faulcon1

In modeling a preserved railway one could always compress a location. In fact they maybe mandatory as trying to model say Horsted Keynes or Loughborough would result in a very large model with no room to expand. One bloke who did model a real location modeled Llandudno Junction. But he compressed the station area but it is still instantly recognisable as Llandudno Junction. He also modeled Llandudno itself and that was in the remains of a built in wardrobe. He modeled the Conwy bridge complete with castellated end although his castellated end owed more to the cardboard tubes from toilet rolls. The Conwy bridge formed a scenic break to his storage sidings but was still instantly recognisable. He did model Deganwy with it's signal box perhaps one of the very few signal boxes that never controlled a signal in it's life. For those whom steam holds little to no interest they could have small diesels being run on an embryonic steam line with the steam locos as rusting hulks in sidings awaiting restoration. For those who like steam, an embryonic line may see small steam locos with nothing bigger than an 0-4-0 or 0-6-0 tank loco on one or two coaches. Many a current preserved railways first steam loco wasn't a Bullied pacific, GWR Hall or Black 5. It was often a small industrial steam loco on one or two coaches. One could even go back further and not have coaches but a number of BR brake vans for people to ride in. Look at railway touring clubs that visited branch lines that had lost their passenger services years before and an 0-6-0 tank hauling open wagons for people to ride in. Modern H&S wasn't around in those days. Engine sheds with boarded up windows their lines no longer connected to the branch line and long grass everywhere. You could even model a line that was closed before Beeching and lines were closed pre Beeching in the fifties. Perhaps just a platform with temporary prefab buildings, a short length of running line ending at thick vegetation. Ideal for those who don't have a huge amount of space at their disposal. Also just don't look at a preserved station look at the storage areas. On a recent UK holiday I visited a railway in Derbyshire. There were BR diesels stored in the open in various liveries, and a cab for a diesel just sitting on the ground. There was a 2-8-0 tank loco once owned or still owned by a famous person stored in the open and slowly succumbing to the weather. Industrial steam locos being overhauled in the open air. There were even parts for a station footbridge among the long grass. What did look odd was the chassis for an industrial steam loco with 6 traction motors lined up in front of it. There was a Mk1 coach with one end resting on a lot of timber supports whilst it's bogie received some attention and all in the open air. The Dapol/Airfix loco kits could not only represent rusting hulks from the scrapyard but locos beginning their long path to restoration by painting a loco in red oxide. Many a steam loco was first restored in real life out in the open. As for diesel locos waiting to be restored they can be old Lima models in faded liveries or even covered in graffiti. The same for wagons or coaches picked up from the "bits and pieces" boxes in model shops. Many a preservation society couldn't afford an expensive and sophisticated security system to protect their assets. Often it was just a fence and hope for the best.

A cynic is what an idealist calls a realist.

Well I was at the Ffestiniog Railway Victorian Weekend and a fireman there was using his iphone on the footplate whilst the loco was standing in a station. In fact in his "Victorian Costume" one could quite clearly see the outline of his iphone in his left trouser pocket. It was too thin to be a tobacco tin. There was also a lady "playing" a squeeze box only her fingers weren't actually pressing any of the buttons on the battery operated squeeze box. She was decked out in full Victorian costume and in the morning she strode slowly up and down the platform at Portmadoc. In the afternoon she strode up to the platform end where the Welsh Highland trains stop and then quickened her pace on the return to the main station building. I think either she was busting a for a pee and knew it would take a good ten minutes to get out of her Victorian dress to sit on the loo or the batteries in her fake squeeze box were about to expire and she'd look a right prat as the music slowly died away.

Yes but on a preserved railway a colliery doesn't have to be extinct unless of course your railway is modeled as of the 23rd of July 2017 at 2.15pm.

