PatB

During my etched kit building phase, I used two methods. For long folds, I had a couple of lengths of heavy brass angle, which I put over my vice jaws to act as bending bars. In theory they would be a little fiddly to set up so they're accurately level and parallel, but I found that with my particular vice and angle combination, they settled into place naturally. For smaller folds, I found a brilliant tool on a tool stall at a show. It's a pair of pliers, but with very broad (50 mm or so) smooth jaws. Very quick and handy for small stuff. I think they were about $20 or so. They're a bit like this, but the jaws are wider relative to the rest of the tool. My own aren't accessible for a photo at the mo.

Something else to think of is the geology and history of your kingdom, as this will, to a significant extent, influence your freight traffic. Is it rocky with mineral deposits (mining/quarrying)? Are there large areas of good agricultural land (heavy seasonal livestock and crop traffic)? Is it a seafaring nation (fishing and cargo ports)? Is it an imperial/militaristic society (military traffic, troop trains, munitions factories)? Does it have land suitable for forestry (timber lines, sawmills)? Of course, Britain ticks all these boxes in various places, which helps to make it such a rich source of prototypes. Southern European countries like Spain or Greece would tend more towards agriculture. Eastern Europe or Scandinavia might be more forestry oriented, whilst much of Scandinavia might also have a heavy emphasis on the sea.

Sounds to me like a good excuse to run a castor based oil .

The usual dummy load for ANCAP tests is adult driver and front seat passenger, and appropriately restrained 2yo and 10yo (if memory serves) in the back.

Back when I first joined Vehicle Standards, in 2001, ANCAP had just tested a group of the (extremely popular here) Japanese 4wd utes, such as the Toyota Hilux and its equivalents. All basically similar, with a hefty ladder chassis topped with a separate, non-structural cab. They all performed very poorly, giving the worst of all worlds. The frame was initially stiff, transferring lots of energy to the cab and occupants, then the chassis rail would suddenly buckle and the whole lot would just fold up, allowing lots of intrusion into the occupant space. I suspect a Defender would be similar. In spite of this, they all managed to get 2 stars. This at a time when the big Aussie sedans got about 3, and the Renault Megane was making headlines for getting the first 5 star result. The general consensus was that bare minimum compliance with the Australian Design Rules of the time was the equivalent of about half an ANCAP star.

I'm afraid I can no longer think of Kraftwerk without seeing this

quite apart from the basic inaccuracy, the strong Melbourne vs Sydney parochial rivalry would have doomed that one.

I think I've heard of that one, but this wasn't it. This one was just on the Taunton side of Kingston St Mary. I'm not sure when it got cleared, but some time in the early to mid 90s seems likely.

Back in the late 70s/early 80s there was a house near Taunton with a large collection of early 50s Wolseleys (amongst other things) quietly rusting into the ground around it. Also visible from the road were a Standard 8, and one of those rounded caravans that used to appear on the cover of summer issues of Practical Motorist c1955. Peering through the hedge that surrounded the rest of the property revealed some Mk1 Ford's, and other stuff I can't now remember, sitting amongst trees and in shades of rust brown and moss green. It all seemed impossibly ancient at the time. It feels very odd to think that a car built on the day I squinted through that hedge is now ~10 years older than anything I could see was then.

Quite an effective use of the Peco "city centre" backscene, I think. A classic N gauge "one of everything from the Farish catalogue.

My one experience with E10 was when driving MrsB's new Ural sidecar outfit home from NSW in 2008. Crossing semi-remote NSW, all the roadhouses had was E10. The bike ran fine on it. Perhaps, as per the Manchester research, better than on non-ethanol. The Ural flat twin is, after all, a 1940s engine, regardless of how it might be dressed up with Keihin carbs and electronic ignition. The fuel consumption, however, was significantly worse. Sufficiently worse that I ended up spluttering to a halt 10 km short of a roadhouse I expected to be able to reach comfortably. Not a huge issue, as I had a 10 litre can in the boot of the chair, but noteworthy.

I assume noone was pleased to see it.

Well, it's arrived and I was right about it being a red one. It's currently in a Dettol bath to try and get the paint off. If it proves unsalvageable, I'm not too upset. It came bundled with another commonplace car for a fiver plus postage and so, if nothing else, I've got a pair of working 70s motors, 7 useable wheels, 2 pairs of axles and a couple of pickup assemblies. Well worth the cost, so an unusual but tired body shell was always going to be a bonus really.

So, thanks to not building any vans or catering vehicles beyond the Mk1 variants, a spiffy, relatively high status express is has at least 3 non-matching vehicles in its make up.

Oil lit too, or, rather, unlit, as the line's management were concerned about the fire risk. Must have been super inviting on a Northumberland winter evening/morning.

Sometimes it's worth looking at the dodgy paint jobs more closely. Although not railway, I'm expecting to receive, tomorrow, a horrifically painted Scalextric BRM P160 that cost a minimal amount because they're so commonplace in the usual green or white. However, from a careful inspection of the photos, I think it's the much less common (I won't say R@RE) red version under the paint. Not that it's actually valuable, as it's also a bit battered but, if I'm right and can get the paint off, it might be an interesting piece.

Those bogies look an awful lot like the inside of the tender drive as well. As for where the wheels came from, I wondered about a small, rod drive diesel, if such a thing existed, from their European range.

Well, too difficult to make go round 14" radius curves anyway. Although a Mainline Peak from 20 years later will just about do it, albeit not happily.

I'm not sure about the Deltic bogie, but I've looked at a couple of King tender drives, which are, essentially, a 6 wheeled motor bogie. I was surprised to find that the outer wheelsets (the driven ones) had crank throws moulded in, and so were clearly common with something else, as, obviously, a tender drive wouldn't need them. Unless someone was planning to release a Sturrock steam tender, anyway.

In itself something of an achievement for a racing driver of the era.

I wonder if Triang's better provision of intermediate sized tender locos (3F, B12, L1 etc) was a small factor in their success. Perhaps not so much in the pure toy market, but for those building a 6x4 main line, as depicted in 60 Plans, they'd fit the space (and, probably, the budget) rather better than a Pacific.

Back in about 85 or 86 I watched a heavily laden, then 10ish year old Mini Clubman reverse vigorously out of a parking space and collide, equally vigorously, with a bollard. Once the driver had inspected the large, V-shaped indentation in the back of his car, and sworn a bit, he drove off, leaving a humorously Mini shaped deposit consisting of an astonishingly large quantity of filler and crumbly rust, which had been dislodged by the impact. Honestly, you could have filled a dustbin with it. I'm amazed there was any car left to hold the subframes together.

But they did. It's not Meccano Ltd's fault that BR insisted on building their replicas with too many doors and window bays.

When I first came to WA in 1996, from the perpetually soggy UK, I found myself staggered by how profligate Perth was with water, considering its situation on the edge of a continent that is, effectively, a huge desert. Things have changed a bit in the intervening years, but there are still plenty who whinge about the slightest restriction on their "right" to dispose of 10s of thousands of litres to no real benefit to anyone.

The Australian rollout has definitely been hampered by clots, and not all of them from the AZ vaccine.