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Covid is change. There maybe a recession, but theres going to be tons of opportunities. Sure the high street will need to adapt to survive.. maybe retail high street will largely dissapear to residential re-developments. London commuting could be in for a huge shock, Londons office workers.. legal, financial, IT etc havent been greatly affected and transitioned easily from occasional work from home, to a full work from home... convincing people to restart getting up at 6am, commute to London, to sit at a desk until 6pm, and return home by 7pm, after 2 months of getting up at 8am and working as required and having a family balance is going to be hard. So those in in supporting industries, working in Londons retail, food service etc may find more opportunities in the suburbs, and in home delivery than in the capital. I certainly think many couped up in Central London flats maybe thinking of moving on after this. The regions of the UK stand to benefit of people working in IT away from London in the future. What concerns me is Brexit, many businesses were hoping of a long slow retreat from Britain by global businesses, so the economic shock to the UK wouldn't be realised. Covid provides the easy excuse for a long hard readjustment, i’d imagine many global businesses just wont return... Airlines are already assuming that, politicians have a suitable cover story for it. Wealth may spread back around the country, but the pot will probably be a lot smaller than it was before, covered by inflation to make people think they have more, but in reality much less to spend. The rest of the world will progress ahead with greater wealth and so our tourism industry and basic raw materials industries will grow as we become even cheaper / attractive for low cost labour than we were before covid. Those willing to accept a lower wage will be fine and have more opportunities in more low skill industries than ever before, they will be fine, some luxuries may become more of a luxury than it used to be, but if you didn't have them before, you wont miss them later anyway... hence its easy for them to adapt, as long as your flexible to work for foreign managers who relocate here to manage you.

Since supermarkets failed us, in store and online consistently, weve moved on. Still no hope of online.. but weve moved on. Local farms shops, bakery, butchers are quieter, more pleasant and not much more expensive. Weve found 3 local shops that give us all our dietary needs, in less time than a Sainsburys door entry shopping queue. For cleaning stuff, weve gone Amazon and others, whilst everywhere was sold out, we found office cleaning supply companies had loads of stock... who shops in an office supplies retailer during a lockdown ? However were fully covered, eating healthier than ever, and cooking our own much more. Ive never eaten so much veg, fruit and eggs, were even successfully growing strawberries.. This is turning to a positive experience...Ive actually not spent any cash since Feb 28th.. everything is carded, earning points towards the model railway fund.

Another fantastic looking wagon... cant wait.

In the last week, the number of UK recorded infections has exceeded 6000 a day 3 times, all 3 times setting a new record high for the country. The last time (and only) they exceeded 6000 cases in one day was 3rd April. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_in_the_United_Kingdom (see number of daily confirmed cases chart 3/4 down the page), source is PHE. No where else on the planet, not even New York City, has 6000 cases a day this week. We might be passed the peak, but it makes me think that true peak was at a level much much higher than anywhere else, and probably exceeds New York city, something Ive always thought. The argument that testing more, finds more only proves that this outbreak in the UK was considerably higher than anywhere else in Europe, coupled with a death rate, which has been suggested globally is 0.5-1% of the actual total cases, which also means the decline is going to take longer. The government might want to start reopening next week, but until I see daily rates in the lower hundreds, we wont be going out or changing any of our quarantine practices, sadly I think we can predict whats going to happen, it might be in decline, but the daily number detected infection rate is imho too high. I doubt we will be going back to supermarkets anyway, we've found much nicer, quieter and better quality alternatives, that don't cost much more. As for contact tracing apps, no bluetooth app is going to tell you which tube carriage has the virus been in, after the passenger sharing the virus has got off the train. Virus will be in the air for a few hours, and on the grab handles, escalators for the rest of the day after theyve long gone...Anyone actually looked at why infection rates are higher in North London, than South London....theres not many tubes down this side of the capital, and where they end, the high case numbers seem to end, Croydon excepted. Its a shame they arent taking daily samples off surfaces of the IoWs buses and train daily too, and correlate that to infection bluetooth touchpoint locations. Imho The virus has a travelcard, and is a big rail enthusiast... the only time it will be detected is when its ticket is bluetooth checked, the rest of the day its travelling & spreading for free, and days before its unlucky victims know theyve been gripped. Of course a possible solution is by turning passengers into Rail Enthusiasts, by Getting Passengers recording their tube carriage number may help...