However in modelling a preserved line there are one thing that I've never seen available. The figure of a fireman casually leaning out of a cab of a black 5 using his iphone. In a sense modelling a preserved line is an exercise in modelling two eras in the same area. The town scenes are all bang up to date with modern shops or shopping complexes, big super markets, modern cars on modern roadways and modern urban housing or older housing with no front garden as it's been bitumened over for somewhere to park the cars. Then you have the preserved railway with it's traditional signaling or early colour lights but goods sheds given over to other uses such as the lines permanent way group or demolished altogether to make room for more parking. Yes the steam locos are highly polished and the coaching stock is clean but only to a point. The bogies and the under frame are usually quite dirty. Of course your preserved line may have a colliery an oil depot or a dairy still in business on it and sending their coal or milk and cream out by rail and oil in by rail. The passenger side can be purely tourists but the freight side helps to keep the preserved railway's books well and truly in the black. One can use any excuse such as road transportation becoming too expensive for a dairy. The line was only maintained to the colliery or the oil depot from the junction but now the preserved railway runs the trains to the exchange sidings or the mainline railway operator has running rights to the colliery, dairy or oil depot which means that a class 66 runs on the preserved railway. You don't have to model a preserved railway right down to every last rivet. But you can take elements of the preserved railway and incorporate those into your model. Heljan made three diesel locos that didn't make it to preservation in the shape of Lion, Falcon and Kestrel. Your line could be lucky and have all three surviving into preservation. Your 4mm population and train enthusiast photographers certainly won't complain. You can still run demonstration freights and use modern freight wagons for the colliery and dairy although one would have to use modern bogie tank wagons designated to milk traffic or oil traffic. Some people model a railway set in the era of the big four. For others it's the early BR years in the 50's, others still the change over era from steam to diesel or the BR blue era or sectorisation. A right up to date railway together with a preserved railway adds another dimension and it's the owners choice which is the more prominent.

Have you not heard of the old song Chris, The English the English the English are best I wouldn't give tupence for all of the rest. All the world over each nations the same They've simply no notion for playing the game They argue with umpires they cheer when they've won And they practice beforehand which ruins all the fun, But the English the English the English are best I wouldn't give tupence for all of the rest. If I order something from the UK it take around two weeks to get to Australia However if I order something from DCC Concepts in Western Australia it can take up to four weeks to get to New South Wales. I heard that the parcel pidgin suffers feather fatigue along the way.

One further point if you are thinking of going outdoors with your railway into your garden then set up a test track with your choice of track base just to see if what you have in mind is viable. If it isn't then you haven't wasted a lot of money on something that will be a real pain to maintain. If your chosen track base is viable and stands up to the rigors of an outdoor life I also recommend that you have an outdoor building to run the trains into for storage. Make it so that the trains have to climb a slight gradient (1 in 100 is fine) to enter and run down a gradient to exit the out building so that rain water doesn't run into the building via the track base . When building a garden railway outside in whatever scale you chose just remember that the weather doesn't recognise scale or gauge. Whether you're using OO/HO or 3.5" gauge they're all the same as far as the weather is concerned. So you must build a very solid track base. Even if the railway is only going to be a bit of fun to get away from the absolute scale modeling that you practice inside you must still build a very solid track base. Also another reason why code 100 streamline is used outside is because of the sheer quantity you will use. Twelve or more boxes of streamline is easy to get through when laying out the track on a garden railway. Forget hand made track with the correct sleeper spacing's. You'll have long gone to the great model railways in the sky before you're even half way through laying track unless of course that's the real reason for doing it. Perhaps you just love to build huge amounts of hand made track. Also forget dead scale modeling outdoors. The plants in your garden will tower over your models being completely out of scale but they will provide some welcome and pretty shade. Try not to build your garden railway so that the right of way passes beneath deciduous trees otherwise your railway will become submerged beneath masses of leaves in autumn. Also try to keep away from plants which have sharp thorns or spiky growth on them as maintaining the railway near to those types of plants will be difficult and painful. A little forethought as to the laying out of the permanent way will save a lot of painful experiences later on. One thing you won't have to worry about is painting the sides of the rails. Mother nature will do that for you as she oxidises the nickel silver rail. It turns a black colour very quickly which is why you need to clean the rails before every running session. Also use an outdoor vacuum cleaner like Vax to suck up debris. Don't use the wife's vacuum because it's not designed for an outdoor use and if you break it you'll never hear the end of it and your better half who was very enthusiastic about the garden railway may have a big change of heart.

