runs as required

Personally I think the giant transformers are excellent public art - kids love them too of course. They really do seem to express what the Consett blast furnaces were all about The nearest you'll find is a Red ! Royal Scot at Swallwell This is a quote from the cycleway leaflet: Andy Frost's Derwent Walk Express is probably the only locomotive which tows its own passing landscape behind it. This colourful sculpture acts as a sign for the Swalwell entrance to Derwent Walk Country Park, an area restored and landscaped as an urban improvement scheme. The painted plywood construction (2.5 x 33 metres) combines a steam train with slices of countryside - plants, birds, animals, insects and a distant power station. Mounted on the bridge abutment of a railway viaduct on the former Derwent Valley branch line, the sculpture reflects the area's great railway heritage and its present regeneration as a country park. Installed in 1987 but has been recently refurbished in 2005. It currently looks well overdue a refurb. I reckon cash strapped Gateshead would welcome your Q7 offer with open arms (a rust streaked 9F would rather lower the tone of what the developers have been trying to rebrand "Low Whickam" )

Sorry, I don't understand how such a scam might benefit the perpetrator - it is a notorious racing stretch of 70mph dual carriageway approaching the Scotswood bridge. dh

I heard this morning that one of my bell ringing colleagues who was hospitalised after her (new) car was destroyed by a car who swung in front of her out of a slip road then suddenly braked, causing her to be shunted by a Thompsons Demolition truck, had been exonerated from any blame after her dashboard camera proved to the police that the (sliproad) driver had lied. He has been charged with misleading the police and dangerous driving! I have found this thread profoundly shocking. If everyone thought before they drive off that they could very easily kill someone would it improve driving standards ? Or does everyone have to disregard the risks in order to keep driving? dh

...so what goes around comes around. My (oval back window) office beetle was a total liar about its fuel reserve. It had a tap you turned under the dash to go onto reserve (and a dongle to hang on the windscreen mirror to remind you.. I learned never to trust it when out "on safari" doing site inspections out along E African murram roads.. A spare can kept in the front was the only effective 'get you home' measure. dh

When the kids were young we lived in Kumasi, Ghana where the crew of this Hunslett 0-8-0T no. 34 would invite us up saying we gave them ‘lucky’ lotto numbers. Many a happy afternoon was spent shunting the local timber yards, assembling long logging trains for Takoradi for onward shipping abroad. The mainline passed through the cloth section of Kumasi Central Market. Every time we steamed through – sometimes propelling a couple of loaded bogie timber trucks, the business women would have their young boy porters hastily disassemble their market stalls, then immediately replace them once we’d brushed past them. This might happen every ten minutes (or less if we were just drawing up to clear a point). Obviously outrageously dangerous – we require railways to be SAFE. These pics for me represent the unacceptable dangers of driving unsafely through crowded streets. And on rail in 2015: 332 among the 332 deaths were 293 suspected suicides and 22 fatal injuries caused by trespassing during 2014/15 - up from 300 in 2013/14 - the previous record. It is highest number recorded in 11 years of records. (BBC news) We tolerate such closeness and chaos on the street. Instead of old 34 on its rails, it might be a young lad gunning a hot Corsa. Hardly a night passes without the TV news ‘where you are’ reporting more loss of life – mostly of pedestrians. That’s why I welcome a future of automated cars on safer roads. We can enjoy driving our ‘macho’ sporty stuff on closed roads. dh {Geordies round here bet on trotting horses racing along roads that are informally blocked off by the Police for brief periods.}

I'd like to put in a plea not to try modelling that 'mud slide' look. Leave it 2 or 3 years before having another go at that north portal. Go and enjoy yourself around on the seaside of the layout during the next couple of months before autumn. dh

Ah yes that happened to our old Mondeo at a motorway services while I was away 'managing' my prostate. I returned to SWMBO (who always sits like a dowager duchess in the back nearside seat deep in her library book) saying "we've just been hit by that big silver (BMW) car alongside. I felt sorry for them because they were having a dreadful argument and the driver got out and swore horribly about having scraped all along our car. But I told him it didn't matter because we have plenty more bumps and binges." mmm... dh

Why have I just wasted an hour concocting this? (my old mum always used to say "never trust a man in a hat driving a car") dh