Things will change... pre covid, I worked from home, or global travelled. Ive luckily never commuted in my 20 years. My wife commuted, hated it, but also loves it too. We supermarket or Costco shopped, had a take out or ate out, once or twice a week. Busy life, from 6am-7pm for my wife inc commuting, me.. I had some freedoms. during covid.. We both have “space” in our house, 6am start, 7pm home has gone.. theres no way my wife will change back to that, she rises at 8, finishes around 5.. her work productivity is more than she did before. No way shes buying an annual travel card again. We discovered more home cooking (own bread, chips, bbq sauce, long term jar storage, making pickles, growing strawberries the list goes on), we eat much healthier veg from farm shops and good butchers.. no more return to supermarkets, nor takeaway or delivery... were done there. Ive learned 101 things to make from eggs (previously i only used to have a full english every now and again before)... last weekend I dug through a few decades of grass cuttings to and accidentally uncovered a lost WW2 bunker in the bottom of our garden. I work on software that analyses servers globally, 100k at a time, weeks at a time, I spent a day looking at charts from several industries on 6 continents for data in March.. lots of performance line graphs of cpu/Network/memory usage.. over time. I was expecting wild swings of activity in at least some sectors of the economy, and in some geographies... unfortunately I did not find that.. what I found was an overall decrease on daytime usage circa 5-10% (8am-5pm) but an overall longer day.. (8am-8pm) of equalling similar overall daily activity. Additionally, ignoring routine backups etc that tend to happen overnight / weekend, I found the same patterns of dropping activity on Friday nights to Monday mornings, though additionally minor spikes on sunday evenings. My article is being peer reviewed for publication, but in short, in the digital economy, servers proved they arent human and didnt significantly change behaviour, but humans did slightly stagger their working day. My results covered several countries and many business types. That said, whilst maintaining confidentiality, I can definitely say non of Hornbys servers during last week’s NHS66 sale were in my study :-) , nor other one off “retail point of sale” event...which was looking at “business as usual” activities. if i extrapolate our lifestyle, to my observations at work, It makes sense.. were arising later, sleeping longer, looking after family needs as required and catching up at night. You might say life and work are becoming intertwined, but its in a healthy way.. I taught my little one to ride a bike this week during lunch.., done school suggested science experiments, shes also builing a loco from bits, we've done tons of daytime activities. Shes learning “work disciplines”, by doing homework lessons in the same time slots we have “meetings” for work. i’d just not have time on a normal day to do this. Were also home cooking daily from raw ingredients.. London commuter life just wouldn't support this normally. Were not commuting, and loving it. Whats more the day job is getting done too, indeed its more productive, and i’m more willing to go out of hours for international clients, whilst not spending hours flying. In short, for us, much of this lockdown experience is positive and some lifestyle changes are here to stay, and I don't think we're the only ones thinking this.

Plenty of freshly painted items of rolling stock have been tagged almost straight after. Vandals dont look for dirty or old before selecting their targets, but once tagged the mess becomes part of the patina and so is more prevalent in photographs in the long term

Hmm, I think it wise to make 1 version accurate, than 1 version pretending to be many. commercially it would mean potential for other versions in the future off the same chassis. But a bad one now would destroy credibility and confidence both on this one and future models... Hornby tried to make a combination of class 21 & 29.. it was ridiculed for decades as a toy.. though to be fair it was sold at toy prices. in todays market Hornbys 87001 gets mixed reviews just because it has different nameplates on each side. The work isnt necessarily wasted.. version 1 is a duplicate mirror of the first image... if there was a future version 2 then theres the 2nd image as a starting point..

so potentially, somewhere on that model exists some of the original paint ? ive never yet seen any object 100% totally obliterated the original paint, there is always a point where “that will do”, “that won’t matter” and “no one will ever notice”.

The compound is one of Bachmanns best models. I think its release it was very over priced to its contemporaries, leading to many people passing it by as there is no rush to buy it. After time it was heavily discounted, again leading to people passing it by as “there is always another one”. Hornbys K1 is another example. The price and demand mix need to be right. Shame as the engineering was excellant, though lucky me acquired a bunch to upgrade various Triang chassis under various kit built 4-4-0’s, and the fowler tenders came in useful for various projects... I dissected more than 10 that way, after selling the bits it was nearly cost neutral, Compounds selling between £40 and £60 at one point.

The last railtour ive seen was a 33 fiesta... BLS’s tours to the south saw 3 Working x 33’s on Southall shed in March.. its been quite some years since last time 3x 33’s were on shed in London... Heljan will have now modelled all 3 of them.. D6515/33029 and 33207... and Bachmanns doing the stock.

Ive always found the external condition of WCRC locos to be pretty good and clean. The stock however was a different story. The 33’s seem to be well loved, i’m sure theres been a dirty occasion but Ive always seem them clean enough...

January looks like an expensive month, better cut down on christmas presents :-)

Forgotten to remove the door darts and buffers ? ;-)

most preserved railways aren’t preserved, indeed very few recreate their past accurately. I think railway modellers probably do that much more. Some aspire too, but most just seem to collect as a random living museum of artifacts... so “Tourist Railway” or “Museum Railway” is probably a better term. They exist for tourists afterall, and their stock, locos and line is often designed, modified in such a way as to support that, rather than preserving historical accuracy, often to the detriment of the local history that surrounds them. Many tourist railways have now been around longer, than rolling stock built after those lines became established...I always find it amusing that 73082 (1955) is only 3 years older than the line it resides on closed (1958), but yet has been working condition on the Bluebell decades more than it ever worked on BR...it’s effectively preserved in its “preservation era service ” condition, making its own post BR history... 73082 away from Bluebell some how would seem wrong... of course back on track but Stepney as anything but Stepney would also seem wrong.

