locoholic

Couple of shots of rail blue 31s:

31196 & 31272 northbound through the site of Moseley station in the southern suburbs of Birmingham on 9th June 1984.

Don't know much about this one, other than the location is Romford.

My local shop was advised by their Hornby rep yesterday, that the D16s are not now expected until July. These, the Drummond 700 and Crosti have all now gone back to June/July

Thank goodness! My credit card will be very relieved.

Well, people on this thread are apparently entitled to say that model manufacturers are "entitled to do what they want", and it has "no bearing upon whether it is a good model", and put "NO" in capital letters against quotes from other people's posts, and defend spoiler tactics on Facebook that would be more appropriate to the General Election campaign, but not anything that "bashes" Hornby or questions the "good model at any cost" mentality.

Bachmann don't mess around prior to Hornby's announcements, and I think that reflects well on Bachmann.

Where is the "Disagree" button when you need it most?!

I get the impression that some of the people commenting on this thread would happily buy an Air-Smoothed MN even if it was made by child slave labour in North Korea, so long as it was an accurate model.

Does it matter?

To me, yes it does. Just like when Heljan messed around with Rail Exclusives and the re-tooled Class 33s.

After the J15 was so good, I was just thinking that Hornby had stopped playing silly B#66ers and were concentrating on making good models, and now they're playing childish games on Facebook.

Why quibble when you get something you've dreamed about for years.So,one from 21C1 to 9 and the other 35011 to 35030?

Why quibble? Hornby have had the basic chassis for years but ignored the opportunity. Bachmann (Farish) did the MN a couple of years ago and still Hornby didn't make their move. Now there's the potential for yet another duplication, which uses up development capital which could have been used for another loco. Even if Hornby & Bachmann did different versions, that's still two chassis tooling when one would have done, in a trading market where we are told that even a 3-car DMU is too expensive to produce at a profit.

It's only a couple of months since Hornby's annual announcements. If this is an original MN, and Bachmann also announce one next week, I'm afraid I will buy the one in the blue box, just because Hornby could have so easily done this years ago, or even just announced it last December. Sometimes the decisions Hornby make are completely baffling.

The GWR and BR black versions are showing as "In Stock" on the Bachmann website today.

I wonder if there will be a slight delay between the BR black ones and the GNR & LNER ones? Often seems that a new model appears in the least popular livery first, to tempt those people who "must" get the new model.

A while ago I thought I saw that the Gwili Railway was hoping to open their southwards extension to Abergwili Junction in time for the 50th Anniversary of the closure of the line to passengers, which falls on 20th Feb 2015. However, their website currently makes no mention of this in the description of the celebration event.

Does anyone know the current state of affairs, please?

Bought one each of the two BR J15s from Hereford Models today. To my eyes it looks right, and it runs very smoothly. Notwithstanding the reservations expressed above, I think Hornby have done an excellent job with the J15, and hope they make a healthy profit from it.

However, my credit card is hoping that the Bachmann 64xx doesn't appear too soon.

The J15 looks lovely and runs really, really well. Definitely a contender for inclusion in Hornby's Best Ever Models.

And what are these centres, apart from Cheltenham and Gloucester? How much traffic might they generate? Bear in mind that each stop adds an additional four or five minutes to journey times; too many such stops, and the rail journey become uncompetitive in time terms with express coaches or cars. There might be a case for a semi-fast service from Bristol to Birmingham; I'm not sure if such a thing exists already.

The service on the route his improved considerably since I used it on a weekly basis back in the 1970s; then, it was one train an hour from Birmingham to Bristol.

There needs to be an "M5" train service that stops at all the major places between Bristol and Birmingham. The current service is very poor. There is a clear need for extra stations in south Gloucester and around Charfield. How typical of the privatised railway that XC won't stop their trains at intermediate stations in case they get too many passengers.

The old Leigh-on-Sea station was turned into the Yacht Club, I seem to recall.

If anyone else wants to report this to eBay, search on eBay for Model Rail USA and put it in your Watch List. (the item number is 381139886569).

Then, in the Help & Contact section, do a search on Report a Listing Violation.

It's not a straightforward process. I get the impression it's not designed to encourage use.

I've just reported it to eBay under their policy for fake items. I doubt if anything will happen, though.

oh if only there was some sort of cross country line between oxford and bletchley!

 

Or even a line for the few miles from Fenny Compton to Stratford-on-Avon...

Does anyone know if Dapol are planning any further OO gauge Class 22s? A green one with headcode boxes but no yellow panel would be nice, and perhaps a blue one painted the same colour as their blue Westerns.

 

It doesn't have to be pretty, it needs to work! As for Victorian aesthetics, there's been much complaining about the ghastly viaducts, tunnels and above all, the speeding trains that ruined the English landscape in contemporary newspapers!

I guess the Victorians were lucky, as they had no choice but to use stone or brick for many structures, materials that weather well, and curved arches are always going to be more attractive than a straight beam. But in 100 years time, that grey concrete bridge will still be ugly, and it is possible to make attractive structures with modern materials - it just takes a bit of imagination.

Despite over a hundred pages on the environmental statement for just one section of the line, the actual upshot is that some bridges are being rebuilt looking like this.

 DSCN7463.JPG

 

If that's not an environmental eyesore, I don't know what is.

What a legacy for future generations.....

It's not just bridges, either. Modern stations are almost always really ugly places, which is a shame, given all the new and exciting materials that architects and engineers now have at their disposal. The Victorians certainly knew more about aesthetics than us, or placed a higher value on them.

At least you saw some trains when you visited the Woodhead line. I booked a few nights at Crowden Youth Hostel, for a cycling and photographic trip, only to find that there were no trains due to a strike. The only Class 76 I ever saw moving was a light engine at Tinsley, just before I went home.

Still no sign of the Brake 3rd, then (39-460)?

I hope that Bachmann will announce maroon versions this year.

Link to article below:

http://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/bygones/1753124.tunnel_drama_as_people_flee_blazing_train/

Sounds pretty horrific - lucky there wasn't a train coming the other way, or was it single track by then?

The kind folk at my local model shop allowed me to look at 8 examples of R3243A today, so that I could pick one that had a roughly straight running plate (in exchange for my R3243 that looked like the running plate was made of rubber). Two out of the eight were OK. Maybe I'm unlucky, or too picky, as they said that no-one else had returned one of the first batch, although from the photos posted on here, my first K1 was one of the bendiest.

I'm glad I'm not a retailer - is a model with a curvy running plate faulty enough to be returned to Hornby, or do you send it to a mail order customer and hope that the buyer is so relieved to actually get hold of the model that they'll fix the fault themselves? And will any that do get returned to Hornby simply get sold on their own website complete with the bendy running plate?

So, thank you to Hornby for making the model - a good one is a great model, but they seem to have once again snatched defeat from the jaws of victory as far as their quality control is concerned.