john new

As requested. QR code is to the pre-paid tickets Box Office.

An example of the yo-yo state of public finances in the USA?

The Papermaua/Mather’s site @MartinRS links to is the one I was thinking of.

Several. Try a Pinterest search for card buildings to get lots of images with links to the various websites. Quality is variable. Also search free card kits, you should find a site that lists many many links, the downside some of the links are now dead. There are also some free to download on the Illinois history site. I think that is the correct state. Been a while since I visited it. There is, or was, another free site that has downloads for basic Christmas village buildings. Hope these help.

Like the use of card, a very much ignored medium these days.

Hull, Barnsley & WR Junction. Hull (tick) Barnsley (close but no cigar) but did reach collieries in the West Riding.

At the risk of going off topic we have just been through the same dilemma as the family are all now over 300 miles away but by random happenstance grouped within a 30 mile radius of each other. That includes both our children/grand children but also both my sister and my wife's sister. We have decided to stay put as whilst moving appears good on paper neither of us likes the prospect of having to restart building the social support network we have here as a consequence of living here on the Island just short of 37 years! Outcome we are investing in a new garage roof (warm type) so that the space can become a proper hobby area without all the condensation and white mould issues that have cut that opportunity out for all the time we have lived here. Everybody will be different but the social network where you currently live, if you have a strong one, is a very significant anchor. Knowing you I am pretty sure you have a similar strong social network too. Plus as you say, a stunning place to live despite the periodic gales. (66mph forecast for tomorrow evening!)

True, and one of the better one's too. On same lines there were two in York I recall from living there in the late 70s and early 80s:- C Hopcutt (A butcher's shop on Burton Stone Lane) A Buckle & Son (Joiner's shop, which IIRC was on Gillygate).

A possible is very careful use of a scalpel point almost parallel to the glazing and gently scraping off the no-smoking text; sort of as as you would use a chisel on wood. I recently used it as a technique in getting some white paint off the glazing strip on an r-t-r coach where the previous owner had, for some unknown reason, blocked off several of the windows which on the prototype MK1 full brakes were clear glazed with bars behind.

But there is/are the televised game(s) and home drinking options, so I believe that it is a reasonable, if not exact comment. My tuppence worth re kits -v- rtr, at least for locomotives, is that there was a step change that occured around the time of Model Railway Journal's introduction. Not the the only factor, MRJ wasn't cause and effect by any means but it was a reflection of the changes. Etched brass kits of varying buildability and a higher standard of fidelity was being promulgated as the way to go. Around a similar time, if my memory of forty to fifty years back is correct, Wills bodyline kits to go onto modified r-t-r chassis also stopped. That didn't stop the expert builders but did cut out a stepping stone progression. That is especially true for locomotives needing valve gear. Loco kits would perhaps begin to reverse their decline in popularity if the valve gear came as a pre-built item. Sadly, as the r-t-r market has changed getting hold of spare chassis as separate items is also more difficult as evidenced on threads like the Jintystiens one. We still have relatively easy to build plastic kits from several manufacturers but then a gap to what, for beginners in loco building at least, appears a daunting jump into etched kits. I can't speak for others but I have decided that I need to overcome that issue (Is fear the word?) and have booked a Missenden course so that I don't screw up the B!6 kit I have in hand to make. I can solder brass, and have done so but as the brass chassis kit I tried as my first attempt didn't go well I didn't try another. The descriptions of having to hammer brass pins in valve gear, having to work with several different melt point solders and the like was off putting. To sum up, I do still build stuff, and enjoy making things, but over the last few years or so that effort seems to have gone more into assisting my wife in making theatre props than into my model railway items. With that it has been simple weathering jobs.

Just turn the sound off, for those videos. I never have it on for exactly that irritating background noise reason. I'm not that bothered if I miss any DCC sound layouts as a consequence.

As someone who does view YT mod-ex videos I don’t think it is what determines my wife and myself to make a go/no go decision to visit the shows in easy reach. Living where I do most shows are (1) over an hour away to drive (2) SWMBO has the car on Saturdays for her interests so although we can arrange alternatives for her to get to choir it is a pre-plan event. YT also means I get to see top class events that are located way out of our area. What does make a difference to whether or not I visit a local show or not is the distance to it, can it be combined with other visits and most importantly the on the day weather. A thought of whether it will or won’t be on YT isn’t a factor for us. Last Saturday as an example, we planned to go to the small Beaminster show and went, if it had been hammering down that would have been a no-go decision due to roads flooding. It is on YT now as it happens but we still went. Where firstly DVDs and now YT probably HAS made a difference is society meetings. Back in the 70s if you wanted to view trains it was by going to a club/society event for a cine or slide show presentation. The same for hearing talks back in the day. Those have been replaced by YT etc.

The SLS have been trying to do so and find a replacement for me as I stepped down recently as PRO after around 20 years in the role. It comes back to the whole demographic of club and society members. The current role model of clubs and societies peaked in the 50s and 60s Any volunteer(s) to take this forward into the current era?. We would happily consider granting a complimentary membership to a suitable volunteer as there is a precedent. PM me if interested.

