RichardT

Oh b*gger. Time’s winged chariot seems to be getting ever closer. Funnily enough I was just looking at “Burdale” in an old RM. I remember it being close to us in the De Grey Rooms - can’t remember if we were operating “Ashburton” with all-new Cookie-sound (like DCC, but on a tape recorder and with bad impersonations of West Country accents) or “Totnes”? I also remember the Butcombe lot opposite. Roger initially struck me as a bit intimidating (height plus confidence) but then he started chatting and you realised he was a sound chap. Another one gone. Richard

I suspect the remark wasn’t meant to be taken entirely seriously… Richard

Yes, I had a bit of a brain fade there! All I had to do was some simple arithmetic… RichardT

Well…Hattons did intend to produce a N gauge LMS Beyer-Garratt. They never really put any promotional push behind it, and it faded from view at EOI stage but I don’t think it was ever formally cancelled…. I had EOIs in for two because they regularly made it to York, and may occasionally have gone further north I believe. (Evidence awaited.) Just sayin’ Accurascale. <cough> RichardT

Some of them might, and others won’t. People keep saying what you’ve said and while it’s not untrue, it’s not true across the market. Otherwise no-one would be buying pre-1948 era models. I started trainspotting in 1974, just as I entered secondary school, and spent most of the next five years at the end of Platform 9S (as was) at York, and on shed-bashing visits. I’m interested in real railway history of all eras, including today. But I have no interest in modelling railways of the 1970s onwards with their increasingly multiple unit/fixed formation-dominated operations and consequent lack of play value. (Sorry! “Operational interest”.) As a side note, it’s my view that an awful lot of so-called 1980s and onwards layouts are actually steam-era ones operated with modern models. There always seem to be a preponderance of conveniently-surviving private sidings needing shunting, parcels depots, or “residual” wagonload traffic, and lots more loco-hauled passenger trains than were ever seen in reality. Not to mention tiny MPDs apparently allocated three of every class of BR diesel…. It’s like that famous David Jenkinson article “Is Your Mutton Dressed As Lamb?” but in reverse. 😉 EDIT (See later post) Also, to note that if you started trainspotting in the 1960s you’re well into your seventies now. Brainfade there! RichardT

By the loco profile book there was one month crossover, 10001 got yellow panels in October 1962 and 10000 was stored unserviceable in November. TBH I don’t think 90% of those buying the Twins are going to be bothered about strict prototypical timescales! I suspect a lot will appear on 1970s and 1980s layouts having been “preserved” - which 10000 definitely should have been, if the BTC historic relics panel had included some museum professionals, rather than a lot of Establishment buffers trying to recreate their boyhoods. 😅 RichardT

I won’t be buying anything announced today*, but bearing in mind that this is a quarterly announcement, if we are settling down to getting one (or two) new tool locos and one (or two) new tool items of rolling stock every three months then that feels positive for N, no? The Twins are an obvious gap filled and look lovely. I just hope that they don’t presage more models of more obscure one-offs and niche locos** for collectors rather than mainstream classes. And (continuing to hit my head against this brick wall) come on Bachmann and start shrinking more of your existing OO steam models to N! RichardT *Unless that “Easten Region” water crane turns out to be an NER one, which it definitely looks like. **To be clear, I don’t think the Twins are “niche”. But they are definitely “niche-adjacent”…

As an N/2mm steam prototype modeller I’m struggling to avoid the phrase “first world problems” when I look at this thread! 😅 Richard

A whole era summed up in two words there.

The Stockton and Darlington layout referred to above was in the September 1975 RM (for obvious reasons). It was built to P4 standards, and still exists as a static exhibit at Darlington Railway Museum (due to reopen after refurbishment later this year). So if anyone fancies reviving that layout and converting the Hornby model to P4… Richard

Anything can be made to work, after a fashion, if you throw enough money, time and people at it. And 10000 did “work”. But the defintion of “making it work” depends on your initial objectives. The LNER wasn’t an engineering research institute - it was a company looking for ways to generate more money from running trains by cutting costs in a way that showed a return on investment. 10000 was a worthwhile experiment that demonstrated that it wasn’t possible to achieve the objectives at reasonable cost in a British context. But the experiment provided useful data. As for sources, Yeadon is good for anally-retentive trainspotters and rivet-counters wanting to make sure they’ve got the right shedplate on their B1. I’d not rely on him for contextualised engineering history. For 10000 you’d be better-off borrowing William Brown’s “Hush-Hush -The Story of LNER 10000” Richard

I'll trade you that for downscaling the V1/V3 from OO to N! R

The kite is being flown not because anything has changed in Europe or on the Ukrainian front, but because there’s now a very real prospect of a Trump presidency in November. Whether you believe that he is simply an old-fashioned isolationist or whether you believe that he is compromised by Putin, if he gets back in then we and the rest of NATO can no longer rely on the USA as an ally. RichardT

TT-120 Raven Pacific. You heard it here first. R

It’s a useful distinction but when assessing which side of a line a CME sits I think I’d draw a distinction between CMEs authorising one-off R&D projects (10000 and “Fury” - and the latter wasn’t a Stanier project) and introducing untried innovations into regular frontline service which then needed expensive remediation (e.g. the Merchant Navies in their original form, perhaps the P2s?) RichardT

