runs as required

I'd go for the top one. I do like a long terminal platform to perform an engine change/reversal on from/to engine shed - sort of Bath Green Park exchange between dirty Jubilee and poofy southern Spam Can. dh

Are you spray painting or using acrylic with brush then varnishing after? I personally prefer the latter, gives you more control and ability to be 'iterative' till you get it right. I also prefer the Tanfield 'lived in look' to the stuffed porfect museum finish. dh

Yes really great to see you back .... and with a project! Andy: I need to pass you on a little late 1930s background research on those monks. My dad worked out of one of those green corrugated iron Shell-BP depots in Bow, East London before the war. It was on the canal opposite a tall Victorian brick building. Lighters used to arrive and be loaded by hoist lowering cases labelled "Made and bottled by the monks of Buckfastleigh Abbey Devon". Just a little tonic to "Fortify the over Forties" ha ha ha dh

This will probably be under the umbrella of "New Urbanism" that has been plugged in N America over the past decade or two.. It regrets the passing of the 'Inter Urbans' and is now advocating the building of boulevards (often quite literally recreating the look of the 1900 Viennese boulevard) as fingers radiating from cities with trams running down the centre reservation. US land Use/transportation planners argue this is simply a reworking of the classic US highway strip repeating every quarter mile or so between stops. The notion can also be traced back to Lionel March in Cambridge Dept of Land Economy in the 1960s arguing that Britain should 'build in lines' along transportation routes rather than plonk New Town (nowadays Garden City) blobs down around major cities. One implication of this linear thinking is that we ought to preserve "wayleaves" - such as the old GC London extension or the LNWR Oxford - Cambridge line, but free marketeers always dismiss this, preferring to sell for short term profits. dh

Looks a load better - though with guys in hiviz jackets relieving themselves like that late at night, they'll quickly require refreshing! dh

I thought some would like to read the prompt reply from Russell Hedges of 'transacord' to my email asking about the notes to accompany 'Trains in the Night'. When I receive them I will post again. In the meantime I shall have to continue guessing at what I'm hearing ... dh

'Think tanks' are there to shape public opinion through the media and to influence decision making. BUT They should be required to publish who are their paymasters. Unless we have this transparency how can we know they are taking "a balanced view"? 2 Looking at Welly's link to the Cambridge busway it is extraordinary how much elaborate concrete infrastucture is required to guide that bus. There is more than Brunel specked for his "baulk road" dh

Very impressed! If you can do major surgery as quick as that on beautiful ladies, you'll find supergluing new knees onto an ugly old git like me really easy money. dh

Any heavy transport infrastructural investment ought to delayed until the present revolutionary technical/mode/power/political control changes are more resolved. New urban transit projects and HS2 might be obsolete before they are halfway built. The most worrying development is how city regions are seemingly about to lose control over transport policy decisions and fall in hoc to private corporations like Google and Uber who aim to control all information relating to trip patterns. I read the other day about the Germans drawing up protocols to regulate Automated Driving Systems on their Autobahns. Zero headways for high speed (electric) vehicles on major arteries is potentially a denser mode of transit than the Japanese metro. The major drawback, from our rail lobby perspective, is the lack of efficiency compared to a steel wheel rolling along a steel rail. Over 20 years ago I was party to a feasibility project for a high rise East Asian city where ‘cars’ could travel inward clustering and sorting, then zoom upward with linear induction to the top of 50 storey multi use structures that were ‘guyed’ by the curving lift shafts. Those working on this project were all respected major British consultants. I end with the new ’Cloud City’ projected for Shenzen. What will the governance of such a nightmare be? Boris on a bike? Luckily I shall be dead by the time its finshed dh

the "Railway Conversion League" was financed by Shell Mex and BP Ltd as it was in those days - who had a (smaller) finger in the rail pie with another ex military gent in sponsoring the multi engined Fell loco that ran for a time on the Midland mainline through the Peak. The only actual conversion I believe they achieved was the straight bit of single carriageway between Dereham and Swaffham on the former GER Norwich - Kings Lynn line. What is always resisted is revealing the source of the funding for these highly influential 'think tanks' whose 'studies' are often 'quick and dirty projects done by unpaid 'interns'.

