Clearwater

The hotel and the building to its right have fared pretty well though

Despite falling asleep on the tube home from didcot, my son still came running in at 720am BST... We won't be changing his time for a few days yet...

Hi Gilbert For the Ely-Birmingham service, did the B17 run through to Birmingham or was it taken off before? Thanks David

Nice post for the big 10k! Congrats David

A couple of years ago my father died and I had the sad task of sorting out his model railway. Most of his stuff was rtr in origin, one or two wrenn items that have some value and a few kit built locos, by others not him although he had a few part built kits (some of his kit built locos were purchased at modellers Mecca - I wonder if any were built by Tony? There's one GWR ex-rod that runs very well...). Sadly when he died, his railway had been neglected for a while and some of the stock was not in good condition - broken off chimneys, bent coupling rods, water damage etc. I'm not sure what had happened in his shed but it was pretty sad to clear up and box up the items. I've not yet finished as I have some storage issues in my house to resolve! Most of his stock has minimal intrinsic value yet for obvious reasons, I've not sold or disposed of any of it. I'm sure like most here my father would not have wanted the stock sold for buttons or, worse, skipped. If that's the case, it makes sense to catalogue / explain to your executors what items are in advance of the inevitability. Particularly if there are specific items that do have value or you'd like to go to particular people. Whilst like everyone on here, I enjoy a good bargain, sometimes when I've brought a second hand out of print railway book, I do wonder about its previous owner... David

Shall look forward to viewing progress on Saturday as the boy and I travel to Didcot for the gala weekend!

So long as rob doesn't object - couple of pics of hungerford. I have one or two other slightly blurrier ones including of the French compound they have and some of the coaches but I don't think are good enough to post. Lovely layout. David

@crichel down Whilst the thread has, in true rmweb style wandered at times, the position of Honrby's finances and the likely bank reactions debated (many pages back). Main comment is that with their limited financial disclosures, none of us really know what is profitable, where their problems really are and the status of the loan docs will depend on the specific provisions which, as is common, will be confidential to the bank and borrower. We do get a feel on some issues from our own experiences, both professionally when facing similar situations and personally as Hornby consumers, and those of experienced retailers such as trains4u. One thing I would just add, having worked in corporate finance for many years, is to state the obvious. Hornby is a listed company. Any disclosure they make about their position with their bank is highly price sensitive information. They will, and their broker will be telling them, have a clear communication plan in place about when and how they update the market on their numbers and negotiations with Barclays. They have previously made a specific statement (available earlier and via the investor relations link on the bottom of their website) about their covenant position. I'd expect them to update the market as soon as practical after their year end and when they have a settled position with Barclays. In terms of liqudation, I'd see that as an absolute last resort for the lender. They'll only do that if there is no business plan that sees them repaid and Hornby operating as a viable concern. At the risk of repeating myself and others, we do not know if that viable Hornby includes uk outline trains as we do not know if they are a profitable line David

There's some on the main ally pally thread. I have a few but I need to make them smaller which I can do tonight (I find it easier to upload from the iPad where photo stream automatically reduces file size from my iPhone which I used to take them). David

I agree with the comments about the differences between the stands when I visited earlier. I quite liked the lounge. Having seen how Bachmann set up previously, I suspect that what is used as the lounge was previously dead space (or used for retail storage). They gave us a bottle of water and were kind to my son, who was a bit tired at that point. Made a nice break from the outside. Plus got a good look at the thonpson EPs which are closely coupled and look superb. The Hornby stall is, by contrast smaller (and probably cheaper). It does look tired. Biggest difference to me is in the staffing. The Bachmann staff all wear easy to read name tags and, when i went through, was manned by the previous and current MD. in contrast, H staff, whilst knowledgeable didn't have name tags and I doubt were as senior as the Bachmann staff I had a quick conversation with one of the Hornby guys which was quite high level however seemed to suggest that we shouldn't expect much new stuff in 2017 given timeframes on tooling. My personal view is as follows - items announced and in tooling such as q6 (samples on stand) and b12 (earlier stage samples) will appear roughly as scheduled. On a marginal cost to complete basis, the projected return must look strong and with money already spent, substantially deriske - announced but earlier stage - eg MN. Sample was still the 3D print but not that prominently displayed. Suspect will be delayed - 2017. Catalogue based largely on reliveries of existing tools. Big emphasis of maximising profitable lines rather than introducing new stuff. - some reliveries trumpeted a la Gresley collection to get a premium - some promise of 'jam' tomorrow David Edit: as an aside I've never been that impressed with BA's champagne...

