njee20

I’ve got a DVD of the original 2 series which my son loves, I’ve really enjoyed rewatching them, one thing which surprised me is that the track looks quite crude - they look like insulfrog points! The modelling is generally superb though, the CGI ones are dire in comparison!

I paid on a credit card with no additional charge a couple of months ago. As above, corporate cards incurred a charge. You cannot charge a premium for payment by credit or debit card now (or, for example, PayPal). You can charge admin or booking fees, but they must apply to all payment methods. They cannot pass on whatever they pay for card transactions, which will be a proportion of each transaction on credit card transactions. So yes, the trader above was acting illegally.

The newest boards have reduced chatter by removing the sending of positioning pulses and holding the servo in a continuous state 1 second after they move. Seems to work well, I've got two boards with this feature and they're noticeably silent. I don't find the chatter too bad anyway though I must say even on the "old" boards.

Both my 153 and 156 are very erratic, I suspect it's something in the mechanism. Assuming the 121 is the same design (it looks it) have you checked the springs on the bogies that are used for contact? I have seen some get mangled quite easily, which certainly won't help with contact.

You're focusing on the wrong element Ian. The scale selection is a huge red herring - I agree that people will complete the scale relevant for them - completing multiple surveys as necessary, that's not what I'm talking about. You need either 1 master list with 'flags' in the back end to say which scales it applies to, whereby a single poll starts with a user selecting their scale and the 'flagged' items being returned in a list, a user wanting to complete for different scales just does so twice. That requires some technical build, and a monstrous database of items linked to scale, particularly if you do O gauge as I said. It also needlessly couples what are effectively three different polls. Alternatively you have three separate lists, which will obviously have a lot of commonality (at least with N and OO), but won't be the same. This is where we are, and not unreasonably given it's not their area of expertise the OO gauge poll team didn't feel they could do the N gauge one justice. As a OO gauge modeller do you know which models aren't available in N and thus don't feature on the OO gauge list? What about those that we have that aren't on the OO gauge list? That's the work, the format you present to the end user is pretty moot, it's the actual starting point that is the laborious part! Simply giving the OO gauge list and saying "which scale are you answering for?" is pretty useless. Digressing slightly, personally I think that O gauge just isn't really mature enough to justify a full wishlist poll. Who do you define as the manufacturers who already have products? Do you include kits? What about people building bespoke at £500 a wagon/coach - are they RTR in the true spirit of it? Should you restrict the items as the number will be vast versus the smallest number of respondents. I'll leave it there, like I say, it's being looked at.

You've made yourself perfectly clear, but you need that starting point. What if there's already a pannier tank in N and O, but not OO? Is it on the "master" list, but removed if you select N or O? What about the other way around, does selecting N gauge mean you get additional choices? You need to build that master list - given how little exists in RTR O where do you start? 20,000 items, most of which aren't shown if you select N or OO? Or do you say "the OO gauge one is defacto" which doesn't give any opportunity to vote for the many things that exist in OO but not N. So maybe people vote for that Pannier tank they want, but if only they'd had the option of the MPV, which is available only in OO it would have garnered ten times the votes. What you're saying makes total sense, it just won't work!

With a growing number of banks now accepting cheques through mobile banking apps I have no reason whatsoever to ever visit a branch. I'm fine with this. I have a Monzo account, which is entirely online, which is good, but for now keep my primary account with a high street bank for the preferential rates they afford me on my mortgage, personal loan etc. From what I can see that is the primary reason they're not losing vast swathes of customers to the challenger banks like Monzo, Starlink, Revolut etc. Re: the problem the OP is having this is nothing to do with M&S and everything to do with HSBC, M&S will have stipulated service standards in the tender, but it'll be HSBC who aren't living up to them. Not that it makes much difference!

But as Brian's just said, it's not just as simple as expanding the scale, that makes no sense. You have to start with a list, your suggestion that you start with the OO gauge list and just 'expand for other scales' simply doesn't work - particularly if you include O gauge where the number of things that are available is minuscule compared to either N or OO. How do I vote for things I want in N that are already available in OO, are they in the list? How do you stop OO gauge people voting for an item which is already available but they perhaps didn't know. Equally if you start with everything that doesn't exist in one scale or t'other then it's a massive list, literally thousands of items if you choose the lowest common denominator. Brian's poll is excellent, totally agree, but I also fully understand his reasons for not continuing the N gauge one as it's not nearly as trivial as some may think. A small team of us are looking at an N gauge poll however, so watch this space. Edit: cross posted with Brian above.

For me, in that situation I'd stick with the Hornby one all day long, the livery will stand out like a sore thumb.

Rush hour trains on the Arun Valley line are 12 coaches, but Ifield, Littlehaven, Christ’s Hospital, Billingshurst, Pulborough, Amberley, Arundel and Ford are all shorter than that (between 6 and 8) Makes for long announcements every bloody day!

That's what I mean - the Family Guy graffiti surely must be based on a prototype photo, or the guy has a properly warped mind, but it was never that loco (as far as I know), if you're going to do that why not do it to whichever loco actually ended up in that condition. I can't imagine the guy said to someone "can you make this loco look like it's really neglected, y'know, the whole lot; Lois Griffin with her norks out and a sinister looking Quagmire on the cab side..."!

I don't get stuff like that - ignoring, for a moment, the wonky nameplate it's the sort of thing that could represent a loco awaiting scrapping, particularly with the graffiti, which looks reasonably well done. But it's a complete fantasy AFAIK, if there was a photo of the loco in that condition it may be a reasonable rendition, but as is it just looks totally crazy. And has a wonky nameplate.

Well there's the smallest shock this year!

