PatB

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.

And the winners tend to cook their battery banks, making the cost per km rather high .

I guess it depends on the availability of charging stations. I would imagine they're still harder to find than petrol stations and may not be conveniently located near where you want to do things to fill the charging time productively. However, I would also imagine that this is likely to be a diminishing problem, at least in the UK which appears to be taking a grown-up view of EVs. Here in the most backward state of a vehicularly conservative country, I can only think of one charging station that I've seen with my own eyes, and that's on private property (although it may be publicly available). I gather that there are others.....Ah, yes, I've just checked here and there are actually surprising numbers. I'm actually rather impressed that charging facilities are even available at one of the Nullabor roadhouses - possibly the least EV friendly environment I can think of .

I can generally get an easy 10% improvement in fuel economy by consciously driving economically vs. my usual driving style. 20% is well within reach with a bit more effort. I have to confess I'm something of a clogfoot normally, but that 10% can generally be had without any increase in journey times. The 20% usually comes at a cost of lower cruising speeds. That's normally aspirated petrol vehicles, both cars and bikes; I haven't really experimented with the turbo diesel Scudo that's our general runaround these days. I do find it rather amusing when folk who run flamin' great V8s or oversized 4x4s, or whose driving style involves alternately stamping on one or other of two pedals, whinge about increasing fuel costs. It's not hard to reduce your outgoings significantly if you really care about such things. Just to keep this post vaguely on topic, I would imagine that driving an EV for maximum range would require similar techniques, but the motivation might be a bit greater as having to recharge away from base will involve considerably more time and inconvenience than refilling an ICV's fuel tank.

And RHD at that.

All mine do this. Probably as a result of 30 years riding motorcycles. It disturbs me if the horizon doesn't tilt when cornering .

In general it's best to use the largest turnouts you can fit into your space but this may be modified by what proportions everything else has. I'd suggest that, if you can run to the full 20 feet, you can probably fit Peco large radius geometry in. OTOH, if you've only got 14 your station may end up looking like it's all turnout and no plain track so mediums would be better. Best plan might be to draw up your plan in something like SCARM or XtrkCAD (both free, I find SCARM the easier to use) to see how it all works. If you need to see it full size, you should be able to print turnout templates from either program (or I think you can download them from Peco's website these days) and have a play on the floor/tabletop/patio.

Given that a car designed for a contact racing formula is likely to be cheap and easy to repair following minor bingles, maybe not as much as you'd think .

Sorry for the really long delay in replying. I somehow managed to miss your post while the thread was current. I'll be checking out your other web presences shortly. However, as it's probably 40 years since I read any of the books I'm not sure if I've really got anything of value to contribute. I suspect that much of the social and political context completely passed me by. Well, what could be more interesting or important than model trains ?

You'd been using grease on the trunnions rather than EP90 hadn't you .

But have you received any of your purchases yet without having to ransom them from Australia Post?

Personally I'm a lot more wary of caustic soda than I am of, say, hydrochloric acid, at least in the concentrations it comes in for pool maintenance and brick cleaning.