Hobby

On 14/11/2023 at 13:25, ruggedpeak said:

One of the interesting things from that incident, aside from car parks probably needing sprinklers

My understanding is that for a battery fire sprinklers would be useless, and as we are now heading down that route perhaps it would be a waste of time and money putting them in. It will be interesting to see what the report on Luton says, but from what we've seen on film I doubt sprinklers would have had much effect.

On 16/11/2023 at 16:26, C126 said:

This is all making me nervous of travelling in the Channel Tunnel, with such motor-cars on the Shuttles...

As others have said the safety features are there already, I feel far safer travelling through the CT than a road tunnel with none of those feature (spoken as a regular user of the CT).

On 16/11/2023 at 21:43, adb968008 said:

Like all these things, action will only be taken after its happened.

That's false, strict safety procedures are already in place in the CT, and have already been tested in worse scenarios than we're likely to see with a car fire. 

It's certainly showing it's age, there's many EVs far better than the Leaf as an example now. Whilst it touches on computerisation it also ignores safety and comfort which are miles ahead of the cars they've used to illustrate the article. When they get rid of their rose tinted glasses and do a proper comparison it may be worth a read!

3 hours ago, Reorte said:

Interesting that he mentioned Spa, since that was originally all streets, and it's not all that long ago since half of it was (and the part that was hasn't changed layout, they've just bypassed it with public roads so those sections can be permanent racetrack). But admittedly those are very different from the urban street circuits we usually get.

I think you answered your own point there! Spa was never a street circuit, it was a road circuit like Reims. There were plenty of street circuits but Spa wasn't one.

10 minutes ago, Gatesheadgeek said:

Is that a change from the launch plans? The original catalogue suggested an LNER HST set on page 5 - or does that come later?

Yes, and I expect its to do with what will sell. BR liveries have "come back" several times recently, and as with the GWR livery is well known. An LNER livery would be pretty niche. I expect it'll come along in due course, after, no doubt, the Virgin livery!

10 hours ago, Pete the Elaner said:

 

While I believe 3 GP in 1 country is overkill, Europe is well represented with GPs.

For something wanting to present itself as a global sport, is it about time there was a race somewhere in Africa?

For the amount of money LM want from the host country I doubt there's many African countries that could afford it, South Africa possibly, a quick search says 2024 is off but possible 2025, Lewis wants it to happen so perhaps he'll hang on until it does!

Lots of people! It's a known issue with them, I believe there are fixes, @PaulRhB I think may be able to help?

Am I the only one to imagine a car twice as large as the others, won't go round corners very quickly and will wallow whilst doing so and is powered by the largest cubic capacity engine allowed?! 🤣

Must admit that was my thoughts as well Ian, surely flashing yellows would be the obvious solution, no extra signals but some wiring/computer changes. But it's very probably not as simple as that!

As I said the costings were against diesel, not petrol, and the savings on fuel costs alone were a lot less.  For such an install I wouldn't trust myself to do it so my comments re that stand. As I said the savings, if any  would have been marginal. It worked for you, but it wouldn't have for me, we're all different.

(I'd rather not bare with you, though, if you don't mind!) 😄

How is it "paid for"? They've never taken anything from my account until it's ready to dispatch. 

But a very different scenario to Cogload which is on a high speed mainline where wrong direction working was required when setting back the train, and it was a move which was outside the norm where the guard would not have had the same level of route knowledge as your scenario, and if such an action went wrong the consequences would be very different. Not a comparison of like with like. 

Let the drivers drive and the guards guard.

11 hours ago, KeithMacdonald said:

"Train managers" are now more of a customer-liaison and marketing role. Not so much to do with techie engineering work.

I can see this remark probably didn't help either. It's clearly a case of what someone sees rather than what is actually the case. Yes, most of the role of a TM, SC or Conductor is aimed at the "passenger facing" aspect, and that's been the case for many years now and is the most visible aspect of the job, but they are still trained and hold competencies for if something goes wrong. Luckily I never had need to use them, as is the case i suspect for most Guards, but I do know of several that did have to use them, including evacuation and emergency protection.

36 minutes ago, Oldddudders said:

On the basis of Phil's remarks! If the guard/TM has no competences, as he says, that's it.

Where did he say that? What we aren't allowed to do is get involved in actions that should be those of the Driver, which was always the case but in the "old days" sometimes those rules were "bent" to get out of a hole, nowadays we have to follow the rules.

Which is actually what Phil said: "Train managers are not competent to act as drivers or shunters under any circumstances!" Although we are still allowed to signal the driver when coupling up, and, if we sign the stock, still couple up stock if it doesn't have auto couplers.

That in no way means Guards are "incompetent", our role, including the safety aspect (emergency protection, evacuation, etc., etc.) are still there and in use, I think you may have mis-interpreted what he said!

1 hour ago, Oldddudders said:

And your observation about the guard tells me that all passenger services are, as a far as competent persons are concerned, DOO. 

