ejstubbs

Thanks for those pointers. Can you offer any guidance regarding which transfers would match the digits already on my coach? Fox states (in the additional information tab) that the FRH4027 - Coach Numbering yellow sheet lists the LMS as on eof the companies it applies to, but the numbers are apparently only 1.34mm tall whereas the ones on my coach look to be getting on for 2mm. None of the numbers on the HMRS LMS block styles & Crewe straw loco and coach insignia sheet look quite right for my coach: the straw colour of the sans serif digits looks too pale. The BR steam era loco and coach insignia sheet looks like it has digits of a better colour match, but it's not clear how tall they are. All a bit frustrating!

Thanks for that info. My composite is 19195 and both brakes are 25250. I'll probably just change the final digit on one of the brakes to a 6, 8 or 9 since they are most likely to cover up any residue from the zero.

I didn't say the engine was bad, I said the car needed a different driving technique. Which seems to be what you're saying as well. Seems to me that we're in agreement. Which is nice.

For those who didn't get to the Goodwood Revival this year, there is a "live" show and highlights programmes currently available on the ITV Hub: https://www.itv.com/hub/goodwood-revival/1a8806a0014 Some nice machinery on display, and some spirited racing. I am always impressed by the guys who go out on the track and give it a damn good go in cars worth almost as much as my house! Re: Citroens, my BiL had a CX Safari for a while and we shared the driving once on a trip from London to deepest Herefordshire. I still remember at the end my shift we pulled in to a Little Chef, found a space in the car park and when I looked behind to reverse in I thought I was going to need binoculars to see to the back of the car! Very comfortable and relaxing to drive, though - you didn't really notice the size until you had to manoeuvre the thing, and even then it was easier than it looked. I had a BX GTi for a few years - the one with the plastic bonnet. It generally did its job well, apart from the time when it emptied its auto box along the A6 - the French one - during a heatwave. The rental car that Citroen fixed me up with so that I could get to a ferry had no aircon, so I drove most of the rest of the way to Calais with all the windows down... As well as the CX my BiL also had a Visa Diesel for a while (which we called the Wiesel). This was in the days when a diesel was just a diesel - none of your fancy-pants turbo charging. On Herefordshire and Gloucestershire A roads the basic technique was to wind it up to 50-60mph and drive cannily to conserve speed, because if you had to slow down it took a wee while to get it back again. Helpfully, it went round corners pretty well, so as long as the sight lines were good - and with a bit of concentration and knowledge of the road - you could keep it trolling along quite happily. Am I correct in remembering that Visas had that coke can gizmo sticking out of the dash next to the wheel where some of the auxiliary controls lived?

Correct (unless you count the 852mm radius "special" curves for use with the Y turnout). 3rd radius is 505mm.

I sometimes end up with a touch of coupler droop even with whisker couplers in Kadee gear boxes. Kadee do sell 10 and 15 thou fibre washers (Kadee part numbers #209 and #210) which fit neatly over the skirt around the mounting screw hole in Kadee gear boxes, and which can be useful to solve this problem if it occurs.

I have had a pair (brake & composite) of the old AIrfix LMS non-corridor coaches trundling back and forth on my layout for some while now. I've decided that I would like to add a second brake 3rd, to give me a brake-composite-brake set. Unfortunately Airfix only ever produced these coaches with the same running numbers. I've considered using one of the Dapol versions but they don't seem to be a good colour match for the darker 'crimson' used by Airfix, and I'm not inclined (or careful enough) to repaint a whole coach. So I've decided that my preferred approach is to acquire another Airfix Brake 3rd and renumber it. Which raises a couple of questions: 1) Does anyone have any experience of successfully removing the numbers on Airfix coaches, and if so how was it achieved? I'm aware of the rubbing-with-a-toothpick method, although my only attempt - on a Hornby RailRoad coach - left a fairly noticeable scar. I'm not too keen on trying T-Cut, especially just for the odd number. And then there's the recently discovered acrylic-thinners-followed-by-Sharpie method, which does seem a little less aggressive than those others. 2) Where might I source replacement numbers? I have a sheet of the HMRS LMS numbers but they're all gold whereas the numbers on the Airfix coaches are sans serif yellow. Is there another HMRS sheet that would have the right numbers, or one from Fox?

