Michael Hodgson

The only person who's going to model this full length is Pete Waterman! Your fiddle yard isn't big enough? My credit card limit won't be big enough !

I don't usually bother with the reviews in Sam's trains and haven't watched his first review of the Black five, but his critiscisms of the repalcement of one that had to be returned struck me as fair comment, erring if anything on the charitable side. it seems to be a nice looking model, but unreliable out of the box and he really shouldn't have to muck about with it to get it running, so not very good value for money.

Looks much the same as a GUV to me. Is that steam escaping from the middle of the chassis? Why would scenery need to be steam heated? Perhaps it's for the comfort of the elephants. They of course provide their own "scenery".

Cue more lobbying of Scottish politicians. Who at the moment are probably more interested in who's still going to have a job tomorrow.

The green livery is very pretty but I think I prefer the post-war black version they're doing, without the side valances.

Whitby (after removal of Platforms 3&4 to build the Co-op). If you call it a branch? Was reduced to one platform but now has a Platfrom 2 again, used by NYMR trains

So it's not yet been reviewed by Sam's Trains .

Not the only Welsh song of the Thatcher era ...

Yes, the mugs who had been buying Hornby are now buying from the new entrants to the market!

We just don't know what this stock is, or even which of the group's brands. For all we know it might be a million diecast Sinclair C5's !

Yes, the grockles have taken over Cornwall, so we'll charge Cornishmen extra to commute to work from Devon.

I would like a Caprotti 5, but if it's got as many problems as these version seem to have, I'll be passing on the Hornby one. Of course there is the possibility that it prove OK - but I'll have missed out by the time we know.

It would also be implictly covered through things like drivers' route knowledge, documents such as WTT, Sectional Appendix.

NMRA was founded before WW2. Zero One was 1979, but there were a number of early electronic/digital systems, mostly incompatible with one another (just like OO couplings!) Not sure when the Americans decided that a common set of standards for this would be a good idea.

No need for FPL 4. It's goods only.

Oh Mister Porter, what shall I do? I want to go to Birmingham and they've taken me to the loo"

Indeed, but that was just a proprietary form of DCC that didn't conform to NMRA standards.

There's a recent thread about pick-up goods and how they were made up. Most wayside stations are much more easily shunted in one direction or the other. There's no reason why that would be the same direcion for every station on a given line though. So you'd shunt some stations on the way out and the others on the way back. The wagons to be detached at any particular station would generally be marshalled together to minimise work at each station. The sequence of such blocks of wagons would generally be fixed too, although not necessarily in the order station 1, station 2, etc. Pick-up goods generally ran in daylight. I don't think they would ever have been lodging turns, that was something more for long-distance services. In an area with as many lines as your hypothetical map there would be commercial considerations between competing companies and agreements between companies. Each company originating traffic would (within reason) seek to optimise their portion of the total revenue by doing as much of the mileage as possible on their own metals, which meant routes might always be the most obvious. Before pooling of wagons the empties from other companies would be returned empty unless you were able to use them for a return load. Empties from your own company would be sent on to somewhere on your system that needed them.

It was an excellent sales pitch aimed primarily at the many modellers who say "I dont understand electrics".

I have a vague recollection from about half a century ago of a Coventry museum telling me about some local factory having built a 21-seater bike only it proved too heavy to move. But there's always this .... https://www.autoevolution.com/news/worlds-longest-bike-looks-like-the-support-structures-of-a-walmart-store-146352.html#agal_0

Sounds improbable. "Great Western would like to apologise for the late arrival of the Cornish Riveria Express. This is due to an operating decision taken personally by the Rt Hon the Secretary of State for Transport to give prioirity to a goods train carrying roadstone to fill in potholes in the motorway".

That would indeed improve sighting, but it would not be provided at all, because as RailWest has said, the trap would (rather than could) be replaced by having 5 lie towards the siding, making 1 in its current position superfluous. If the trap were left in situ, I see problems locking it in such a way that there isn't a risk that the trap could be moved under a train needing to shunt the kickback siding unless yet another signal were provided to protect the trap in the opposite direction. Your lever numbering looks appropriate to the lever frame being at the window side of the box (the most usual arrangement) rather than the back wall. I think it unlikely that 7 and its FPL would be combined on one lever unless it was a MR layout or a more modern isntallation with power-worked points. I'm not sure about the 3-lever ground frame at the warehouses - I suspect you would be unlikely to work both ends of a run-round loop from a one GF.

By working, I would understand the linkage to be capable of being screw-adjusted. Is that really the case here, or is it just a 1-piece 3D-printed linkage, pivoted behind the drawhook?

They keep a project status page on their website, useful as long as they keep it up to date (last updated a couple of days ago) https://revolutiontrains.com/projects/

Union Mills was a real station - on the 3' gauge IoM Railway, a crossing point on the Douglas to Peel line.