Kelly

Evening. Not much really to report on the Saga of the Buggered Ankle. Though yesterday a trip into Coventry yielded some shoes that fit the left foot, and not very expensive either. The sandals are fairly comfortable, the velcro shoes are more akin to slippers in appearance, but I had to go up a size, so the right foot is a little loose, they'll certainly do as slippers around the house to give me a bit better footing rather than going barefoot. Of course, this depends upon Poppy not deciding to run off with them, which every pair of slippers Richard has had previously she has done, time will tell! A quiet day today and tomorrow probably as the weekend will be busy going upto Wakefield Friday with Natalie for the ExpoEM Autumn show helping with the Signalling Record Society stand, though of course Natalie will have to do the majority of the work due to my inability to carry much at present (we make a right pair, her with a injured shoulder she's awaiting hospital treatment for and my ankle!). Should be a good weekend and at least the tempature has come down now a bit!

Those sorts of games are money sinks for all the expansion options they make.

The current plans as stated by UK government are for this system to be implemented by 2040 and all hgvs to be diesel or petrol free by that time (new sale), so I expect most hauliers will buy lorries in 2039 and use them as long as possible before being forced to go to electric, hydrogen or otherwise. Of course the clean air zones around cities will be continuing to expand and start. Already Bristol and Birmingham have them in place. Coventry fought against the government forcing them to implement one, but if their proposed measures don't work they will have to implement one soon. Leeds and Bradford have schemes starting or started too. Some schemes were pushed back by the pandemic though. Those clean air zones are going to have an impact on people, exhibitors and traders getting to shows. Ally pally for instance with the expanded London zone has this impact, meaning some traders will stop going. If traders won't go to shows then shows won't happen really.

Production I doubt will be seen very much on an actual vehicle. Instead it will most likely be compressed storage tanks. Which as you say for trains, lorries and busses makes the most sense vs battery. Battery is likely to be the best option for light vans, cars, taxis and motorbikes. Though the UK and German governments have been looking at HGVs powered by overhead electric like the system used by trains, with batteries to cover any gaps. Unfortuately we're a long way away from efficient green hydrogen production. Production is currently very inefficient, though companies are researching and working on it, and the majority is produced as a by product of gas or coal production. Efficiency of vehicles using it is also lower than petrol is, but again research is ongoing. However, the area getting the most investment seems to be batteries, with some on the horizon which would eliminate or reduce significantly the need for rare metals or things like lithium, but they're a few generations away probably still, in the mean time solid state batteries (and maybe Teslas's Cobolt batteries) are probably the next generation on the horizon.

Deus Ex and Tomb Raider are both now owned by Embracer group, so they will probably make new games in the coming years. Square Enix had decided both were not worth continuing with and moved to focus on their 'Games as a Service' games and Japanse RPGs, so sold off almost all their Western IPs to Embracer. Embracer now owns a LOT of developers/studios.

Plus they have been used for some departmental use, including as barrier coaches for unit moves. Doing the translqtors could open them up to modellers who would not normally have a interest.

It is too early to tell how much weather will effect the metalwork/broken joint in the longer term. If it is like my wrist I broke as a child (the same year I managed to break the other arm and fall over and lose part of my right elbow (just a small part, but left a unsightly scar)), then aching is in my future I expect, but as I have fibromyalgia that was always going to occur, the difference will just be the bone ache rather than the fibrous tissues alone aching. The heat just makes me wish for the cooling helmet Detritus gets in one of the Discworld Watch novels as it feels like it exasperates the fibro fog effect somewhat, I describe it like trying to think through treacle.

If we're going to hear anything I expect it will be at Warley or in February potentially now. Though they've moved to the every 3 months model of announcements so there could be some surpises in October.

The work EE did with the locomotives for South Africa and the Southern Railway as well as the LMS for 10201-3 and 10000-1 really helped them get a solid foundation for when they produced the 40s, 37s and others which carried lessons learned from those 3 locomotives forward.

Afternoon All.. I was meant to go back into town to try to find some new shoes that fit the bad ankle. Alas the heat has defeated me for the last two days, it doesn't play nicely with my fibromyalgia at all. I am therefore looking forward to Monday/Tuesday when it is supposed to be thunderstorms, though the tempature is still going to be in the mid 20C range, which is still too hot for me usually. Otherwise not much to report. Still hobbling around and getting used to the weird feeling that brings with the ankle.