A lot of modern cars have illuminated instrument panels even when no external lights (bar DRLs) are on. But flimsy excuses apart, you're basically right that some people would do well to pay more attention to state of their own vehicle when behind the wheel. However, given that far too many of them seem barely able to pay attention to other road users (let alone show them due courtesy and care) that may be too much of an ask, unfortunately. We are rapidly approaching that time of year when cars being driven without headlights during the hours of darkness will likely become more common, as people are taken by surprise as the nights close in, even though it happens every year. (Also likely to be seen more frequently are those at the opposite end of the spectrum who feel that their headlights alone just aren't enough, and supplement them illegally with their fog lights.) If we're lucky it will snow at some point - and then the 'tank commanders' will be out in force.

"[Raikkonen] failed to win the [italian GP] despite starting from pole position, and by defending against Vettel on the opening lap arguably contributed to the chain of events that led to Vettel spinning to the back after colliding with Lewis Hamilton" So, hang on: he failed to win the race from pole*, but defending his position was also a mistake? The guy can't do right for doing wrong! * Widely regarded as being because of a poor strategic call by the team, rather than the driver

AI TV was on BBC Four last week. In the programme When AI Met the Archive there were four sequences of archive clips put together by the AI, using different techniques. The time breakdowns were as follows: Sequence 1 - using image recognition to link clips together Total running time 11:33 Running time about trains* 0:27 (4%) Running time about ships 1:06 (9.5%) Sequence 2 - using keyword matching based on subtitles to link clips together Total running time 11:05 Running time about trains 0:32 (4.8%) Running time about ships 1:24 (12.6%) Sequence 3 - using "dynamism" ratings of scenes to link clips together Total running time 11:35 Running time about trains* 0:18 (2.5%) Running time about ships 1:17 (11%) Sequence 4 - using a combination of the above, plus "machine learning" Total running time 11:34 Running time about trains* 1:03 (9%) Running time about ships 0:57 (8.2%) Across the four sequences, the running time was 45:47, with 2:20 (5%) about trains and 4:44 (9.2%) about ships. The remaining 75.8% covered politics; arts and culture; history and archaeology; and other forms of transport including buses, motorcycles and bicycles - but not aviation. The AI-selected programmes that followed it were: Planet Ping Pong from 2007 The Age of Excess: When Britain Went Too Far, also from 2007, and The Rebel Physician: Nicholas Culpeper's Fight for Medical Freedom from 2016 Bottom line: a nice story but can safely be filed under "fake news" IMO. One thing I would say is that the AI seemed to pick its clips from a very small number of the supposedly 250,000 BBC Four programmes it had available to choose from. The Joy of (Train) Sets featured in three out of the four sequences, and The Last Days of the Liners featured in all four. * Including model railways.

They don't seem to have instruction leaflets for the various Streamline turnouts, slips etc on the web site any more, which is a shame. (I'm sure that you can get them if you ask the Technical Bureau people nicely, though.)

I use a pair of Knipex cutters rated for piano wire up to 2mm diameter: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0011252K4/ They can't cut completely flush, though. I think Enterprisingwestern is probably right that there are metallurgical reasons why this can't be achieved while still having a hard enough edge to cut hard material like piano wire. I think they work as much by crushing as by actual penetrative cutting. However, with a bit of light pressure (but not too much, you don't want to snap the tie bar or the adjacent sleepers) the Knipex cutters will leave less than 1mm standing proud. (If that's still not good enough for you then I'd hazard a guess that it might be possible to take the worst of the rest off with a Dremel using one of the precision grinding bits -but going carefully and taking lots of breaks to let the workpiece cool down.) Alternatively, I suppose you could remove and re-mount the point motor with a shim of the appropriate thickness between it and the baseboard so as to draw the excess down to an acceptable height while still being able to operate the turnout. (You couldn't do that with point motors that clip on to the point itself, though, like the Peco PL-10.)

