Revolution Mike

Just to clarify this point - my understanding is that future Dapol releases will come with this coupling as standard, but will also include in the box alternative rapido couplers (which like the current dummy knuckles are just a pull out, push in fitting). Cheers, Mike

I am afraid time travel is not within my gift! Somewhere* I must have photos from the mid-late 80s... M * quite where that somewhere might be is another matter!

Good work Pete (apart from the finger slciing obviously). If you need any pictures of Kyle station (or any particular bits of it) then let me know as I will be passing through at least once (and probably twice) over the Christmas period. Cheers, Mike

A mixture of: Unto the locust - Machine Head In Waves - Trivium Opus Eponymous - Ghost Ghost Reveries - Opeth Mike

There was(/is?) also Fort William (Scottish Fuels?)

MHB I think you are probably right - one of the first things that struck me as I was running mine in and after I had taken out one of the couplers was that box still looked pretty ugly. I will probably look at taking off some of the pocket. Cheers, Mike

Pension funds (particularly foreign ones) have a long history of investing in infrastructure as it is often viewed as "safe". Much of the dreaded PFI funding comes directly or indirectly via pension funds. So I don't see that as being a barrier in itself, though what return they will want may be more tricky!

Pete - yep, provided the computer and your iphone (or android device) are connected to the same router then you can download an app called Withrottle (the Lite version is free and adequate for my needs). You install JMRI (again free) on your computer and go to Throttles and start the Withrottle server. More details of Withrottle here: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/withrottle-lite/id344190130?mt=8 Cheers, Mike

Hi Pete Looks excellent - I'd love to see some more detailed pictures of the half relief station building. Cheers, Mike

Killing Joke - Killing Joke and Absolute Dissent. Two KJ albums from opposite ends of their career, both excellent.

Ian Parkwood do a Warflat and Warwell in 2mm, but I can't remember if the Warflats are the early or later version - Parkwood kits are (only?) available through the NGS. ATM do a conversion for Gloucester GPS bogies: http://www.atmwagons.co.uk/id5.html Cheers, Mike

Nice Spider Jon! My mate has a boat tail Spider in red - gorgeous thing, but like you say the electrics leave something to be desired! Does your's have the "italian widow maker" cruise control? The one that doesn't release if you apply the brakes!

Ditto, though part of the problem is that the nasty cheap headphones supplied with the likes of Ipods/Iphones etc are mostly rubbish at keeping sound in...they might as well just supply a tinny set of small speakers Two other problems with quiet coaches - on packed commuter trains there may not be any choice where to sit (or more likely stand). But the worst is when booking tickets online you have the choice of choosing a quiet zone seat, but not a choice to say NOT a quiet zone seat! The number of times I have ended up in the quiet zone when I didn't want to be was unbelievable.

David Nice work on the vending machines - how do you make them? Are they your artwork or photos printed on paper/card and folded to shape? Cheers, Mike

This is often used as a criticism (not just in railway terms) but many areas, but does not really stand up to much scrutiny. How is it nonsense? If a DBS/SNCF/SNCB etc etc can do it better/cheaper* then why does it matter to the UK? On the face of things it might feel warm, safe and fluffy for British companies to run British railways, but in the grand scheme of things why does it actually matter? ** If foreign companies (I am far from convinced it matters if they are state owned or not) want to invest in the UK then either Jonny Foreigner is subsidising our railways or taking a profit. If he is taking a profit then he should be considered no different from any other private company seeking a profit (how that profit is then used is irrelevant provided the UK is getting good value for money). We don't complain when British companies want to make profits abroad. I hope the mods won't consider this political, as it is really about global economics rather than politics per se (though inevitably the two may be interlinked). * whatever criteria you want to use.... ** the case of whether rolling stock is built in the UK or not is slightly different as apart from direct financial implications it also has massive employment implications

Bit of a contradiction in the article: "After being tailed for four hours, the Russians eventually left British airspace." and "The Ministry of Defence stressed that there was no indication that the planes intended to enter British airspace." So did they or didn't they enter British airspace? Of course the cynic in me thinks that it was a coincidence we saw these stories at the time of the Strategic Defence Review

Hi Simon Glad you are getting on OK with html. If you are used to programming then html should be no problem for you. If you have more than a couple of pages I would strongly recommend learning about CSS as well - basically instead of all the formatting information being specific to a page you can have one (or more) Cascading Style Sheet that will control the formatting for the whole site. You reference the CSS file in the header and the main text of the page will have styles applied where necessary, but all the formatting info will be in the CSS. If you want to change format of say a header or a paragraph style then you edit the CSS and it will automatically be applied across the whole site (rather than having to edit the formatting on each individual page). More detail here: http://www.w3schools.com/css/ Cheers, Mike PS after that PHP includes for headers and footers - again makes site management much simpler!

There is definitely the facility to use FP extensions on a Linux box running Apache (whether you would want to is another matter!). Incidentally FP was discontinued in 2006(?) and the last version of it was released in 2003, so I think it is a fair bet that the code it produces will be significantly out of date. IIRC it has been replaced by MS Expression Web.

The cheapest way is to learn a bit of HTML and just use a text editor (eg Notepad or similar), this also has the benefit of producing the cleanest code, but it requires a bit of learning. If you get the hang of HTML then CSS is well worth learning (as it makes updating the design of a site much more manageable). Lots of useful tutorials on html at: http://www.w3schools.com/html/default.asp If you prefer to try a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) then you might want to try something like Amaya - a free WYSIWYG editor: http://www.w3.org/Amaya/ The problem with WYSIWYG editors can be that the code they produce is not always compatible with all browsers. HTH, Mike

David, If he is still making signals then it might be worth contacting Roger Murray. I know he has scaled back his work but he was still producing N gauge signals (including working feathers) 3-4 years back. He will take a track plan and advise appropriate signalling if you want him to as well. Cheers, Mike

I thought you were at least going to say that they were DCC controlled for remote lifting Looking forward to seeing this Jo - hopefully will be sober enough after Maiden to drag myself to Stormex on Sat. Cheers, Mike

I'm with people that say it is really places that inspire me more than layouts but a few stick out for me: Pengwyn Crossing - it just all looked right when it appeared in RM and an interesting area (that I knew nothing about) Acton Mainline - simply stunning mixture of a "mundane" urban scene with lovely N gauge stock Cement Quay - fantastic scenery and industrial buildings in a small space After that there is any number of excellent layouts that I have taken bits and pieces of inspiration or ideas from.

Some brilliant stories there folks! Even if there were some that shouldn't be laughed about! We have let other people cat sit our beasts occassionally with no disastrous problems, mostly because our cats tend to hide when strangers are around! One person questioned if there were actually any cats...except the food and water kept disappearing.

Very nice work Bryn!

Opeth - Ghost Reveries (brilliant album) and Mastodon's Crack the Skye