njee20

A great fact, but completely untrue apparently. Sharks don't get cancer.

Is anyone saying that? The issue isn't so much with variance between peak/off-peak (although the difference is often colossal), rather the consistent increases against a backdrop of apparent degradation in quality of service.

Far too many variants on the parts required, N Brass portals are good, well priced, and don't require huge amounts of time/skill to assemble. You then get into whether you have wires, which mean everything else needs to be overbuilt to deal with the added stresses. I do wonder about 3D printing registration arms, but suspect they'd be too brittle. But we digress...

Depends what you define as "near enough", IMO not really. Dapol masts and N-Brass portals are your best low (but not 0) effort option I'd say.

The short circuit protection is certainly very ‘keen’ on the Smart Control. I had mine trip yesterday for no apparent reason, and wouldn’t restart. I ended up leaving it, on powering up today it was still like it, I plugged my old ZTC in as that emits a loud buzz in the region of the short (presumably due to greater output?) for a couple of seconds, which makes fault finding easier. It didn’t find one, I plugged the Smart Control back in and all was well. Bit weird. It seems to only need the tiniest provocation to trip, perhaps you have some peculiar momentary short somewhere which doesn’t affect the eLink? Seems unlikely... I like the controller I must say. Having some issues with the conversion of my points to DCC which is hampering further exploration of what it’ll do! FWIW I bought from Germany for £391 delivered, I sold the sound fitted loco for £130, so I’m already below the cost of the controller itself before the coaches and track have gone.

I’d be stunned if that was the motivation for more than 10 people frankly, it’s hardly common. Makes for a good story though.

Season tickets just dont represent good value for money. I’ve commuted into London for 7 years and never bought one, by the time you factor in annual leave, days off, working from home, the inflexibility means it doesn’t stack up for me. A ‘carnet’ type ticket would be fantastic, I’d definitely support that. I know Southern tested it, but it didn’t work out.

Report it to eBay, it’s not as advertised. Get refund. Done.

A year on I’m hopeful he’s sorted.

I agree, but I said no “real” nutritional value, ie it contributes nothing to that balanced diet, sweets, for example. We don’t need them. We derive nothing from them of any real use. You also said there are no unhealthy foods, thats totally different to saying a MacDonalds amongst a varied diet will do you no harm. Unhealthy is very subjective though.

I disagree. Plenty of food with no real nutritional value, you could argue the portion is too big because it’s bigger than zero, but that’s tenuous.

At risk of going off tangentially the list of brand names synonymous with products is quite interesting, several I’d never thought about; biro, jet ski, breathalyser, jacuzzi, bubble wrap and onesie all spring to mind.

What proportion of the general population have sufficient muscle bulk that BMI is totally meaningless? 0.001%? The Venn diagram of people using that excuse and people for whom it’s wholly invalid is here: O BMI is of course a guide, rather than fact, but we’re conditioned to think people who are the right weight are ‘too thin’. “Oh, you can see your ribs...” yes, that’s right, that’s how it should be.

Your post epitomises the problem for me. At 6’ 16 stone is obese on a BMI chart. Even at 6’3” you’re still flirting with obese. The vast majority of the population would be extremely overweight at 16 stone, yet we are conditioned to think it’s ‘not that overweight’. If I were being cruel I would observe that with so many participants in our hobby skewing that scale somewhat it’s perhaps unsurprising, people subconsciously develop a yardstick from those around them. There’s more than a personal responsibility to watch what you eat, that is everything. Most here are adults, yes there are lots of companies taunting you with cheap, freely available, unhealthy food, but it’s no one else’s responsibility than your own to eat healthily. It needn’t cost more. Well done for doing something about it though, and for the weight loss, keep it up!

This is a wish list, not pipe dreams

Are we?! That’s never even remotely occurred to me! US crossing behaviour does seem very poor, with crossings only going down seconds before trains come through. I imagine with people reluctant to be stuck for 10+ minutes they’re far more likely to try and ‘beat the train’, although appreciate not a factor here.

The Brett PHAs were still being used to Purley until earlier this year. Presume the ‘other’ wagons referred to above would be HOAs? Revolution are doing a crowdfunded model if you want some of those OP. These days you’ve also got Yeoman JHAs delivering, no idea how long that flow’s been going though. I’m also struggling to think of an appropriate JHA model. Worsley Works do one, bit it’s the Hanson/ARC LTF variant.

HHAs are much newer, and were designed for coal. JGAs were mid-80s IIRC, so would potentially be appropriate. Indeed the services still using Purley today comprise mainly ex-RMC JGAs and grey PGAs. The latter are available from Farish more cheaply than JGAs. The N gauge society do a JGA kit, which is a different style of wagon to the Farish RTR offering.

Why did they get rid of the “disagree” button?!

Ive been selling a batch of stuff over the last couple of months, and I’ve noticed that traffic’s fallen off a cliff, no offers, no one buying. Imagine it’ll pick up again in the new year.

The flip side being people can be hungry and keen to get to their food! We did the same, FWIW, but were conscious not too take too long! You can make an entire speech of wholly impersonal cliches of course, between this thread and Google that’s easy!

Downsized 90, MPV and IPA car carriers. Done.

I would definitely suggest cue cards rather than word for word print outs. If you read it out you’ll naturally adopt a much more monotone voice, better to have a few prompts and fill in the gaps yourself (having practised of course). You’ll be fine.

Like many I’m a bit of both. My layout has a notional location, so stock is chosen to suit. I’m a bit liberal with some of the flows, particularly freight, where there’s more coal than on the southern WCML, my grey 86 pair had been phased out by the time DB Schenker came in, but it’s all close, +/- 5 years or so, and there’s no east coast or SWT stuff or whatever.

A couple of anecdotes about your daughter, say how lovely she looks, say how well suited they are (even if you don’t like him) and hand over to the next speaker (traditionally the groom IIRC). Don’t force a funny speech if you’re not naturally funny. Don’t aim for an arbitrary length because Google says it should be 6 minutes or whatever. You have a room full of happy people willing you to succeed. It’s the easiest bit of speaking ever. Relax, don’t get drunk, don’t over think it and enjoy it. And congratulations!