Very true! RT

You’ve beaten me to it, so the only thing I can add is that Gill’s serif WHS lettering is indirectly responsible for Gill Sans. Frank Pick required from Edward Johnston a letterform for UERL/LER signage that would be clearly distinguishable from the commercial lettering already common on Underground, of which that on WHS bookstalls was the most prominent, so that passengers would automatically recognise it as directional signage not an advertisement. The result was Johnston’s sans-serif Railway Alphabet, which was an immediate success. Johnston’s letterform (not a “font”) was trade-marked by the UERL for their exclusive use. Spotting a gap in the market Monotype commissioned Eric Gill to “design” as close a copy of Johnston Sans as he could get away with which they could sell to other users - the LNER being an early adopter. Gill admitted the copying in a letter to Johnston (his former teacher) and amazingly got away with it - Johnston was rather unworldly when it came to money matters, but I’m surprised that Pick and Ashfield didn’t “have a word” with Monotype. Then again, they soon after used Gill for some of the sculptures on 55 Broadway. Spotters note: the big giveaway between Johnston & Gill Sans is the capital letters R. Johnston’s is not very elegant: looks like P held up with a pit-prop. Gill’s has a more elegant curved prop. And getting back on-topic, I remember the WHS bookstall in front of the old signalbox at York (before they moved the shop into the bottom of the signalbox) being brown varnished wood. Can’t remember the lettering colour but I’ve always assumed white/cream or gold. But I was only eleven and that’s now a while ago. RichardT

I presume that Hive saw that Crecy had updated their expected date to Autumn 2024 and decided to update their page to the first month of autumn. It's astonishing that an author can get themselves into such a tangle, especially after publishing the first volume OK. Obviously we don't know the ins and outs but I'm betting it's paralysis by analysis. Especially if it's now only being worked on by a lone author who is perhaps over-sensitive to criticism. (I have written a book as a lone author: I know the issues and the tendency to self-sabotage if you don't take disinterested advice.) Richard

But, as my maternal granddad worked at York Carriageworks from 1915 to 1966 I’d also be there under the family rule, so if I bumped into you would the resultant RMWeb paradox loop result in our returning to the present to discover that TT-120 narrow gauge was the only legal modelling scale allowed by our Guinea pig overlords? Yours in timely-wimey confusion Richard

Not sure that’s an exact parallel. For me 3D printing is still at the CBA phase: it’s moved beyond the pioneering daguerreotype stage to being well established for professionals and accessible to informed amateurs. But it’s still too much like amateur photography was when that required you to make your own glass plate negs and then have a home darkroom to develop and print them. Or home PCs when you had to learn DOS commands. When 3D printing develops to the point and shoot stage - I can buy an ordinary-consumer-friendly domestic unit and consumables on the high street (real or virtual), and instead of designing things myself purchase downloadable files for models that have been tested and work (and where the designer/creator gets a return for their effort), and then just hit “print” - then we’ll see what effect it has on the hobby. That said, I don’t think that stage is too far away. The Shapeways model for obtaining 3D prints already has a smell of MySpace or Friends Reunited about it. (What I personally would like to see are more properly designed 3d printed *kits* instead of whole body shells. Far too many of the railway model vehicles on Shapeways seem to be simply miniatures of whole vehicles, with no thought given to robustness (e.g. buffers and boiler fittings printed as part of the body shells instead of being left for the builder to fit in a more suitable material) and especially as to how they could be motorised (no thought given to adapting the print to take a commercial chassis, or printing a chassis with provision for an actually existing motor and gears). RichardT

That’s the nub. This system is optimised for buying tickets on the go using the LNER app. I live in Darlington and travel regularly to York, Durham and Newcastle for leisure/volunteering purposes (I’m retired) two or three times a week. I have a choice of LNER, TPE and XC for most of these off-peak journeys. I usually buy the ticket for these journeys as an e-ticket on my phone as I’m walking up to the station. The LNER app shows you the next trains (all TOCs, not just LNER) and the ticket prices available on them, including the cheapest Advance singles (again, from all TOCs not just LNER) and I pick the one that suits me best. The app shows live train running times, so I can avoid buying an Advance and then discovering that specific train is now 30 mins late. (This currently applies most to TPE services! They offer noticeably cheaper on-the-day advance singles but are not as reliable. XC tickets are always the most expensive.) If the ticket is for an LNER train (not just advances, any ticket) you get 2% “Perks” credit to your account, redeemable against any future LNER Advance tickets bought through the app. I also buy nearly all my tickets for longer distance/further in advance journeys through the LNER app, regardless of the TOC I’m using, having checked a ticket split app first (longer XC journeys are nearly always significantly cheaper using split tickets.). For some cross-London journeys the LNER app will generate a paper ticket for collection rather than an e-ticket (so you have something to operate the Tube gates). If I’m not sure what train I want to come back on I either repeat the “buy on the way to the station” process when I’m coming back, or just buy an Anytime off peak single for the return journey. It looks like that type of ticket will be threatened by the new system. However, I’ve just bought tickets for a visit to friends in London in March: outward Advance single, but return using an Off-peak single because there are engineering works that day and I want some flexibility. And I was able to get both via the app. So it looks like the change at the moment is restricted only to the routes where there’s direct competition with LUMO (KX-NCL or EDB) RichardT

I’ll wait and see how this pans out in practice for Darlington, but one thing that irritates me is the continued use of the weasel phrase “simplifying fares” by LNER in the article. They’re not “simplifying fares” - they’re reducing (simplifying?) the number of *ticket types* to three. There’s still a multiplicity of fares charged such that you don’t know what your journey will cost until the moment you book it (unless buying the Anytime ticket). RichardT

Sometimes, that’s all you can do. I’ve decided to regard this as some kind of not-very-good lottery. CBA cancelling the order now: just wait and see… Richard

Must….not…get…drawn…into…this…thread…will…never…escape… RichardT (Oh, alright then. Watching Raven Pacifics at York in the 1920s followed by a local train to Alne to catch the Easingwold Railway)

Hole, digging, stop.