The town scene on Hungerford is superb. The blending of the back scene and perspective is spot on. Excellent stock goes without saying especially the carriages Ally Pally had it next to one of the big g scale dcc type layouts. Worked very well as my son liked the all action large scale whilst I could admire Hungerford and tell him when to look David

Submitted Bulldog as request in Bachmann box (btw, the members lounge is a nice touch. Submitted maroon collets and Saint on Honrby stand. I asked about a saint. Body language of the guy said under consideration but didn't actually say that. Talked instead about time frames for new toolings. I reckon 2018 Btw, Hungerford is an excellent layout at every level David

We're off to Ally Pally tomorrow. If I get chance, hopefully if I, or my son, ask the question in a saintly manor, we will get a response! If we do, I guess we'll be stars! Junior was quite taken with the straight running plates of the Saint in the Earley book David

Post waiting for me when I got home. Thanks to the miracle of the Internet, amazons reach to second hand book sellers and the generousity of people's tips David

The refinancing I referred to was in 2006, three years after it opened

It's supply and demand... Arranging these sort of loans is big and lucrative business. Say on a £2bn facility, a bank may underwrite it for an upfront fee of say 1%. That gives a front end fee pool of £20m... Now typically that fee will get competed down as the borrower will go and ask the 20-30 large international banks to all quote for the business. They'll take the four or five cheapest who will underwrite pro rata. Those banks may, probably, further sell down the loan to other banks and credit institutions, eg insurance companies. Though they will have to pay some of their fee to those institutions, they can take some of the fee to profit day 1 (the balance being amortised across the term of the loan. In addition, the bank may look to earn additional money from the derivative transactions. The initial banks may also look to refinance the loan to the bond markets for a further fee. All in all, this is attractive business and hence will be competitive. Therefore the borrower will have some ability to be able to be able to negotiate the terms it wants. Unlike mortgages or personal loans, these are highly bespoke documents negotiated on a case by case basis. David

Ha! No offence taken. No different to other professions... Aggressive in this context means pushing the terms of the loan as far as you can and just be acceptable to the banks. Corporate loans are just like mortgages. Using that as an analogy, if you were offered a mortgage for 90% of the house value over 25 years at 1.5% over base, going back and saying to the bank, I'd like 95%, over 30 years and a margin of 0.75%, oh and a repayment holiday at my election whenever I want! and oh if I do breach the agreement I'd like the right to correct my mistake without any penalty etc etc. Unlike a mortgage, the negotiating power is often more with the borrower when the loan is being arranged David

Whilst the traffic hasn't grown, their financial distress is more down to the highly aggressive refinancing they undertook in 2006. The original road cost around 600m to build. They refinancing it with a loan of 1bn taking a several hundred million dividend at the time. On top of that, they overlaid an aggressive swap structure whereby they paid a low rate up front and projected a higher rate at the back end to leave in npv neutral. From memory, M6 Toll makes around 75m per year free cash flow. Suspect we'll see new owners of M6Toll by the end of 2016. David