I used to have a high level outdoor railway. I called it outdoor for it was no where near any garden rather well and truly above it. The highest point was 1.5m off the ground. I used Peco code 100 streamline track as it's more robust and the plastic sleeper base is UV resistant so it doesn't go brittle in the sunlight. I had a nest of bull ants and I teased them with a length of older streamline into a frenzy and then dropped the streamline onto the nest to see what they could do to it. Well they were determined to defeat the track and swarmed over it. But try as they might they couldn't do anything to it so they retreated perhaps to have a cup of tea. I live in Australia and our weather is vastly different to the weather in the UK. We rarely get frosts and where I live we don't get snow, but we do get very hot days in summer and as the saying goes it never rains it pours and yes that's very true as our rain is often torrential. Through these different types of weather the Peco code 100 came through it all with flying colours. For me the trouble is finding a track base that is virtually no maintenance. My high level railway was constructed mostly of wood and although a lot it was copper chrome arsenate treated wood the top surface where the track was pinned was exterior pine. It was all painted but the pine still rotted away which is why the railway is no more. I'd like to have another garden railway in the true sense that is just above the ground but able to blend in with a garden. The high level railway stuck out like a new tooth in an old ladies mouth and I was constantly worried about vandalism, whereas a garden railway that blends in and is not noticeable is a far more attractive railway even if your knees have to suffer for it. I used DCC or to be exact NCE Pro Cab 5amp Radio. The radio range is excellent and at 50m from the command station two way antenna the control of the trains was the same as if I was 0.5m from the command station antenna. The bus wire was 2.5mm stranded wire and the droppers from the rails to the bus wire were 1mm solid copper. I also used 1mm solid copper for bonding the track joints which is vital outside. When it comes to deciding whether to use code 100 or code 75, code 100 is the only choice. Your viewing distance is so much greater that you won't be able to tell the difference. Your viewing distance inside can be 600mm or less. Outside your viewing distance is often around 10m or more so you won't notice a difference in rail height.

Is your purchase really necessary?. It all depends on who buys it. If it's someone being led by the nose with all the advertising and reviews gushing over the model then I'd say no. But if it's a model that's never been produced before in R-T-R form and it fits want you want as in for your layout then yes go ahead a buy one. I'll put my hand up as I've bought engines in the past that now I look back upon and think 'why did I buy that?', because I listened to all the hype when it was released, that's why.

On a recent visit to the Llangollen railway I asked them what happened to the idea of wanting to run trains to Corwen for school children. I got told that idea has been dropped. They said we're saddled with a 25mph speed limit and the main road running nearby is mostly 60mph. They said we just can't compete. I wonder what the speed limit used to be on that line in BR days. I think that the preserved railways offer a lot of modeling potential. For one thing they are there for people to see. Not old silent 16mm footage of often dubious quality with the colour of the film not right because of it's age. One can have themes like the preserved railways do like the popular wartime weekends or end of steam events. The running of the big four locos all in one place doesn't jar ones senses mixed in together with diesels in original livery or BR blue. Even in the days of BR they used to send DMU's or Pacers to run at diesel galas. I think modeling the preserved railway scene is almost a case of anything goes and many modellers have a large and varied collection making modeling a preserved railway an enjoyable experience. Sure the locos you may have didn't make it into preservation but then you can use modellers license or you can go and change the names and numbers. There was a bloke in the US filming a large indoor HO layout and asking what period was modeled. He was told the late 1950's to early 1960's. He then asked how do you explain a GE Dash 9 and was told that's modellers license.

I first saw this loco on my first ever visit to the SVR in 2000. On the particular day I visited it was half painted and lettered. But it was in service as it hauled our train from Bridgenorth to Kidderminster. At that time the SVR was having problems with Russian coal. It was burning way too hot and the heat from the coal distorted a number of fireboxes. Still I have fond memories of this loco and the other three in service on the day I visited. They were 2-8-0 48773, 0-6-0PT 7714 and BR 2-6-4T 80079. I later found out that the weather on the day I visited was a typical English day. A heavy mist with light showers. In those days 2-10-0 "Gordon" resided at Arley.