The page is filled with comments about how to make money from this model, berating Hornby for increasing sales volumes, or how much Hornby is “allegedly” making... yet I get called out for highlighting the human aspect... ive been a mass supporter since the first page, to me it means more than money, forgive me if I’m holding the wrong script. I thought this was about helping people via the NHS, again, not financially for themselves. There’s a lot of suffering going on right now, I know exactly how it feels, I felt an identical situation, with someone who gave 20 years to this very hobby, and represented in a wide geography. He lost his life in near identical circumstances, just 3 years ago.. and he freely gave his spare time, outside the hobby, to the NHS for free for several year, not for financial gain. He would have done the right thing then, I’m trying to do it now. My little one is ecstatic about this model, and cpt Tom, and the real loco, she doesn’t care what it costs. But she’s scared praying every night that no one in our family goes through what her grandad went through. I’m obviously in it for the wrong reasons, apologies for standing up to you, but I feel differently about this model, and don’t have much sentiment for those discussing the financials of this model, But more for those who suffer loss because of wider reasons that requires the needs of it. sure enjoy it, if it makes you get suns rays from accumulating value in it, but I didn’t understand why it’s wrong to not think about the ongoing consequences that necessitates it. Realising a high price on ebay of a model isn’t a substitute for losing a close person who used to own it... ive experience there too. Hornbys doing this model for the right reasons, and I am hugely supportive of that. But I am left, after reading tolerated comments, wondering if those buying it are. stay safe, support this model, whatever your reason.

Lets hope, given the reason why its been made, that everyone whom has ordered one, is still around to receive them. This model is being made for areason, and its not just for pleasure or profit.

not to mention a 40 with a BOC tanker, and a diesel ban busting self propelled Western.... it would be 8 more years before a western applied power on the mainline.. shoving an errant 33 at Winchfield 150 in similar controlled conditions.

R2645 and above is the new tooling, note r2645 in itself is rare as rocking horse... if in doubt look for the foot steps under the 4 cab corners... present = new tooling, metal buffers and radio aerials are giveaways too. Shows how good the old tooling was if its that hard to identify. Service sheet 310 is the new tooling, though note the electrics on DCC fitted ones are different to dcc ready versions... relating to LEDs. Consider though the new tooling has several permutations, Roumanian, Headlight style, different front grills etc.

I think age is catching up with us. The last few posts reminds me of conversations my dad used to have 30 years ago, when forums were in person “meetings”, In smoked filled rooms on late school evenings, and the discussions were about Duchesses and other various movements of other class 8’s. I assume there’s no guessing where this image was though..

Wow I just discovered you guys... what a surprise I thought this was going to be a kit of bits, not a nearly complete body. Really impressed.. my plan is to recreate 67 and 70 from the Manchester Ship canal, Hudswell Clarke Long Tanks so will be filling the footplate handrail holes, rubbing down the tank rivets and making my electrotren chassis inside cylinder. (not my image) I never thought I’d see these done. The 1800 class I’ve no idea yet, I’m just going to build it and see what becomes. if I could add a request, could you do an MSC short tank, so I can recreate the early days of the ELR and Last days of the MSC.. ? basically.. shorten the tanks of the long tank version, raise the height to the boiler top and stretch the bunker / cab roof 2mm, plus sand boxes (as per 1800, oil box, spring and pipe)... please consider.. 31 and 32 are very widely travelled in preservation ;-) . meanwhile, these 3 new arrivals will keep me busy to join my lamented ARC models RSH while was produced all too briefly. Q great kit guys !

Ive been watching that kit too on ebay, its nice to see one assembled, indeed the blue grey looks really nice. i’m tied between this and thinking of getting a 150/2 and making a 318 from it. Though that said my discounted 170’s arrived today and i’m thinking of a class 357. too many ideas not enough time.

Maybe on passive sales, publicity & accountancy but I doubt the model is in it’s own right. £74.99 (£12.50 VAT) (£40.00 donation) leaves £22.49.. then theres postage to your address. give Hornby there due kudos and commendations on this one.

Ive just ordered a Gypsy Hill too. (sentence sounds like cockney rhyming slang).

On that note i’ll exit and remove my contribution. Needless to say we disagree.

ah you could be right here, by coincidence I just found the negative sheet for this, the other pictures show a pair of blue 20’s at Stoke, and a parcels 47 outside Piccadilly, followed by some DMUs (Hybrid Strathclyde/Bluegrey 101) and a Welsh Dragon class 108 at Bolton... which was “home”. The next images are East Lancs with 76079, 40145... but the giveaway is USA Tank 30072 at Bury shed.... it wasnt at Bury very long... just one winter I recall, to help with Santa Specials and a winter gala the shed is also Castlecroft, so before BQ depot closed (in 1991)... A quick look online suggests it was at KWVR winter 90/91, so maybe December 89 - Feb 90 ?