No Decorum

I did spot the GNR 2-8-0 in a video. It looked much the same; still very light in colour.

That’s very useful. Could I possibly repeat my request for such documents to be available as PDFs? With the best will in the world, things on t’web can go missing and it helps to have such things secure on one’s own system.

I hope that’s not the “very soon” which preceds “image” on some retailer’s sites as soon as something is announced! Let it be steam and let it be something not produced RTR before. Let it be green but not too dark. Ah! A K4! (A K2 would also be most acceptable.)

I’ve never seen a launch to beat the Manors’. The object of curiosity emerging from the morning mist. Much better than a series of shots of tempting locos preceding an announcement of something which had been done before; more or less. The flash of LNER green had me dribbling at the prospect of a K4 until I realised it wasn’t a K4. Cruelty to a dumb animal, that was!

That would be France, I assume. (I’ve been reading a reprint of Chapelon: Genius of French Steam – an eye opener.) 😄

Like many reviewers, he tends to drag things out rather too much for my taste. However, his postings are neatly arranged into chapters, which makes it easy to skip a lot of it and watch the interesting bits.

I believe the round-top boiler was a try-out for a possible Pacific, which was never produced. The original LN design was hampered by a firegrate which was flat at the back and steeply sloped at the front. Those were difficult to fire because it was difficult to get coal to cover the sloped part and all too easy to put too much on the flat part, where it wouldn’t jiggle forward as it would on a grate with a consistent slope. The early Jubilees on the LMS had a similar arrangement which contributed to their troubles. All in good time, I hope to find out if Bulleid tackled the grate.

A Freudian slip if ever there was one. It sums up model railway purchasing for so many of us these days!

I think that Richard Maunsell is an under-rated CME. It was hard luck that his magnum opus was a bit of a dud, or at least didn’t live up to expectation. Bulleid apparently transformed them. I recall that when Lord Nelson itself was restored to mainline running order, its poor reputation had persisted. The first run, I believe, was a failure due to scale in an injector but the crew was full of admiration for the loco on the next run. One thing on my long to-do list is to get hold of a publication to find out what the problem was and exactly what Bulleid did, over and above tweak the steam passages and fit a Lemaître exhaust. That Hornby model looks good. I have an LN in BR green and I think it’s about the worst looking object I have from when Hornby was making a mess of BR and GWR greens.

Many thanks for that alert. I only managed to get the LNER variant and have now ordered the LMS and GWR variants. Being a Johnny Latecomer, I’ve done better than I deserved!

Which is why the term was (ahem!) coined. For the same reason “denationalisation” was re-named “privatisation”. If you”re for HS2, it’s* a prestige project. If you’re against, it’s* a vanity project. *Usefully, “it’s” can be an abbreviation of “it is” or “it was”. 🤣

An e-mail from Rails announced a “Heljan Takeover Day” at Rails HQ on Saturday, 13th. Amongst the latest samples the O2 figures. That’s good news and I hope to see pictures posted. I also hope to see a darker grey on the GNR version but no matter; whatever the shade, my pre-order stands.

The Thompson and Peppercorn A2s were designed as mixed traffic locos, with driving wheels the same diameter (6' 2") as the V2s. Thus they weren’t, as you say, painted express passenger blue even though they were used as express locomotives due to post war shortages. It won’t spoil my fun; after all, I have a Tornado.

I certainly wouldn’t replace mine. However, I haven’t an A2 in express blue and I’d be very happy to buy one. With Blue Peter emerging in blue, it would be a good time for Bachmann to produce one.

“Check back after midday.”