That fourgon is managing to emulate the attractive 'well-lived in' look of a battered grey 2CV parked outside a brick built Flanders bar with a fading Dubonnet painted on the gable end. Are you inhaling Gauloise 'bleu' tabs on Monday project nights? <ce emocion dit "merde! 'arv left mi'beret in' boozer" dh

My favourite Deltic - glad she's a ghost. Those short racehorse names always sounded sharper and faster than the great long regimental ones. And like Hatfield above I can often hear the overtones of a chime whistle on the wind at home wafting up from the N&C down by the Tyne (and just now and again its actually real!) Now I wonder about Pinza: "The Ghost in the Machine" was the title of a 1967 book by Arthur Koestler who borrowed the term from the philosopher Ryle who was discussing the Freudian notion that the deepest level of the unconscious is a residual of much earlier states in the evolution of the species. Having been diagnosed with Luekemia, Koestler - and his much younger wife - killed themselves by taking overdoses on the Aberdonian night sleeper from Edinburgh in 1983. I've always pitied the poor attendant discovering the pair when there had been no response to his repeated knocks after arrival in platform 1 at Kings Cross. dh

Be honest please. Hands up - how many of you apart from Mike Trice had actually noted the excessive gap between front footplate and slidebars.? I have to admit to only 'reading' (and enjoying) the overall proportion of the model compared to the prototype. And that's despite frequent visits down to Shildon and drooling over the real loco oh - and building the Kitmaster model long ago. dh

Not surprising about that Belerophon You can tell she's one of those really difficult Lancashire Witches 'cos her eyes are too close together dh

OMG Shock ! Horror ! dh

"Um(three dots) its these new buttons Sah! Its like...I just can't see them " "I meant to push 'Shurely Shome Mishtake' and just went out into space down at spectacle corner" dh

Thanks for that Neil. Yes I do agree about the WHOLE pic - in the meantime I'm guessing at whether I'm hearing a Stanier 2-6-4T banking up past Scout Green and a 2-6-2T likewise on the back up Gresford bank. (Its rather like listening out at night for 3 cylinder A3s compared to 8Fs in my tent up at Ribblehead in my potholing days) dh

Thank you for those replies. Perhaps it is because I may be the only old f%$£ still using Windows XP My unzipped ATR7049.zip 'Trains in the Night' files looked like this - nothing else apart from the sound files. I shall try emailing the Transacord site tomorrow dh

I too purchased 'Trains in the Night' in the eary hours of this morning using Paypal. I actually received three downloads that turned out all to be the same set of audio files, but like Neil, no accompanying set of notes. I have never used this way of downloading MP3 files using Paypal before so it is probably me having overlooked some button in the process. AFAIK I have until tomorrow to repeat all the downloading - can anyone please explain where I might have gone wrong?. The recordings (like my old vinyl Transacord discs) are beautifully evocative, but it would be good to read about exactly what I am listening to. dh

Me too. Not many people call me David. I got used to it off my mum when I'd done something seriously out of order - back in the days when doodle bugs fell on us dahn in sarf Essex. ...and neither is it RAR ... JRedfer abbreviated me to a stylish RaR with just a mere suggestion of chiarascuro While on the subject of me (though paradoxically at one & the same time) could anyone explain by PM please, how my avatar actually works. My grandson and I spent the afternoon trying without success to re-invent Brunton's steam horse with his Meccano. Back on topic I reckon dt is well up there with the A team now if DTY is so overloaded he is compelled to build new storage sidings out over the channel on compacted samphire salad waste. dh

I bet that happened so often with the prototypes too in Victorian erecting shops. dh [edit - in those pics above - especially the one from front 3/4 eye level - the chimbley looks plumb. Use of a square (and spirit level) would provide confirmation]

Ackcherly with all that trackwork laid and in use DTY looks a pretty plausible fiddle yard to my mind already. No, I'm forgetting - it's only a mockup :-) dh

It really was impossible for me to perceive Jason's chimney's 'lean to her left side' in the pictures posted. I've been wandering around trying to think of ways of optically aligning the chimney without success. Not even Swindon's famous Zeiss kit would be of use to you. Those cylinder covers look beautifully fettled up and fitted. dh

.......oops.........................................................

Wow! Enjoyed that. Not too clear when that was - or why. It appears near the end that Cancellara was simply catching back up with the peleton. I remember you telling me you used to do that round the back of us. From Prudhoe station (by Ovingham bridge) up to Hedley-on-the-Hill/Whittonstall - and vv. dh