number6

Ah... lockdown. I remember it well. Had dozens of containers to do. Roxey shackles and some random chain - I blackened it all then threaded the chain and pinned it to the chassis and container - then fixed in place with superglue. Looks okay from normal distance.

What a splendid contribution to this hobby he made. The Crownline range was my introduction to improving my RTR locos as a teenager and his full loco kits, although out of my league until I was much older, are now treasured in my roster. I have a couple of TW built ones bought from ebay many years ago. I have a few models from later RTR efforts which duplicate his Schools and Bulleid Pacifics but I much prefer the weight and finesse and character of the kit builds. I thank him for them all. Thinking of his family and friends.

You make some interesting points [always do] but I can't let this one slip by: I think the jury is well and truly out at the moment as to if competition results in a cheaper deal for consumers!

Indeed and having this lying around nearby doesn't help with finding a neat solution!

Enjoying seeing your 4BUF come together. I have a 4COR on the desk where I keep looking at the roof ends over the cabs where it is quite a complex shape and how to make it work. Those plastic roofs are great for profile but I'm less keen on the texture on them. Best of luck! Very impressed with the cutting and construction. Much more my cup of tea than BSL aluminium shells or Marc Models etched brass - kits of which I have for versions of these units in unmade form. I even have some body shells for a later 4BUF which I think is MTK and absolutely awful! Nice to think back to and be reminded of Colin Park's amazing builds but also back to Jenkinson in the Railway Modeller where he had articles on coaching building in the 80s[?]. Somehow he made it seem something complex seem simple back then.

This is particularly nice...

Nice photo. They were often stabled in the middle road at Brighton. Here is the third one on two different occasions. With one or other of the others behind. I have seen a colour photo of the same pair here with an ED where the adverts in the background are different. Was the stabling point at Brighton built about this time? Not sure it was electrified though...

There are other ways to say that an EV needs to drive 50,000 miles to match the carbon footprint of a petrol car. How about in 100,000 miles it halves the carbon footprint. And from that article "Once electricity is generated from renewable sources, that figure drops to 31,000 miles." Also: The report commissioned by Honda, McLaren, Aston Martin and Bosch. I have driven 44,000 miles in 4 years in an i3 and all the electricity used in it has been renewable so it not so hard to reach these figures. It is not per car anyway its in one's lifetime of vehicle ownership. If you assume you might own a car your whole adult life - say 18 to 72, those 60 years of driving 11,000 a year is quite a mileage to add up: 11k x 60 = 660,000 miles. So 629,000 miles of the 660,000 is running lower than the carbon footprint of an equivalent petrol vehicle which continues to create carbon in a way an EV does not. This is a considerably smaller carbon footprint.

Mind boggles what the patriotic sounds might be as included in one of those fantasy liveries...

Also says: Up to 3 cars available You can see a second in the background of one of the pix.

Has that earlier GWR manager WNXX quote ended up at The Guardian or any other mainstream news outlet yet? It entirely fits the current exposure of lots of snouts in troughs. Is there a direct link to the original article somewhere? @Mike_Walker

You hear this in the tales of the old ways of utilising rolling stock. What were the costs of leaving stock sitting around? How much maintenance did they require? Bit of an oil round, odd vacuum cylinder replacement, some cleaning? With excess or surplus vehicles available using them a few times a year may seem ridiculous but they got people to the football, off on holiday, back from war... If it was freight stock even less maintenance I'd imagine. Of course there is infrastructure like signalling and sidings required which were also in surplus back in the 50s. You are always going to be chasing your tail in terms of fluctuations in flow, industry or season. Beeching was all about applying a different [some would say flawed] accounting method so 'useful' physical assets had to be got rid of. Many people have camper vans, open top cars and motorbikes sat in the drive not doing much all year and its cost is swallowed up as part of the advantage it offers when wanted. The modern railway works on a model of minimum excess and very high utilisation, partly a result of the of the fragmentation of privatisation but also exacerbated by it. I of course love the idea of lashing up stuff from the sidings and setting off on a mission. I pity the people who were tasked with those jobs when things went wrong back in the day. One of my favourite reads is Summer Saturdays in the West by David St.John Thomas and Simon Rocksburgh-Smith - which details the running of summer Saturday trains. Spoiler: Mostly chaos but got there in the end.

