melmoth

For the sake of completeness, there's also the 'ice' blue applied at one time to insulated vans and containers. But not to brake tenders.

6 hours ago, Gallows-Bait said:

 

The biggest issue for companies is the expectations of shareholders once you become publicly listed.

 

A smaller owner operated business may be content to take home a modest earning and keep reinvesting some of the profit for the future, gradually building up reserves to cover the bad times and keep them on a course for longer term success, after all their motivation is usually a business for the long term.

 

The problem is once you introduce publicly tradeable shares, the pressure is on for the company to deliver profit and issue dividends, not only does this then potentially deplete those reserves that might have weathered the occasional rainy day, but there is a pressure to continue to grow those earnings simply because investors expect a consistent return on their shares or else they sell those shares and invest in some other company with a bigger return.

 

The risk of those shares going down in value then becomes an existential threat.  If you don't keep the price up and keep paying dividends, someone might start buying up the shares and once they do, they might decide to do something different with the company, or push the management out the door.

 

Add in that the same management team are motivated by the fact part of their earnings from the business is given in either shares or the option to buy shares, and there's a huge incentive to wring every penny out of the company right now and not look too far into the future.  After all, the future is the next CEO's problem.

It might not have been the point, but this excellently lucid answer is also a fine illustration of why short term interests are perhaps the biggest Achilles Heel of Capitalism.

1 hour ago, rodent279 said:

I like the idea of a Brit in BR blue with stainless steel arrows on the tender, brown smoke box and underframes, yellow bufferbeam, train reporting number box in the front footplate.

However, I'd be tempted to give them brown & grey lining as well- a single stripe of brown with a thinner stripe of grey either side.

Frankly, I think that if steam had lasted until 1980ish, the livery would have been reduced to unlined black with double arrows on tender/tank side. Why tart up something you intend to run down?

J3034 Looks like Allan Garraway on the footplate of Linda

10 hours ago, fulton said:

Exhibited there with my Port Victoria layout, more then a few years ago, very busy no barriers, shortly after opening a rucksack came within a millimetre of taking out one of my buildings, a piece of 2x1 packing was hurriedly g cramped as a protection post, no other problems. a very enjoyable time.  

The Germans have a history of needing more Lebensraum

1 hour ago, 009 micro modeller said:

I thought the Leader Project was relatively short-lived and not as successful as hoped, so in some ways it’s very appropriate surely? Though perhaps veering a bit too far into politics there.

Also theoretically possible but unworkable in practice

31 minutes ago, Wheatley said:

 

https://www.departmentals.com/departmental/041707

 

I dare you. 

Motorised?

1 hour ago, Tony Wright said:

All the equine names commemorated winners on the flat, usually the Classics.

 

With the St. Leger run at Doncaster and the 1000/2000 Guineas at Newmarket, the LNER were on home turf with many of the names used.

Eric Gent's "British Railways Brakevans & Ballast Ploughs" is the book you want. Published by HMRS, isbn 0902835165.

32 minutes ago, Wheatley said:

I presume they couldn't find the PARTOSHOCKVANFIT stencil. 

Is it 'self-identifying' or just confused?

10 hours ago, phil-b259 said:

 

Loco drive didn’t appear in ANY of Hornbys models until production was transferred to China in the 2000s!

 

This is at least partly wrong. Hornby started to move production to China in 1995/96. Margate closed in 1999. The first new loco drive model was the Merchant Navy in 2000. The first loco drive 8F was in 2002. Lots of good information here  http://www.hornbyguide.com/logo_menu.asp

3 hours ago, Tobbes said:

 

I've just checked Longworth and he records M1925 becoming S69022 in 1974 (M1932 became S69023, M1935 became S69024 and M1939 became S60925 also all in 1974), when I assume they must have been in Blue/Grey.

 

I stand to be corrected by someone more knowledgeable, but I think the 1974 renumbering/reallocations were to do with the conversion of those vehicles for use in 4REP EMUs.

