiating with Geoff. If I remember correctly, Tower made up about 25%+ of Gladiator's sales. I'm a bit envious of David, it must be really exciting for him!

Good luck to you David, and I hope Geoff enjoys his time off.

Like all your projects, I'm looking forward to this one.

Plans are afoot F-Unit, plans are afoot.

I beg to differ on the point above. The 'as-built' green was BR Standard Green and the cab panels were not green or grey, but 'duck egg blue' as it is commonly named. This information comes straight from the Class 15 Preseration Society. The loco pictured was repainted in Sherwood Green. Bah! Beaten to it by Chris. In that case, the point above his!

Just to extend this topic a bit, does anyone make working discs in 7mm scale? I'm looking for types with a proper hinge if possible.

Thanks all, I have all the info I need.

Thanks Stuart. When pulling a train, are the discs echoed on the rear of the loco (and lights illuminated) or are they left closed or open with lights off?

Thanks, and just so we're talking about the same things, I've prepared a picture which not only shows the lights I'm interested in, but on the exact prototype too: I've labelled 'A' to what I believe are marker lights, which could be white or red, although the more I look into this the more I'm convinced they are only red... Confirmation would be great. The 'B' labels are the disc lights, obviously. Under normal running conditions which of these sets of lights would be on on the front and rear of the loco? I understand that the built-in red lights would not have been used, and a lamp used instead. Thanks again.

Does any RTR supplier do this? It's probably more feasible in 0 gauge, but aside from kit-built models where you are free to build as required, I've not seen an RTR model with working headcode disc lights. Are they on all the time, regardless of time of day, or do they come on when the marker lights are switched on, or are they independently switched? Thanks in advance.

No offense, but your opinion is about ten years out of date. There are plenty of cases where Chinese directors and companies have been successfully sued, and cases have now dwindled to Western rates. The biggest problem in China now is companies going out of business. With a proper contract you are protected and will have a claim on assets. I don't know about you, but I would not be handing over large sums of money without a fully legal contract.

I'm really sorry to everyone else for dragging this point through the mud, but what are you saying exactly - that a Chinese factory can produce what it wants and the customer has to put up with it? I'd like to know what your experience of this 'fact' is. I'm spending a six-figure sum with a Chinese factory within the next few months, and over 1000 other British businesses are spending over 16 billion in Chinese factories during the next 12 months. What do you know that we don't about them not sticking to their legally binding contractual obligations?

Commercial law is how. Size has nothing at all to do with it. How do you know Heljan's business is not a large contributer to this factory? Your assumption 'seems' wrong - the press release said that the error was missed by both parties, suggesting that the factory wrongly translated the livery instructions and Heljan missed the error. Technically and legally Heljan is responsible if that were so. In your scenario the factory is at fault and would have to compensate Heljan to their satisfaction - whether that includes a new run of bodies, a discount on this or the next model, a good will gesture of some description, or however they decide to settle it between themselves. You are right in saying the problem between the two parties is not covered by consumer law, it's commercial law, and that's much more powerful.

The money comes out of the profit, surely?The responsibility lies with the person who signed off an incorrect livery, as appears in this case. If the fault was that the livery was applied wrongly after sign-off it would be the factory's fault and they would have to compensate in some way. Heljan would probably insist on new bodyshells in that case.

How many models of any particular type do Heljan produce? I thought it was only 400 - it seemed that way in the early models, but has this number gone up?

Would this mean a Class 24 is on the horizon?

I know for a fact there are at least two bids on Mr Finney's table - and I'm not too shy to say that one of them is mine. Right now it is just not tax efficient to sell the business during this financial year. Everything will happen in 2016. The great thing for the new owner is all this pent up demand will create a wonderful first trading year!

I know, I've made some extremely tentative enquiries...

Adrian of ABS is also a contracting caster, and he does, or did, the white metal casting for Martin.

You could buy ABS and have a viable business AND and casting machine...

Chris, is that a turned brass chimney or coated plastic?