PatB

I would imagine that the contents of a working boiler are quite turbulent and so fibrous material like dung and sawdust would distribute quite well throughout the water space, rather than simply floating on the surface, and be automatically carried in sufficient quantity to any leaks to seal them, at least while it remains wet.

I think they're talking about bunging up leaks in the boiler.

The Holden Gemini does have the distinction of being one of the very few diesel passenger cars you could buy in Australia up until relatively recently.

That's Vegemite isn't it?

I've often looked at pics of the Standard 8/10 drive train and thought that anything up to the 1500 Spitfire engine and gearbox should go in fairly easily and using factory parts. Might want to look at some Spitfire brakes and some suspension tweaks at the same time mind.

I always thought Stapleton Road looked an awful lot bigger than I could imagine it needing to be, even in its heyday.

Maybe if you do you can have a whip round from other Chapron owners who might like to express their gratitude for making their cars even more exclusive .

Have you seen the film Cows? I know it was for kids but it was still very strange.

And to think they used to whinge about having to ride in a modified Freightliner container .

I'm pretty sure the c1986 catalogue I remember from my youth showed red Polly as the loco in the basic Pick Up Goods starter set. I don't actually remember any other colours of 0-4-0 being illustrated so I was quite surprised when I discovered the existence of yellow and blue versions.

I don't think it's necessarily possible to manage effectively without at least a basic understanding of the end product. However enthusiasts will often tend to make business decisions based on sentiment rather than solid data, and historically that has probably led to ruin more often than to success. In a Hornby context, I'd see the (gas? ) axing of the Thomas range as a victory of pragmatism over sentiment, for example.

It seems to be a recurrent theme. 25 Years ago when I lived in Windmill Hill, some of my less rail-aware acquaintances were convinced that anything with heavy axle loads that banged its way past in the small hours was something secretive and sinister. Probably something to do with nukes or something. No consideration that perfectly normal freight tends to move at night 'cos it's difficult to fit in around daytime passenger traffic. Rather more recently there's been concern here in WA about lead traffic through residential areas. There's probably more grounds for that though, given that one of the companies involved had recent form for a major lead contamination incident in Esperance.

I didn't mean to suggest that the UK and USA's previous position as major manufacturing nations was due to the availability of cheap labour. Poor wording on my part. However, in a globalised world, any future aspirations in that direction might have to be. I suspect that Chinese and Indian factory workers also earn well by local standards. However, again in a globalised labour market, they were and/or are cheap in comparison to workers in the OECD. As for my motorcycle analogy, I'm not quite that old. I'm more thinking of the likes of Hesketh (cough), Silk (ahem), Oasis (who?), Norton's Wankels (not as good as they should have been and a technological dead end anyway) and overpriced, mediocre oddballs like the Harris Matchless G50. And how many equally hopeless stillborn projects? I can think of at least one proposal to build a parallel twin using VW air-cooled top ends, and another for a road bike built around a grass track V-twin (Godden?) lump. All fuelled by enthusiasts determined to do something the Japanese weren't doing whilst conveniently ignoring the uncomfortable fact that the Japanese were making money by making motorcycles and hardly anyone else was at the time. Sorry for the partial thread derail, but I'd reiterate that, when a business is in a position when it needs to make money, management ability to make money is probably a higher priority than management ability to make toy trains. Management who can make money can hire (or in Hornby's case keep) people with the ability and experience to do the technical stuff.

I've had croc and, done properly, it's very nice indeed. More akin to a good, firm white fish than to any meat I can think of. However, it does seem to be quite easy to turn it into flavourless leather instead.

Spotted outside Supercheap Auto yesterday.

Outsourced production will always tend to follow the cheapest labour. 10-20 Years ago that was China. With rising wages and a growing middle class, China is no longer so cheap, so more companies are moving to the Subcontinental countries. In a decade or two it'll be somewhere else, like Indonesia or maybe southern Africa or Latin America. Maybe one day the wheel will have turned full circle and it'll be the UK and USA again, though I'm not sure if I'd want to live in either under circumstances where it might happen. As for management, I think jjb made the point a few pages ago that Hornby need good managers at the helm rather than enthusiasts for their specific product. I'd concur with this. I'm old enough to remember the final death throes of the British motorcycle industry, with Triumph disappearing in a welter of obsolete unreliability and a succession of frankly hopelessly eccentric designs from small, enthusiast run outfits. Each was hailed as "The next British world-beater". Rather predictably, by anyone without rose-tinted eyewear, they all proved to be financially disastrous and functionally questionable. Things only picked up when John Bloor bought Triumph. Significantly, Mr Bloor wasn't interested in making motorcycles but he was very interested indeed in making money. Which he did. The production of a range of largely excellent motorcycles was an agreeable side effect. Of course Triumph have now gone and offshored their production but, AFAIK, they're still a successful British company thanks to competent management.

That sounds about right. There was a Mini as well, which I also built.

I have to admit to having looked at the Dream Steam website with a certain longing. However, once you've added all the upgrades to the basic ex-Mamod loco to turn it into something useful, the cost isn't so very far short of something like a basic Roundhouse Millie which is a significantly more sophisticated design. Oscillators as a species can be made to run more slowly by rearranging the ports closer to the centre of oscillation. However, to do so on anything with a useful stroke length involves significantly more work in making the cylinders, thus losing quite a bit of the oscillator's main advantage of simple construction.

One of the European plastic kit manufacturers (Heller?) did one, which I built c1981. Can't remember the scale though. It wasn't huge but my memory tells me it was bigger than 1/87.

Are we seeing the perhaps inevitable result of demanding Pendon levels of appearance from locos manufactured by mass production techniques? What can be achieved by a craftsman using brass and nickel silver may not translate well to a model assembled by a Chinese factory worker from moulded plastic components.

Fair enough. All I can say in my defence is that Vauxhalls were never really my thing and so my take on the genealogy of the various models is largely guesswork .

ISTR Blydensteins doing some useful tuning gear for the Chevette. I've also wondered, given its Viva drivetrain, whether it would have been possible to transplant the bigger Viva/Magnum/Firenza into it using largely Vauxhall factory components.

IIRC the Chevette turned up c1976 rather than 79. I'm 99% certain it was around well before I left primary school which was 78.

Given that you don't seem enthusiastic about locos which are right for your location and era, but very keen on those which don't, maybe you need to consider changing location and era .

If you think Minilites on everything is bad, you haven't encountered the Australian tendency to put flamin' whitewalls on anything pre-1960. And cutting good, original steelwork to fit the most cheap and 'orrible aftermarket indicators available. And cheap retrims in either red velour or the nastiest vinyl to be found.