I was aware of that but I didn't go to the Engine House on the day I had my dog (Rover) ticket. I was concentrating on the steam action and chatting.

I agree with you. But the UK is the home of preserved railway and having a heaving tripod to carry round wouldn't worry me but if it could fit in the suitcase I may get charged for excess heavy baggage. If I didn't put it in the suitcase then it would be one of two pieces of carry on luggage. You Brits are so lucky in having so many preserved railways in a small space. For those of us overseas we aren't so lucky and so we often have to travel light. After the experience of traveling with my cheap plastic tripod, on my next visit I'll leave it at home as it's just something else that has to be lugged around. Many on YouTube could do with learning to use an editing suite. So many videos are taken with phones and if you lie on your left or right hand side you can easily watch them. I can still get down but it's harder getting up.

If using a tripod with a video camera it's often not a good idea to pan and "follow" the loco because as you follow the loco the camera tilts. Remember that often the ground is soft and your tripod begins to sink into the soft earth mid shot as you follow the loco. But hand held shots aren't out of the question either. These days with stabilising features in video editing software a jerky shot can be smoothed out. Of course there is stabilising software and then there's stabilising software like the YouTube stabiliser which shows you a split preview screen of before and after. It isn't honest and the YouTube stabilsing process can often make an unstable video far worse. I was watching some footage from a Ffestiniog quirks and curiosities weekend and a vertical boiler loco had a very bendable vertical boiler after the video had been "stabilised" using the YouTube stabilising feature. I took some shots on the NYMR autumn gala near to Grosmont up a hill. Unfortunately my tripod began to sink after I started to pan and follow the loco. The gradient is supposed to be 1 in 49. But in my footage looks closer to 1 in 12. You don't notice it when you're filming and also my shots were very jerky as I don't have a fluid head tripod to allow for smooth panning. Still the iMovie stabiliser smoothed out the shot beautifully but naturally could do nothing about the 1 in 12 gradient. I'll upload it to YouTube eventually because I did get 2-6-2 tank 5199 in the pouring rain at Beck Hole from the over bridge working very hard on a seven coach train and she didn't slip either. I was the only one there. What can be very annoying is still photographers. They take one or two shots and then start chatting about camera settings whilst others with video cameras are still filming or they start noisily packing up getting ready to head for their next location. Very annoying!. Station platforms can be very hard to film from as you're often surrounded by people who don't give a toss whether people are filming or not. They stand in front of you getting their shot or chatting to their friends. Being from overseas a line side pass for me is a waste of money. Thirty pounds and I can only use it once. No point in spending the money. I try to find public foot crossings between stations where there's nobody around. But not knowing the areas well for me it's difficult. Trying to find them on gala days means missing a lot of loco action. I came across one purely by chance on the Langollen Railway and I'll keep it a secret. It's mine!!!.

I had a wonderful day at the Severn Valley Railway in late October. Met some wonderful locals to talk to on the train and did a bit of filming at Hampton Loade Station. There was only one downside there and a member of the SVR staff came and decided he wanted to be in the video shot as he watched the train depart. He even waved at the camera. His job there seemed to be escorting people over the barrow crossing at the Bridgenorth end of the Station. Back to the good stuff there was also a coal fire crackling away in the waiting room although the bloke who lit it did have difficulty lighting it until I used my cigarette lighter to light the paper at the bottom of the grate. In no time at all the pine wood started to burn with it's characteristic snapping and banging and and in next to no time the coal was alight. Then close the waiting room door and soon the waiting room was warm and cosy. People outside came in to warm up where more chatting ensued about trains as we waited for trains. I did go around the engine house at Highley but was disappointed. Yes I paid the six pound entry fee but it seemed like old rolling stock in a new car showroom. To me it just didn't have the right atmosphere. I went round the museum at Oxenhope on the K&WVR and that did have the right atmosphere to me. They have some lovely L&Y rebuilt coaches in there. It's hard to put into words my feelings about the engine house at Highley. It's a sort of clinically clean place with too many don't touch this or that signs among other signs that makes it almost a shrine to H&S. One comes away from Highley station and it's mid twentieth century feel to walk up the road and see a twenty first century building which sticks out like a sore thumb. Even the Ship Inn nearby doesn't have a modern look to it. The station and the area look like they've been there for centuries and compliment their natural surroundings. The engine house doesn't compliment the natural surroundings and to my eyes just looks hideous. I know the SVR has spent a huge amount of money on building the engine house and that others are wrapped in it and about it. But for me, sorry, no. However the wooded walk up the old tramway section of the former colliery was a delight that I never knew existed. I'm sorry if my impression of the engine house seems harsh but i can't wax lyrically over something I don't like. To me the engine house locos would be more in keeping with the building if they were Voyager and Pendolino power cars and class 70 and 68 locos.

