Arun Sharma

No, not quite - but it could mean that a "railway person" might be expected to know how the railway is created, operated, maintained and improved upon via the mechanism of experience in actually doing some or all of these things. If I felt I needed to know about possible relationships between t.p.h, dwell times and acceleration/braking rates, I would ask a railwayman and not [in the first instance] a commuter.

I wonder if it might assist potential purchasers of MARC Models' items if I mentioned that Mike is 83 years old and telephone calls work rather better than e-mails to his slightly flaky terminal/internet connection.

You should be aware that MARC Models are down to be at EXPO EM next weekend at Bracknell. If there is something that you especially want, then why not 'phone Mike on 0208-440-5918 and ask him to bring the items you want along - Alternatively, try the same just prior to RAILEX at Stoke Mandeville which he is also down to be at. MARC Models and its [now merged] sister 7mm organisation "Electrifying Trains" have never been anything other than one-man bands. There is no "MARC Models' team". Over the past six years I have drawn etches and designed casting patterns for Mike. Potential customers should be aware that Mike has some significant health issues of quite recent onset which have lead to delays in fulfilling orders. Personally, I would always enquire regarding availability via telephone and not release funds until the items have arrived.

Thank you - Very useful photographs - I have a 7mm Scorpio kit of this loco sitting in the build queue

The system Virgin propose is of course currently used pretty successfully on National Express coaches up and down the country. However, as I understand it, [and I could well be mistaken or behind the times here], in the present regulations regarding rail travel only those passengers with first class tickets can demand a seat. Second class ticket holders may always travel but have no right to expect that a seat may be available for them, Thus the concept of passengers standing for long periods is deemed perfectly acceptable under the current terms and conditions of rail travel. I don't know whether they still exist anywhere but every station used to have a large printed notice resembling the front page of a newspaper that had these T&Cs displayed.

At the risk of being barred from RMWEB, I have to say that BRM's attitude in that respect is grotesque. May I suggest that you should send the eventual article and the letter from BRM to MRJ for them to publish both side by side.

Well known of course to anyone who has traversed that particular section of the Pennine Way south of Bellingham- though Wainwright does remark that the house was previously known as "Shotlyngton Hall".

It is usually better to phone Phil Radley than use the website if you're finding it difficult to navigate.

Much the same as playing golf really!

Henry 1 according to Wiki, Joseph

I do believe the the OP is referring to someone famous [a very long time ago....] who was said to have died of a "surfeit of lampreys". A Lamprey being a sort of blood sucking fish I believe and one regarded as tasty by royalty. I suppose the odd king might consume a palfrey [a sort of horse] but it might take him longer than the average medieval/Norman banquet in order to finish the job. It was in fact Henry I who died in Dec 1135 who was supposed to have died of food poisoning after eating these things - presumably shortly followed by his cook and food taster no doubt!

Greetings Tony - Looking forward to reading the article - Can you let me know when idc it comes out?

How about freight moves from Southampton to DIRFT - surely that could go via Basingstoke-Reading-Didcot-Oxford-Winslow-Bletchley and onto the WCML for the final leg? Additionally, much to the angst of locals it seems, there are plans for further DIRFT-like hubs in Northamptonshire.

I think one of the reasons for the "descoping" mentioned by LMSforever is that the E-W link is hamstrung by the present single track and multiple level crossings between Bletchley and Bedford. If the sections between Oxford, Bicester Village and Bletchley [plus/minus MK] together with an extension from Calvert to Bletchley [i.e., Marylebone - Aylesbury - Bletchley] are considered, then idc they could well form part of the [freight] "electric spine". However there are 12 level crossings between Bletchley and Bedford on low lying floodplain land which would make for a very slow journey from the GWML via Oxford to the MML. I would very much like to see a fast route for pax and freight linking the GWML via Oxford to the MML and/or eventually to the ECML but I suspect that the present rail infrastructure beyond Bletchley is a show stopper.

Fox also do a detailed set complete with radiation trefoils

As a fully paid up member of the Pedant Society [that is pronounced "Pee Dant" by the way], I should point out that in terms of passenger movements, Heathrow is the busiest port in the UK. That it can also be described as an "airport" is irrelevant. It is just a port and any further description is probably superfluous.

Thank you - That explains the seemingly larger flanges on the bogie wheels.

Tony - Regarding your photograph of "Blundell's". Is it my imagination or do the bogie wheels have a different tyre profile compared to the driving wheels? The bogie wheels seem rather wider and more toy train-like compared to the drivers. As a P4 and now 7mmFS modeller, some of the intricacies of 00 RTR may have passed me by over the years.

I was quite surprised by Howard's choice of technique and kit to use as a guide to soldering. I was intrigued that the instructions appear to say that every tiny part should be removed from the fret prior to any assembly rather than just remove a part as you need it. That seems a recipe for losing any number of small bits unless you have one of those nice compartmented plastic boxes that BRM used to give away [Hint! Hint!]. The second observation is that the said hut is a tiny kit and the camera didn't ever get close enough to see quite what Howard was doing. A five part etched chimney being attacked by a soldering iron that looked to have a tip bigger than some of the parts at a metre distant was not the best illustration of how to solder IMO. A third observation is that when Howard seemingly belatedly discovered that there was also a tab that needed to be folded over, he tried to use a ruler halfway through the process. Far better to have thought the process through and used a hold & fold or better, aluminium angles in a small bench vice to get the required 90degree fold. I suggest that if you are going to have a video feature on soldering brass and choices of flux/solder/irons/tips then it needs to be a little more thought out and the filming arranged so that people can actually see what is being done. Severn Models do make exceedingly nice kits but they are almost filigree in appearance and design and perhaps better suited to folk with much experience of soldering irons and their accessories.

Thank you - mea culpa. Can't think where I got that figure [£1200] from - probably from a three year contract when those were available. It's an odd thing, I get a free copy of AutoCad Mechanical & Electrical with my annual subscription to Autodesk Inventor but DraftSight still seems easier to use. Arun

I don't think that the $99 includes the vat element so the actual cost is probably 20% more [or whatever the French rate of vat is]. At present there are two downloadable versions of DraftSight - previously only the professional version was charged for. There is a lot to be said for getting the professional version as it contains tools like Power Trim which makes tidying up etch artwork much easier. Given that DraftSight is virtually identical to AutoCad Lt which costs around £1200 as well as its *.dwg files being indistinguishable from those produced by AutoCad, I believe it's a false economy to dump DraftSight. I use it a lot for producing etch artwork that is sent to PPD and DraftSight saves me time and money.

I was rather taken with Pig Lane - Quite a busy layout and one obviously enjoyed by the small girls walking around with their "I-Spy" sheets looking for what was hiding in the shrubbery by the bridge.

If you're wandering by the DEMU stand and want to rest your weary self - by all means use our stand's chairs [on Saturday at least!]

2 hours ago, Clive Mortimore said: Hello to all Write Righters, should you be attending the London Festival of Railway modelling in Alexandra Palace, London, this coming weekend? Please can you say "Hello" as you walk past my little layout Pig Lane (Western Region) . It would be very nice to put faces to the the names who converse on this thread I shall be on the DEMU stand on Saturday Arun