Joseph_Pestell

I feel the same way about manufacturers of toy/replica firearms which are too like the real thing. With all the deaths each year from misuse of firearms (accidents and other incidents), when will people start to take gun control seriously?

Both policies achieve the "desired" effect. But it is not the same effect. Johnson is going back to the herd immunity tactic. Having vaccinated all the really vulnerable folk, the best way (in his view) is to let the virus out and infect healthy young people who will not die from it or even be so ill as to need treatment. Macron is sticking with vaccinate everybody, despite France having been very lacklustre in getting vaccination started. What I do resent about his approach is the impracticality of it (devised by career civil servants?). Need a "passe sanitaire" from next week to do just about anything. But the process takes three weeks minimum.

French Rugby has similar arrangements for its pro and semi-pro rugby competitions. A club can finish top of D2 after the regular season and still not get promoted, while the club that finished sixth can get promoted through the end-of-season knockout. So three games are worth more than 34. Like you, I hate that. C1 (Champions' League) a very different comp from what it was when all countries had a club in there (and no country more than 1). I think that some sort of compromise between the two would have been better. But the TV money has decided otherwise. Do people in the countries without any participants in C1 (after the long summer pre-qualification) still take any interest in watching it?

Still like that in London.

My father had a fairly quiet war (only called up in 1943 in the Navy). But even he did not like talking about it.

People reported problems with some of the early production. Seemed to be OK after that. Think that they are still available but Bob Wyatt is winding things down for retirement. He is over 80 now!

I think you mean ScaleLink.

There were players within the squad who could fulfill that role. But Southgate did not pick them for the team. Or picked them and put them in other roles. I agree that Mount looks like a good candidate to take on a more central role. Putting both Rice and the Leeds guy (memory gone again) on at the same time certainly looked wrong. Rice has been a very good PL player for West Ham but I don't see the quality there to be an international. Even defensive midfielders need to be able to create good attack situations. Shaw is much better at that. And no sign at all of Foden who had a great end to the season with Man C.

Agree with you there. Good throughout the tournament. Very impressed with the way that Stones has made a comeback with Man C and now England to his top form. Not many players earn a second chance with Guardiola.

Where was Harry Kane all evening? Not in a position to take a shot at goal, never mind score one. It seems that he did not have confidence in the others to get the ball to him.

Think how much modelling could get done. Layout would need to be very compact though.

Gone even more cautious this evening with a 7-3 formation. Not playing to our strengths leaving out so good attacking players.

David, You can't have had your coffee yet today: Cerdagne not Cevennes. The road is close to the railway almost all the way but often not that visible as on rock ledges. And there is a well-known 3-gauge station in Austria (in the Voralburg but I am having a senior moment).

Worrying lack of news from Miss P.

But are you actually suffering Covid symptoms? I think that there is a danger at the moment that if anyone says they are unwell the medics assume that it is Covid, the "easy" answer. Other possible diagnoses are getting ignored which could dangerous. Two years ago this month, I had to be shipped into Salisbury Hospital with chest pains - even though I knew it was not a heart attack. Six hours later after various tests and scans, they sent me home again. It was a "chest infection". Very informative and not much return on six years of expensive medical training. I am now suffering extreme fatigue syndromes which are, I suspect, linked to that "chest infection". I have never been able to regain the weight that I lost at the time. Visited a local GP a couple of weeks ago and, in course of examination, weighed in at 63kg whereas my best weight is about 82kg!

My knowledge of US railroads is almost exclusively through models. I think that the Rock Island gets my vote for sheer grot, loads of atmosphere. Until doing a bit more research, I assumed that this almost Col Stephens' ambience must be the result of it being quite a small railway. But it was not.

There is plenty of space to create road bridges over the railway. But they won't be that near the existing crossings. It will need a lot of rebuilding of the local road network. But that is probably OK in the context of a desire to build a lot of new developments around that part of the world. I wonder if anyone has examined whether the current stations are actually in the right place for the new communities that they are serving? It could also be difficult to provide adequate car parks and bus interchanges at the current locations.

I have not seen much mention of the age of Southgate's team. When Bellingham and Sancho come on as subs, the average age must be very low indeed for a full international side. Bodes well for the future.

Assuming that you have modelled the gradient: A pin operated by a servo or solenoid comes up in the "4ft" to act as a brake on one of the axles of the train.

I was involved once in security at an event where Bono appeared. He seemed normal enough to me but everyone else present seemed completely in awe of him. So you may be right.

A servo is probably easier for this than a conventional point motor. Add: but if you most use solenoids, why not two wired together.

Denmark will be a very different prospect. England were OK last night. Even managed a few times to keep possession while going forward which is a real novelty. But let's face it, Ukraine were fairly awful. How did they get this far? The two goals from set pieces were conceded far too easily.

Most commercial backscenes have a sky which is far too blue - although recent efforts are much better. It's not just about "realism", we have to consider whether an over bright backscene (sky, mountains, townscape,...) detracts from the 3D part of the layout by drawing attention away.

I do notice the absence of traps on many otherwise excellent layouts. Back in the day when I built layouts in Peco Code 100, I would simply cut up a secondhand turnout and use that. Worked well. Add: Following on from David's post, I remember taking a layout to an exhibition in France that had a trap point protecting the run-round loop. Completely mystified the French as none of them had ever seen a real one. Mine was working (coupled up to the turnout on the running road) and came into its own several times during the weekend when operators forgot to set the road correctly.

To get back on topic, it seems to me that this train is based on a rather limited concept. The sort of cages that they are looking to transport are mainly used for grocery deliveries. For this to work for grocery companies, their main distribution depots would need to rail-served. For parcels work (DPD etc), the parcels just go into the trailer in a big heap (no trollies or cages) and then get sorted by the conveyor belt system that gets pushed into the trailer. That would need more modification to the railway stock.