Phatbob

The solution is bleedin' obvious. The country needs Doctors, nurses, engineers, scientists and what not. So they're trained within the public sector at an affordable rate. The country also needs HGV drivers, but this has been left to "the free market", which has clearly failed. So the solution is to bring the training in the public sector and for your local college to offer HGV training to school leavers. FLTs and other shortage disciplines should also be covered. You can learn to be a plumber, or a brickie etc. at your local college, but not an HGV driver? Makes no sense.

Goin' "Daarn tha Pub" in the Black Country by the look of it. I recognised some of those venues. :-)

Amongst those of us with a passion for exhibiting, having multiple portable layouts for exhibition is, to feely quote Sir Tom Jones, not unusual. I have three exhibition layouts of my own and a fourth one that belongs to Roundhouse of this parish on loan for as long as the exibition invitations keep coming. For those who have a "fixed" layout for use at home, I would say that the norm is one all-consuming layout. We exhibitionists tend to have more than one, with a new project under construction at the same time.

Ooh! New rolling stock. So, now for the most important question about any new rolling stock. What is the official enthusiast's nickname going to be? A Dusty Bin converted to carry parcels. A Postie Bin?

I remember riding in it once northwards from East Croydon. Once was enough!

Sorry to report folks that this event has been cancelled.

As Accurascale seem to have carved themselves a niche as the provider of nuclear related rolling stock, how about and original 12-wheeler Magnox flask wagon for us transition era types?

So what is this new film called? Indiana Jones and and Zimmer frame of doom?

The weekend after restrictions are due to end is the planned date for the Lymm Historic Transport Festival (https://www.lymmtransport.org.uk/). Part of this event's regular offerings is a small model railway exhibition in the village hall. Subject to any COVID restrictions that might still apply in the end of course, there will be probably about three or four layouts on show. I'll be there giving Mike and Roundhouse a hand with Star Lane, which is coming up all the way from Sussex. It's only a small show, but is just part of a massive event well worth a visit. Two tips; firstly, use the park and ride to get there (with lovely classic busses) do not try and drive into the village! Secondly, please purchase your entry wristband in advance as they're keen to minimise any queues.

Excellent if you want close coupled fixed rakes. Quite the best close coupling on the market. Far more robust than the ROCO type. We use them to close couple units on Star Lane. They work really well with close-coupling mechanisms, but are NOT a shunter's coupling. I use Kadees for that.

Nope. Saver return from WBQ to ECR, which even had the + on it to confirm it would work the barriers on the tube. A journey I've done a squillion times. She just had a Z- in her geography exam!

Free staff passes and priv rate tickets over the network did have a benifit for we punters too. All the staff knew the network, because they used it. Knowledge rapidly lost after privitisation. It's too long a story to go into in full, but I once had a heated conversation with a Virgin Trains staff person that London was between Warrington and Croydon, because her computer said "Kensington Olympia" was the route I had to take and "not a station in London". Struth!

Well, I've had a speed-read through the Williams-Schnapps plan. Not one single mention of ROSCOS. No mention of passenger comfort until page 55, but on page 72, this little gem (paragraph 41); 41. Trains will be made more pleasant to travel on and easier to work aboard. Because the emphasis was on carrying more passengers, recent designs of new trains have compromised on passenger comfort, with hard seats in close confguration and features such as tables no longer commonplace. In this new era, where more travel is likely to be discretionary, the railways will have to do more to satisfy their passengers. Great British Railways will introduce new design and ride standards that will make sure all new trains are more comfortable than their predecessors. Subject to negotiations with suppliers and business case approval, Great British Railways will bring forward the normal replacement cycles on existing trains equipped with "ironing-board"-like seats, beginning with long-distance trains, in order to make the seats signifcantly more comfortable, or to replace and eventually remove them altogether.

I bought some of these; https://www.buildingsuppliesdirect.com/clarke-cfsb1-adjustable-folding-saw-horse-3403002 Very useful, adjust to reasonable height for baseboard support (about 3') and fold-up for transport. Very stury when set up. The carrying handles are very useful because they are heavy! I've no connection with this supplier, but I do recommend them as a happy customer. HTH

Worst anachronism of all, a supposed pre-WW2 posh totty referred to a "train station". In those days EVERYBODY this side of the Atlantic would have referred to a railway station by its proper title.

As an asside, Halton Holgate station used to belong to my late uncle. The fourth picture on Dissused Stations feature my cousin sitting on the door step! (http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/h/halton_holgate/) The old platform was very short, probably no more than 150'? Maybe two coaches long? Sorry I can't be more help. Dissued stations does have an image from an OS map that might be helpful. Good luck, I'd love to see the finished layout. IIRC (it was the 1970s!) there was a blue enamaled BR style "no Engine to pass this point" sign over the enterence to the goods shed and a much older GNR "failure to fatsen the gate fine of 40 shillings" or words to that effect sign still on the original gate leading to the old goods yard. The station building was whitewahed whereas the goods shed was bare brick. The old gents still had the urinals in it!

I do hope you're right and the wood is just cladding.

Sorry to be negative, but I'm underwhelmed. The clock is good, but the rest? Canopies that won't actually protect anybody from the weather? Useless. Canopy supports apparently made from wood? Not going to last on this soggy litlle island. I could go on. This just reinforces my predudice that architects exist to win prizes from other architects and not to provide a built environment that's actually fit for purpose.

The weekend after restrictions are due to end is the planned date for the Lymm Transport Festival (https://www.lymmtransport.org.uk/). Part of this event's regular offerings is a small model railway exhibition in the village hall. Subject to any COVID restrictions that might still apply in the end of course, there will be probably about four layouts on show. I'll be there giving a friend a hend with his layout, Star Lane (https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/67894-star-lane-hooley/), which is coming up all the way from Sussex. I'm not sure if such a small show counts as "the first" after lockdown, but the whole event is massive a worth a visit. Two tips; firstly, use the park and ride to get there (with lovely classic busses) do not try and drive into the village! Secondly, please purchase your entry wristband in advance as they're keen to minimise any queues.

If it sells well, what other Japanese prototypes that Kato produce in N have a UK lookalike? That may well be the determining how many different models Kato try this trick with? Only time will tell. In the mean time, the fun game will be finding those Japanese lookalikes.

Yes, the layout was to scale and included the appropriate gadient down to the fiddle yard etc. I can't remember how the EM guys got around the wagons running away downhill issue, but they did have some plan of Baldrickian cunning. It worked okay at exhibitions, that's for sure. I did get to operate it at some point, but I wasn't one of the construction team and I just can't remember what the solution was. It was a long time ago now! I remember that they had a lovely steam railmotor for the passenger service, in addition to at least one push-pull set. All the stock was scratch or kit built and the track hand-made with rail soldered to copper clad sleepers.

Cheers Martyn. It was a great loss, but a phoenix rose from the ashes. ;-) From memory, a diagram of the CMRS version would be something like this (a quick sketch I did on SCARM). Regards, Bob.

Croydon Model Railway Society did indeed build a model of Hollywell Town in EM in the late 1970s IIRC we added an extra siding to make shunting the goods rather more interesting at exhibitions. Sadly, the layout was lost, along with all the others, when the clubrooms burned down in 1989.

PECO code 60 flat bottom rail is what they recommend to use with their third rail chairs in 00. PECO Z gauge track has code 60 rail, but some N gauge track and 2mm finscale track use rail smaller than the PECO Z (e.g. code 40). So, if you're using PECO "corse" N gauge track (code 80), maybe 2mm finescale code 40 rail would look about right?

Another vote for #18s. Never had a problem with them. HTH.