Well, he did win the Drivers Championship in 2007... (And has finished 2nd twice, and 3rd twice.) Up until 1972 the ACM allowed only 16 cars to complete in the Monaco GP. In 1972 they gave in to pressure from Bernie Ecclestone (and a threat to drop the race from the F1 calendar) and increased it to 26, the same as the rest of the races on the calendar. In 1974 they were allowed to reduce it again, to 18 cars. I don't know how or when the grid for the Monaco GP was increased again, but apparently the 1995 Monaco GP was the last one to date to start with a full 26-car grid. And yes, in those earlier times there was pre-qualifying for the races with more entries than available grid positions. Usually it was just the fastest X in qualifying (where X was the number of grid positions available) got through, but according to Wiki there were so many teams wanting to take part in the early 1990s that separate pre-qualifying sessions were run. I don't know when it started (quite possible from the birth of F1 in 1950) but even today there is a cutoff based on having to be within a certain percentage of the pole position lap time (currently 107%). Drivers who fail to meet that target can only race with the permission of the race stewards, so in theory you won't necessarily get a full grid even if there are sufficient entries. (I'm sure I remember times back in the dim and distant when the odd driver failed to meet the target lap time; ISTR at least one occasion when a driver was allowed to race after the other teams had lobbied the stewards on account of some exceptional circumstances which had befallen a popular driver/team. Can't see that happening these days!) Up and including the 1990 season there was a limit on how many results a driver could count towards their points total in the drivers championship. The calculation changed over time: sometimes it was a simple best X results, sometimes it was split between the first and second halves of the season: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Formula_One_World_Championship_points_scoring_systems#Points_scoring_systems. Only from 1991 have all points scored during the season counted towards the drivers championship. The same rules were applied to the constructors championship from 1958 (when it started, eight years after the drivers championship) up to and including the 1978 season, with the difference that only the points for the highest-scoring driver for each constructor at each race were counted. From the 1979 season onwards all points scored by each driver for each constructor count towards the constructors championship. I suspect that, if three-car teams were to be allowed then something similar to one of the older systems would be be used for the constructors championship - perhaps with the points for only the top two highest-scoring drivers for each constructor being counted. Anything more complicated than that would, I suspect, lead only to confusion and unnecessary complication. (A cynic might suggest that, given how F1 seems to be run and governed these days, the straightforward solution would never even be put forward for consideration...)

A fair few other teams - including constructors and/or drivers championships for Matra, Tyrrell, Williams, McLaren and Brabham - also had success with the DFV before the turbo era got into its stride. Watching the Guy Martin F1 programme the other week, I had a sudden and unexpected tingle down my spine when they fired up the FW08C's rebuilt engine for the first time. Ahhh, that's what an F1 engine used to sound like!

