Hobby

I suppose it depends on what you call reasonable. I was watching a video of Railways around Preston in the 50s and 60s and there were plenty of 4 and 5 coach trains, my layout is 9ft and they'd fit on the straights with no issues. People get too fixated with 10 and 12 coaches when much shorter ones were common.

"Real" cars surely didn't have heaters! (As I'm sure Alastair will tell you!) ;) Our Octavia has a three cylinder 1.0l turbo engine, power 110PS, top speed 120mph (nearly got there on the Autobahn this year!) and is economical as well, near 50mpg measuring using Fuelly (not inaccurate brim to brim methods) over the two years we've had it. More than happy with it.

Most steering wheels are that shape now, who knew that BL were ahead of their time back in '73! ;)

I know diesel can burn, but it's not known for exploding, and it's extremely unlikely it was diesel that caused the fire to start, diesel can only ignite with an outside source, so in this case it's that which has caused it, probably an electrical fault, we shall see what in due course. I can understand you defending reports that are trying to blame EV's, but personally I'd have just waited and then said "I told you so!". Me? I'll just wait for the report.

Must be better photos than on the photos I've seen, then, I can't make out the reg plate at all. What doesn't make sense is that it was an "explosion" from the passenger side and if you care to look up diesel car fires you'd find that that simply doesn't happen, unless, as one site said, there's a bomb under it which i suspect is unlikely! So, as I said, we'll have to wait and see because at the moment what we see doesn't add up to a simply pure diesel car fire, a cloned or modified car that hasn't been declared as such perhaps?

Never say never...

I've seen the two videos, one in front, one behind, but can't find any information that's been released to positively identify the make and specific model or cause of the explosion. All online research I've done would indicate that a diesel would not have given the explosion seen in the video, though a lithium-ion battery, even a "mild" version, could do, and looking at the video it would seem to be the same place in the car as the one in my Octavia, under the front passenger seat. But there again, you've now dragged me into speculating!!

The only V8s i saw as a kid were in F1 stock cars and a very small number of road cars, mainly American but with the odd small British V8 and the 3.5 Rover lump. Even then, other than the American things, the cars weren't very big!

Hence I put the ""! Though perhaps I should have put the word "style" after it - large cars with V8s, not a Northern hemisphere "thing" except in the good ol' USofA, not round here, ours have a bit more style and nowhere near as big, though some have a V8, or even a V12!! 🤣

Bet the Guard was pleased when it was sidelined, the driver and fireman were Ok, having a nice smooth ride, but pity the poor Guard in his little rattle box.

I must admit that I find those large "American" cars just as boring to look at as the small Euro cars you criticise! Once you've seen one large V8 you've seen 'em all! ;)

So you've just done the same thing as those you criticise... Why can't people just wait and see.

Current reporting, elsewhere on the forum (Level Crossings thread I think!), is that it was a diesel hybrid, the talk is that diesel fuel would not have caused the conflagration that was seen. But until there's something official announced who knows...

That's interesting. On our way back from Germany we stopped over in Brugges and the car park we used was underground and had half a dozen or so EV charging points!

Smoke damage perhaps?

That was TT120 last year, so they're only making sure there's a proper 12 month gap!! 😉

Mind you, I'd agree it looks a little silly! ;)

The current enthusiast probably would spend more, "Covkid", if they already model in TT120, but they don't, so are unlikely to buy more than one or two for display/interest purposes unless they are changing scale such as me, whereas with the average Joe with no such commitment to an existing scale the sky's the limit once they've got them hooked. I suspect they'd like to sell to both, but getting a whole lot of average Joes interested gives them a whole new market. So far, judging by the posters on FB, they seem to have "tapped" them quite well.

I agree, but at the moment it's a free for all with e scooters, even in places where they are registered, accidents and even deaths caused by them are rising year on year, so do we just leave it be and hope for the best? Pavement riding is endemic, and that's no exaggeration so it'll get worse if something's not done.

Especially, it seems, government run and funded projects.

Good result for the HMRC, I bet they wish all of their investigation made that amount!

That's a good point, I do wonder how much of the "hype" we had around what was to come was driven by people clamoring for things and the likes of SK just saying things to "shut them up" (wrong phrase, I know, but you hopefully get the gist). Since he's gone it's been noticeable that we are starting to see more realistic estimates of delivery dates with a lot less set in stone. That's lead to some people saying it's a sign of the business failing but I wonder if instead it's a move towards better managing of expectations. Hopefully it's the latter and in my view it's no bad thing. Perhaps the HAA when it arrives, but my understanding is that the Class 66 is also an aim at the Continental TT market, so perhaps we're likely to see that in the Arnold range in due course, first of the trans continent locos (excluding the Kof!)...

Some nice industrial 009 in the Light railways Stores/Narrow Planet range! Excluding the L&B RTR stock isn't most of the rest (Talyllyn and Ffestiniog RTR) industrial?! :) (Whilst I model in H0e, it's more mainline stuff, much of the industrial stock for it is a bit of a compromise (600mm gauge stock on 750/760mm gauge), I'd still be tempted to do 009 for industrial NG where i wanted to model 2ft gauge/600mm, but that's a personal preference, just not using Peco CrazyTrack or Mainline, code 60 or below looks much better.)

The point I was making was not about what they preferred but what people "knew", many non railway people know what a Pullman is, they are well known as coaches for luxury travel, a teak coach, not. So selling a Pullman to a non enthusiast will be easier than a teak coach, regardless which looks the best (which is in the eye of the beholder anyhow), personally I prefer the Pullman, the only Gresley teak coach I saw was in blue/grey at Piccadilly in the 70s! Regards the market, they seem to have appealed to both markets judging by people's comments that they've bought some so perhaps they've managed it. What they haven't done is developed a fully coherent range, yet, but as i said it's early days and I'm not sure how they could have done it differently when launching a new scale. I see plenty of comments along the lines of "why didn't they make a "Class 30MT tender/tank loco with matching coaches and wagons", but it's one of those "damned if they do and damned if they don't" scenarios, if you ask 100 railway modellers what they'd like you'd get 100 different answers!

Agreed! Though I do like the one with the small smoke deflectors for some reason! :)