faulcon1

Well for those who live in NSW in my younger days in that Suzuki the speedo only went to 140kph and the speedo needle was level. However I in my stupidity decided to see how fast I could make the car go. So I drove down Catherine Hill which is just west of Mittagong with the "pedal to the metal" so to speak and the speedo needle pointed vertically downwards at the blue high beam light indicator but not for long for once at the bottom on the flat it quickly returned to 130-140kph. I drove it at flat stick all the way back to the end of the motorway which in those days was at Camden. It consumed 25 litres of super petrol as unleaded petrol didn't arrive until 1986. 140kph in my present FG Falcon feels quite tame but in the hatch it was thrilling with the tiny 3 cylinder motor screaming it's head off. I've only done 140kph these days in the far western parts of NSW where there are no police or mobile camera cars because the amount of traffic passing in an hour can be counted on two hands and the roads are dead straight to the horizon. Perhaps the Hatch was a pocket rocket because when you closed the car doors they didn't close with a clunk but a loud bong! due to being so light in weight.

I've kept a Wheels magazine from 1981 because it has my first car in it. No really my very first car owned by me was tested in Wheels Magazine in their April edition. It was a Suzuki Hatch 800 in Muscat Green rego No. LBT 147. I bought the car from a friend who worked for Ateco Suzuki the importer at that time of Suzuki motor vehicles. Peter Wherrett tested the earlier one the Hatch 540cc with drum brakes and cross ply tyres. Mine had radial tyres and a disc/drum combination as most cars had at that time. Being young an stupid I fitted mine with a "peacemaker" exhaust system and it was anything but peaceful. The young blokes of today with their cannon mufflers on their WRX have nothing on the noise output of my "Peacemaker". I use to wake up the local area when I went to work in the morning. The front bumper bar never fitted properly from new but I had an accident in the car when I was perving on a blond girl on the footpath and I ran into the back of a stationary Valiant Charger. The front of my car was a mess and the rear of the Charger wasn't even dented. After the NRMA smash repairer fixed the car (which today would have been a write off) the front bumper bar fitted perfectly. 29.5kw = 40hp and 59 newton meters = 43lbft my present car has 220hp more than my first car. You can se in the B&W magazine photo that the front bumper doesn't fit properly. In the colour photo that was taken post accident and the bumper is now a good fit. The interior shot shows dad's car in front a 1976 VW Golf LS rego No. HZH 182 The label on the inside of the windscreen is the rego label which we used to have at that time. It was a bit like a model railway transfer for you soaked it in warm water and then applied it to the inside of the windscreen sliding the backing paper off. You had to get it right the first time for if you tore it in applying it then you had to pay for another one. To remove the rego label from the windscreen one used a hard back razor blade. In the front colour photo for Aussies, if you know Inghams Chickens which you can buy in the supermarket today, Mrs Ingham lived in that house over the road. She was very posh for she had an automatic garage door and nobody at the time in our area had one of those. The other thing that made her posh was that she drove a Mercedes when Australian and Japanese cars is what everyone else had in the area.

Oh what a lovely photo from the past with a colourful facade on the sea side of the building and colourful road traffic which we took so much for granted at the time. A red XD Falcon wagon at the bottom of the photo although it could be an XE with a maroon Fairlane above it and a Mazda 929 coupe next to it with an XC Falcon wagon in front and to the left of the Mazda. Behind and to the left of the XC is a Honda Accord and behind it a Toyota Corolla either an SE or CS. In front and to the right of the XC wagon is an FJ40 Toyota Landcruiser. Drove one of those on a farm but the accelerator cable had broken and so a piece of fencing wire with a big round washer welded to the wire made an accelerator pedal. It was only for farm use and wasn't registered. The farmer even had an old Mark 1 Land Drover buried in the long grass on his farm. Above the red XD I can see a mark 1 Corolla and next to it is a Volvo where at that time Volvo drivers thought they could drive anyway they liked and in an accident no matter how severe the worst injury they'd get would be an ingrowing toenail. Next to the Volvo look like it could be a first generation Commodore. In front of the FJ40 is a Datsun and in front of that a Datsun Sunny wagon who's stopped because a mark 2 Cortina is reversing out. In front of the car obscured by people is a Holden Torana and in front of that is another XD Falcon wagon and beside that is a blue Datsun 180B The blue signs van looks to be a Toyota Hi-ace and next to it is a mark 2 VW kombi and there's a blue Volvo station wagon with a green Holden panel van two cars up from it. It maybe be some blokes "shagging wagon". Those were the days you took your girlfriend to the drive in to watch one movie of a double feature. The first movie was a kiddies movie and that's when you made love to your girlfriend in the back of your van. Then you'd buy her and yourself something to eat and drink from the kiosk centrally located in the middle of the drive in and then you'd eat, drink and cuddle for the second movie. Then you drove her home. A lot of today's grandmother and grand fathers lost their virginity at the drive in, in the back of a Ford or Holden panel van. Australians never went in for the big transit type vans that the Americans had. monkeysarefun thought I was just a Ford bloke.

