KCR

but I suspect their aim would be something more like this and less like what happened http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/technology-science/technology/pilot-draws-enormous--air-5325316

as long as the auto pilot isn't running on any version of windows I'll happily get on that plane.

Sure is odd what's going on on bbc news just now. I feel rather less trust for the pilot of my plane now. I shouldn't, it's irrational, but it's the way it is

In a few short weeks I've to get to London, make my way from the city centre to Heathrow and board a flight and be on it for half a day have a little stop in China and then back to flying for another day. I've only been on an aircraft once before and never been to China or my final destination. What could go wrong?

You need to hire a project manager and 5 'compliance officers' to watch this small project.

I can only imagine they have a real orchestra playing the hold music when you phone up as well... not the same bloody recording of Vivaldi So cheap they couldn't actually afford the whole piece either, just one bit looped and then a message saying 'sorry we're not sorry you're waiting please continue to hold while we drive you little more insane' they are a set of restraints, some eye drops and a film of people waiting in line at a job centre away from having fully implemented the Ludovico technique to drive people away from trying to claim what they're entitled to. maybe a bit early to be watching A Clockwork Orange but its a nice film.

Only half an hour till staff arrive and I can call up and make a doctors appointment. Co-op manages to open at 6am but the NHS not till 8:30 inless it's life threatening.

This one will fit on a set of wheels from a Bachmann 43xx and take it's motor and gears. for fun...

We could maybe throw it into the new tidal lagoon in Wales when finished it'd make a good hiding place for the fish once all the oil and poisonous stuff is removed.

but there is a historical arguement in both cases, it's been longer in actual fact since we saw a peak being cut up than we've been able to see one run. We are railway enthusiasts, but I'm also a bit of a scrap enthusiast, I'd like to think there's others out there to, are we to be denied out historic recreation of something being scrapped?

needs a floater left in the pan... otherwise that's one of the most beautifully accurate models I've ever seen!

used to be the people would have the idea for the railway raise some funds and go looking for an act of parliament in support of it, now the politicians write the act gather the funds and plan the railway, meaning there is a gap between political wishful thinking and what people want or need locally. And if they try to start locally and attract governments attention, like Cedric going to the NWRDA, they'll be told nope sorry, doesn't fit with our national 5 year strategic rail plan that the ever changing minister for transport has come up with on his lunch break.

However Fife being on the North shore of the large river with the already busy bridge, Dalmeny quite firmly situated to the south of said large river, which led to the movement of the coal traffic to the Alloa route due to the bottle neck created by this very pretty but frankly increasingly unfit for purpose bridge... conclusion if we add more train via that route, no more space on the bridge becomes a problem again.

where do we send our donations to pay for this scrapping effort? I'm sure there's actually money to be made from offering to let people pay to cut it up, scrap man for a fiver day.

Whoever did it would need a healthy bank balance and a lot of love for Class 45 diesels. but stranger things have happened, Galatea has raised steam, someones making a baby deltic from a 37, I'm in no position to do it myself but I'd go bet on someone else doing it.

however there is something to be said for it on the front of improving reliability by completely rebuilding on the inside it would also have a market if it were allowed on the mainline, it would technically be a new form of diesel traction not seen on the mainline, akin to taking a railtour behind a 57 instead of a 47 not to say that this market would pay for the work but it would be something to try and claw back some money.

I mean a service beyond Alloa, it would allow a connection to glasgow from Fife that avoids going into Edinburgh at all reducing the load of passengers that currently having come from Kirkcaldy, Dunfermline or the other stops on the Fife circle and change at Haymarket or Waverly to head on to Glasgow. This would be really handy for days when Fife teams head to Glasgow to play football or the other way round, it could avoid Haymarket being packed with changing supporters on occasion which can only be good for other travellers and the safety of the supporters themselves.

I'm not sure it would get out of the station at many diesel galas if it had that set up, there would be every visitor and his dog of a certain age asking the poor driver about the weird engine note.

http://prestonservices.co.uk/item/beyer-garratt-2-ft-gauge-locomotive/ Don't seem to be having much luck shifting this one either, it has been up for sale for some years now. Sorting out ownership would be the first hurdle to getting 45015 back up and running, if it's in the hands of a private individual then it's up to them who touches it, if it's in the hands of a presevation group it's up to them what resources go into it, if it's in the hands of a dedicated group, it can only mean good things for the loco and allow that group to do more with what resources they have. time to form a society.

The big problem isn't so much who controls the purse strings but how they wish to manifest that control, I get a feeling we could be better off if we put a stop the creation of Quangos like the nwrda and it's sister agencies which were given the task of looking at the north as a whole and coming up with a plan to bring it's economic growth in line with the national average. The Alloa route is a success on the freight front, however there's no passenger service in either direction other than the srps forth circle trains, seems like an opertunity to breath some new life into some of the communities the railway passes most notabley Kincardin. There's also the line up to Leven commuter territory for Edinburgh, the StAndrews railway (closed as far as I can tell to make things quieter for the guests in the BR hotel by the station, think of the student and golf tourism money on that one), there's space to pop a station at Wormit as well, I think a commuter service would have gone down well from Dundee to Wormit, it would have let people avoid the decade of road works that is the water front there.

I think the planning application situation was spured on the the 1998 target to get 60% of new developments on brown field sites. In somewhere like Keswick you would be hard pressed to do that without covering the handy disussed railway in new buildings simply because there is not actually enough "brown field" to reach the unreasonable arbitrary target of 60% set for the whole country with complete disregard for their actual potential to reach it. That target was removed in 2011 though so the policy of 'build it on the trackbed build ANYTHING on the trackbed' may end soon.

As a democratically electect body, they cannot say with any certainty that this is the case, they are subject to the changing winds of politics, as was the now defunct NWRDA, it doesn't even exist any more so I'm not sure how much credibility to give their statements. plus that projection for opening assumes they are foolish enough to be saving up like a kid for a toy, this will not be the case at all, the 400,000 will go towards things that attract more investment to cover the 85 million, things like actually studying the fesablity of it and getting to a point of being able to present a plan of how work should progress. 20 years is a short time in railway terms. they were towing wagons with horses for more than 20 years before someone came up with a steam loco to pull them instead.

A more general enquirey to the people at the NYMR might yeild something, Also from the depths of google come these two http://www.wandleys.demon.co.uk/overhaul/frames.htm http://www.wandleys.demon.co.uk/overhaul/frames2.htm could also do worse than chucking a fiver to the SNG to help the ever looming overhaul along.

Should be good to watch this come together. Something that stands out on the small chimney photo is the line around the base that suggests a plate has been put in between the chimney and smoke box wrapper, as a former part owner of the loco can you say with any authority if this is the case and if so why this was like this? it's not something I've seen before.

Where's the North Koreans (allegedly) when you need some corporate information that isn't about a film that insults their leader... Suspect Bachmann have better security systems in place to keep us out though, lest we learn what they are making in advance