Jongudmund

I have seen a Playmobil set reduced to £66 from RRP £120. You get a yellow diesel (which I've seen being used on some layouts on here) plus a wagon. It's battery powered and radio controlled which I like the look of because reading through other people's stories it seems like the way to go. The plastic track doesn't look great but I could look into buying some metalled rails. It would be something to get me going at least. And it's compatible with LGB etc. So what do you all think? Should I go back in and buy it some time in the next couple of days?

I thought that there should definitely have been goal nets. Considering the tiny stand this was clearly a non league ground and the "fans" were far too active. They should have mainly been middle aged curmudgeons holding cups of bovril. (I am the demographic!)

Lovely pics Bob. The Little red Peckett is my favourite but they are all fab little engines.

The ones with 4 barrels. Looking for some cheap ones as a humorous project. Other brands might work too. I know Athearna have done them.

Page 73 and page 83 - Phil P has been flipped hasn't he?

Those are lovely pictures from the Foxfield Railway. Look at that black claggy smoke! Thanks for the photos of the track cleaning wagon as well. Looks a very useful piece of kit.

Got a picture of the under/ over bridge?

And I hadn't even said where I got my inspiration...

Should add it's the July edition of Garden Rail bundled with the August edition of BRM.

As a bored adult in work one day I sketched out a route for a monorail around Cardiff City centre using a Google Earth screengrab and MS Paint. I might still have it saved somewhere. As a teenager I concocted a fictional preserved line in mid-Shropshire that included a preserved narrow gauge railway system in the old lead mines at Snailbeach.

This month's has two garden railways featured, including the Axe Valley Railway, which is the cover star.

Bagged with BRM in Tesco this month (Aug 17 issue). WH Smiths just had BRM on its own.

I've had the same problem trying to enter the baseboard competition. I was able to enter the Warwell one though. That link worked.

An iceberg wagon. Like the sound of that. Are you using the trans blue rock elements?

There's a Lego trains group on Facebook and loads of people have powered the Christmas train by putting the battery box in the tender.

The big thing in the toy world are collectors "blind bags". You buy a figure in a bag or a box and you don't know what it is. You have to collect them all so you keep buying the bags. There are rare ones in different colours and so on. I'm not sure Hornby could do the same with wagons. Not many modellers fancy a lucky dip.

Actually that's not true. They almost went under towards the end of the 90s. They diversified into buildable action figures called Bionicles, that came with their own tie in movie, and they signed their first ever merchandising tie in with Star Wars. If they had stuck with their core business of plastic bricks and original intellectual property they would have disappeared in the early 2000s. They have subsequently branched out into movies (The Lego Movie is well worth a watch even if you don't like movies and made a box office fortune), licensed trading card games (2 on the go at present), licensed magazines (look in the comic section and count how many have the Lego logo on and a "free" toy on the front), more books than you can shake a stick at, and have created TV series to promote at least 4 of their most recent kids-oriented toy ranges (Ninjago, Chima, Mixels and Nexo Knights). They have even created their own Star Wars TV series to create their own toys in the Star wars universe. Lego has also courted the adult collector market, through it's Ultimate Collector Series (UCS) brand, the Modular Buildings and its Architecture range. These are not for kids - prices are often North of £150. They have licensed Lego elements to computer games for all their main franchise tie-ins. They also worked with the games development company to release Lego Dimensions, where you get to build the Lego toy and then see it come to life in the game. There are loads of toys you can buy to bring to life in the game. The one thing the Lego Company did not do is focus on their core business. They have evolved into a multimedia company with very strong portfolios in numerous markets.

I like the CAD modelling. It's very clever. So some questions then. Is this something being built from scratch today? With the clean air act and a move away from coal. Could a steam engine be heated by solar? It heats water in central heating systems. How hot does it have to be? COuld you make it carbon neutral? Would you want some kind of cap on the chimney to take out the carcinogenic soot like a catalytic converter? Health and safety wise, there would probably be some kind of automation to remove any chance of people getting singed or even needing to shovel coal. (That's if you're using coal) Oh, and Google are building a driverless one as we speak.

Love this. A great build of a great ship!

What counts as "usual garden wildlife" in Africa?

Yep. That's the usual rule.

Tonight's episode of Brooklyn Nine Nine (an American police comedy) on E4 featured a competition between two characters over who could build the "best" model railway. Was the "fun" railway best or the hyper-realistic one? I laughed because it reminded me of so many conversations here on RM Web. If you fancy a chuckle then you can probably watch it on demand / catch up etc. There are some other plot lines too but the model train bits are the best bits.

I'm sure I saw a layout in a magazine that was N gauge in the garden. Definitely seen OO garden layouts featured.

Matt, what are the 3 little sidings above the TMD shed for? Might be worth taking them out to have a bit of breathing space. Staff car park for shed staff would fill the space.