Swings and roundabouts for years ago cars came out in these colours. It reminds me of the old East German car colour selection where you could have any colour you wanted as long as it was bleak. Mitsubishi had a dull off white colour that looked like undercoat or primer with a clear coat on top and that looked awful. Eventually people will get bored with these uninspiring colours and then all the colours of the rainbow will appear again and interior colours too not just plain black plastic or leather but cream and blue plastic like we had in the old days but will be looked upon as never seen before because so many people have very short memories.

Here's is my current work supplied vehicle a 2019 Holden Colorado 4x4. This vehicle can only be used for work not pleasure. All fuel, servicing and rego (MOT) is paid for by the council. It's fitted with a tracking device which my female boss has activated on numerous occasions when I don't answer the phone. The tracking device gives the location of the car exactly. The tracking device tells the council where the car is but not where I am. The boys in fleet services are getting thoroughly fed up with my female boss's constant wanting to know where I am. We have had people take these vehicles out of council boundaries and when they return they lose the vehicle and their job too, no if's or buts. My own car is in the garage behind the Colorado and explains why it only has 96,000 kms on the odometer and the Colorado has 175,000km on it's odometer. It's powered by a 2.8 litre turbo diesel. It's shod with Yokohama Geolander all terrain tyres. I gets washed with nothing more sophisticated than a snow foam canon and a soft bristled brush and rinsed off with a high pressure washer and allowed to dry. When the change over vehicle arrives the canopy on the rear with be tranfered to the new vehicle which will arrive with an aluminium tray which will be fitted to this car and then it will be sent to the car auctions. The car could be considered a classic as they're no longer made as Holden Australia is no more.

Be that as it may I still don't see the need to upgrade............yet. I hope all three locos are a great success for Rapido but I just don't buy the latest and greatest simply because it is the latest and greatest. It was the same with the Heljan class 25. Yes improved detail over the Bachmann class 25 but for me at least not a HUGE improvement to warrant spending money on it just because it's the latest and greatest. A capitalist society is the USA and the UK along with Australia are social democracies. The USA is capitalism on steroids and always had been. Social democracies take the best of socialism and capitalism and combine the two.

Trying to make foreigners a little less fearful of Australia's wildlife is this video. If can watch in 4K then do so as it's all the better.

I concur with what you say for although a 44xx is nice to see I'm completely baffled by the 45xx and 4575. Is the thinking we haven't had either of these in new tooling for some years now so lets do it. But there's very little wrong with the Bachmann model which performs very well and is highly detailed. A GW Saint would have been better as there hasn't been a Saint model since the tender drive version of many years ago. The Dapol/Hornby Hawksworth County certainly needs updating as that's very old tooling. I see no need to replace my Bachmann 45xx and 4575 just because a newer model comes along. But that's just me of course and I drive a 15 year old car and see no need to update that either.

I concur with what you say for although a 44xx is nice to see I'm completely baffled by the 45xx and 4575. Is the thinking we haven't had either of these in new tooling for some years now so lets do it. But there's very little wrong with the Bachmann model which performs very well and is highly detailed. A GW Saint would have been better as there hasn't been a Saint model since the tender drive version of many years ago. The Dapol/Hornby Hawksworth County certainly needs updating as that's very old tooling. I see no need to replace my Bachmann 45xx and 4575 just because a newer model comes along. But that's just me of course and I drive a 15 year old car and see no need to update that either.

Here's another hazard and what happens if you decide it's too hot inside and we need a breeze to cool the railway room down. So we'll leave the door open so a nice fresh breeze wafts through. That's not all that can come in and draft excluders are also vital so critters like funnel web spiders are kept outside not inside. Try not to be upset with how the snake catcher refer to a model railway.

