whart57

A YouTube video has been posted recently confirming than No. 61 is indeed among the exhibits at Hualamphong.

A very good layout I saw a few years ago was an British outline one built by modellers in the Netherlands. Though I did think it was a little unambitious of them to choose the Great Eastern in the flattest part of the country ........

Well the first locomotives in Thailand were German, as were I suspect those in many other places away from the British Empire. In the Netherlands the State Railway bought British - a lot of Beyer Peacock - but the Holland Railway bought from Borsig. The alliance between Germany and Ottoman Turkey probably meant German engines and stock across the Middle East in the Ottoman Empire.

Can I say that one of the turn-offs for me is Streamline track, particularly on 00 layouts. It just looks wrong. It also grates when I look at pics on the "How Realistic is your Modelling" here on rmweb and see those underscale sleepers and overscale rail section front and centre.

British or foreign prototypes; present day, a generation ago or more generations ago - all have been represented by decent layouts, and all have suffered a lot of dross. It's quality of build, level of creativity and an eye for realism that counts no matter what the prototype. There has to be reasons why people would pay money to see a layout. That said, if the prototype is unusual I'll cut the builder a bit of slack. Not least because building the unusual is harder work than building something that is well supported by the trade and by the techniques we use. The unusual is also likely to be less cliche-ridden.

What makes "red clock" time dangerous is the losing side throwing caution to the winds, and forcing mistakes. It may be the aim to end the game quickly, but how. Kick for touch, sure, but don't ask a player who rarely, if ever, kicks to do it. Under pressure your occasional kicker can too easily screw the ball and hand possession over. A "stupid thing" in your definition. So get the ball to your full back or No.10. Except the opposition will be expecting that and the known kickers will be marked. A tackle and a turnover would be another of your "stupid things". The losing side have no need for defence in depth, so they will have everyone up putting pressure on. The calculation on whether giving away a penalty by making a risky intervention in a ruck is better than conceding a try changes too. Possession is good to have, but how good depends on where that possession is. You can't score from your own half, rare 60 yard penalties and breakaway tries excepted. Possession inside the opponents 22 is good, but that is a crowded area, crowded with big blokes who these days have a bit of speed as well. What with fitness levels today and plenty of replacements on the bench, the old attritional methods don't work so well. Anyone can bulk up in the gym. The creativity needed to thread away through is a rare talent, and you are probably right, the Premiership doesn't nurture it.

But England did give up those opportunities to Italy. I've read several commentators give the opinion that this happens when England try and play a more expansive game. Perhaps it is inherent that when a team takes risks to win with style that a notionally weaker team can exploit those risks. The test will come when those opportunities come the way of a better side than Italy.

At least two of the Observer's sports writers did.

That get out of jail card will probably be enough to beat Scotland and Wales, but winning a slam will require beating both Ireland and France which looks unlikely based on the evidence. Winning the title alone will require someone stopping Ireland getting the slam, and they have France disposed of already.

Looks like the early predictions from pundits have all been shredded. OK, not all, the ones who predicted Ireland finishing top, of which there were not many, will be quite smug this morning. France were supposed to be all fired up ready to put World Cup disappointments behind them and with home games in front of provincial crowds be unbeatable. Hmmm. England were many people's tip, but title contenders don't usually give Italy a sniff. Italy were most people's nailed on prediction for the wooden spoon, but maybe not. All good fun.

I wrote an article for Continental Modeller on the Maeklong Railway's Krauss tank engines, together with drawings based on measurements taken in Bangkok. That almost rusted away example in the coach park near Bang Sue provided most measurements for the 2-4-0T while the loco that was then in the Ekkamai Museum of Science was the basis for the 0-4-2T. That loco is now in Paknam I believe. And the 2-4-0T I think five out of the seven survived to their centenary, albeit only just in the case of the Bang Sue car park example. The one by the loco depot fared better as did the one outside the SRT's HQ at Hualamphong. When I submitted the article to CM the editor, Andy Burnham, emailed me back to say that they had a photo in the files of one of the 0-4-2Ts plinthed outside a country club near Pattaya and would I mind if they put it into my piece. I didn't so that meant four of the seven were depicted in that article. I'm not sure if the Pattaya one is still there or what condition it is now in. The one at Ekkamai was in very poor condition the first time I saw it, but since then it has had a bit of tlc. Photos of it on display at Paknam seem to show it in reasonable nick.

The hopper wagon I photographed outside Mahachai (on the line from Bangkok Wongwangyai) was a bit different. Probably the most modern bit of kit on that bit of the SRT, which as many will know is completely isolated from the rest of the network.

The second picture was a BREL 158 (export model). A number of three car sets were sold to Thailand in he 1990s. Regarding livery, I have built a 3mm scale version and the Railmatch paints for Regional Railways are as good a match as anything.

I presume that with the new mega-station at Bang Sue that there was a bit of tidying up in the old marshalling yard. Back in 2010 there was some real old tat parked there

I haven't tried working this out, and I don't know N gauge anyway, but would a city terminus to suburban terminus work? The main run being a figure of eight - single or double track - and the termini coming off at each end. Put in a couple of passing loops and you can have mainline trains doing circuits while DEMUs provide your point to point wishes. The city terminus should be modelled only in part - the local platforms and some platforms at the back where the mainline trains pass through.

Just checked the pics I took, it was actually a completely different loco that took the train onwards from the two that had brought it up from Hualamphong.

The "old station" is for Northern and North Eastern line trains, the "new" station for Southern line trains. Or was then. I don't know how they are handled at the new station. I see you captured a time when an incoming train left its carriages in the platform while dropping off an engine for the shed. Yours was a Hualamphong bound train, when I saw that happen in 2010 it was bringing an engine up from Bangkok. One day I was there a massively long train was waiting in the Southern station, heading towards Bangkok. When it eventually moved it turned out to be full of Navy personnel, presumably headed for the navy base at Pattaya.

I'm really impressed with the Silhouette cutter. This is my second attempt at reproducing the very flowing motifs on the temple gateway. The drawing was produced by tracing over a sharp photo image and then cut out from metallic vinyl of the peel-off variety. My first attempt used the automatic Path Trace function of Inkscape but that proved a little bit too sensitive to variations in the photo. I did a manual trace on the second attempt. Bear in mind this bit of gold decoration is only 26mm wide.

Sure does

Is it my imagination or are the trains shorter than they were ten years ago?

Over the last couple of days I have built a prototype temple gate. This won't be the final version but it does prove the tools I have can reproduce the key bits.

This is the sort of thing you expect to see on April 1st. Worrying to have it on social media now.

Johnny Foreigner is actually wrong-footed by some things we've done over the last ten years - things they never expected we'd do.

The link to Whishaw I gave earlier might help as Whishaw describes the technical sides of the railways of 1842 in some detail. Unfortunately he does miss out the size of the stone blocks on the S&D. On the neighbouring Stockton and Hartlepool Railway though he does state these stone blocks were 2 foot square. The S&D was using wood blocks as well and, interestingly, used "small coal" as ballast.

Which more or less sums up Western defence policy of the last seventy years. Military strategists and Defence Ministry officials draw up detailed reports on future defence risks and requirements and then the lobbyists from the arms companies come in and work on the politicians. Politicians who are scared of what the media and their opponents will spin. Jobs in British shipyards and business for British arms and aerospace companies weighed more heavily in the decision for building two new carriers than any rational assessment of Britain's - and Europe's - defence needs.