raymw

Go to https://google.com/trends/ and enter in the search field at the top, whatever topic you want. afaik they simply go through search history - there is a bit of information on what they do if you poke around enough. wrt model railways, for each year it peaks in December, at the lowest point in Jun/July, but a spasm of interest in September. TV type video games dropped down a couple of years ago, but other games rose (mobile apps) at about the same time. (There appears to be not enough info on Bachman to get any results). It is, what it is. Interesting to see the regional splits, but I think the towns are locations of isp, not folk making the searches. My previous post was what I derived from the graphs, not what google stated.

if you use google trends (not something necessarily to rely on), for the UK it appears that interest in rail transport modelling has halved between 2005 and 2011, but stayed more or less at that level since. Seasonal variations are similar for all years. Over the same period, the interest in lego has steadily increased (with similar seasonal variations). However, between 2011 and 2013, the interest in mobile phone apps doubled - and there is little seasonal pattern. Anyway, some pretty graphs to look at/play with

The photo, also used by the Telegraph in another article http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/9822268/Timeshift-The-Joy-of-Train-Sets-BBC-Four-review.html is from a stock photo agency, as most of them will be. edit to add - in this case http://www.alamy.com/ (see if you can find a better toy train photo on there)

The plants in our local Aldi are deader than that, but with no price reduction tags.

The forum software is changing from dc to dcc, and they need a few frog juicers.

As I mentioned on this thread a year or so ago, some folk aren't yet mature enough to wear long trousers.

I think i would try one lighter springy wire to centre of axle. You want just enough pressure to keep the wheels on the track, but not so much friction that keeps them aligned with the chassis. If it is only on one point, then obviously observe where the wheels are climbing over the rails.If the curve is too sharp, then smaller wheels, on the sort of pivot shown, will be not be parallel with the rails, but will be at an angle, so maybe the b2b needs adjusting. It'll run OK in the othe direction, it's easier to pull a wheel-barrow compared to pushing.

If you want batteries, a small factory being set up in Nevada is getting that covered. Interesting stuff happening, if it all comes to pass http://blog.caranddriver.com/elon-musk-says-in-two-years-a-tesla-could-summon-itself-cross-country/ The plant is already producing batteries, but not yet for cars, afaik.

As others had said here, but maybe a bit more background as to what b*ll*cks that article is. http://www.zdnet.com/article/when-it-comes-to-windows-10-privacy-dont-trust-amateur-analysts/

Bit of news re google car http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2016/02/10/google-cars-ai-brain-counts-driver-feds-say/80183418/# turn sound off....

I've got a couple of cpm machines, too. They won't run the hardware I have, no more than linux, apple or all the other low volume operating systems out there.

The Peco O gauge point I have, age unknown, has a cast frog and V, in some sort of metal, held in place by rivets through the plastic that runs underneath which is moulded with the sleepers. The sleeper base is in two pieces, clipped together, approx. ten inches from the toe, 5.5 from heel (limitations of mould size). The rail is not strictly bullhead, but has the thin flat, narrow web at the base, as mentioned elsewhere. The outside of the chairs are reasonably well moulded. I think they drop in the preformed rail, hooking the bottom lip under the chair, then use heat and pressure to subsequently deform and press the inside edges of the chairs around the base of the rail. The unit is quite rigid and strong, and from a couple of foot away it looks pretty good, compared to their current OO/HO offerings. If they apply the same principles in making their new OO points, I reckon it would strike a good balance between price, performance, strength and appearance. Imnsho, from a couple of foot away, the chairs look just as good as the C&L point I have built (but the C&L chairs look a bit silly with long equal length wedges protruding), and the Peco unit is certainly much stronger. Of course the C&L frog and tie bar look more prototypical, but the Peco can be fettled easy enough.

If you put 'em on your scanner (if you've got one), instead of using your camera, it may be better. Just scan a small section at high resolution, convert to jpeg.

At the moment, we scale things down, say from a foot to 4mm, or 3.5mm/whatever. But as we can't 'scale nature', running clearances, machining tolerances and so forth, compromises have to be made, our imagination fills in the gaps. What would happen if we went the other way? If we scaled up the wheels/track so that we had,say, full size 6 inch wheel flanges and foot high rails, (or whatever it worked out to be) would we then be able to run trains at speed around small radius curves? You'd have to ignore the fact that power goes up as a square and volume as a cube which works in our favour in scaling down, but we could make compromises on the way up wrt track/wheels, etc. It's a question of where you place yourself in relation to the model - a big guy looking down, or a little guy looking up.