Yes I have private health insurance cover from my time on the NSW railways and even their most basic of plans has 100% ambulance cover. I was taken to hospital in an ambulance once and the ambulance service sent me the bill which was $952. I sent it onto my private healthcare and that was the last I ever hear of it. That's why in Australia unlike the US Australians are not afraid to call an ambulance. There was a dash cam clip of a car driver hitting a motorbike and it's rider was on the road. The car driver asked if he was okay and the rider said "no call an ambulance". An American girl in living and working in Paris got hit by a taxi and when people there wanted to call an ambulance for her she said "stop as that will cost me $5K" The people answered "what are you talking about, it's only 7 Euros".

One thing to understand about Australia is it's society is a society of compulsion. Those in power come up with a good idea for the people but think that the people won't agree with them so they'll just compel the people to adopt their idea like superannuation when it first appeared in the 1990's. At the time many didn't want it but they were compelled to have it so that now it's commonplace among working Australians. This approach is vastly different to any other democratic system and explains why unlike the UK Australia doesn't have a pensions problem for there's more than enough money to keep old people. In Australia when we retire from the workforce we're not automatically entitled to a state pension. Many people with large amounts in their superannuation fund themselves in their retirement known here as self funded retirees. Others will only get a part state pension whilst the very poor will get a full state pension. When my mum was alive in 2019 it was $800 a fortnight for a single person and $1,200 for a couple. Everything you own but excluding your home is calculated as to how much of a state pension you will receive. The are loopholes built into the tax system to encourage people to be self funded in their retirement and one way they get money is through franking credits. In 2015 federal election the Labor Party wanted to tighten up the tax system and get rid of the franking credits citing that self funded retirees were ripping off the taxpayer. The Labor party lost that election. On the democracy sausage it's a sausage sandwich or a sausage on a slice of bread and not a bun as that would be a hotdog. The sausage sandwich has tomato sauce (never ketchup) and if you're lucky onions too.

In the mid 1990's here in NSW Australia we had GM EMD locos enter service of 4,000hp the 90 class and at that time the heaviest diesels in state at 165 tons each that were built in Canada. They were supposed to easily haul the coal trains they were given. But even two of them on 84 wagons had terrible trouble with adhesion with the problems being traced to the radar guided wheel slip control. The Canadians hadn't wired up the latter stages of the wheel slip control thinking we wouldn't need it. But they had no idea just how much the railways intended to get out of the new diesels. The wheel slip control can be heard working by a high pitched ringing sound with the locos down to a crawl on a 1 in 60 grade or steeper. In inclement weather banking engines are still used and usually 81 class which is the father of the class 59. It was the success of the 81 class GM's that was the reason in the mid 1980's that Foster Yeoman (as it was then) bought the class 59's. Now of course 4,000hp diesels here are a dime a dozen and diesels now come with the ability to lower their horsepower depending on how heavy the train is. The NR diesel locos that haul the Ghan and Indian Pacific luxury trains work in pairs and don't need 8,000hp to haul the train even though both trains can load to over 30 coaches. They can increase or decrease the amount of horsepower that is needed. Electric locos hauling passenger trains are a thing of the past here because when the freight operations were privatised the state government not only charged private operators access charges to run trains on the state's rail network but if using electric loco power they also charged for the electricity the locos used. So by using only diesels there was one charge that didn't have to be paid and as for environmental concerns?, what environmental concerns.

But what I'd like to know is who pays for the damage caused either to a loco and or permanent way. In Blue Peter's case the then BR should have paid for the total cost of the damage but I've read in other places that the owner Geoff Drury paid for the majority of the damage with BR paying a token amount which is very wrong. The powers that be sanctioned the locomotive to run on the line and the crew to crew it and they damaged it so the powers that be are responsible for the total cost of rectifying all the damage caused, NOT the owner of the locomotive. The same with the Western for it wasn't the locomotive owners fault that the engine slipped but the man who was driving it and so who paid for the damage caused to the permanent way and any damage to the Western. Don't for get if a loco causes delays to other trains on the line the operators are very quick to point the finger at the locomotive's owner and demand compensation for delayed services so the gate has to swing both ways.