We've had a lot of stuff from Ikea over the years. One problem that they've created for themselves in recent years has been making changes to long-lived and popular ranges. The well-known example being the Expedit storage system, which they replaced with the lighter-build Kallax. Although they retained the internal sizing - so that vinyl lovers could still use them for them LPs - the external sizing was slightly different, so if you wanted more storage, you ended up with mismatched cabinets. More annoying for us was was their recent-ish changes to the Billy shelves. The shelf support pegs in the new ones are smaller in diameter than in the old ones, which compromises flexibility when adding new Billy carcasses to existing shelving, or new shelves to existing carcasses. Where we got tripped up, though, was in buying some Oxberg doors to fit to an existing Billy. The screws supplied with the hinges for the new doors were sized to fit the new, smaller diameter holes but the Billy in question had the old, larger holes. Ordinary wood screws don't work well (if at all) in the pre-drilled holes in the Ikea particle board carcasses. After a few half-hearted attempts at bodging it with slivers of wood to pack out the holes, I hied myself off to our local store (which is, fortunately, not a long trip) with, as an example of what I needed, a screw from a hinge for a door which I had fitted to an old Billy many years ago. The fellow I dealt with on the customer service desk was exemplary in his determination to find me what I wanted, disappearing off into the darkest recesses of the store to root through their spares bins before eventually reappearing with sixteen screws which were a good functional match for (though not identical to) the example I had provided*. So, ten out of ten for customer service in resolving the problem, but minus a fair few marks for changing the design and not anticipating that people would find themselves in the position we did (and which a fair few others have too, judging by comments on various Ikea forums online). Our other significant encounter with Ikea customer service occurred when we bought a kitchen from them. Everything was delivered as ordered, no problems there, but unfortunately the joiner we employed to install it managed to mishandle the 4m long worktop with the embedded double sink and drainer such that the laminate around the sink lifted and cracked. He admitted his error, and that over time it would cause problems with water soaking in to the substrate, and he arranged for it to be replaced at his own expense. Which was fine. Except that, after he'd installed the replacement, my wife noticed that the laminate finish wasn't quite the same as that on the rest of the worktops. The difference was so slight that I was happy to let it go, especially since the long worktop was on the other side of the room to the rest of the worktops, but she was adamant that it had to be put right. So another, expensive custom-made worktop was ordered and delivered - and was found to have the same ever-so-slightly-non-matching finish as the first replacement. Cut a long story short, after the customer services manager of our local store had even on site to see the problem first-hand, Ikea eventually admitted that they had changed the laminate finish between the time when our first worktop was made, and the two replacements. I can't remember whether they offered to replace the other worktops so that they would match the replacement one - I think by that point we couldn't have faced any more disruption anyway. The final resolution was that they took away the second replacement worktop at no cost, and gave us a bit of a refund on the total cost as compensation. The lesson from these two incidents is, I think, that you can't rely on Ikea products remaining unchanged over time, even when the name stays the same. And you certainly can't rely on them making it clear if they do change things. All of which is a tad unhelpful for a manufacturer whose range contains a large proportion of essentially modular self-assembly products which customers might reasonably expect to be able to reconfigure over time. But I guess that's one of the things you find out when you buy cheap. Overall, though, we are happy with the various bits of Ikea stuff we've bought over the years. Our oak (yes, it is solid oak) dining table & chairs are still going strong, the garage is well furnished with Ivar shelves - and my layout lives on top of a run of three-high Kallax units. * He did tell me which product they were spares for, but foolishly I forgot to note it down at the time and I have now, of course, forgotten. Which means I'll be faced with the whole performance all over again if we ever end up in the same situation at some future point. Nor can I help anyone else who encounters the same problem with that useful information.

And the there's this: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-45359275 At least on the web site they state that the train everyone comes to see is actually the Jacobite, and they enclose "Hogwarts Express" in quotation marks to try to make the point. On the TV news last night the reporter speaking to camera simply said that "The Hogwarts Express won't be back for another four hours!" with a big grin on her face. I don't mind so much the tourists being daft (although the inconsiderate parking and trespassing on the line is clearly reprehensible) but I do think that the Beeb could at least try to maintain a semblance of accuracy. She could just have said "The steam train" rather than "The Hogwart's Express". And don't get me started on massive queue at King's Cross for people to have their photos taken standing by a luggage trolley embedded in a wall. Anyone know who pays for the stewards who monitor the queue?

Nope. The OED cites a 1909 article as the earliest use of the term, though earlier examples are known to exist. Even the suggestion that the derogatory sense of the term only emerged following the Kennedy assassination seems to be highly dubious. Again, there is good evidence that the term pre-dates the the publication of Alinsky's book in 1971 by a significant margin. For example (although at the risk of invoking Godwin's Law): in 1934, The New York Times reported that Nazi Germany was granting reporting permits "only to pure 'Aryans' whose opinions are politically correct." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_correctness#Early-to-mid_20th_century). The mass popularisation of the term has been traced back to another New York Times article, by Richard Bernstein in October 1990.

I think it's more accurate to say that some people have forged a link between the picture and pills in The Matrix. The Wachowskis had all the lead actors read Simulacra and Simulation by Jean Baudrillard, Out of Control by Kevin Kelly, and Introducing Evolutionary Psychology by Dylan Evans and Oscar Zarate in order to better understand the world of the movie. Nothing relating to Steiner or either (any?) of his philosophical beliefs. The Anthroposophical Society's first founding principle is "to be an association of people whose will it is to nurture the life of the soul, both in the individual and in human society, on the basis of a true knowledge of the spiritual world." Which to me makes them sound significantly more distanced from reality than Theosophical Society (which, despite stating in its constitution that: "The Theosophical Society is absolutely unsectarian, and no assent to any formula of belief, faith or creed shall be required as a qualification of membership; but every applicant and member must lie in sympathy with the effort to create the nucleus of an Universal Brotherhood of Humanity" has experienced a number of schisms in its 143 years of existence, of which the Anthroposophical Society was one.) Quite what these (IMO) bizarre organisations have to do with the origins of the concepts of conspiracy theories and political correctness is difficult to discern. This is meaningless nonsense, but apparently it is what Steiner intended to depict. Nuff said, really...