All these complaints pouring into this thread about dangerous driving surely helps the case for automated cars. What could be nicer than an old deep buttoned three aside compartment with (pull down) armrests and watercolour pictures of Sandsend, Whitby; Rhum from Arrisaig and Maldon above the seats. i'd just pull down the blind and go back to the crossword if anyone made a rude gesture thru the window. That really would be my ideal go anywhere new car. dh

interesting post 1 Isn't a Cherokee most likely nowadays to be hijacked by Chinese computer "hackers"? Perhaps because it always used to be 'the vehicle of choice' 'which most identified 'undercover' CIA agents. 2 You've been driving for 50 years; I've just checked that I passed my driving test in Manchester 61 years ago. So you and I must both be "old farts". But I'm not sure I agree we are any more prone to rudeness and bad manners than other road users. 3 I've occasionally offered to parallel park my daughter's VW Eos and it is really wonderful how I don't have to screw 'the old fart's' back and neck muscles around but just watch a screen. Now for Railway relevance: Will we old farts live to ride in an automated car driving down the M1 at 70mph with zero headway, participating in an interesting RMweb thread? dh

Oh Dear! What a terrible thread to happen across, just as I have started into a period of waking-up in the night with cold sweats. Not far off 80 years old, are my wife and I getting too old to survive in todays 'rat race'? SWMBO has got to the point where she prefers keeping her Ferrari red Mazda MX5 in her costume jewelry box to admire rather than drive (I'm only allowed to drive it to and from the annual MOT). Apparently I'm too old to rent a self-drive car in Italy. But I do drive a nicely weathered Mondeo (Reg NU52xxx - the last time the Magpies won an FA Cup Final) and regularly whizz us up and down the country to check out our grandchildren. Is there any advantage to having a refresher course in driving in today's conditions for the over 75s? ...and who might you recommend? (Someone with an interest in railway history might be an advantage.) dh

I agree with Julian - especially when we remember all this has been done while dt has been glued to the telly Tour over the past 20 odd days dhig

I had a Slough assembled DS and wife while a social worker had the mandatory yellow Slough 2CV. A mechanic who used to work there told me they were inundated with Citroen-Maserati SMs they were unable to off-load to distributors and were eventually scrapped. Anyone remember the 1960 Bijou? Specially designed for Brits who tried to forget Citroen 2CVs smelt of Gauloise. I only ever saw about 2 or 3 on the road. dhig

Abarfwystwyth perhaps? ....but there is actually a guy called Vic in Preston who can create anything new that may have had an Italian Ferrari Dino engine in it eg: Fiat Dino spyder and coupe Ferrari 246 Lancia Stratos dhig

You're right. Getting .. wuddled. Post corrected. Thank you. That goes for me too. I reckon the mad bloke's car next door was a Gilbern dhig PS Hadn't realised the origins of Babs were in part Count Zborowski 'Chitty Chitty Bang Bang' !

Very interesting article in August "Backtrack" magazine about the "Club Train" which ran from Holborn Viaduct, St Pauls and Herne Hill to the LCDR station at Dover for transfer to a new LCDR steamer "Calais-Douvre" across to new Calais Harbour and Maritime station for the Paris Exhibition in 1889. The "Mann Boudoir cars" were built by the LCDR and owned by "Wagons Lits". Trouble was neither the steamer nor the new harbour and Maritime station were open in time and the service never really prospered mainly because tiny little steamers were used for the Channel crossing. There was a connecting P&O "Peninsular Express" that did Calais to Brindisi in two nights - on which a gentleman could stroll from end to end of the train stopping for chats and a cigar or two plus a snack in "the manner of train travel to come". I wish.... dhig {edit: poor English}

I've always admired those Gordon Kebles - I think they were Welsh. Can't think of any other cars made in Wales (I think Babs the Pendine Sands 1926 LSR car created by J.G. Parry Thomas, a Vicar's son from Wrexham, was made at Brooklands). My eccentric next door neighbour used to have a Gordon Keble. After he sold the car he designed and built an electric aeroplane at the age of 70 - and still flies it! dhig