As a newly retired Train Manager (Guard) I take exception to that statement which denigrates the role I used to hold. There's a big difference between what may have happened in BR days when, on some occasions, the rules were, shall we say, bent, and the lack of that nowadays, but the climate of blame has changed a lot since those days as well, not to mention other aspects of the job, with consequences far more severe now for the individual than they used to be if they choose to do a "short cut" which isn't allowed. Our Guards are still the only person you can rely on if things go wrong and the driver, as is often the case, is incapacitated in an accident and I can assure you we are very competent!

Please justify it with some facts as to why the current Guards are held in such low esteem by you.

8 hours ago, phil-b259 said:

As far as I know these days a train guard is not authorised to have any involvement in moving a train these days (certainly acting as the drivers eyes for propelling moves) other than indicating it’s safe to depart stations.

Mmm, this happened a few years ago (5 or 6) but as far as I am aware should still be possible as it was done under the present rules. We had been routed onto the slow lines heading towards Water Orton from New Street as there were issues further up towards Derby. We stood for a while and then the driver was instructed to set back one signal so we could cross to the fast to go via Leicester. The Driver went to the rear cab to take the train back after instructing me to sound the bell-buzzer when we'd cleared the signal protecting the crossover. So I wasn't driving or applying the brakes but telling the driver when he should. I expect this would have been an option in this particular case if needed.

Well said, Mike.

5 minutes ago, Les1952 said:

This includes the loco that they haven't announced at all yet (my words, not theirs), which appears to have jumped the queue. 

Probably the "mystery" 0-6-0! 🤣

Yet they still include a prominent picture of a 9f next to Phase 3! I'm getting into the "I'll believe it when I see it" camp at the moment. They've changed their minds so many times that who knows what will come next! Gives some people plenty to discuss, though... ;)

Further changes, I've made it into a double track oval, though the sidings at the front have stayed the same. Track laid and ModelTech ProTrack Rail Aligners fitted, I'm quite impressed with them. I've also bought a load of buildings from Modelux and InTheGreenwoodLaser.

4 hours ago, Porfuera said:

Sorry but the steam 0-6-0s were never in Phase 3. I pointed this out a couple of weeks ago...

 

The catalogue lists them after the Phase 4 locos in the part that says "Plus, BR Britannia, LMS/BR Black 5, J94, GWR/BR Class 5700 Pannier and much more!" on Page 9.

Yes, that isn't well written, I read it as saying they are part of phases 3 and 4. It can be read either your way or mine, it isn't at all clear!

42 minutes ago, J-Lewis said:

I’ve not made my point very clearly.  I’m talking about the planning for the launch.  All those later phase models were in design and planning.  We know that the tank engines were ready for tooling before the class 66 and the 9f were (info from TT magazine interviews).

 

 At some point before the announcement a decision was made that set what would be in phase 1 and that decision pushed all the tank engines into later phases and set the Class 08 as the sole early Blue/Modern livery model at launch.

 

It seems to me that had the launch included  a green livery for the 08 and a tank engine it would have presented a far more cohesive lineup and would have nipped at least some of the negativity in the bud.

I feel we are all speculating when we don't actually know what was going on, the 0-6-0Ts were always in phase 3, so not due to be launched any earlier and I suspect that most of the phase 1-4 locos were quite well along the design phase. How far along we would have to guess. Trouble with those videos is that people say what they think people want to hear rather than what is actually the case so i don't take them as gospel.

As to the "cohesive(ness)" of the range that depends on who you speak to and what they want rather than what will sell best, for that i suspect Hornby's take will be different to yours and mine and probably more realistic as it has a lot less bias. From what has come so far the biggest mistake they've made was not to launch the 08 in green and as J-Lewis has said the 21t mineral wagon instead of the much more common 16t. For the train set market (which, remember, seems to have been their main market initially) they seem to have hit the nail on the head, the rest of us just need to be patient. 

13 hours ago, PaulRhB said:

Fan ‘boost’ is literally the most stupid idea going for something that thinks it’s, or is it purports to be, a sport!

Bring back the clapometer! ;)

2 minutes ago, J-Lewis said:

and it’s a very odd choice to delay them until phase 3, even if that delay was expected to be just 12 months?

But they weren't, they've always been in phase 3, the only delay has been in the rollout, which probably explains things better.

7 hours ago, natterjack said:

don't know how 'close' Hornby and Arnold R&D deps are, but Arnold has an 0-4-0 diesel shunter, so they should be ready.

 

So what exactly what  is  going on here?

I'm not sure what the connection is here, especially to the comment about them having an 0-4-0 shunter. Arnold doesn't have any 0-6-0s in TT so any such loco would be new to the Hornby Group TT stable, Tillig and Roco both do 0-6-0s but they have no connection to Hornby except as competitors! As an aside how many TT locos have Arnold produced as new models in the past few years, not many I suspect.

7 hours ago, Porfuera said:

I guess it depends on your point of view - the Class 08 seems fine to me when you consider the HST, Class 66 and Class 50 were all supposed to be released within the first 12 months, I think.

In addition it's predecessors which look very similar have been around since pre WW2 and the class itself since the early 50s and it's been just about everywhere in the country as a shunter, something that can't be said for any steam 0-6-0 shunter! Perhaps there's more logic to it than some people give credit...

But it's not a steam loco, and there's the issue in many steam enthusiast's eyes.