I spent the final day of my UK holiday at Pendon as it was far enough away from Heathrow but not too far. I didn't take any photos as there was no chance of having the windows lowered for there were too many children there and the opportunity for them to "touch" the model would have been too great. On the the Dartmoor scene the operator has a computer screen showing via CCTV what's in the storage sidings under the Dartmoor hill and I was told that kids spend more time watching the computer screen than actually looking at the Dartmoor scene itself. I watched the Dartmoor Scene and did my best to ignore the CCTV screen. The operator also showed me what Pendon uses to clean the rails. It's an in house made wagon with a board that rubs along the rails weighed down by heavy weights. They use an old Pannier Tank itself covered in weights so that it looked like a hefty saddle tank to push this wagon around both the Dartmoor scene and the Vale Scene lines. The public never sees this combination in action. They don't use track rubbers or any kind or proprietary track cleaning vehicles. I was also told that Roye England's first loco 5624 which was sitting on the turntable at Pen Tor Road is now a static loco and would require a fair amount of work to rejoin the operating fleet of locos. There has also been talk of using the loco products from Hornby and Bachmann but it has been voted down as people want to see the scratch built locos and stock in action and not modern locos and stock operating at Pendon. Besides the modern Hornby and Bachmann products would all have to be converted to EM gauge and I think they would detract from the Pendon experience. If it did happen what next, Scaledale and Scenecraft buildings?. No. Pendon shows us all what can be achieved in 4mm scale by modellers of enormous talent. Using proprietary models would see the standards that Pendon is renown for slip down to a what everyone else can do. If that happened there would be nothing to show what modellers of enormous talent are capable of producing. I know I'm treading on thin ice writing this but Pendon IS very special and I hope it always remains that way and that they never move model wise with the times. One staff member said that she was not looking forward to the completion of the Vale Scene as the public would no longer be able to see how the scenes are created on the model and how the structures were placed into the scene. I wholeheartedly agree with that view. Sure they can have photographs on how it's all done but seeing it there in front of you is much more convincing and gives one a better understanding of how it's all done.

I bought this magazine on a recent holiday in the UK and yes the review of the Oxford Rail's Dean Goods is very in depth. It maybe just me but I got the feeling that the model hasn't been built to a standard but to a price as there are many compromises with it. Some have said that Model Rail is "in bed" with model railway manufacturers but this review proves that they are definitely not.

You're the one talking rubbish phil-b259. No where in my post did I state that vacuum brakes were the only braking system used by companies during the steam era. I wrote that the vacuum brake system was the order of the day but I did not write that the Westinghouse air brake system was not used by any railway company in the UK. I'm well aware that other companies used the air brake system. Don't interpret and twist what people write just so you can attack them.

I went to the Foxfield Railway's autumn gala and yes the gods did smile from time to time. Drizzling rain or not it was a great event and I'll be back for another sometime although it's a little out of my way, about 18,000km out of my way. Is it really necessary to run a diesel loco on the back? The engine to make the most noise up the bank was Whiston. There was one glitch on the weekend when the CEGB 0-4-0 saddle tank No. 15 was late in departing from Foxfield Colliery. The fire went out. She had been coaled up but apparently no coal had been added to the fire which went out. Oops! However she was soon fully functional once again thanks to old pallets. I love the industrial steam locos and it's good that so many have survived too. When steam went on the mainline there was about 16,000 locos and there was about the same number in industrial service. Ivo Peters was a great lover of industrial steam and filmed many industrial locos doing what they were built for. Most photographers at that time completely ignored the industrial scene and concentrated on the mainline scene only. They may have found it hard to film industrial steam with most places having a no enter policy. Ivo always wrote to companies beforehand to ask if he and his friends may come to film their industrial steam locos and the answer was usually yes. I filmed at the gala weekend but something went wrong with the 32GB memory card and so all the footage I took has been lost. Oh well never mind a return visit is on the cards for sometime in the future.

