PatB

IIRC some Alpines were actually built in Spain, or so I remember hearing. I know one featured quite heavily in a weird Spanish movie I caught on TV a few years back.

Has anyone had a play with this cheap and simple, albeit ultra-basic, DCC controller? I recognise that it's not even close to a serious system, but it looks like it might be an interesting exercise to build and would be useful for, eg, an Inglenook or Timesaver by providing the running advantages of DCC (full track voltage, ability to use a decoder tuned to a particular loco if you can get someone with a proper system) to do the programming.

Quite so. Layouts like Crewlisle are not for everyone and are certainly not the only option for such a space, but it is a good example of what you can pack into the space if you want a main line system and don't mind making some compromises. It also illustrates that you don't have to lose 50%+ of your available space to a hidden fiddle yard if you don't want to. Certainly, if you can't live with the idea of a pacific with 5-6 coaches representing an express, a 4-4-0 and 3-4 a semi-fast and an 0-6-0T and 2 as the branch local, it's not the right approach for you, but it's a valid one for those who can. It really comes down to which side of the Great Freezer-Rice Schism one comes down on and how far one can stretch one's personal suspension of disbelief.

I've always thought Brundle deserves more recognition than he seems to have. I remember him being one of the last competitive drivers in a non-turbo F1 car before everyone went turbo. It's a long time ago for my ageing memory, but I seem to remember at least a couple of spectacular drives in outclassed machinery.

Nice to see a Marina doing rather well .

A visitor in the first pic is carrying a magazine with a back cover ad with the line "Don't spoil the ship", which, I think, was a Humbrol advert. When was it current?

Of course, with fuel driven power stations, it's not just the generating plant itself that reduces local amenity for someone. It's not particularly pleasant to live within spit of an opencast coal mine, or its associated transport and handling facilities for example. At least with turbines, the turbine farm is, basically it. barring the obvious aerial knitting, which is the same whatever's driving the generators.

Interesting tanko Yanko in the background of the Marc Bolan shot too.

Indeed they were (or so it seems at the remove of more than 50 years). Had I access to a time machine I think my first project would be a leisurely tour through the idealised British Isles portrayed on the covers of Practical Motorist magazine, AA Touring Guides and the beautifully and vividly photographed calendars of the late 50s/early 60s. And, of course, wonderful individual photos such as those above. Preferred transport would be, perhaps, a Morris Minor Traveller or, following family precedent, something like a Heinkel 175.

Surely the "correct" ratio is dependent on where and what you're modelling. If your layout is an MPD/TMD, locos will obviously dominate, with a few loco coal wagons/oil tankers/Enparts vans etc. Running an intensive service on a Minories type urban terminus would need probably one tank loco per train of 4-5 suburban coaches, no goods stock and perhaps one rake of parcels vans. That's steam era. Otherwise, a raft of DMUs/EMUs and maybe a Type 2 and a rake of non-corridor Mk1s. A big (in model terms) hump yard, on the other hand, might need 100+ wagons but just a couple of 08s (or 13s I suppose) to provide most of the action. You'd need some main line motive power for incoming and outgoing trains but, depending on your level of suspension of disbelief, not necessarily that much. Others have touched on branch operattions. So the only place the overall prototype ratio is really going to matter is for a main line through station which might be expected to see a full range of traffic to and from diverse areas of the country. Even then, there is plenty of stock that you'd likely never see, as Ravenser has noted. Anyway, there's always Rule 1 .

I like the wonderfully asymmetrical ones in the last photo. Haven't noticed any like that before.

Agreed. I've had faults (on much older vehicles, admittedly) where there have been volts everywhere there should be when tested with a meter, and a nice zero reading for resistance, again on the meter, but as soon as asked to carry any real current, all the connections have broken down under the load. Our Fiat Scudo (which, of course, is the budget sibling of Peugeot and Citroen versions of the same thing) has one of those. I hope never to see it light this side of a lottery win. I gather its main function is actually to prevent engine damage if the water level in the fuel/water separator overtops.

Personally I'd be looking at stretching one of CJF's 7'6"x5'6" "garden shed" layouts to fit the space, There was a rather nice folded dumbell with high level terminus in Track Plans that, although cramped as drawn, I reckon would spread nicely to give both continuous main line running and the interesting operation of a terminus. However CJFs quart into a pint pot approach doesn't suit everyone. For something a bit less ambitious, how about a Deane type terminus to fiddleyard? The space you have should allow a decent sized (compressed) station, so might be able to invoke Rule 1 without too much of a stretch to run your big locos, and you can hide/disguise a suitable link track so you can watch the trains go by on a continuous run. Traditionally, Deane layouts seem to have been single-track branches but I can't see any reason why it couldn't work with a Minories or similar double-track terminus.

Whilst I've not had firsthand experience of cassettes, they've always struck me as excessively fiddly and likely to be rather unsatisfying if their use forms part of the on-stage operation, like, for instance, part of a runround loop. A sector plate just seems so much more railwaylike (even if it actually isn't).

Trouble is it'll almost certainly eat any man made fibre in the fabric too.

Well, post August 1st 1970 anyway. Nice bit of battleship architecture there.

Has the exhaust O2 sensor(s) failed? They supposedly only have a finite life.

For a while I worked with an ex-truckie who reckoned that on the occasion that he hit one with 40 odd tons of semi-trailer the entire rig felt like it got air. They're basically ambulant bowling balls.

Really? As a former regulator (albeit in a different legal system and a different field), the difference between "should" and "must" in legally binding documents was always very relevant.

That HSE document, at a first glance speed-read, doesn't seem to demand that a qualified professional does the work. It uses the term "should", with regard to actual qualifications/training, which is different, in law, from "must". It does state that those doing the work are required to have the necessary competence but does not seem overly prescriptive in what constitutes having that competence. It also specifically mentions DIYers and people doing favours without categorically forbidding them from fiddling. Not that I have a dog in this particular fight anyway, being from another country and all, where there are very definitely prescriptive requirements on who can touch gas equipment. And a bunch of dangerously incompetent cowboys some of them are too.

Have modern plastics also cut down on plasticisers, possibly for evironmental/hazardous materials reasons?

FTFY

As I alluded to upthread, Triumph lower trunnions frequently failed because people (including professionals who should have known better) saw the grease nipples on them and greased them, whereas the manual specified EP90 gear oil applied with a grease gun. The intention was that the oil would be pumped up the threads attaching the trunnion to the suspension upright as the steering turned. Grease was too viscous for this to work, leading to the threads running dry and wearing very rapidly until they snapped.