Yes Tesco have been in dispute over prices with a number of their suppliers at different times in the past few years. Effectively Tesco hold the suppliers to ransom hoping to get their own way and they get it it seems. Severn trent has been having problems with people deliberately breaking the fire hydrants to cause a water fountain and when they sent people to fix them accompanied by police and the fire brigade they all got pelted with rocks. It's not about seeing the gp, it's about funding. If I was sick I could go to pretty much any GP for treatment, but for care provisions it has to go through the gp you are registered with at the address registered with that gp. Its seemingly how they've set things up. I could have changed to Richard's g0, but they insisted on my going in person when that was impossible and I was not in much of a place at the time to do or care about it. I will have to change gp soon anyway, just waiting for Richard to organise finishing up the moving now.

A lot of the trouble came from I believe companies that had much more experience building steam engines, and were building licenced copies of German engineered engines. At the time it was politically too sensitive for a German company to be allowed to supply all the engines, hence licence building. Of course trouble came from the steam heating equipment too and BR was generally rather slow to move to air braking and electric train heating compared with the continent.

It is a bit of a piece of string argument really. It depends how long your layout is and whether you have a layout capable of taking a full length HST or loco + 10+ coaches or just a loco + 2 or + 4 or a 4 car unit.

Quite a bit of experimentation is happening with hydrogen in Germany and other countries I believe.

Quite and new battery technologies are on the horizon from Tesla and Toyota amongst others. Toyoya working on solid state batteries, which make them lighter and thinner as well as much harder to set on fire.

When I said less likely to be needed for a given layout, what I meant was a Class 37 or 47 will potentially have more than just passenger service uses, so more options are potentially needed. A DMU or EMU will be typically a couple, one for each direction at minimum, dependant upon length that might be 4 or six.

Quite people need enough things like 37s, 47s, 24s etc that with multiple options there's plenty to choose from. Units are typically in the less demand and less likely to be needed for a given layout depending upon the length. So already there is a limit of how many customers you can reach. Then you factor the geographical locations and their livery plus being in service a lot less time and again the potential market is smaller. It appears that the manufacturers in some cases by the factories get told that they should reconsider as the factories know what is in development. I still think that the electrostars would be a good idea for someone to do with so many variations that it could be a range stable for years. Again though targeting a rather small number of modellers in general compared with locomotives.

Ordering new was never going to be on the cards unless it was on another line and caused cascading again. There will be new units in the next 5 years probably, but gradually they may well not be diesel if the fuel costs keep going up. I expect we'll see more battery units potentially, especially on relatively short lines or maybe hybrid units. Hydrogen still remains a possibility.

Due to the prices for heinz these days we've been giving the various supermarket own brands a try. Surprisingly I have not been able to tell much difference! Perhaps a bit more gloopy with some and not as much sauce with others. But otherwise perfectly fine.

It was back in late March and the world has gone even more bats*** bonkers since.

The seating/interior is down to the operator to choose. The comments early on about the seating of them were all against demonstration seating thatd been installed I believe.

The studs in the case of Richard's bathroom are behind tiles. I expect that the reason they won't do them on studs is because a) they take supposedly more work (more cost) and possibly b) they don't want to be left liable if the studs aren't strong enough later. In a lot of cases the landlord/housing association has to approve the installation as well, some will refuse unfortuately.

Unfortuately until I change my GP to be over at Richard's (which I can't until we've sorted the last of the moving out, which should hopefully be soon) I can't access the Occupational Therapists as everything they do goes through your GP for funding. This meant I couldn't have any aids or things like district nurses when I got out of hospital unless I was at my flat in Coventry, which is now pretty much unusable until we empty the last of the things, organise a house clearance and hand the keys back (it's been on hold whilst I recovered as Richard didn't want to get accused of not packing something I wanted to keep etc and lack of time off to do much recently). When the move is all officially finalised I will be able to get help hopefully from the OTs. Kelly

They were probably much more likely to be cascaded than renewed for where they were. My view has always been that there was plenty of life left in the d stock, especially as the bogies and motors had been refurbished not long before retirement by tfl. It is far better in these days of expense and such to reuse where it makes sense. If they're only ever a stop gap until other units become available that is still better than things like 142s and the like continuing in service decades after they should have gone for scrap!

I will have to look into that when I get the moving all sorted and a new gp organised. I'm hoping though that the swelling will go down given more time using the ankle as it is still relatively recent since I started using crutches and moving around more. My father just before covid hit had a similar thing. He finally went to see his gp after my mum had been nagging him for a while to go and the gp did a screening. It lead to tests and scans and they found the bowel cancer and at the same time lung and tailbone nodules. The bowel cancer was the immediate priority though and thankfully the surgery was a success although he had sepsis after which was touch and go. The lung and tailbone nodules were followed up on this year and a few weeks ago he had the lung nodules removed. The prognosis from his consultant has been pretty good. (The tailbone turned out to be fine following a pet scan). The lung surgery was much easier as it was keyhole.