Like driving over a big matchbox apparently. Stop to remove large piece of white painted wood from the bufferbeam at Lewes and carry on.

Hastings Diesels outing to Lowestoft delayed by ugly ducklings...

Cows at Hever. Better if it had been Cowden. My uncle hit one between Southease and and Lewes. He said it was messier and not as as fun as taking out the gates at Hamsey with the boat train.

Really like your 4.8.0 - superb. In the original painting I almost thought that it was painted blue - heresy I'm sure but I think a lovely dark cobalt/navy blue as a Southern loco livery with the yellow and green post war lettering would be great. Looked good on the Merchant Navies... The first of these electrics was originally painted a mid blue for a while. So they'd go well together. I'm still building a couple of these locos - 10 years and counting - and I recommend this great book if you've not seen it. So many detail differences on each loco [and between the three of them over the years]. They are absolutely smothered in rivets as well. I have a couple of Michael's pantographs for them in a box but for now they both have a Triang one which looks okay when down.

All I can offer is I was pleased to see you could get EVs on the scheme but they all required contributions - when compared to other vehicles - although the saving in fuel costs could negate some of that. Seemed a bit unfair but maybe someone else could point out why they’d cost more? Is it just the purchase price? Depending on your circumstances have you tried chargers and the ease of using them? is there anything that would disadvantage or inconvenience you in that? Something to consider... do report back on what you choose.

I have that train of Ford vans in my to do pile.

Look forward to hearing anything about working the line. And to get us in the mood here is one of a number of watercolours my Grandfather did of the works - they lived in South Street in Lewes. Deleted a second image - already in the thread!

Ridiculous ranges of trim and options make us feel we are being individual. The second hand market becomes a minefield of those options. I’ve found it really hard to find the trim level I’d like or question why the previous owner did or didn’t want a particular extra. It’s also how manufacturers can help us add thousands to the bill for different wheels, boot liners etc. That Canoo pickup is ‘ugly’ but we all thought that about the Nissan Juke until it became familiar, and everyday, now you don’t give it a second glance. I may be just me but I do like EVs that escape the rules of ICE car layouts - transmission tunnels, long bonnets etc. maybe why that’s what didn’t appeal in the ID3 which is very conventional.

I drive an i3 rex and I do not need a pickup but I really like the cab forward look they have developed here... the vehicle is over-fussy with lots of unnecessary gubbins but its basic shape really appeals to me. It bypasses all the terrible USA EV Pickup nonsense being fought out over there. https://www.canoo.com/pickup

This is all reminding me of a prosecco comment by our great leader from 2016... which pinned down for me how much self harm Brexit would bring. Carlo Calenda, an Italian economics minister, said it was insulting that Johnson had told him during a recent meeting that Italy would grant Britain access to the EU’s single market “because you don’t want to lose prosecco exports”. Calenda reported to Bloomberg: “Johnson basically said: ‘I don’t want free movement of people but I want the single market.' I said: ‘No way.’ He said: ‘You’ll sell less prosecco.’ I said: ‘OK, you’ll sell less fish and chips, but I’ll sell less prosecco to one country and you’ll sell less to 27 countries.’ ” https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/nov/16/european-ministers-boris-johnson-prosecco-claim-brexit

I like a nice diagram.

And headroom for a tin foil helmet.

I had a test drive in the iD3 the other day and that commitment hasn't quite hit the salesroom floor at my local big dealership. It felt very similar to popping into BMW four years ago to buy the i3 - 'I think there is one at the back, go and have a look if you like.' The VW sales guy was quipping about being an eco warrior using the regen braking and asking if 80 miles of battery was enough for two hours test drive. He also said they had to shift loads of them before they end up paying lots of fines for not selling enough. Whose job is that then?! I felt that only when they have really enthusiastic sales teams would the atmosphere around them shift. Like most things, only when there isn't choice will people have to adopt them. So the buyer wanting a diesel Tiguan will only be able to get an EV version. It was a nice car but not for me. But also a reminder that I still feel EVs have a long way to go and aren't being sold hard enough and all the usual hang ups are still there - cost, charging, range, social ostracisation - that I was warned about four years ago when I bought mine much to the amusement of the sales guys at BMW. best