PatB

Might explain why the Leyland plastic Mini allegedly exploded in a manner that doesn't seem to occur with competently made cottage industry grp.

I stand amazed that so many appear to still exist. I always thought it seemed good idea but, as far as I can recall, never saw one, in spite of semi-regular visits to kit car shows c1982-83-84.

Speaking of grp Minis, does anyone remember the Mini Minus? It was a kit car from the early 80s, with a grp monocoque Mini shell, but about 3-4" lower, with the height taken out of the panels rather than the roof. Anyone ever seen one, or was it one of the many stillborn kit projects of the era? Also on grp Minis, when I was working for the Department of Transport about 15 years ago I met a chap who'd been an Engineer with BL at a time when they were experimenting with a plastic Mini. He related the story of the first crash test. Apparently, when the car hit the barrier the test room filled with an opaque cloud of fibreglass fragments. When the dust settled a few seconds later, all that was visible was a compact mass of two subframes and an engine in the middle of a debris field of quite small bits. That was more or less the point at which the project was called off.

And what happened to pickled onion flavoured crisps? Food of the gods. When I was back in the UK a few years ago I hunted high and low in the hope of relief from the paucity of crisp flavours available in Oz, but without result .

It's been said that it's better for parents not to know what their teenage children get up to. We'd all die of fright otherwise.

I've always found it to be good practice, in any vehicle, to fit the biggest battery that will physically fit into the space available.

That's true, but I have some experience of towing stuff with Borg Warner 35 boxes without taking elaborate precautions and the gearboxes don't seem to have been any the worse for it. I've also tow started old-style autos (something else you're not supposed to be able to do). Not a practice I'd recommend because when the thing fires you've got to be a bit handy to knock it into neutral whilst keeping it alive with the throttle or there's quite a high risk you'll shunt the towing vehicle. Doable in an emergency though.

Didn't the original Triang diesel shunter (which, to be fair, is what they always seemed to call it, rather than specifying exactly what type) have a sort of trapezoidal nose? In all the pictures I've seen it looks as if it gets narrower towards the top.

For something that is only an occasional hazard, practice in other industries would lean more towards putting procedures in place to be followed in the event of the obstruction occurring. Whilst I don't have the rail expertise necessary to comment definitively, I would see something along the lines of sending the guard out to warn traffic with a handlamp as being more in keeping than insisting on the immediate upgrade of all crossings. An extension of the guard's ancient duty of protecting their train in the rear. That's not to be taken as a detailed recommendation; Indeeed, I can see potential problems and impracticalities in implementing it. I merely offer it as one potential approach that would not involve engineeering changes to cover an unusual but predictable situation.

I strongly suspect that the Australian government line is primarily for home consumption in a "Look, we're doing something to protect your price gouging legitimate business practices" signal to major backers of the current party of government. As a bonus, it might suggest to the dimmer/more gullible consumer that there's no point searching Ebay/AliExpress/Amazon/whatever because once tax is levied there's no advantage (yeah, right). I'd be surprised if even the current shower of idiots in Canberra really believe that the ATO can impose its will north of Cape York. And, perhaps, to discourage overseas companies from selling into Oz by making it look too difficult and/or risky. At risk of breaking the no politics rule, I'm confident that the move is purely political and a sop to powerful vested interests rather than any kind of realistic and practical effort at revenue protection.

Perhaps so. However I doubt if obstructing the road with big, unlit things, in a manner reasonably predictable by those responsible for said big unlit things is widely regarded as acceptable. Hence the longstanding requirement for lighting things like skips and roadworks, and parking lights on vehicles (although I'm not sure how that stands these days). Granted, the obstruction was temporary. However, is there no requirement in the UK for procedures for traffic control/protection when a road is to be obstructed, even briefly? I know that here in Oz, if you knew you there was a possibility to obstruct a road in the manner in this case, and an incident occurred, the person in the grey wig would be inquiring very minutely as to what risk mitigation strategies were in place. "It was only the occasional 2 minutes" or "It only happened because the other guy was driving too fast" would wash about as well as an anoraksic at an exhibition. This is speaking generally about doing things which can involve partially or completely obstructing roads, not just about railway crossings.

Plenty of room there for a big roundy-roundy for scale length trains. The she's a bit small to do much with except storage (although you could put the main station in there with the platforms extending outside). Or don't bother with a covered section and just take all stock indoors between running. I agree with Nearholmer that a trestle arrangement is probably your best bet. As to track plan, I'd keep it fairly simple, with a double or single track oval and a couple of loops to allow trains to overtake or stand clear of the main line. 00 Outdoors, IMHO, is best utilised for watching one's more impressive motive power stretching its legs with a good load on rather than elaborate operation.