there are some differentiations within the infrastructure sector that drive behaviour particularly between new build schemes, such as what we're talking about here, and completed, operating assets. The risk profile between the two is markedly different. To give an old, but pertinent example, Eurotunnel. In my experience, investors will finance assets under construction but will do so at a higher rate (it's riskier) than operating assets plus you have to wait several years before you can get to a yield. For reasons of prudence, funds will have limits as to how much they can invest in schemes under construction. The types of Canadian and Aussie funds you allude to, are not common investors in unbuilt assets. The exception is Thames tideway tunnel however that has been structured to minimise construction risk for the investors. Other construction issues are that often without hefty subsidy, the economics simply don't add up. Let's take a 10bn scheme. If your debt costs you 4% per annum, a historically aggressive rate, you need to earn 400m after opex and before any margin for equity. How many rail franchises generate anything like that sort of free cash flow? Very very few. Even if you do find a project with those type of revenues, you have to consider the accuracy of the forecast. Studies have shown that such projections are often 20pc out. Check out CTRL by way of example. Hard issues to explain to your investment committee. Also, it is simply not correct to say UK pension funds do not invest in UK infrastructure. To give a few examples, USS (the university superannuation scheme) is a direct investor in Heathrow, Hermes (BT), is an investor in Thames Water and Associated British Ports. Just last week, SSE sold one of its Scottish wind farms to a consortium including London and Manchester local authority pension schemes. Additionally, a lot of uk schemes invest via managers, eg Macquarie European infrastructure fund. The reason they do that is they lack the resource required to manage the investments directly and is more efficient for them to take a portfolio approach of investments by way of such funds David

To be clear I wasn't arguing against investment any where else. My point was more how crowded the tube is and the lack of alternatives. The central line runs at my station 3min intervals. It's more in the middle section with the impact of the branch lines. I doubt it would be practical to add extra carriages and I'm not sure you can increase the train frequency by much if at all. For the service you reference, can the frequency be increased or extra carriages added? (I appreciate not necessarily overnight given how the network is stocked). Regional policy is an interesting question. There are businesses relocating away from London, eg to Birmingham. How do you incentivise them to move? You need a cluster effect. It's no good one half of a couple finding a good job. Chances are their partner also needs to find a similarly good job. Hence it can be harder than you'd think to persuade people and businesses to relocate from London. Providing infrastructure, whilst important, isn't the only factor. Given the overall constraint on public sector cash, HMT has to decide where it gets spent and which projects generate the best overall return.

Government has a tricky balancing act between no stifling growth in London and stimulating growth elsewhere. The London economy is doing extremely well and the population is increasing markedly both of which increase the number of journeys. Witness the high house price inflation in London relative to elsewhere. If you take the tube in the peak, which lasts a good 2h, it is absolutely rammed. I live in zone 4, hardly central London by any stretch. At my local station, I do not get a seat any morning between 7.30 and 930. One morning a week, I catch the tube at around 610. Even then, there are no seats.... Don't even think about arriving at Victoria in the peak. Unfortunately, there has been too little money spent in the past and too slowly. Thameslink was branded Thameslink 2000 once.... . Crossrail 2 is a fine idea but we won't actually see new trains on it until 2030. By then, growth will have taken up whatever new capacity is currently being delivered. In terms of timing, some of these planning horizons with schemes announced but only delivered in 2030 or so would make even Bachmann and Hornby blush... David

@Mike Wiltshire Of the Early books, which do you recommend? In this day and age, there's an argument for museums like the NRM to digitise their photo archives. David Edit - just seen Howard's recommendation on the new thread

Though I'm always heartened to hear stories of Mark 1 ultrasound testing by hitting the item with a hammer and listening to see if the note sounds 'right'

You mean they didn't have drones in 1958? Hat, coat etc

Interesting debate re designs and practices. What shines through to me, as someone with a scientific (post undergraduate science my MA thesis was around the history of development of a particular spectroscopic technique) not engineering background, is the impact of technology. These days I'd expect designs to be robustly tested and simulated well before ever being built. As I believe the p2 crew are doing. I guess in the 20s/30s, even if the science/engineering was known and the calculations could be performed, they would have to have been done manually. These days a computer does the lot incredibly quickly. I guess it was quicker and cheaper to build it and then if successful develop the class out to scale proportion with incremental improvement as proven by service. David