RANGERS

The principle of maximizing revenue against capacity is something that airlines have been practicing for decades and Le Shuttle are doing exactly the same, with the crucial difference that Le Shuttle’s capacity isn’t governed by them, it’s governed by the capacity of the terminal’s to process the traffic and at the present moment that’s UK Border Force’s capacity to process border checks. The first sign of this was last year when coach capacity was restricted to two per train on a max of two trains per hour at peak times, this as a result of the time taken to process a coach and the number of UKBF staff available to do it. It did result in additional car capacity, cars take around 2-4 mins as against up to 40 for a coach. Since then, it’s become apparent that trains are leaving with space available and cars booked on those departures are still in the queue at border control, so to ensure that the revenue matches the number of cars that can actually board, the price per car has to rise.

An excellent show this year, to be recommended for anyone that can still make it there today.

Not sure what the paperwork the hire company are referring to but if the purpose of the trip is a personal one and has no commercial purpose, and all that’s being transported are your own possessions and not commercial cargo or even tools required to undertake legitimate work, I’d have to doubt whether even a Carnet is required. One thing that is required, and costs about £20, is a VE103 certificate which declares a vehicle that isn’t being driven by the registered keeper has their permission to be driven in the EU. There’s four sources for these - https://www.gov.uk/taking-vehicles-out-of-uk/for-less-than-12-months

That sounds like a Deansgate conversion, though there were others with a similar layout, but the Deansgate in PSV certified form had only 15 seats max, though most had less. The 15 arrangement was four double seats to the near side with three singles to the offside and a rear “bench” seating four across the back. This left virtually no room for the rear luggage locker but as there was no access to the conventional rear doors with four seats, there was no need for the doors so a sealed rear panel, with or without the token locker arrangement, was usually provided. Deansgate used the optional single piece rear door which was welded up and had a small “boot lid” aperture cut into it. The fewer seat bays to the offside was to give a legal width access to the emergency door. The more common 12 seat had the same body arrangement but with a bigger boot with three single seats across the back and three rows of doubles and singles. I’m not sure what happened to Deansgate but the style of conversion lasted up until the end of the Mk2 Transit, Reeve Burgess of Chesterfield and Yeates of Loughborough also offered similar conversions.

That is something truly spectacular, though I’m not sure which shows the greatest touch of genius; the engineering that created it, or the skill in driving it.

Worth giving this a gentle bump up. Not the biggest show of the weekend but a great example of a local show that is always worth a visit, and it looks to have some real quality amongst the layouts.

It was deemed that it was too ostentatious and not in keeping with the company’s public profile. The fuel claims weren’t a factor, the mileage rate was fixed regardless of the car and the car allowance that was paid was also fixed. I’ve still to realise the ambition but with a need for a tow car, a change of job and a less prescriptive regime, I’m in the hunt for one again.

I’ve experienced the reverse. I’ve always had a hankering for a Range Rover and had been on the look out for the right car for a while, something 6-10 years old was in the frame. Seeking the knowledge of one of my senior colleagues who is a big LR fan and has a wealth of knowledge in them, which he’s only too happy share, word had reached the upper echelons of the company and I was left in no doubt that it was considered inappropriate to be travelling on company business in such a vehicle!

That’s definitely where the LR folks got the idea from them 😉

If we’re talking “hatchback” in the traditional sense of a top hinged tailgate, the Mk2 Farina A40 beat the imp based Husky by several years. Granted it had a split tailgate (so that’s where Land Rover got the idea for the Range Rover from!). The Minx based husky had a side hinged door, as did the related Commer Cob van.

Congratulations on completing this kit, a good friend of mine is a prolific bus builder and has nightmares about someone asking him to build one of these!

Your MIL is a bus fan?…

You’ve been reading too many Transport Scotland media releases…

I'd a very strange one with my Skoda a few months back, a problem which took some convincing the dealer there was actually something wrong. The "spare" key lives in a drawer and only comes out when we go away, it lives in my wife's handbag for the duration and them goes back on the drawer. When going away at Easter, we went through the usual routine and when trying to start the car leaving home, the display continually came up key not in range. Tried the "spare" key, nothing at all from that except the red light glowed when any of the buttons were pressed. Long story short, we changed the batteries, to no avail and had a week when it took several attempts each time with both keys before one of them would eventually start it. As a precaution I carried both keys not knowing which was more likely to work. As the car was booked into the dealer the following week, I stuck it out and mentioned it to them when they called the day before to confirm. In the meantime, I went out one evening with the usual key and forgot the second one and hey presto, it started first time! When the car went in, I described the situation to the service receptionist (a young girl who clearly thought I was bonkers!) and on returning, was told the "spare" key was useless and needed replacement, wasn't covered under the warranty, £340 please! As this didn't explain the issue with one key seemingly interfering with the signal from the other, I challenged the diagnosis and asked her to get the technician who'd diagnosed a knackered key to come out to the car, but they were all too busy. The car was booked in for three weeks later and in the meantime, I checked the small print on the warranty and there was no mention of keys under the exclusions so a call to VWFS who underwrite it and they confirmed the key failure was covered, would I like to gleefully tell the dealer or would I kindly let them do it! I agreed to forgo the pleasure of telling the dealer and looked forward to once again having a spare key in a few weeks (you've no idea how stressful it is knowing you can't lose your car key!). Come the day, the car was dropped off, I had a few hours in a loan car and the call came, expecting to be told to come and collect it, the service receptionist asked gingerly if the car had had any work done to the electrical system, "yes, lots, you did all of it so you'll have a better record of it than I can recall". There was a pause, "OK, we'll call you back when its ready" It turned out the spare key needed reprogramming after certain work had been carried out on the car, transmission mechatronics and new ignition switch principally, but the dealer hadn't mentioned this and the signal from the "spare" key was actually blocking the signal from the one usually used. Not sure if anything was learned from this, apart from confirming that main dealers are pretty useless at actually diagnosing a problem and would much rather you throw lots of money at them for it.

