Andy Hayter

A tank like that would need to be bunded. Essentially a low wall around it so that in the event of a leak, the contents would not just flow everywhere. Otherwise, I love that as a screen for the exit.

Difficult to say regarding France. It is a smaller market with fewer model shops. My nearest model shop is now around 150km away in Lyon following closure of a nearer shop a couple of years ago. I mostly buy online as a consequence. Many shows were every 2 years or even 3 years rather than annual - even some of the big ones and that before any perception of a downturn. We have lost our local big show - Montelirail - for very similar reasons to Warley pulling out of their show. One of the three major model railway publishers (RMF) has moved from monthly to bimonthly publication. Is that lack of readers, lack of advertisers and/or lack of material to publish? I do not know. Yet against that negativity, and like the UK, we have in the last few years had a raft of new model producers appear; and like the UK, some seem to be doing very well indeed. While I do not have access to turnover figures, I would guess the REE are now up with or even ahead of the traditional Hornby Jouef. My feeling is that kit manufacturers are doing better than the UK and AMF87 took over the DJH Model Loco range of French models. One big difference is perhaps the cost of models is significantly higher here than in the UK. They may be a bit more complicated to make with lots of outdoor plumbing on show but a good quality Pacific in H0 will cost around €400 - £340 and little if any discounting in the shops. Edit to add to the last sentence: but the squeals from some parts of the modelling community about those prices is just as in the UK.

I don't want to give anyone a lesson in the English language - and especially not Warners - but there is a difference between: "Festival of British Railway Modelling" and "Festival of Modelling British Railways"

Today we have lost another - Henri. Like Shaun, he just arrived and decided, with free food and warmth, this was a good place to stay. His estimated age is 17, so he had a good innings. In the last few years he developed a cataract that eventually left one eye opaque and the vet suggested the other eye was beginning to follow suit. (That leaves us now with just one with sight problems.) He had stopped eating and a visit to the vet earlier in the week helped improve his condition but he continued to decline food. Yesterday we took a short walk together down to the reed beds. A steep) climb back so I carried him home. Today he could not even stand. A quick visit to the vet confirmed what we feared and he was helped out of his suffering. That is 2 in 2 months. With so many cats it should not be a surprise and statistically we should lose at least one cat per year. It has been 3 years since the last one departed so we were on borrowed time.

It seems to me that while the population want even need an improved health and social care service, this is not compatible with promises to cut taxes (of whatever form). At some stage we will have to get a smidgen of honesty from our politicians. If you want x, then you will have to pay for it through increased taxes. Not a vote winner though. Especially when they are currently paying for services on the never-never and not being up front about that..

Or in handbags - as seems to be the way with female Parisians of a certain age.

My experience of PD has been excellent, except as you have found communication. Order accepted, then nada until a parcel arrives coupled with an email to say you can now claim x off your next order.

It is an assumption but why would you keep the company running apart from sentimental reasons? You would still have to provide annual, audited accounts to companies house. So you need a registered office at a cost You need an auditor at least even if you do the accounts yourself. I bet they will still charge a good sum even if the income side is zero.

It is easy. The company has not been wound up - yet. There is no indication of financial limitations so Hattons have taken the very proper decision to close the business in as orderly fashion as they can sensibly do. So (I assume) they are not buying new stock. They are selling off existing stock. Commissions that are advanced (and where they have probably already paid out most of the costs) are going ahead - indeed may already have been in the production cycle when the closure decision was announced. Other commissions not as far down the track to production are not being continued - with I know disappointment for many. Once the live commissions have been received and sent out to customers then we can expect the formal announcement of the company being wound up - probably a one liner from companys' house.

Rather confusingly I got two notifications. The first said: We’re contacting you today as you have outstanding pre-orders with us that we will no longer be able to fulfill due to our forthcoming closure. Your pre-orders are currently still in place on our system but we intend to start removing these in the coming days. Our friends at Rails of Sheffield are on-hand to accept pre-orders for any items that we will no longer be able to supply to you. You can also find local or alternative stockists on most manufacturer websites: Hornby - https://uk.Hornby.com/ Heljan - https://www.Heljan.co.uk/ Dapol - https://www.Dapol.co.uk/ Gaugemaster - https://www.gaugemasterretail.com/ Rapido - https://rapidotrains.co.uk/ Accurascale - https://www.accurascale.com/ Peco - https://peco-uk.com/ Oxford Diecast - https://www.oxforddiecast.co.uk/ Metcalfe - https://www.metcalfemodels.com/ Revolution Trains - https://revolutiontrains.com/ Any pre-orders for forthcoming Hattons Originals projects will remain in place so they can be fulfilled once the items are delivered. my highlight The second: It is with immense sadness that we share news of the upcoming closure of Hattons Model Railways, an institution in the hobby since 1946. Over the decades, we've been privileged to serve enthusiasts and share our passion for model railways with hundreds of thousands of customers. You may have several questions about how this has come about and how this affects you directly in regards to pre-orders, the trunk, pre-owned and more. We've put together a small FAQ which we hope answers most of these questions. View our Full Update & FAQs →  

@Gridiron I like your analysis on shipping SE Asia to Europe and the ability of the shipping lines to take up slack. How do you see container availability in your analysis? By my reckoning something like 20-25% additional containers are going to be needed going the long way round on this route. Maybe other routes can make up some of the shortfall but not all. I have been out of the business ten years now but after the 2009 banking crisis, the shipping lines resorted to slow steaming, which had the same impact as going via the Cape - an extra 10 to 14 days on the water. The result was a year or more of struggling to get container availability plus augmented demurrage and detention charges.