3 hours ago, 46444 said:

 

 Lovely music. 

 

Could it be Richard Clayderman ?..

Personal opinion obviously, but frankly unlikely

14 hours ago, andyman7 said:

Here's a scan of a 1982 MTK advert in Railway Modeller...

 

The kit described as a 'Great Bear 4-6-0' would appear to epitomise MTK accuracy.

1 hour ago, Phil Parker said:

A bizarre question - why wouldn't it be fine? There aren't model railway police for this sort of thing. If they were, then they would have arrested loads of people for building Ashburton.

If there were though, how many people would have been nicked for aiding and abetting Minories?

7 minutes ago, stewartingram said:

Isn't modelling easier and cheaper if you do it yourself.....

You were doing so well until what seems like the gratuitous sarcasm here. 

12 hours ago, Jeff Smith said:

Are you using the recommended motor and g/b? It looks like a High Level g/b.  Can you drive the centre axle by swinging the extender forward under the motor?

 

I bought this kit from Branchlines a few years back. I've still not built it so can't add much, but as bought it contained a Branchlines gearbox and a Mashima motor. Since Branchlines are the 'Partners' bit of Nucast, I'd suggest that the recommended gearbox was a Branchlines one.

15 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

 

We could start in the early 1960s, with green 2-BIL and either a Terrier. P, or a Drewry 0-6-0DS on the sand trains, move through the 1970s with blue EMUs, sequentially BIL/HAL, SR HAP, BR HAP (blue), BR HAP (blue and grey), with an 08/09 for the sand trains, and end with the first stumbling steps of the CVLRPs. Quite how to replicate the slow decay of everything over that span, I’m not sure.

 

Build two (or three) identical models of each structure/feature on the layout and finish them in an increasing order of decreptitude. Swap structures according to which era you're operating.

It sounds really easy if you say it quickly.

2 hours ago, ColinB said:

Really, so why would he tell me that ?

Without knowing the nature of your relationship with the retailer you spoke to, I can think of these off the top of my head.

1. The retailer was mistaken/misinterpreted the information they received from Hornby.

2. The information from Hornby was correct at the time, but the policy had changed either before or was changed after that, meaning that both are right: i.e. different information was given to different retailers at different times.

3. Your retailer might simply not want to stock any of the range for commercial reasons best known to themselves, but do not see the need to elaborate on that to a customer.

Plenty of others I'm sure.

43 minutes ago, Steamport Southport said:

Still befuddled by what was going on when it came to the horse box roof....

 

Apparently the Lima model makers only had side and end elevations to work from.  That made it appear that the vents were arranged in 4 rows of 3 instead of 2-1-2-1 (or thereabouts)

1 hour ago, Simon G said:

My earlier comment was based on a couple of instances where dealers offered approximately 10% of the RRP, not the much more reasonable one-third as suggested elsewhere in this thread. 

I think your mistake there is assuming that a dealer is going to be able to sell any given secondhand item for its new RRP. A dealer who is reputable and knows what they're doing should reasonably offer a seller a third of what the dealer thinks they can sell that item for.

I certainly don't wish to contradict someone as knowledgeable as @VIA185 but my 1980ish schoolboy memory insists that a lot of the doors and doorframes at Aberystwyth were painted in a gloss equivalent of Rail Blue.

My memory could, quite obviously, be wrong.

5 hours ago, hmrspaul said:

 

By the way, photos of fitted wagons in the early years of BR are very orange. Freight stock red does seem to have become progressively browner as the years went by.

 

Might this be down to the quality of colour film stock at that time?

2mm/N Gauge roundy roundy. Not even with a station perhaps, but up and down loops to recess freight while expresses go hurtling past. Era of choice, but I'd go for 1970s pre-TOPS Western Region with lots of diesel hydraulics.

20 minutes ago, Michael Hodgson said:

Perhaps we're missing a trick here.

Couldn't we reduce our defence spending or get more ammo for the same money by buying it from the People's Republic?  😁

Circular firing squad?