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Absolutely, the Sierra Menera too - 4-8-0s, big NBL 0-6-6-0s and garratts. There's a load of Spanish metre gauge lines that have a lovely mix of British, German, French and Spanish built motive power but I've not seen much respresentation of them in model form, especially as its not that far away and some of these systems ran steam quite late on.

Bon Accord - I think we're heading off topic. The colonial era was a different time and it is difficult to judge the actions of a century or two ago through our current eyes. Much of the poorer/less educated populace of this country was happily treated with abuse and indifference too (there is a statue in a marketplace near where I live of a man who campaigned against educating all children for instance). The British Empire was hardly an organ of unalloyed virtue, but it is fair to say that the British flavour of colonialism was generally preferable for the native than most of the other models (eg. Belgian), and the later years of empire did result in favourable improvements in the rule of law, education, infrastructure and investment which some of our former colonies could certainly do with today. I think it is a bit more complex than to write off our history for 300 years as wholly evil for which we must atone, or as wholly great for which we must be proud. Back to the topic in discussion - The acquisition of new territory is the part which is currently (post WW2) unacceptable: outright wars of aggression and territorial expansion are pretty much not allowed in our current climate, so what we see is economic colonialism - The various Chinese investments (usually by state backed companies) in africa and central asia are an attempt to gain the benefits of a colony but without accepting any responsibility for the people living there, pretty much what we had with the East India Company before India came under British Rule. Similarly military interventions by the US and allies (usually us) with our companies picking up the spoils afterwards look rather like an attempt to extend our power and influence and secure resources (I fully agree that Saddam Hussein/the Taliban/whoever were definitely bad and did pretty inexcusable stuff, I'm not sure our course of action was the best one). The other thing which smacks of a modern economic colonialism is locking poorer countries into a aid/loan dependent state which effectively ties them to more developed countries if they want the cash to keep flowing to those overseas bank accounts. As outright war is no longer on the table, we see more and more of this creeping economic colonialism, in some ways the old way of turning up and planting a flag seems more honest than the current one. brianusa - yes, there were railways for a grapefruit and banana plantation which ended up part of United Fruit (read their history for an example of the economic colonialism I'm talking about), a logging line and a sugar mill, but all are now closed.

We have several british overseas territories in the Caribbean that give us a toehold, but I suspect if we needed somewhere to put ships/planes etc in that region we might be more likely to use US navy facilities - generally any operations we're involved in around central America or the Caribbean are going to be with US approval as they regard it as their back yard - look at the various central American entanglements as part of a modern day Monroe doctrine.

I wasn't calling them ungrateful, merely pointing out what independence means - we are no longer their protector. The jungle warfare school remains there principally because of the tensions with Guatemala - it was supposed to be mothballed and we could do that training at the Brunei garrison. If the falklands became independent, our bases and garrison were removed and then 30 years later found themselves under attack from Argentina (most likely to distract from economic ruin - some things seem not to change) we'd have no obligation to them. A colony or territory pays taxes towards its defence, an independent country no longer does so, so without a formal alliance how can they expect the old country to still defend them? I have no problem with being part of a UN intervention or deployment but to expect former colonial countries to continually police or intervene in countries which have chosen to be separate and independent is daft.

I'm sort of with you on this sort of (ex)colonial adventure - you wanted independence, I'm afraid that part of what that means is the only fleet sailing to help you should come from the UN. They are a commonwealth realm, but that doesn't confer any military pact or alliance (India and Pakistan are both part of the wider commonwealth, so it's just as well).

I thought this thread was going to be about Eastern Ukraine/Western Russia...

Probably as many as they could afford?

The Russian nuclear powered plane was a hoax, but it tricked Aviation Weekly and kept the US funding their projects, I think aurora even made a lot of the plane in the article. The USSR did fly an operating reactor in a modified Tupolev Bear, but that wasn't powering anything and was a shielding test, pretty much the same as the NB36. The Russian propulsion ideas were similar to the us ones of using reactors to heat air to power a turbine, although I think they may have thought about a nuclear turboprop design as well. The US tested engines on the ground and they worked, but by the 60s both sides had realised that ICBMs were the way ahead so stopped ploughing money into developing something that was probably a decade or more away from practical usage, and still had huge safety concerns.

Yes - I actually teach science, the trouble with water is that it is a very effective solvent and it'll dissolve co2 and whatever it can find upon exposure to the air, but that's a lot less dissolved ions that rain or tap water, so distilled is certainly a far better electrical insulator (again, we say insulator but from a technical point of view there's no such thing, just poorer conductors) than using normal water (roughly about 1/1000 as conductive as typical tap water) particularly with a low current and voltage.