Overall the numbers may be changing; however, I suspect it is like the clothing supply chain. Some biggies over my lifetime have gone (C&A and BHS), others are doing less well (New Look, John Lewis and M&S) but we all still buy clothes just from other outlets. i haven’t stopped buying new models but recently Hattons as one amongst several haven’t been my first choice, like those clothing product purchases mentioned above other suppliers (TMC, Rails and Kernow) have for whatever reason been my preferred choice.

Fully concur. I mentioned somewhere ages ago in a past thread one of the railway magazines I read in my youth, so late 50s or early 60s, covered viewing angles and perception. If you imagine a triangle with the eye at its apex it widens as it leaves your head. IF you break that triangle with a close in but tall object such as a backscene board, low relief buildings or similar (i.e., tall & on a narrow baseboard) it looks as big as a flat wide baseboard with low level scenery. All comparable to that idea of the 85%. Re floor to ceiling layouts wasn't that partially done IIRC with the Chee Tor layout in N and by Robin ?? De-Fraiesnet* in his large narrow gauge layout. The opposite was the MRC layout (Chiltern Green?) in that was very wide to get the same effect. What they have done too plus other effects with Copenhagen Fields. * not sure how his name is spelt.

I made a very similar point in a recent Editorial in the SLS Journal regarding there being youngsters out and about filming etc. There is interest out there, but their cohort consumes and enthuses in a modern way not a 1960s way.

Fully agree, when do you read a headline story after a Bank-Holiday saying something like "5 million car journeys made safely yesterday"? It isn't that people are ghoulish but they are curious.

Future of the hobby. Perhaps a good exemplar is use of the horse. At the turn of the 19th into the 20th I suspect the long-term future of the horse was being debated in similar terms. Project forward a century and a quarter and yes there are far less horses around but use of horses hasn’t died out.

The top one is surely a 2-4-0 not an 0-6-0? Good photo despite the caption error.

I think one point being missed is that the age and volunteer thing is three levelled, perhaps even four levels if you split my (1), it isn’t simply young versus old. (1) School age- through to parenthood/kids leaving home (2) the middle band and (3) are/have been involved but becoming less able physically to assist in grunt work. My wife and I plus other friends have noticed a drop off in volunteers coming forward across all hobby/pass time areas for example in youth theatre and dance schools, parents not offering to assist in plays and shows their kids are in and so on. What I first noticed in the late 90s was that the middle age band was decreasing in volunteering and joining clubs, I.e. the late 40s-50s age group. At the time I noticed it I was on the camera club committee, we’d always been pretty much a join around retirement age type of club and that didn’t matter whilst the new blood of age 50ish newbies continued to match the drop out rate. That inward recruitment of what I roughly categorised above as band (2) was decreasing which did matter. I think something similar is happening now for model railway clubs, that inward stream of people with free time after the children have left home is a smaller volume than the club membership fall off as the more elderly members become less able and finally unable to do the heavier grunt work at show set-up and breakdown. I am still active in the hobby; however, as I am now 71 there is less I can physically do to assist at a show however much the brain tells me I want to. Add to this changes in modern society all result in the hobby being consumed differently. As an example my wife and I did a few things yesterday over towards Bridport because the club had a small show over at Beaminster which we took in and enjoyed. If we hadn’t physically gone I could have caught up with it today on YouTube.

Re the coffee cups warning, very sensible precaution from the supplier to give a warning and also, presumably, try to exempt them from complaints when the machine delivers water that is too hot. I guess many of us have occasionally been hit by almost scalding water from a vending machine (I have been) hence the warning. Whether that overrides any claims arising from water dispensed that really does scald due to a faulty or badly set machine is ?????.

Where would our 1/6 scale live steam “Orion” fit? We had it on the SLS stand one year.

I thought the decision was to review and downsize (I.e. back to their show roots) away from the NEC, not abandon having a show.

The genuine problem of recruiting new club and society members is how to make them welcome? This is compounded if all the prospective younger newbies (say under 30-40) on first arriving see is just a swathe of grey and white hair. There is also the time of day issue, one of the local groups I am in (not a modelling one) meets on Monday mornings, suits us as we are either retired or relevantly self-employed. That time though discourages newbies from those who aren’t as they will be working. The other local club (WMRA, A Rly model club) which I have rejoined after a several years break is evenings, there are a few younger people but the wet and dark evenings for driving can deter attendance at times.

Back in the Autumn when the asylum barge was arriving here at Portland Port there was a threat of a violent protest between the pro and anti factions and a cruise ship as a consequence missed out the Portland stop. Local press coverage stated that that one day lost stop cost the south Dorset economy circa £400K. Cruise ships bring money into an area from the berthing fees paid to the port, hiring transport to/from the port plus any spend by the tourists locally. The boat may also get victualled by local suppliers etc. It even trickles down to things like the local choirs hired to serenade the departing vessel and the canon crew from the local fort museum who fire a shot as it departs.