RichardT

I will look that up. Always happy to be convinced! Richard

Well…that rather depends if you want to model narrow-gauge railways! I find real-life narrow gauge railways fascinating, but narrow gauge model railways (UK prototypes) all leave me completely cold. (Apart from the Craig & Mertonford.). RT

I think that “reputedly” and “apparently” are doing a lot of heavy lifting in the OP… Richard

Chicken, egg; cart, horse. Market share isn’t a static constant - it fluctuates with supply. Richard

Perhaps if they voted with their votes they might make a difference. RT

https://www.a1steam.com/prince-of-wales/news/prince-of-wales-details/david-elliott-engineer-and-innovator Chapeau sir, chapeau. Richard

Alternatively we could put the tin foil hats away and instead surmise that, as Riley’s maintain & operate contract is now in its end stages, a re-tender will be necessary - in the public sector procurement rules mean there’ll be no question of an automatic renewal/extension for a contract of this value. As economic conditions have drastically changed since the original ten year contract was agreed there’s almost certainly some hard re-thinking/negotiating happening on all sides which will take some time and which will be being conducted in (commercial) confidence. But as many people are aware of the imminent contract expiry the SMG has felt compelled to issue a non-committal “holding pattern” press release factually outlining the current position and immediate future plans in order to address what would otherwise be uncontrolled enthusiast frothing about the future of FS. Such a release has to be worded in such a way as not to make commitments that might affect contract negotiations, so it inevitably has to be bland. RichardT

And in N! (OK, I know that the coaches are a bigger stretch than even the loco, but there’s only so much you can do by hacking about the Langley N clerestory kit😄) Richard

Thanks - title corrected. The issues arrive so early: I assumed that the as-yet unread one with the snow scene on the cover is December’s! R

I’m a little behind with my hobby reading. Having just got round to November’s December’s Railway Modeller, can I recommend the above two-page article (pp.888-889) to all modellers, whatever scale or era you prefer? As the title suggests it describes a simple quick layout that the author has put together for his father-in-law, now beset by Alzheimer’s disease. Far from being depressing, the piece is a joy to read, even if you have had to endure the loss of parents to this awful condition. The care and thought that the author put into his mission to create a simple model that his father in law can operate unaided, despite his condition, is just life-affirming. A lovely read for this season of goodwill, although I now appear to have something in my eye. Richard

Very nice… At the risk of being “that person”… could we also have single-company triple packs of the pre-grouping GPVs, with different running numbers?* And you could also issue the Guy Fawkes livery with “York” as well as “Westminster” for extra NRM-linked sales! (His home town, where he is well-known, for those who didn’t know.) RichardT *With these and the Sonic Vanwide triple packs I can see us needing an “RMWeb Swap Shop” sub-forum. 😁

The usual assumption hereabouts that “Bachman RTR” = “00 Bachman RTR”. My wish list is simple - that Bachman would produce all of their 00 range in N - as was the strongly-implied intention when they took over Farish. (And then perhaps they could shrink all of Hornby’s range as well, given that Hornby have decided to pretend that N doesn’t exist.) Richard

York. Just south of Holgate bridge. Richard

Hmmm. So “all” Rails have to do is break up the pre-packed triple packs, find new small boxes to put the loose vans in, then send them out individually? With all that extra labour (by far the most expensive part of any process nowadays) I suspect you’ll end up paying as much for a single van as for a triple. I’d suggest just swapping vans with fellow modellers through an advert on here, in the NGS newsletter, on the Ngauge Forum or at your local club if you have one. Or repaint the liveries you don’t want. Richard

This doesn’t directly affect the matter at hand, but Hattons have recently expanded into the North American secondhand market in a big way and then have bought MB Klein (aka “ModelTrainStuff”) one of the big US online dealers - and one of my preferred pushers for my overseas US N purchases. I suspect Hattons’ overseas trade has thus grown a lot in the past tax year. I wonder if they have had an audit or inspection relating to their increased import/export business and adherence to rules has had to be tightened… Richard PS As a proud Yorkist I wish to register my displeasure at the repeated use of “Richard III” as a euphemism!

AFAIK this has turned out to be simply another in the long list of promises without action peddled by this lame duck government over the past 13 years. Weardale Railway near here had a bid in - absolute silence so far and likely to be nothing more as the local “red wall” Tory MP who backed it, having being appointed party chair, is now on the chicken run looking for a safer seat before the next general election. Richard

Second thoughts - is this just an Australian issue? Is the sales tax law only just coming into effect there? EDIT - see below! RT

Yes, as you say, goods purchased by an overseas buyer below a certain value will be dispatched with your country’s sales tax added (and the domestic sales tax - VAT in the UK) deducted; goods over the value threshold will be dispatched sales tax free but you pay your country’s sales tax when they arrive (plus, probably, a tax payment handling charge - aka “a money for old rope” charge) to the carrier. This is, IIRC, an international reciprocal taxation agreement as all governments don’t want to miss out on a revenue stream. (It’s nothing to do with Brexit, as some have thought, just a coincidence of timing. (And I’m saying that as someone who’s always happy to blame bad news on Brexit and the idiots who voted for it sorry, fingers slipped there.)) But it appears from your post, and online comments I’ve seen elsewhere about sellers in Japan, that some sellers may only just be catching up to this in full? Or the tax authorities are cracking down having allowed a transition period? Hatton’s letter to you is inevitably generic as they’re trying to cover all countries, all order values and all taxation thresholds. You’ve written back with a specific query which they might be able to answer now they know your specific details. But it isn’t Hatton’s policy - it’s the taxation authorities’ which they have to implement under the law - so perhaps it might be worth asking the tax authorities instead? But with them I’d probably avoid phrases such as “polishing a turd”… 😁 Richard

I wouldn’t like to meet some of those blokes off the workmens’ train in a rough pub… Richard

I’ve done that before…. 🤭

Lots of useful info upthread. Given that I assume you’re looking at modelling a “what-if” situation, why not just pick the lettering you find most agreeable? You’ve got plenty of photographic evidence to confound anyone who tries to nit-pick! And anyone who attempts to pronounce with certainty about what happened to an individual loco at the height of the Second World War is on a hiding to nothing. RichardT

Thanks for relaying the news. I’m increasingly feeling that the author(s?) may have taken some of the criticisms of the first volume far too much to heart and are now attempting the impossible task of not submitting a MS until they’ve 100% criticism-proofed it. Which they’ll never achieve - so we get paralysis by analysis. Just publish what you’ve got. Publish it online if you’re worried about being able to make corrections. In the meantime, I’m off to Hive.Co.Uk to cancel my order & get a refund. I’ll buy the latest Tatlow book on LNER goods traffic working instead. Richard

Thanks! (Topic title edit) RT

Hi LMRT If you get a moment can you edit the topic title so that Longmoor is spelt correctly? It helps people carrying out searches of the forum in the future. Cheers RT

Thanks Simon - will contact you directly. Much appreciated, Richard