Dunsignalling

I think it's clear that both the Deltic and the HST are "the greatest" in their respective categories, simply because there will be nothing to follow either of them. However, what the enthusiast desires, and what the railway needs, seldom coincide, the former generally being what the latter judges to be in need of replacement! Whilst I appreciated riding behind Deltics for pleasure, I rode HSTs for business, which is what they were intended for; arriving fresh, calm, and often early, for meetings. I remember one trip leaving Taunton at about 1100, and with fortuitous tube connections, being in my Peterborough hotel three and a half hours later. HST on both legs because I arrived KX in time for the service before my planned electric one, and, two hours less than it had taken by Jaguar the previous week! Replacing the Deltics was incidental to the programme; BR's need for the HST was system-wide, and the cost of keeping the ageing Deltics delivering the required performance was only going one way. I'd have loved some Southern Deltics as the diesel replacement for my personal greatest steam locos, the masterful Rebuilt Merchant Navies, but regional changes ensured that could never happen.

Not for me, thanks Rob, I have enough unbuilt kits to last this life and half the next! 😉 I'll go with Rapido on this one....

Given that the kit seems to have gone out of production in the early 1970s, there may not be all that many still out there. Appearances on eBay are infrequent, and the last time remember seeing an unbuilt one in the plastic, I was driving a Renault 18GTS, of which just two remain in the UK nowadays.

All of those things, but to different people. In purely commercial terms, the vehicle that contributed most to the bottom line, since the first railway was laid, was probably the humble coal wagon. Many of the things we enthusiasts most worship were tolerated for prestige reasons rather than the nett contribution they made to the railway's coffers. Taking the Deltic example. They were, at the time, the only route to the single-unit 3000hp+ diesel the ECML demanded. Intensive and expensive maintenance was tolerated, but only until the HST came along offering greater speed, with budgeting predictability. Plus, of course, the HST included a serious upgrade to bit the passenger sat in.

Basically, tourism is a bad industry to make a living from in a country with, about three months of unpredictably distributed decent weather a year. Most involved would be better off doing something else.

Fine if you have them, but I've not seen an unbuilt one for at least 30 years...

Not sure if it was a factory car, but I remember seeing a GT6 fitted with a Dolly Sprint engine in hillclimbs way back when. Moving the c. of b. rearward was said to have made it handle very well indeed.

Deltics: brilliant but demanding excellent backup to keep them that way, and most of us didn't have them, anyway. HST's: streets ahead of everything they displaced on all other routes, a step change in performance, reliability, and comfort for the paying punter, and the train that may well have saved the industry by attracting so many of them back. Not bad considering it was BR's "Plan B" built in much greater numbers than planned once the APT couldn't be made successful in the time available. Locomotives? trains? engines, light or otherwise? units or whatever? For the operator or signaller, they are all simply " movements".

DS 1580, formerly of Exmouth Junction (72A) shed, Exeter, and with various differences from the Bachmann model. I think it went elsewhere on the Western Region after the depot (by then re-coded 83D) closed. Here's one of her on parade at the gala weekend marking the 40th Anniversary of the end of Southern steam, back in 2007.

Given the current distribution of my pre-orders across the market, nothing Hornby do to their pricing will make any difference whatsoever....😇 😏

I'm still using up the second-hand stuff liberated when I got my my chimney re-done a few years back. It's thinner than the new off-cut I have so I can sometimes get more weight into the space available.

As part of an Inward Bound course? 😉

Wet sump? 😉

So long as there was also a rag-top version, that might well have done for the MGB had it gone into production....

The original (Consul) Capri should have had that covered, but the go didn't match the show. The concept was also, perhaps, a few years too soon for Ford buyers who, don't forget, had only recently been getting a fourth gear. It should logically have been Ford's answer to the stylish and pokey Sunbeam Rapier IV. Had Ford put the 1500 GT motor in it from the beginning, rather than the plodding 1340, it might have had a chance but, by the time they did, it looked like a rescue mission. With the Mk.1 Cortina concurrently inventing the fleet car market and cleaning up in the process, the die was cast for what, at the time, was always going to be a niche model. John