Titan

They have done a better job on his nose than the surgeon(s) did in real life!

Why not?

I have, all trains terminated at the next station and bust-ituted!

The first problem is that there has been a lot of wheel reinventing when it comes to the OLE System design. Series 1 was pretty much designed from scratch, including being TSI compliant but based upon the Swiss system. As such there was very little 'off the shelf' that did not require some change. The end result is a long drawn out design process. which is still not finished.

I am very interested to know what loco those wheels came from, obviously not British but seem rather unusual?

I think Fay is confusing the Earth Wire with the Return Conductor. They serve very different purposes.

The 'Beastie' !!! I think it's modification was pretty much fitting buffers and drop head buckeyes at each end. Might even have got used to rescue the odd Networker if it had not failed too far away.

That does not look like a Transit?

Where? Can you provide a link?

Missionary?

The holes are not being dug any deeper, but the bottom of the hole is now being CAT scanned (Cable Avoidance Tool) This was started after one of the incidents where a 1m deep trial hole was dug, only to discover the hard way that there were cables buried at 1.1m...

It does not exclude all the Crossrail funded extensions? Not only that but there is a hell of a lot more happening at West Drayton beyond changing DOO equipment. Seems like it is riddled with mistakes!

One story I heard was about their approach to failed gearboxes. Rather than returning them to works for overhaul, particularly when short of replacements, they were quite adept at swapping about internals and making one functioning gearbox out of two bad. Consequently the works hated getting gearboxes from Tysley to overhaul, because by then it was basically a casing with nothing but scrap inside!

I do wonder if any of those locos had technology derived from Kestrel? I also noticed that the the diesel hauling the last train appeared to be a Do-Do!

Good evening and welcome David! Been a little while since you were passing a critical eye over my designs! We used to say that there was the Mk1 range, the OLEMI range and the 'Hibbert' range, which it sounds like this portal falls in! Ian, associate of the late Les Hammond and Peter Hazard!

Well I suppose everyone makes their own choices. I have not got DCC and standardised on tension lock so NEM pockets are not an issue. I started building my OHLE based on the '70s to early '80s around the time that the Dapol OHLE was originally announced. Rather than wait I bought what was available and have now been enjoying running a wide variety of electric stock of the period for over three years. The OHLE works and all locos except the 85 and APT can pick up from it. OK it may not be exactly finescale, but it is still much more satisfying than waiting for something to happen. It does of course mean that for me Dapol have missed the boat by quite a spectacular margin...

I am sure if you are short of time you could pay someone to do it for you. Class 86's in good condition start from about £18. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Hornby-Class-86-86417-In-RES-rail-Express-Systems-Livery-/271991504665?hash=item3f53f4ff19 Most will post overseas too.

Well when I started my layout I was on a budget. As it represents a busy main line with a large terminus it required a lot of stock to populate. So it was almost all bought second hand at rock bottom prices. It is unlikely I will have lost money on it and it is good enough for me!

It was a griddle, which meant a full English breakfast on the way to work was possible. Yum!

and expect the death toll to rise as digging continues through the night...

It's not quite that bad, it has class 92,90 and the Pendolino to keep it company on the electric side, which would make for a reasonable representation of the Modern WCML.

Oh it's human nature to 'big up' the car you drive. It's one reason why I am not saying anything about mine, because I could not help doing the same and it would only intensify the debate!

An Aygo would fare much better than an Escort, modern cars, even small ones, have far superior crash resistance compared to older ones. And besides, crash resistance was not the subject, performance was. At least the Aygo driver would be able to put their foot down and leave the Discovery behind, and that's physics too....

Eh? You can buy either new or second hand RTR examples of class 81,85,86,87,90 and 91, some of which from more than one manufacturer.

Oh absolutely, it was the implication that its performance was not below average that I was responding to.