Genius! Hmm, we're going to build a 25 mile tunnel, what could make it easier? I know, make it a wider, incompatible gauge so we have to dig twice as much stuff out and tranship both ends...

Look here: http://scottpages.net/SpiritiNgAway.html For a layout of the tram from spirited away running through water - it is possible to run DC powered trains through water. Pure water is a very poor conductor, especially at the low voltages/currents we use, it's the dissolved ions in most water that makes it conductive, so deionised or distilled water is what you need. Not sure I'd try it with DCC mind.

I thought it was a good film, especially to watch at the cinema. Yes there are several obvious anachronisms - Tom Hardy's spitfire annoyed me from its first appearance - the mk v isn't visually that different but at the time of Dunkirk I think there were only a couple of prototypes with cannons (mk 1b deliveries began in mid June 1940 and at first went only to 19 squadron, 24 being delivered by august but the cannons jammed so frequently that they reverted to the a wing version).

What about the batch of u class 4-4-0 built in 1947, the last inside cylinder 4-4-0s in the world?

Or what would've happened if there'd been a full nationalisation after WW1, with Eric geddes (an extremely able administrator in NER and wartime service) in charge, perhaps with Raven alongside (given their relationship at the north eastern and geddes possibly recommending raven for Woolwich arsenal in the war) electrifying mainlines in the 20s.

They should be fine, I use them as driving wheels on 9mm gauge in o scale. Inside bearing means the bearings are inside the wheels, or in other words, axle end is flush with the wheel.

Very shiny, but red buffers?

If you buy a piercing saw and 4/0 blades you can cut the axle ends off any wheels you want in about 3 minutes. Alternatively, Jackson romford 10.5mm inside bearing wheels are available from several places. I've found they pickup power a lot better if you polish the blackening off the treads. https://www.railsofsheffield.com/10-5mm-disc-wheels-inside-bearing-jc6-romford-mashima-branchlines-JJJA15898.aspx http://www.holtmodelrailways.co.uk/choose_00.php?gauge=00&product_type=15&company=

how the GNoSR loco policy would've developed if grouping hadn't happened? I'd put money on more Victorian inside cylinder 440s being built into the 1950s.

Most of what I'd read suggests the ravens A2 was similar to Gresley's A1 in ability, but as much of the front end was derived from the preceding Atlantic the A1 was much easier to develop into a more powerful loco (plus Gresley was the man in charge). One of the A2 boilers was installed as a stationary boiler at Darlington and only lasted a few years in that role, so must've been pretty far gone. Whilst the NER locos might've been old but worsdell and raven's designs were generally very sound. They were reliable and rugged - the fact that nothing much could touch the J27 or Q6 on their home turf for 60 odd years is testament to that, especially with the CMEs for much of that time favouring rather different designs.

I caught a type of digger wasp today (not one of the more common ones - It doesn't quite match the most frequently found half dozen species). It was about 2cm long over the body. Itd make holes in a lawn if the soil is dryish or slightly sandy. The holes might be about a foot deep and somewhere in the region of 1cm diameter though.

True, but he'd have preferred not to bother with those and just build his rather splendid electric locos instead.

Bit late in the year for miner bees I'd have thought, plus ours (we have had both red and tawny species this year) tend not to like lawns/grass (and the hole isn't that easy to get a finger down). I'd have guessed starlings or similar stabbing their beaks through looking for insect larvae.

Essentially claiming that anyone whose flogged a smokey joe on ebay is a hypocrite for suggesting the nrm ought to conserve a unique 125yr old loco makes you look a little silly I'm afraid, unless it's a deliberate attempt to troll?

I always wondered why a life form so advanced would fly halfway across the universe just to poke things up the bottoms of strangers. So far as I'm aware there's no automated buggery device on Pioneer or voyager, so it seems we're not planning to reciprocate. Maybe some folk misunderstood the term 'space probe'

I drove the length of the country on Thursday night - sadly it was definitely true at that point in time. There was also an accident and a few stranded vehicles on the M1 (which we'd gone for to avoid the overnight closures on a the A1M) adding about 2 hours of sitting still or intermittent 5mph trundles to add to the fun. In addition the signs for 20 odd miles on the M1 claimed it was closed between junctions 24 and 25 but when I got there one lane was open all the way through (not that anything was actually going on in the other lanes). Sometimes a quick Google and a look at current conditions on highways England doesn't actually give as accurate information about conditions in the past day or two as actually driving down the road does. The awful crash last night is a separate problem. I'm not exactly looking forward to tomorrow's return journey.