Clearwater

Who knows? Remember Turnover is vanity; profit is sanity!

I don't think Hornby's loan from Barclays is material from Barclays' perspective. Their total risk weighted assets (of which loans form a proportion) is £382bn. Whilst the loan docs will threaten dire consequences, such as the nth degree points out demanding immediate repayment, if the company cannot meet that payment then their is little value in demanding it. In fact, itis likely detrimental to recovery of the loan, to make such a demand. Therefore in terms of how a bank thinks about covenant breach: The loan will likely be proviosoned for loss Management of the loan will transfer to a work out team whose job is to maximise loan recovery They will work out a plan which may include sale of the business to a new owner, a split and sale of valuable parts etc etc. Their guiding goal will be getting the bank it's money back The plan may or may not include raising new risk capital for the business The bank is unlikely to wish to take direct control of the business itself. Their business is not making model trains. However, they will use the threat of taking control as a lever on management to develop a realistic business plan. Personally I think the Hornby brand has value however we've repeatedly seen management take on new ventures with limited visibility as to their profitability . As such, their credibility is damaged. David

Agreed and as I've argued elsewhere they do not provide external parties with sufficient information to analyse which brand is struggling...

In terms of breaching a loan covenant, you're right it's clearly a massive credibility issue. However, when banks set covenants their philosophy is to try and set the level so as they can step in and negotiate with management before the company's position has become terminal. Don't forget that lenders don't get any upside just their money back plus interest if all goes well. On the downside,they can lose all of their loan. It takes a lot of margin income to make up for the loss of principal...

Someone needs to ask management some serious questions.... Breaching a loan covenant is pretty serious

That's what can and does happens though. Generated electricity is traded in the same way as any other commodity. You can buy electricity on the "forward" market out for 18-24m, possibly longer in off market trades. A generator then has the obligation to deliver that power at a given point. To the extent they haven't got any power of their own to deliver at that point, eg their plant is down due to there being no wind or unscheduled maintenance etc etc, they have to buy power on the spot (ie immediate delivery) market. Therefore at times of peak demand, the spot price of power can peak to a multiple of the average daily price. That's when the "peaker" plants make their money. Now Take, eg, a large supermarket chain. They are a large consumer of power. Does it really matter if they switch off power to their freezers for two mins at the 5pm peak? Probably not however it means the overall spot market price comes down as the demand falls. Incidentally, this is part of the rationale behind domestic smart meters. Effectively an economy seven plan writ large backed by technology David

Yes - DECC and National Grid both publish such documents... In my view, the issue that creates a narrow reserve margin is that the net margin earned on a power station is less than the capital cost of building such a station. Take the cost of a new build gas or coal plant and compare it to the spark spread (the difference between the power price and the cost of fuel) and you'll find the Net present value is below the build cost. The only reason renewables get built is because the subsidy makes it financeable. David

Battered I believe !

Topic???

That's Colditz isn't it?

Thanks Phil! Having discovered the works was on the stretch of line I was interested in, I googled something like brcw & history. Took me to the Wikipedia page, Warwickshire railways and Britain from above amongst others. The book referenced above is credited as a source on Wikipedia. Put the title into amazon and up it popped. I read the book and found the picture. I then googled NSU to look for an oo scale model... I've not found one yet but I did find the Derby sulzer site which I linked to above. The other scene I'm trying to find photographic evidence for I'm sure would cause equal knashing of teeth. BRCW also built the Al1/Class 81 locomotives in the late 50s. I saw pretty much the full set of 81s trainspotting in the early 80s. My thought was how did those locos get from the GW line at Smethwick to the WCML wires? By definition they can't have left the works under their own power. Did a WR steam engine tow them? It would make an interesting juxtaposition of a shiny new electric in the smart electric blue needing a steam engine to exit the works. I'll be disappointed if they left prosaically by road on a low loader but that doesn't seem likely. When I get time, I'll try the birmingham libraries and Kiddi rail museum to see what archive material they have on brcw. David