More commonly said "to finish first, first you have to finish"! Whenever Hamilton's sewn up the title he's then backed off, I imagine the last two races will see winners other than him, be good to see Bottas repaid for his compliance all season.

Good race, definitely one of those circuits which would be so much more interesting if there weren't enormous tarmac run offs! Half the drivers would have been a whole world of trouble if there was grass/gravel on the outside of some of the turns! Seems harsh for Ocon and Magnussen. I understand the latter used 100g too much fuel, or 0.1%. Lift and coast on one straight would have avoided that!

I'm sure I've said it already somewhere in the 10 pages but I'll say it again... One of the things I like most about railway modelling is how well stuff retains its value. I have no qualms buying stock when I see it at good prices, even if I'm not entirely sure if I want it, because I know I can change my mind a week, a month or a few years later and it'll either be worth the same, or potentially slightly more. I model N where production runs are small and it's not uncommon for things to be worth huge amounts more in a very short space of time - FGW HSTs, ATW booksets, JPA cement tankers, all rapidly increased in value, but I presume the same is prevalent in other scales. Compare this with cycling (where I've still just about spent more money!), where the rule of thumb is that a bike is worth 50% of its new price, less 10% for each year. With top end bikes this can be even less, as the number of people wanting to spend large sums on second hand bikes is very small. I used to be fortunate enough to be sponsored for bikes, I'd be able to buy them half price at the end of the season, which I did for several years and sold on for a profit. Then bike prices went silly, and it got very hard to recoup your money, even on something 6 months old, in immaculate condition and bought for half new price! You also get far more changes which can destroy the value of everything the precedes it - imagine if you got a whole new tooling on a model every 2-3 years... The ongoing costs with modelling can be tiny too. Assuming you've got a collection you're happy with that's it. Maybe the odd spare here and there, but that's about it. Compare that with consumable parts on bikes which can easily run to hundreds of pounds a year, simply participating has an ongoing cost implication. Brake pads on a mountain bike are up to £25 per wheel, and can easily be destroyed in a single muddy ride.

And to get us mildly back on topic it's worth noting the Megapoints relay driver is £12 for 4 relays, and the associated interface board is £36 for 12 outputs, so £6 per point. Microswitches are not £6 each! Mick's solution above looks perfectly elegant to me, and using the tie bar to actuate the microswitch means no chance of a disconnect between the state of the point and the relay as can happen if you rely on the board telling you the point has moved, rather than direct feedback.

The problem being that by having the servos held fast in the event they 'freak out' as you say you risk damage to the points, more so with handbuilt trackwork. I'd far rather a servo popped out of the aluminium channel and I had to put it back (or even have it destroy itself as they're plug and play and very cheap) rather than do any damage to the track. I find the aluminium channel works acceptably, I keep wondering about trying some of the different mounts, but not sure they solve enough of a problem for me. Not least as I trimmed one mounting tab on all my servos so they'd sit flush in the aluminium channel which means they'd only have half the mounting points if I put them in a "conventional" mount.

Yes I've never worried too much about duplicating numbers. EWS locos is about my limit as they're so prominent, but everything else I don't really care!

"Getting some stock out to see how it looked" was fatal in my case, I've barely progressed in the 3 years since!

Yep, take your point, and didn't mean to imply anything to the contrary - the reason I follow this with such interest is, in part, because I want to see how it develops because of things it may lead on to - likewise I'm watching the King for the same reason. Ultimately we all have a vested interest in the success of each manufacturer as a participant in such a niche hobby. I was more meaning that you have two clear conflicted camps (among others): - have invested, give little stock to people who haven't - haven't invested, voice concerns which are dismissed by the above The vested interest in the former is stronger insofar as they really have 'skin in the game' and the specific failure of this project would directly impact them. The latter won't change the minds of the former, who have reconciled any risk in their minds, and the former won't change the minds of the latter because of the value placed in having contributed funds. Or something. It would be good to get an answer to the questions more recently posed though, but as I say it seems Dave has perhaps absented himself from RMWeb, so an email may be called for! Nick (because it's less of a mouthful than njee20) :-)

The problem as I see it, without wanting to go over this well-trodden ground is that some people have misgivings about the project and thus haven't stumped up the cash. Those without the misgivings have stumped up the cash. Now, the problem occurs that that group are saying "you've not paid, so shut up and stop being a keyboard warrior", but they have a vested interest. If people didn't have the misgivings then a number would have likely bought a model. This makes the misgivings extremely relevant, and doesn't make them keyboard warriors whatsoever. They'd be pretty daft to say "I've paid, FYI I think there are these problems...". Obviously the people who have paid have accepted any potential risks in their mind, so you just end up with a pointless conflict which you're never going to resolve. Neither opinion is any more or less valid, and it's actually no more helpful that a handful who have 'invested' write off any one who hasn't as a "keyboard warrior" than the actual questioning of what's going on. The project isn't going to fail because people talk about it online. It may fail because people are put off from investing based on things they read, but I've not seen anything that's particularly unfair, so given the sums involved I see no issue with people raising these concerns. Where it's a little dull is that the same stuff does come up time and again. I see Dave hasn't used RMWeb for a couple of weeks, and with updates coming from email I wonder if he's got tired of facing into the same questions time and time again. Which is a shame, but understandable. As I've said, I continue to watch with interest, I've not invested in the N gauge one for a few reasons, I remain tempted, but not sufficiently so at the moment! If that makes me a keyboard warrior then so be it!

Gutted the AC-12 isn’t in working order, it’s stunning, and bloody massive!

I'm sure I remember something about retailers being involved, but damned if I can find it now!

But GWR have never operated them, and if you want one in a ficticious livery why not just pretend they operate without OHLE anyway...?