I have a female boss Tim who keeps asking me every year if I'm going back home as in the UK. But I was born in Australia of British parents who came here in the late 1950's and I worked with a Yorkshire man for fifteen years with an accent so thick you could cut it with a knife. I found out that I can pick up accents rather quickly for I was talking to a northern Irishman on the Puffing Billy railway in 1998 and in next to no time I was speaking with a Irish accent. I thought about it afterwards thinking I hope he didn't think I was taking the Mick out of him. So when I've come to the UK which has been three times so far I've made a concerted effort to talk in a broad Aussie accent which isn't my normal way of speaking. It's done simply so I don't slip into speaking to a person in their accent which they may find offensive. I've been though Barmedman on my way to Temora. Pretty little place it is too. If on your next visit to Australia and if you get a chance Tim, visit the Rail Transport Museum at Thirlmere near to Picton. It's now run by the state government having been run by volunteers since 1962. It was originally located at Enfield a suburb of Sydney in an old locomotive depot which was a huge place with three roundhouses. When originally built Enfield was out in the "sticks" being just open land. The third roundhouse at Enfield was only a partial roundhouse with a 120' turntable for turning the 60 class Garratts. That turntable has survived and today is at the Thirlmere railway museum as it's needed to turn the only operational Garratt 6029. There are many engines in there of English origin. On CF you have a funeral station and we have one in Sydney near to central station known as Mortuary Station and constructed of sandstone with slate tiled roof. From there funeral trains used to run to Rookwood Cemetery where there was another Mortuary type of sandstone station to receive the coffins and mourners. Only the base of the Mortuary Station survives today in the cemetery as the sandstone building was demolished and re-erected in Canberra as a church. Today of course the stretched estate car is the preferred method of transport for coffins. There's a company in the UK called Coleman Milne who specialise in making hearses and for a number of years they imported Australian designed and built Ford Falcons right up to when local production finished in 2016. A You Tuber who lives in Wales imported an Australian Falcon into the UK having driven the car round New Zealand and he's got some spare parts for the car from Colman Milne. In New Zealand is the Mount Pleasant Railway they have a replica four wheel Rail Bus powered by a Ford Model T engine with the Model T driver controls.

I've been to West Wyalong recently and it's actually two towns Wyalong and West Wyalong separated by a flood plain. You would notice the difference Tim in driving around the back streets and their width compared to England. I learnt to drive properly in a country town and my first attempt to do a three point turn was a failure because of the wide road I easily did a U turn instead. I recently went out to Bourke nearly 500 miles from Sydney and Bourke received a new railway station not long before the railway line was closed altogether. I looks like a community center. However the load bank still survives in Bourke and is just before the main traffic intersection in town. The main western line of which Bourke was it's terminus now only runs as far as Nyngan and even it's station is not used by trains but is now Nyngan's museum. Part way between the two towns was Byrock a junction for the line to Brewarrina now all gone. Nyngan itself was once a railway junction for the lines to Bourke and Cobar but now only the line to Cobar remains open for rail use. Only the rail traffic is gone for unlike the UK the railway lines are all still there with the four foot slowly being reclaimed by nature. That area out there is home to the most venomous snake in the world, the Inland Taipan but the chances of seeing one are extremely remote as it's spends most of it's time underground where because of the extreme conditions out there small animals spend their time underground too. It's been said that there's enough venom in one bite to kill over 200 adults. I journeyed onto Cobar a distance of 165km seeing Emus and feral goats on the way, which still has it's railway station but no passenger trains now call there, only the railway bus service. The station name board is now in the station car park and the line through the station is still open because it services mines in the area. Then I journeyed onto Hillston a distance of 256km which still has an active railway line but no station. At these three places the substantial station masters house is still there but now in private ownership. Between Nyngan and Narromine is Nevertire which is a junction for the line to Warren. Nevertire's station has been swept away but like other locations the station master's house is still very much lived in. Here's photo Tim of Cobar Station with my little car in the station car park waiting for a passenger train that will never come.

For those who fear coming to our Australia and think if I have an accident or I'm taken seriously ill in a very remote location what do I do. Well fear not for the Royal Flying Doctor Service is there to help you. Inside the aircraft is a fully equipped hospital Intensive Care Unit. They will fly you to regional hospital landing in a town where they're met by an RFDS road ambulance to take you to the hospital. If you need more intensive treatment than the regional hospital can provide then the RFDS flies you onto a city hospital. Once better the RFDS flies you back to where your companions are waiting for you. For us here in Australia it's all covered under our universal healthcare. Australia has healthcare agreements with other countries so we can all provide medical services to each other's citizens. One country that no such agreement exists with is the United States as they don't have any universal healthcare so for Americans I'm afraid it will cost you dearly.