To bring this back to a ER/LNER theme.. Since reading Phil's note, I've been looking for a photo I'd seen a few months back. I've finally run it to ground.... My long term modelling aim is to build a section of The gwr out of Snow Hill towards Handsworth Juntion. That stretch of line encompasses Hawthorn Halt serving the highest football ground in England, by altitude if not league table position, giving scope for many spurious football specials. There are lots of pictures of Bulleid Pacifica on such trains. It also encompasses the BRCW works at smethwick. That struck me as offering fantastic opportunities to justify having all sorts of items parked outside the works for delivery. Inter alia they built Pullmans, Cromwell tanks, rolling stock for all the big four and all sorts of weird and wonderful foreign stock. The picture I was looking for was to justify running an articulated set through Birmingham so when I do want a 'factual' basis for such stock I'm on safish territory. Obviously I'm still having to extrapolate a bit in the absence of any better the pick true I've found Shoe Commonwealth Railways NSU51 being tested between Birmingham and Banbury. The NSU class were built at BRCW and according to Hypher, Wheeler and Wheeler's "Birmingham Railway Carriage and Wagon Company - A century of achievement" there was at least one demonstration run of he Nsu on "western region metals between Birmingham and banbury" in 1954. My supposition is that the train must have passed through the stretch of line that interests me. Why the interest, relevance? The picture in the book (p69) shows the NSU hauling what they describe as a quad art set though link below describes as a quint. http://www.derbysulzers.com/australiabrcw.html Given the erudite and detailed knowledge of this site, if be interpolated some facts incorrectly I'm sure someone will correct me and if so, I'll go back to my rule 1 justification! apologies to Gilbert for the diversion David

Yes though I don't think they lasted very long sadly. But ultimately I'm not going to let facts stand in the way of what I want to build. Worsley do an etch of them. I'm planning to have a crack when I've built up enough confidence. David

Those are fantastic and a real inspiration. For some reason, I have a real liking for articulated coaches. I guess it's because they weren't really seen on the network in the 80s... Similarly i like slip coaches! David

Wow! Impressive. I did say *most*... I suspect with 11(!) you're in a smallminority. Folks own fewer A4s!

Andy Y's probably noting it down for next Christmas' quiz.... Great modelling - there's something about those stylish LNER trains with their coherent rakes. David

I think you can make a good guess on product popularity by the number of pages in a thread and how quickly it grows. From a quick check, this is by far the longest Hornby carriage thread which augurs well for them. Given that most people will only buy one or two autocoaches or inspection saloons or whatever, you'd expect those to be relatively more expensive given the need to recover similar costs over a smaller potential sales base. David

Unless I'm mistaken, feedback is self selecting - ie you have to have brought from someone to give them a rating. Therefore, if you've won an auction, you'll be ok with the price and so long as the item arrives well packaged, on time and per description, you're more likely than not to give a good rating. Equally the rating doesn't capture feedback on what has not sold (no sale therefore no rating to apply) nor from those who thought the item overpriced. David

I think the caterpillar is a metaphor for the thread. From all this chaos, there is a cocoon building in the loft from which we hope a beautiful layout will emerge!

Sadly the answer is yes. Some people make money on YouTube, famously there was the man chasing the dog in Richmond park. My understanding is that The business model works that you post a video and anyone who views it often has to watch an advert before. Advertiser pays YouTube and a portion of that goes to the video poster on the basis of the number of views David

Thanks - this one didn't have the steps for the slots. I was disappointed by that! Had a white metal end to attach to the brass end piece. I used one of those wooden block things for that part - was pretty useful. Yes, am looking forward to getting it nice and shiny! David

I'm led to believe the current Notwork Rail estimate for a pair of new wooden fishplates is approximately 100x that. The increase is accounted for by application of management overheard, recovery of lost track access income, surcharge for out of hours use of network, project office costs and charge for remedial works uncovered. Excludes contingency. Inclusive of reduction in underlying commodity price falls and VAT Dr Ker. Ching

Agreed. With Hornby's record of occasionally grasping the wrong end of the stick, what are the odds of them taking 7013's spec and using that for a prewar 4082?

Absolutely - without the randomness coupled to various outbreaks of modelling (I recall some coach soldering about 20 pages back- I may of course be mistaken), I doubt that as a relative newbie I'd have stuck with the forum long enough to gain confidence to reach out (apologies for the business Americanisms) for help. Following yours and Rob's suggestions, my part built coach will now roll around my simple layout. Thanks also to Tony Wright who helped manipulate the body square at the St. Albans show. Photo evidence below, video wouldn't load! I'm well chuffed, pun unintentional, that it works! I'm quite convinced that it's not the best brass coach build there's ever been but you've got to start somewhere.. David