True, but if, by negligence, you cause a cow or fallen tree to be on a road where it might not be expected to be, I suspect you'll still find yourself with some serious explaining to do. If it's legal, common practice, or considered by the rail industry to be acceptable for level crossing design to allow a train to stand foul of the crossing without any warning devices present operating, it really shouldn't be and I'd be pushed to think of any justification why it should.

I think vacuum cleaners have lost their way a bit. Am I the only one who doesn't care about European styling, visible swirly stuff or business ends with rotating brushes that need repeated dismantlings in order to keep them spinning at their feeble and pointless best? What I want in a vacuum cleaner is something that can suck an elephant through a hosepipe and has a big enough crud reservoir that I can do more than one room without having to trek to the dustbin to empty the thing. Oh, and an exhaust air filter that doesn't clog almost instantly and then burst, filling the house with airborne particulates. Edit: Oh yes, being able to buy spares, off the shelf and for a sensible price from a local vendor would be good too.

Insisting that the motorist must have been going too fast (possibly true) because they hit a large and unlit obstruction which they had no reasonable cause to expect to be there smacks very strongly of attempting to minimise fault on the part of the railway, even in the face of fairly clear transgression. Something which rears its head on this forum quite regularly. As I mentioned, the courts have historically taken a dim view (ahem) of those placing unlit things on the road regardless of the contributory actions of those who drove into them. This is not some new leniency towards careless driving either. I remember seeing cases 30+ years ago, and have been reliably informed of others going back to the 1940s, if not beyond. As for the wording of the report, the Board of Trade inspectors of yore could turn a colourful phrase at times so I'd hardly see that as anything new either.

Dyson products seem to be more polarising than Brexit. All the Dyson thingies I've used have been utter rubbish, and yet other folk, who seem sensible and reliable types, swear by them.

Number plates are an odd one. Even 25-30 years ago, getting plate made required quite a bit of detail to be provided, but you could, quite legally, buy the reflective yellow and white blanks and an assortment of suitable stick-on letters with no questions whatsoever.

Put a large, unlit obstruction in the road at night and see how far "they were going too fast" absolves you of liability in the eyes of the court.if someone hits it. I can think of several cases where those responsible for, eg unlit skips have been found liable when someone has clouted them. The railway is not always the innocent party.

I'd be very surprised if a sound boiler suffered any significant deterioration from being filled from cold with boiling water with the sort of frequency likely for any model locomotive. Thermal shock is a significant problem with brittle materials of low thermal conductivity, neither of which properties apply to anything you're likely to find in any model boiler. Yes, over time thermal cycling can, in theory, get you into trouble with many non-ferrous materials which can only withstand a finite number off stress cycles before failure but let's be realistic here. A model live steamer run one day every weekend (and I'd regard that as considerably heavier than average usage; how many of us really get the opportunity to play every week?) sees 52 thermal cycles a year. Fewer than 2500 over a 40 year operating life. Any boiler, soundly built from decent materials and with the generous factors of safety that have been customary in the hobby since Greenly and Lawrence, will absorb this without protest.

In O-Level German I didn't have too much trouble with the genders in isolation, but I couldn't, for the life of me, understand cases. I defy anyone but a small group of professional linguists to properly understand cases.

Australia even got a 4-door RS2000 and a 2.0 Ghia. My own RWD Escort was a very well worn example of the latter.

Subaru owners tend to get upset when you offer the opinion that their cars sound exactly like a knackered VW Beetle with a cheapo made-in-Brazil aftermarket exhaust .

What? None at all? Considering they used to be all over the place that's amazing (and not a little sad). However, you can still buy brand new SJ413s in some markets. I know from professional experience that they're still sold (or were 3 years ago) in New Zealand as an agricultural vehicle/farm runabout. Until a couple of years ago I had a Suzuki Carry 1.3 (the one with a bit of a bonnet out front) as a wet weather hack. It was a great little van and the dogs loved it. It was just long enough for me to sleep in the back, used very little fuel, even if (hah!) thrashed and the only things that went wrong with it in 9 years were one of the coils dying and the heater matrix failing (replaced with a Subaru one with custom inlet and outlet pipes brazed in). Not too bad considering it already had 198,000 km on it when I bought it. It only had to go because we needed a bigger van and bought the current Scudo instead.

Cheapo stuff from places like Superdrug and whatever the Poundstretcher equivalent for makeup are might represent a saving though. It doesn't have to be something of a quality your partner would be prepared to put on their face.

A climate that's quite kind to steel helps. Depending on which state you were in, so does the lack of an annual roadworthiness inspection. I haven't noticed any recently, but Perth had quite a few Alfas and Fiat 124 Coupes in use as daily drivers not so very long ago.