I first became aware of that exhibition layout Tim way back in 1986 watching a Railscene video No.8 of a cab ride between St Pancras and Sheffield. In Bedforshire the the producer riding in the cab of an HST said there's a very famous 2mm fine scale model railway of this area. Then the inspector says, well this is Chiltern Green and and the video producer answers, Yes that is the place. So it was that video that introduced me to Chiltern Green but it was to be many more years after that when I eventually saw it and this was of course in the pre internet age and definitely pre You Tube which has only been around since 2005. By 1986 the Chiltern Green model railway had left MRC and Copenhagen Fields had begun and I didn't hear of CF until the internet age. In the video interview you said I come from a farming family and I used to spend my youth on a farm of 13,000 acres, quite small. My mum knew the farmer's wife and she knew her mother too. They were cockneys and the farmer's wife had a cockney accent mixed in with an Australian accent and her mother thought it was ghastly. I learnt to drive a car on the farm which was many miles from the nearest town and from the nearest bus stop. So instead of farmer's wife having to drive the kids all the way into town to go to school, the eldest of the kids who was twelve drove an unregistered car to the bus stop with all his school aged siblings. In the day time there would be a line up of unregistered cars at the bus stop. Other kids in very remote areas don't go to school in any town at all. They attend school of the air whereby they stay at home and do their schooling these days by the internet and Skype. One girl said that city schools don't have kids saying to teachers "excuse me Miss I have to go as dad needs my help rounding up several hundred head of sheep. I'll be back later". As you're in the dental profession Tim our Royal Flying Doctor Service flies city based dentists to very remote areas so that the people living there can have regular dental check ups and it's all covered under our universal healthcare.The RFDS has a fleet of planes that inside are a hospital ICU for a road ambulance is out of the question with roads being dirt and very rough a patient would likely die before reaching a hospital. So they're flown instead and once better the RFDS flies them home and that too is all covered under our universal healthcare. Many farms out there have their own dirt airstrip for the RFDS.

The actual carriage was never used in the train wreck. That was an O gauge model. 1401 and 1456 both still had years of service to perform after the filming so naturally no permission was given to right them off in an accident. But both locos didn't survive in the end however even though 1456 was renumbered 1401 and turned to face the other way so that they could film the train running in either direction with the engine leading smoke box first. 1462 was actually a wooden mock up on a truck chassis to drive through Richmond Park and down Woodstock High Street. Real steam locos have been purposely crashed in filming takes including one film with Burt Lancaster filmed in Europe after WW2 when there were many steam locos waiting to go to the scrapyard and so destroying them was no problem. Even in the Buster Keating Movie The General of 1927 a 4-4-0 was really driven onto a burning wooden bridge for real and the loco plummeted into a river when the bridge gave way. It was only raised from the river to be cut up for scrap in 1941.

Oh we've already got hard rough toilet paper as seen here.

As time marches on eventually all those who could remember steam in everyday use on the mainline will have gone to those big preserved railways in the sky and all the mortals will only remember diesels, DMU's and electrics. Of course there will be people born after the age of steam who will still only like steam. But Pacers, and every other DMU, diesels and electrics in service today will eventually have some of their number in preservation in the years to come.

You do realise that the GW pattern water tower in the film was a prop for there was never a water tower in that location. Also it's been said that Ealing Studies never asked permission to repaint Lion in the gaudy livery for the film. That reminds me of the movie Battle of Britain from 1969 when filming at Duxford aerodrome they needed permission to blow up a hanger in a simulated air raid with Foo Gas. Director Guy Hamilton said don't bother asking for permission just go ahead and blow it up. Then we'll apologise profusely afterwards.

Tim, how many people in this still from the program are in the MRC of London today and working on and operating CF.

No I'm sorry you don't understand. It's got nothing to do with how the LMS or LMR ran their trains and the composition of those trains. Tony Wright said he didn't have enough LMS coaches to make a long train for Turbomotive. But when running a MODEL test train it doesn't matter what the coaches are for you are wanting to find out what the haulage limit is so you use any sort of coaching stock even though it looks totally wrong in a modelling sense. But you're not running Turbomotive for modelling purposes in this case you're running it to find out what the model locomotive's maximum haulage capacity is.

Someone on YT has uploaded the TV program "A Line Side Look at Model Railways and Tim is interviewed by the late Bob Symes for the layout Chiltern Green. Tim is or was one of those gentleman modellers for he's wearing a tie. I've seen the Chiltern Green layout at the South Devon Railway center although it was not running at the time being housed in a Mk1 coach. But that was twenty three years ago now.