There was some Mk1 stock at the location where the anti-terrorism police were waiting for the train. That might be what confused you. It confused me for a brief moment. The external shots of the train on which DS Budd was travelling when he tackled the suicide bomber were all of the Mk2 stock. I was prepared to write that off as acceptable poetic licence, but thanks for clarifying.

Fiennes' book is available in hardback for less than half the LTM's sale price from Books etc via Amazon. I realise the LTM is a 'good cause' but you could buy the book from Books etc, donate £10 to the museum and still have change...

That's OK, plenty of other RMWebbers have stepped in to give all the well-rehearsed old arguments one more airing...

The A1 Trust stated back in April that the RAIB had been informed of the incident on the day. There is nothing on the RAIB's current investigations web page to indicate that they are taking any action.

A fair point, but I would suggest that one thing Pink Floyd themselves were not renowned for was their 'spontaneity' in live performance.

Never saw Pink Floyd live, but have seen the Australian Pink Floyd Show and thought they were pretty impressive. One of the guitarists in particular sounded so like David Gilmour it was almost scary. Nothing wrong with tribute band shows IMO, so long as the tickets are priced appropriately ie recognising that you're not getting the real thing! There seems to be a subculture of female heavy metal/rock/punk tribute bands such as Lez Zeppelin, AC/DShe, The Iron Maidens, Mistress of Reality (a Black Sabbath tribute band) and The Ramonas. If you feel tempted to check any of them out on YouTube all I can say is stay well away from the comments...

Dismount and wheel the bike along for the few yards that between the two safe sections of your route, perhaps? I always think this is one of the huge advantages that one has on a bicycle compared to being in a car: you can convert yourself in to a pedestrian within seconds should the need arise. For example: at a dangerous pinch point on the carriageway, or if you find yourself facing a huge detour because the direct route is one way against you for a short distance. Apart from the fact that it is illegal? (Guidance from various Home Secretaries notwithstanding: that asks police to exercise discretion when dealing with an offence, it doesn't mean that an offence isn't committed.) Given that cycling on the footway* is (unless it's a designated shared use path) illegal, pedestrians are absolutely entitled to use them in the expectation that they won't have to take the possibility of the presence of wheeled vehicles in to account as they do so. SO it's not surprising that some of them get irate when that expectation is confounded (in much the same way that one would be entitled to be cross about having to avoid pedestrians or cyclist when driving on a motorway - they're simply not meant to be there). If the decision was made to make cycling on the footway legitimate in certain circumstances, steps would need to be taken to re-educate the population as a whole about how safely to proceed along the footway on foot. I'd suggest that in the kind of case that you cite, rather than people simply taking the law into their own hands, it would make sense to lobby the local authority to make the footway shared use. As mentioned elsewhere on this thread, much so-called "cycling infrastructure" gives the strong impression of having been installed in order to meet targets rather than to actually provide something of use to the populace. On the face of it, it would seem that a shared use pavement alongside a busy rural road which is likely to create minimal conflict between pedestrians and cyclists should be an easy way for a LA to up its cycling infrastructure totals while actually delivering something of genuine value. And it can all be achieved within the existing regulatory framework, no new laws required. There are organisations (eg Sustrans) whose sole raison d'etre is to help make things like this happen, and who are happy to hear and discuss constructive ideas for useful and effective cycling infrastructure. * "Footway" is the term used in the relevant laws for what is commonly referred to as the "pavement". As the name suggests, it's the part of the highway which is specifically reserved for the use of people travelling on foot (or using a wheelchair or compliant mobility scooter). That's in contrast to the "carriageway", which is the part of the highway "carriages" ie wheeled vehicles including bicycles, are allowed to use.