I was at Didcot on the 25th October and speaking to a volunteer, 6023 is in bits undergoing maintenance. Both she and 4079 will not be fitted with air brakes as West Coast Railways runs mainline passenger stock with vacuum brakes and they've decided to go with them. I find it ridiculous that British mainline steam locos need to have air brakes with air pumps fitted as vacuum stock was the order of the day for years and perfectly safe. It sounds awful to hear a British steam engine coast into a platform with the air pump pounding away. Saying that air brakes are better than vacuum brakes is utter rubbish. Trains didn't crash everyday in Britain because of the vacuum brake system. So much in preservation is made from scratch and parts for the vacuum system can be made these days. The coaches if they're air brake only should be converted to vacuum only. That of course is the coaching stock that runs with mainline steam.

We've all heard of the rhyme "Mary had a little lamb it's fleece was white as snow" Well here's a slightly different one, Mary had a little cow and we used to call her Anna. We used to feed her nuts and bolts and milked her with a spanner. I got that off a YouTube video from a Scottish Modeller.

I live in Australia and was born here to British parents so I have dual nationality. I've made two holiday visits to the UK. On my first visit my shoes were ruined walking around in typical British weather so on my next visit I took my waterproof work boots. On returning to Australia customs said I couldn't bring my work boots back into Australia because they had British germs on them. I told the silly cow at customs that I had scrubbed them with bleach on my last night in the UK and that my boots were cleaner than her. I also informed her that why didn't she make all the passengers passing through customs remove their footwear me included and throw it in the bin because that footwear had the germs of foreign countries on the soles and therefore these people could unwittingly be bringing into Australia nasty germs without knowing it. The silly cow had no answer for that one and I was allowed to pass through customs with my work boots which were in my luggage. Australia has unique wildlife and a lot of it is deadly to humans but only if humans go looking for trouble. We aussies don't lie awake at night worried that something may have slithered under the covers to share a warm bed with us. If you go bush walking then wear proper footwear and don't wear thongs/flip flops. Most snakes will try to get out of your way as they can hear you approaching. If you come across a snake warming itself just leave it alone. Don't try to pick it up and don't jab it with a stick. Yes people do try these things and a warmed up snake can strike with lethal speed. Our snakes are all venomous as all snakes are for they have to kill their prey before they can swallow it whole. It's the level of toxicity in their venom as the whether their venom has an effect on you or not. The king brown snake is particularly venomous to humans. That snake has a very short fuse and a huge inferiority complex. Where other snakes prefer to slither away as quickly as possible, the king brown would rather hold it's ground and fight. Kangaroos may look cute but no we don't keep them as pets. Kangaroos fight each other by holding onto each other with their small forearms and then quickly raising their hind legs off the ground to kick their opponent in the stomach. Their stomachs are built to take this sort of punishment but if a Kangaroo kicks a human in their stomach that one kick can rupture a humans intestines. Also if driving and you hit a Kangaroo at dusk and the roo you hit is an Eastern Grey adult you will probably kill the roo and that roo will make your rental car a write off. Koalas are lovely but they have very sharp claws and if in a wildlife park and you get to hold one be prepared to be peed on. One fact about koalas that isn't widely known is that the species of eucalyptus that they eat is very poisonous and would easily kill a baby koala. The babies stomach and immune system has to be "beefed" up before the baby can eat the poisonous leaves. The mother has a unique way of doing this which for us is absolutely disgusting. When the mother needs to defecate the baby gets under the mother and eats yes eats the mothers poo. This boosts the baby koalas immune system so that later the eucalyptus leaves will have no effect on the baby. Koalas spend a lot of time just sitting in trees because the leaves that they eat have little to no protein in them and therefore they give the Koala no energy. Two spiders to watch out for are the Red Back and the Funnel Web the Red Back can kill a child and the Funnel Web can kill a child and an adult in around forty five minutes, unless you seek hospital help and a shot of anti venom. But more people die in road accidents than get bitten by snakes and spiders by a huge margin.