After reading the posts about this and intervening myself, I found a lot on the web about this. Here is a fairly representative Polish study so bird silhouettes - even birds of prey - have little effect. It seems shadows of tree branches breaking up the mirror effect provide the best warnings. dhig

Dilema: SWMBO breakfasting draws attention to small grey squirrel on the lawn being attacked by 4 magpies. S is leaping about; it chases at one magpie that waits till the last moment before flying out of reach, meanwhile the other 3 Ms have a go at mobbing the the S from behind - so S turns and targets another and the whole repeats. We watched about 4 cycles of this until next door's dog arrived, magpies retreated up onto a high wall and screeched, S made itself scarce in holly shrubbery. So Should we have intervened... ...and if so, on which side? I asked fellow bellringers tonight and they all sided with the Magpies - even though two were Sunderland supporters. dhig

Another suggestion: Have you ever seen what the FS do in Italy on the approaches to Roma Termini and Firenze Centrale? There are long glass panelled screens either side of the tracks - presumably there to reduce noise to adjacent flats from passing trains. They must be prone to bird strikes because each glass panel has a silhouette of a bird as an applied transfer (until others overlay them with additional graffiti!). dh

Catch up time on birds: 1 Two weeks in Malta in flat overlooking Grand Harbour. SWMBO made friends with a classic 'cheepy chappie' house sparrow and his missus who come chirruping and demanding all day breakfast on the balcony from first light (around 06.00H) to dusk (20.00H). Grew increasingly brave till hopping around inside the flat under the breakfast table willing us to drop crumbs. 2 Back home above the Tyne Valley trying to cut swathes thru elephant grass on my ancient ride-on in very humid early evening weather. I keep getting startled by looking down upon swifts flashing past at high speed about a foot above the ground. Presumably they are catching flies - but in very constricted spaces at the bottom of the garden between fruit trees. These are apparently birds who do not touch the ground at all for about 2 years until they have chicks to raise. Wish I had that endurance and those reflexes! dhig

Well "I can't tell New Stork from butter" dhig

I can't quite remember whether you intended this thread to be entirely concerned with British railway modelling or with the wider world. Since RTR has only come about through Globalisation, a wider view might be worth a quick glimpse. Last week I read an obituary to India's greatest indigenous architect: Charles Correa, in which it was explained that his fascination with places and addressing complexity had come about by using 'toy' trains as a child - particularly home made track that could be laid and relaid across rooms and the garden. He went on to tackle (I think particularly successfully) India's most challenging problem - low cost housing mass housing, that may still retain a capability for individual adaptation. What about the 1.2 billion (and growing) Chinese? A fair few of them will be modelling in the coming century*. Oddly enough I bet some Chinese may even be modelling the GCR and its London extension island stations in 50 years time. No doubt along with a unimaginable range of other subjects, many yet to appear. I don't think it should be forgotten that, right at the dawn of railways, experimental working models were first crafted by clockmakers (such as Isaac Jackson at Wylam) before being hammered into being by blacksmiths. dhig [edit: * the Chinese have a saying "the Large in the Small and the Small in the Large" which succinctly expresses their love of models ]

Here is an interesting thread - about to be violated by an idiot. I'm not far off my 80th year. None of the generations behind me will remember the Big Four, nor even BR in its various liveries or Epoch III in Continental H0. But they will happen across steam (real) railways through history - which will seem as remote as motte and bailey castles, battle re-enactments or even fanatasies like Game of Thrones. I'd like to think there will be oddballs out there modelling atmospheric railways, early plate ways meeting canals - with working boats and horses, Blenkinsop racks; Rowland Emmet's 'Far Tottering and Oyster Creek', maybe even my own atavar - Brunton's Steam Horse, the cause of the World's first railway disaster - blowing up and killing 13 people at a reckless 30 mph in August 1815 at a celebratory fair in Newbottle Sunderland. dhig

I too am attracted by this idea. I'm also impressed by the research that Kp has done on lettering and lining as well as on the colour (which is going to still going to be a prob when printing out onto the choice of print material). Which brings me to my question, without having stopped to do any searches, I wondered whether the printing might better be onto a vinyl film, so that the laminating of edges might be less of a problem ? Also what kind of printer? Home (dot matrix or laser)? Or agency (how can you check on their 'interpretation' of Stroudley i.e.g.)? dhig