Joseph_Pestell

OT, but some very interesting looking coaches in the background.

When doing wine-making talks each week, I always ask if any of the audience have made wine at home. It seems to be a vanishing hobby, probably due to wine only costing, in real terms, about 25% of what it did in the 1960s. But back on topic, I really like the look of this project. Interesting to see if you can reduce it much more and still keep all its features.

The reality is that most folks don't stay for more than 5 minutes in front of any layout at an exhibition. At the larger exhibitions such as Warley, there is not time for more. So I think that there is definitely a role for layouts where those 5 minutes can be focussed on some top quality modelmaking (such as Nicktoix' buildings) rather than be distracted by too many trains rushing past. The snag, of course, with 4' long layouts and proscenium style presentation, is that only about 3 people at a time, whatever their height, can look at the layout at the same time. That rather limits the show's attendance figures.

Of course we can. As a (part) northerner, coaches are buses (but you have to pronounce it properly - rhymes with puss not with cuss). I will edit title thread.

Glad that you have posted that photo to this thread. One of my favourite bus types.

Why has anyone rated this as "funny"? Thankfully, I think that you will find any such systems will be isolated from other computers.

As you say, Palladian not that difficult a style to reproduce and there are indeed suitable windows etc in various ranges such as ScaleLink, York Modelmakers, etc. That particular property seems to be missing a bit more than just the roof. Shame to leave it just standing there.

When I was considering doing this (20+ years ago), I was going to make the brickwork masters in etched brass or nickel. That way one can make a master quite quickly (although not so cheaply) by simple step-and-repeat on a 2D CAD.

I think that could certainly be a problem with 20thou sheet. And anything thinner might not be strong enough. Hence my comment about incorporating the ballast. Old railway sleepers do have quite rounded edges though.

Another range worth looking at is Walthers Cornerstone (on Gaugemaster website). Several there that look as though they could be made into an opera house: 3031 3066 3094 3493 3772

Be interested to see how this goes. Always been surprising to me that we don't make more use of vacforming in the model railway world, but it had never occurred to me to use it for trackwork. Why not have moulded ballast Roco-Line/Profi-Gleis style?

Nice pictures from Doncaster. Do they still have that awful bus station? I remember pulling in there in 1980 on the overnight coach from Scotland.

So when your neighbour builds a housing estate or a factory on his land, you won't be objecting.

That's putting the cart before the horse. Banks caused crisis. Then Govts bailed them out. So Govts not responsible for the crisis. Whether or not they were right to bail them out is another question. We don't know for sure what would have happened if they had allowed the banking system to collapse.

Bit of a bargain at €40. Love the caveat about quality of the pieces and the motor. A lot of us felt that way about Ks.

Another thread recently mentioned the film "La Bete Humaine" based on the novel by Zola and filmed in the 1940s(?) with Jean Gabin driving a Pacific. The film really should have been set in the proper period using this loco. Perhaps with modern CGI techniques a remake is on the cards. A great novel that was somewhat underplayed in the film. It's quite raunchy stuff and was probably difficult to get past the film censors 70 years ago.

Quite. But where does that leave you? From previous comments, I can't see you voting to have John McDonnell as Chancellor even though he is from the only major party that would currently advocate stronger control of the banking sector. And in an ever more multinational world, can the UK alone make any useful contribution to controllingbanks?

Looks nice. I like quirky layouts. Definitely better with the loco shed simplified, perhaps even a bit more. And I think I would have the depot only accessed from the main line, not the goods yard headshunt. It might be even better to have the shed on the other side of the line, allowing a longer headshunt.

That's the one. But I would not suggest buying new. I have quite often seen them quite cheap secondhand and as one would be cutting it about....

Potentially interesting discussion to be had there. Perhaps railways is an area where PFI could work because there is a clear future private income stream - fares. Where hospitals and schools are concerned, PFI does not work because the payments have to be made through public money i.e. taxes.

I do not recall that Triang building. Just love it. Tempting to build a 3mm scale Southern layout just to use one.

Seems like you might be very slightly disillusioned.

I take it that you don't take many train journeys these days then. Most EMUs and DMUs have the traction behind at least part of the passenger accommodation.

Main European manufacturer is Cobus. Try googling that.

As above, I was careful how I phrased my post. I agree with you that the banks should have been more regulated. My point was that they may well have been just as deregulated under a Conservative Govt. You will find plenty of people in the Labour Party who agree with you about PFI (and did back then). The question is how else to address the long-term chronic capital under-investment that had built up over many decades. John McDonnell says that Govt should borrow more but that causes howls of horror from the right-wing media. I very much agree with you about the nonsense that the benefits system causes but that dates from way back before the 1997 Govt. And because it is so longstanding, that is what makes it so difficult to reform as IDS and George Osborne found. Homeowners' "investment" has been artificially inflated by a market distorted by housing benefit and other subsidies. No Govt dares take the hard measures which might lead to a "bust" in the housing market. Employers, including the public sector, have constructed their business models on a welfare system which makes it possible for them to pay uneconomically low wages. Any idiot should be able to see that it can not be sustainable. Politicians of all major parties (including the LibDems in coalition) have ducked hard decisions for far too long leading to cumulative effects that are more and more difficult to deal with. They have just been interested in the short-term, i.e. until the next Election Day.