My mum had hanging in her retirement unit a plaque which read "A Senior Citizen Defined" A Senior Citizen is one who was here before the pill, television, frozen food, and ball point pens. For us time sharing meant togetherness, not computers, and a chip meant a piece of wood. Hardware meant hard wear, and software wasn't even a word. Teenagers never wore slacks. We were before dishwashers, drip dry cloths, pantyhose, clothes dryers and electric blankets. We got married first then lived together. (How quaint can one be) Girls wore "Peter Pan" collars and thought "cleavage" was something butchers did. We were before Batman, vitamin pills, disposable nappies, pizzas, instant coffee and even Chinese takeaways. In our day cigarette smoking was "fashionable", grass was for mowing, pot was something you cooked in. A gay person was the life of the party and nothing more, while Aids meant beauty lotions or help for someone in trouble. We are today Senior Citizens, a hardy bunch when you think of how the world has changed and the adjustments we have had to make.

The Johnster: The loco was brand new and I have had other Baccy locos where none of the pick ups touched the wheel backs but after a bit or "work" on the work bench everything is fine. But never before have I had a loco that ran so rough out of the box with a burning smell thrown in for good measure. But all is ok now. Living in Australia and sending the locos back isn't really an option. I've had problems with Hornby locos where the valve gear disintegrates whilst it's running. Never had that problem on Baccy locos......yet.

I've always found the reviews in Model Rail to be honest. In fact there was one time when a manufacturer didn't like the reviews that were appearing in Model Rail and so they stopped supplying models for review. I can remember a new loco drive Duchess that was more Indian Red than Maroon stated in Model Rail. Smokebox doors being the wrong shape. The lip on the chimney of the Beatty Well tank being the wrong shape and all stated in the review in Model Rail. Too many YouTube reviews of model locos are just "everything is wonderful and fantastic" and that's supposed to be a review?. Why? because the reviewer is too afraid of a backlash from a model manufacturer?. If that's the case then why do a review in the first place. If you want to read totally biased reviews then one could do no better than read motoring magazine reviews of cars. The motoring industry release of new models of cars is a very different to the makers of model locos. A new car is being released in Germany so the company flies motoring journalists from all over the world to Germany business class and they land at a German airport. They are then flown in the car company hired helicopters to where the new car is being released. Their accommodation is a 5* hotel with 5* food and all the journalists have to write is a glowing review with little to no negative comment. It's called the motor industry gravy train. If you have journalistic integrity then you have no place on this gravy train. If you write a review of a new car after having been at the launch and your review is more negative than positive then you won't be invited to the next new car launch or any other. Note that when reading reviews of cars tested at a car launch that there is no disclaimer of who paid for the jaunt and the same on YouTube videos for new cars launched in places like Iceland for a new Landrover Discovery Sport. It's common motoring industry practice to treat journalists like huge rock stars to get the review the manufacturer wants whether the car deserves it or not. In Model Rail in the past there's a disclaimer that a loco has been provided by a model shop in Peterborough or a manufacturer. The only motoring magazine I read comes from a local motoring club similar to the RAC or AA. They refused to test Audi's, VW's or Skodas as they are all from the VW conglomerate after the emission cheating scandal broke and to this day they still refuse to include these cars in reviews or comparison reviews. I've just read a comparison review between four cars. The Holden/Vauxhall Astra, Subaru Impreza, Hyundai i30 and the Toyota Corolla. Nothing from VW in that lot. The Impreza came out on top. But a mainstream motoring magazine does do VW reviews as VW adverts are throughout the magazine. VW complained that all the motoring clubs in Australia didn't include anything from the VW stable in the "best car of the year awards" and that was due to the emission cheating scandal for which VW is being punished by the motoring clubs who continue to this day to ignore any new car from the VW stable. It seems to me that the motoring clubs of Australia have more journalistic integrity than motoring magazines.