rogerzilla

Warley was always a magnificent enigma - how did a model railway club from an almost unknown part of the Black Country end up running an annual NEC show? My understanding is that they were invited to do so by the NEC, rather than deciding to put on such a show in the first instance. Still incredible that it ran for so long and was so famous. I've only been twice but I shall miss it, especially as we'll be living much closer next year.

Electrofrog points, if you can still find them new, work out of the box with live frogs but rely on contact between the switch rails and the stock rails. Depending on how messy you are with track painting/ballasting, or general oxidation over time, the contact becomes less reliable. A fibreglass brush can be used to clean up the contacts.

I see the livery of the BR one has changed from green to black. I ordered the LNER one so it doesn't affect me, but some websites are still listing the BR one as green. A lot of people could be disappointed.

Possibly to prevent someone making a mess of it and ruining a business with the family name attached to it.

Rails and Kernow are the big two now, I think. Less competition is always bad news, and I had some bargains from Hattons over the years.

I'd love to see TV in malachite with sunshine lettering, just to rub it in. When's the new build supposed to be finished?

Is the Hornby one that bad?

Went today. Last trip behind the Flying Pig, with "THE END" chalked on the smokebox door. All running to time and they'd lit the waiting room fires. The only overcrowding was on the afternoon Pig-hauled service from Bridgnorth, either because it was the Pig or because there was a huge gap between it and the preceding train - we were at Highley for 90 minutes.

That's surprising, for a geographically limited and not entirely successful class. Maybe the Scots are snapping them up.

I have just acquired the last of the set that I didn't have (the A1). It's an odd set, to be honest, and is basically what Hornby already had tooling for, and what ran in apple green. The obvious omission is the V2, which has been the preserve of Bachmann for years, and including both an A1 and A3 is a bit silly, as the main visual differences are restricted to the tender, dome, and the ejector pipe (A1 is RHD, A3 is LHD). The models themselves are 75% superb, the lame duck being the P2, which was from the "design stupid" period and is noticeably more basic. The finish on all four is great and they run well enough, although the P2 is a bit less smooth due to its cheapo mechanism. The main problem with this gloss-finish set is that it makes my NRM Mallard look as if someone has painted it in Farrow & Ball matt emulsion. Manufacturers are generally drifting towards more shiny satin finishes but Hornby still have some seriously flat paint in their range.

Given the coal consumption of a Bulleid, 140mph must have taken three firemen!

Gresley was always satisfied to claim it as 125mph. 126mph was only achieved momentarily. Mallard didn't get an optimal run down Stoke Bank; there was limited space to get the record between speed limits, which I don't think were always there.

The irony is that an A4 could almost certainly have gone faster than Mallard by the 1950s, when Kenneth Cook had sorted the middle big end problem and all of them had Kylchap front ends. There was a gentlemens' agreement not to take the record away from Mallard, apparently. The story goes that Alan Pegler told the driver of SNG to back off in 1959 when it got to 112mph and was still accelerating easily.

GWR steam locos usually have squeaky or spluttery whistles*, so maybe it was tradition! *the main whistle, not the deeper "brake whistle"

The cork is more to simulate ballast depth than for sound insulation. I wouldn't use foam with the cutouts for sleepers - that relies on too many things being exactly right.

Streamlined Stirling No.1. I'll get me coat.

How well does Railroad sell at the moment, and who buys it? Is it just a way to squeeze a bit more value from old tooling that has already paid for itself, so volumes can be super-low?

Does anyone know how to fit the headcodes to the N gauge version (2D-003-014)? The instruction sheet doesn't cover this feature.

Since real point machines are surface-mounted, the industry just needs to work on proper miniaturisation. I don't know how feasible it is to get the required force with such a small motor or solenoid.

Hang on...they said it would be on sale in winter 2023! We all knew you could add a year or two to that.

My guess is that the brand will always survive, since it is very cheap to buy up a failed company for its brand and IP, debt-free. Someone will take it on.

The snowy one is great. I'm always surprised there aren't more of them, especially as there were some serious winters in British Railways days.

Berkswell is free parking and about a 10 minute, cheap, train ride to Bham Int. The walk is then all indoors and shorter than it would be from the NEC car park. And you don't need ti queue to get into the car park.

Amateur. I use a blend of yak sweat and fox poo.

Minories probably has the spur because arriving locos are always trapped in the platform without a headshunt, so you always need another loco on hand to remove the carriages. This must have been fun before DCC.