PatB

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.

Ah, the Datsun 120Y. When I first arrived in Australia in 1996 I was astonished to find them in substantial numbers as they'd all disappeared in the UK a good decade or more earlier. They were the archetypal $500 bunkie. Buy one registered runner and a couple of spares mules and you had reasonably reliable transport indefinitely. They all disappeared in the early 2000s and their ecological niche is now occupied by things like the Hyundai Excel (getting rare now) and the Ford Festiva (badge engineered Korean thingy) and similar stuff. I'm not sure what the next generation will be. Probably the smaller Hyundai and Kias but they all seem a bit Upmarket to end up in the bargain basement.

And it's not even a Skinhead.

All Peco points (barring the code 83 US stuff), AFAIK, have the same angle of divergence at the ends of the tracks and so will join up in any combination of large, medium or small to make a crossover between two parallel tracks at Peco's standard track centres.

I've no idea how tall Mr Brynner was, but in the bar scene in Westworld he appears to be a good half a head or more shorter than anyone else in shot. I'd never noticed before but it was really quite striking.

If all else fails you could rig a set of digital calipers (or even a set of analogue ones, or a proper DRO scale) to show the head position directly so you're not dependent on the handwheel scale to determine where you are vertically. It's an approach I've decided to adopt on my truly dreadful Chinese mill/drill, which has no reliable connection between handwheel and quill, apparently .

Boats are old hat, dontcha know?

Surely you jest? But some unfortunate mid-level public servant will no longer have Gerry Harvey and Gerry's mate, the Minister, breathing down their neck, at least for a while, so somebody's had a win.

The cock-up with the smoke colours was quite amusing as well .

I remain deeply sceptical of the ATO having any meaningful jurisdiction over companies operating outside Australia. Please note the "where appropriate" get-out clause in the ATO spokesperson's statement.

The tyre tracks in Westworld are OK because service vehicles are actually part of the plot so they're not actually an anachronism. Also on Westworld, I'd never realised how short Yul Brynner actually was, even in Western heels, until I rewatched it a couple of months back. As for Wild Wild West, that's two hours of my life I won't be getting back.

Prices seem to have come off a bit of late. 10 Years or so ago I remember seeing a Torana XU1 with some (not particularly big name) history up for $375k. Whether it sold I don't know, but the fact that someone felt able to advertise it for roughly twice what my house was worth at the time speaks volumes.

Those awful plastic butterfly thingies that are supposed to allow you to put screws into plasterboard. They spin, refuse to fold up as designed or simply won't tighten firmly. I've learned my lesson and use proper toggle screws or, for some jobs, the pointy inserts with a coarse thread on the outside and the hole for a self-tapper on the inside.

Looks largely OK. One minor point that I'd mention is that, as shown, shunting the goods sidings will require use of the main line as a headshunt. Whilst not incorrect (AFAIK), this might be inconvenient, especially with heavy wartime traffic. Consider either shortening the sidings and joining the loop nearer the buffer stops or adding a separate headshunt parallel to the main. Edit: Or sacrifice the loco shed and use that road.

I suppose LHD cars are in greater demand in non-UK markets so there's a bigger pool of potential buyers. In general, though, I've always been a bit sceptical of PC's price guides. For many cars I doubt if there's a big enough sample size to quote any meaningful average.