Looks like it’s been on a football job recently…

Models like this have a distinct character all of their own, reminiscent of the buildings on historic layouts such as Madder Valley.

I do take the point that it’s not EMT who are ultimately in charge of this, and it’s not even DfT when HMT are holding the purse strings, but failing to engage with its customer base is unforgivable on EMT’s part, they’re hidden behind a woolly wall of advertising and bluster, and no matter how good that looks, it’s only concealing the cracks. whilst EMTs bills and margin are underwritten by HMT, there’s no incentive to improve service or raise revenue, so do what you’ve always done and you’ll have what you’ve always had. For the record, several MPs are aware of the level of dissatisfaction seem reluctant to challenge the situation, citing the universal excuse of “economic circumstances” etc.

Sorry but this sounds like the propaganda that EMT have been punting for the last three years. Yes, there is a ‘plan’ to refurb but there’s no timeframe for it, and currently no budget we’re told, so is that really a plan? The impact of COVID is the veil behind which so many underperforming entities retreat when challenged on their failings. COVID is in the past (we hope…), get on with the day job now and build the business case to fund it. If you don’t have enough passengers to justify it now, doing nothing won’t increase the numbers, there has to be a pro-active approach beyond the ‘purple pillow’ (which I quite like and has been effective in raising awareness but such is the poor standard of the product, it’s merely trying to smear lipstick on the pig). As for 8 cars instead of 12 being down to “…performance considerations…”, that sounds like we’re having to put up with reduced capacity because it’s easier for the railway, even if it means customers are having to put up with lower than promised standards of service. The railway doesn’t exist for girls and boys to play with their trains, it’s there to move people and metal and when it places it’s own priorities ahead of those who pay an ever increasing amount to fund it (well at least most of it), then the sole reason for its existence disappears.

Can’t say if that is actually the case but from a revenue protection perspective, having active staff on each unit would be beneficial anyway, even with the barriers that have been installed at all the connect stations…and which do work….sometimes, though I’ve only seen it once. EMTs official line is along the lines of “…”COVID has interrupted the great plans we have for our railway…”

EMT are wonderful at running a shoestring service, screwing things up, failing to rectify them, diverting attention with typically “positive” statements and refusing to engage in resolving the issues. The successful customer forums set up in the EMT era were shelved under the shelter of COVID and now the company seems to avoid engagement at all costs. The Connect trains were billed as providing vastly increased capacity, which in reality they do actually achieve but only by virtue of them retaining the 3+2 layouts on 8 car sets, not the promised refurbs with Inter-City style interiors and 12 car trains. Home working and a change of career direction means I no longer commute daily, once or twice a month is sufficient on what are now overcrowded and extremely uncomfortable trains, I’ve no desire to even attempt that daily now. Worth noting that the premium paid by Wellingborough, Kettering and Corby commuters still applies, despite them not enjoying the Inter-City service levels that were the reason those south of Bedford paying less per mile.

They are undoubtedly becoming much less common, the Stanford Hall Rally a few weeks back had noticeably fewer in the Concours event where they would have been the majority of entrants not that many years ago. This one looks pretty, one of the Mexican build which were becoming popular as “grey” imports in the early 80’s. The build quality was quite acceptable, sufficiently good to lead the more seasoned air-cooled addicts in that direction. It’s maybe not quite Wolfsburg standard but they were well equipped and reliable, not that spares or expertise to maintain them was in any way lacking.

I was once tasked with the enviable job of finding the first four of six gears going up the box on an R1114, and then repeating the exercise again on the way down the box. Having found all four on the way up, it wasn’t quite such a success going down. Third to second was the tricky one and I doubt I’d have found it if Id still been trying now, 33 years later. Needless to say, the examiner wasn’t impressed and failed me, there endeth my relationship with the beast. I passed a few months later on a Leyland with a very slick and much more civilised six speed ZF box. Thankfully the R1114 is a thing of the past and very few survive, unsurprisingly, and for that the bus and coach drivers of today should be eternally grateful!

This has to be a booking cock up of seismic proportions…. As Jasper Carrot once quipped, “it’s like having Vera Lynn on the Old Grey Whistle Test” On reflection, this is more like Motörhead on Sing Something Simple.

Those etches look particularly fine, I've a stash of the Hardy Hobbies kits only one of which is built, but looking forward to seeing this one develop. The pic of 57 is a new one on me, not seen that one before. Its taken on the Gretton Brook Rd crossing, just to the North West of the loco shed. The structure to the right is the tunnel vent above Corby Tunnel.

The Supreme IV would be a welcome addition to the range and Oxford have the licence to produce historical Plaxton models. Their record in producing models which represent the lineage of a range is pretty good, Land Rovers, Fords etc, so given they've produced the middle age of Panorama coaches from the early '60s in 4mm, as well as the later Panorama and the 2009 onward Elite in 2mm, there might be some hope that the late 60s-mid-80s gap might be filled with an Elite, a Supreme and or an early Paramount.