There once was a happy little fly buzzing around a barn, when she came upon a large pile of fresh cow manure. Since it had been hours since her last meal and she was feeling hunger pangs, she flew down to the irresistible delicacy And began to munch out. She ate.........and ate.......and then.......she ate some more Finally, she decided she'd had plenty. She washed her face with her tiny front legs, belched a few times, then attempted to fly away. But alas .....she had pigged out far too much and could not get off the ground. She looked around wondering what to do about this unpleasant situation when she spotted a pitchfork leaning upright against the barn wall. She'd found a solution! She realized that if she could just become airborne she'd be able to fly again. So, she painstakingly, climbed to the top of the handle. Once there, she took a deep breath, spread her tiny fly wings, and leaped confidently into the air. She dropped like a rock and splattered all over the floor... Dead fly.. The moral of this sad story? Never fly off the handle when you know you're full of sh1t

or italics?

You need to go back about 50 years. The downs was/is sort of common land, back then free parking everywhere - but a certain family would offer to show folk where they could park. They had the leather satchels, etc., looked sort of official, and took money. The zoo was happy, so was the council. It meant that not so much of the common ground was damaged, nor side streets blocked and folk were happy to pay - they assumed it was 'official'. It seems to be different now, but 'of course, they would say that, wouldn't they', that it never existed. fwiw Bristol decided to pay businesses/boatbuilders, etc. to move out of the docks, down to Avonmouth/wherever. Thought they could save a fortune on maintaining the locks at Cumberland Basin. They then,after paying out a million or so as compensation realized they had to keep locks operational, since they were an essential part of the flood prevention scheme. I think that was a bit more recent, maybe 40 odd years ago.

If that was Magnolia, it comes and goes in fashion/availability.

Well, it's gone a bit upmarket in the 45 years since I was last there. I remember that what we thought was black linoleum on the floor was in fact a very well trodden carpet. Someone told a new lad, who was short of cash, that he could collect parking fees for the zoo. He didn't understand the joke, and ended up with some facial restyling, iirc.

Not unless you've frequented 'the taps' you ain't

If a manufacturer were to make track with wooden keys, there would be arguments discussions that they protruded too much, were all the same length, the wrong colour, and whatever, and half the folk would lay the track 'wrong way round... In manufacturing, there has to be compromise, a balance of the price folk will pay, market size, whatever, and folk sit at a different place at that table. For me C&L points are expensive, for what they are, if I'm buying, but a reasonable price if I was selling, and maybe too cheap if I had to make them - and they are still a compromise. Peco will produce something that looks better than their current pointwork, but due to the necessity of producing for a larger market, for folk with perhaps 'less finesse', it will be more 'robust', than C&L, but 'better looking' than current Peco. The investment in tooling, will be quite high for pointwork, and they will trade off realism, cost, quantity needed. Whatever they come up with will most likely be a similar price to existing, and still folk will be moaning, because it is not exactly what they want - all part of the rich fabric of life . Best wishes, Ray

and so did wsr or maybe it was Somerset &Dorset Railway Trust at Washford, (at least for this bit...)

Hi Brian, have you the location for google earth? (It would save me some time zooming around). I live not too far away from the Tor, (I expect others may live nearer), and if passing said location may take a snap or two, or may be able to find out a bit more local history)

Sometimes, it takes a while for 'common sense' to prevail. Not particularly railway related, (but life related, at the fundamental level) but shows the effort required by dedicated folk to correct mistakes http://www.ted.com/talks/tania_simoncelli_how_i_took_on_the_gene_patent_industry_and_won Best wishes, Ray

Hi, I'm not sure if this is any better, but you can always do the cheap trick for poor colour photos, convert to black and white... Although I have Photoshop, and other editing software, For a quick fix, you can't beat IrfanView http://www.irfanview.com/ download it, for free with all the plugins. I suggest you play with the software for a while, you will find you will easily be able to convert colours, crop, add copyrights, whatever, and may well be able to use the batch processing features if you have a number of images with similar problems. I use it as my 'go to' quick fix software for web purposes. If you are into photos, then you owe it to yourself to get the hang of it. A few seconds to adjust gamma and contrast, and resize. Best not to work with jpegs, but good enough for web. Do you scan in the slides/photos, or get to digital in some other way? Best wishes, Ray