A rather unproductive day yesterday, with the annual dinner for the comité des fêtes (committee for festivals). A pleasant meal in good company that lasted 4 hours and even then I left early because the waiter kept coming in and announcing the rugby score - Italy 3 - England 0; then Italy 10 - England still 0. Rewarded this morning by one of those days where we were in bright sunshine but the valley below was shrouded in cloud.

I have done a search on the Activate (tm) coating, which they say is an aluminium/zinc/magnesium blend (alloy?). As such it would be a sacrificial coating - eroding/ corroding in favour of protecting the steel but they also say that the coating has a degree of self protection. I guess generating a protective oxide coating to prevent further degradation. This seems to be a higher tech version of simple zinc galvanisation.

@Gridiron I am not sure that different labelling and regulations would apply within the EU. The "CE" mark should cover the entire EU. Other countries would however have different requirements. I was not however aware that they had registered in 6 EU countries. I thought it was just Ireland. As I have previously posted registering a business in the EU was estimated at roughly €25,000 per country per year. So 6 countries would mean around €150,000 per year - and those costs were based on 2010 prices, so have risen since. That is one hell of a fixed cost to carry.

Ut's not just Bachmann either. Many years ago I bought the Jouef apartment block kit in H0. N scale figures would not be able to get through the doors! As well as materials costs for resin castings, you have to consider the shipping costs - much of which is the fresh air inside the casting. Double the size of the model and the shipping cost goes up by a factor of 8.

I think the change in view is based on modern bio-chemistry. If you search on lactose intolerance in mammals you will get a lot of information - provided you can understand all of the -oses (sugars) and -ases ( enzymes to break down the -oses so the mammalian body can use it). As to giving a kitten milk from early on - and you need to start pre-weaning - maybe it will work and maybe not. There are plenty of humans raised on milk who have been found to be lactose intolerant. Lactose tolerance in Humans looks to be very first world centric as well, suggesting the suppression of intolerance is a relatively new event. One of our cats that we got as a kitten had been rescued and fed for several weeks on goats cheese* before we got him. He still eats indeed demands cheese of all types with no ill effects. Not so with others we have rescued. When I was an ankle biter, if you had hedgehogs in the garden you put a saucer of milk and bread out for them. Absolute no-no today. * There is a belief that goats cheese is good for the lactose intolerant but it contains about 80% of the lactose of cows milk cheese so is far from lactose free.

Moyse locotracteurs have coupling both ends. If REE have shown just one it's to minimise the impact of the rather ugly European coupling. A second can certainly be fitted:

Well if we are going to play the big boy version of my dad is bigger than yours and using voting rights as the basis for physical geography, I will raise your Norfolk Island with Madeira and the Azores (Portuguese autonomous states), French Guyana, Guadalupe, Mayotte, Martinique and Reunion (French departements overseas -DOM). Not only with voting rights within Europe but also appear on the map of the EU as printed on bank notes. 😁

Well it would hold well if London was anywhere close to the westernmost point in Europe. As it is from London you can go much of the width of England westwards, then the Irish sea, then Ireland and the most western part of Ireland is about as far west as Madrid - half way across Spain. So add in half of Spain and then add a bit of Portugal. It is at least half as much again on your 1700km.

Generally not a good idea to give a cat cheese or any dairy product. They are generally lactose intolerant* and while they may well wolf down such products the results can be violent vomiting or ejection from the other end. Both lead to potential dehydration. * As are most mammals excepting humans. It is suggested that the intolerance develops during weaning but because humans tend to wean off the breast and onto bottled milk, the intolerance cannot/does not develop.

This one possibly is due to an internal blast of the vapour in an empty tank maybe pierced with an incendiary or tracer munition. Empty tanks can be very much more dangerous than full ones for the reasons you say.

Indeed and to put it into context, I was a bit gobsmacked when I found out which city was the geographic centre of Europe - defined as on the mid point of the furthest north and south intersecting with the mid point of the furthest east and west. That city was Lvov - today Lviv - in the Ukraine just off the east of the map round about the Polish SE border.

I think vets are well versed at reading the owners alongside the condition of the animal. Afterall it is we who speak the vets language and they then have to interpret the pets' symptoms.

Regarding the French H0 kits, these have been in the hands of AMF87* for quite some time and AFAIK, they have been producing new kits from the moulds since 2018** with new chassis. *AMF87.fr ** https://www.amf87.fr/prestashop/93-kits-model-loco-france "Kits Model Loco France A partir d'octobre 2018, AMF87 reprend les outillages des kits de locomotives Françaises en HO de la célèbre marque Anglaise rebaptisée pour l'occasion Model Loco France, ces modèles reprennent intégralement les kits Model Loco initiaux améliorés à la sauce AMF87 avec notamment de nouveaux châssis avec motorisation moderne par moteur RSF, train de roues AMF, embiellages à visser... Ces kits vont ressortir progressivement, à terme, les 26 références seront remises en production et de nouvelles déclinaisons des modèles existants seront proposés."

Are they gas or liquid tankers? To my inexpert eye they look like gas - butane or propane - in which case there will be no dribbles but perhaps some rain washed staining.