RANGERS

My dad always said “there’s juice in that battery yet”…so I just drank it…

Err….should you not drink battery acid then?

Extremely sad to hear this, Eileen’s in its successive guises has been a feature of many of the shows I’ve frequented for many years and it’ll be much missed. Buying habits have changed, the constraints placed on physical retailers since 2020 have spurred that change, many of the specialist tools and materials which Eileen’s had become the “go to” place for could be obtained elsewhere on-line, I’d guess another chunk of an already declining audience was lost in that time. An extremely stressful time for any business owner, thoughts are with you and thanks for all your efforts since taking Eileen’s on.

Well qualified as a king, all bar one of ours are dead…

I agree entirely, the view of Chastise as one which had limited success is stated in a number of books as being that of the RAF generally, as it hadn’t achieved everything it set out to do. In the great scheme of things however, it will always be viewed more widely as a success. And yes, without boots on the ground, it’s extremely difficult to win any war, though Hiroshima and Nagasaki would suggest otherwise, the prevailing circumstances in Europe were such that it was the only realistic way.

Favourite album would be the Fleetwood Mac masterpiece,”Rumours”. Perhaps the most rounded collection of tracks ever made (but not the cassette version, that was rectangular….😉), each stood on its own but was an integral part of the whole. Favorite track is a harder one (I’d struggle if I ever made it on to Desert Island Discs!), but would probably see two Bruce Springsteen tracks in the final, and I think “Land of Hope and Dreams” would just pip “Jungleland” by a short nose.

The cost of Chastise was immense, and as noted previously it weighed heavy on Barnes Wallis for the rest of his days, but whilst the actual damage to the dams was less than might have been hoped, the infrastructure damage that resulted effectively set back the German war machine by around three or four months at a time when it was already under extreme pressure. Its recognised that the industry damaged was back in full production within about six months, but the resource required to achieve this in that time was huge, all of it diverted from other areas where it could have had a much more devastating effect against the Allies. On the face of it, Chastise may have looked a failure and the RAF did view it as having had limited success in terms of the actual target, but the consequent impact on the enemy war machine was immense, not enough to win the war in itself, but it sure made it much easier for what was to follow.

Shocked to hear that, I’d similar interests so followed his posts on here with interest. Although I met him many years ago after he’d bought some items that I’d advertised in the old RMWeb classifieds, he was another of those we “know” from these pages, many of whom we never actually meet and never know anything beyond their postings, so when tragedy strikes, it always seems to catch us cold. RIP Neill, we’ll miss you.

Heaven’s Songbird has flown home, RIP Christine and thanks for the memories, we’ll treasure your legacy.

It is intrusive to anyone using a mobile to access RMWeb but nothing comes for free and it does have to pay its way somehow. If I were an advertiser though, I’d have to think twice about using that particular arrangement, I’d suggest it would annoy prospective customers rather than engage them!

The whole saga of Leyland in the seventies was driven by politics and "Beyond Reality" is a fairly candid account of the times, but it's also comparatively reserved in its commentary of those contemporary politics, both inside and outside the industry. Doug had a dry sense of humour which more than matched his Scottish lawyer background and said wryly on more than one occasion that the whole story could only be fully explored when all of the participants were beyond suing him. Sadly, he left us before some of those prospective litigants, so his first hand knowledge of what went on in those times will remain the stuff of legend.

It was well known that the budget for the Corsa/ Nova was limited and the parts bins of every other GM Europe model were raided to produce it, but a pal of mine swore blind that Luton's contribution was dusting off the HA tooling to produce the body panels from it! It wasn't the most stylish car but my dad had three, a 1.3, and a 1.4 OHC (both written off in tail end shunts) finishing up with a 1.2 OHV which fared much better and lasted him 13 years and still went on to have a further life after he'd failed to break it. All were super cars to drive, very refined for their time and all pretty lively, the two bigger engines exceptionally so, and with more room than either the Fiat Uno or Ford Fiesta he had owned, were a pretty sound all-rounder.

Following up on my earlier post, the 7mm stuff was outstanding and each one I came across seemed better than the previous but had to narrow it down so these were my favourites.

Reading the comments of others I can concur to at least some degree with most of them, and to my mind it broke the mould of previous Warley shows in many respects. It was much quieter at doors opening, there didn’t appear to be any Bachmann returns to provoke a rugby scrum, there certainly were fewer traders, at least four significant regulars were absent, there was a much greater provision of seating (most welcome), most of the aisles were wider, the catering has taken a step in the right direction, Bungus the fogeyman exhibited a completed layout, it ran impeccably and he actually operated it for much longer than the customary 30 seconds, quite remarkable really. Seriously though, was the show any the worse for being different? Not for me, it still had a good selection of traders and I still spent more than I wanted to but most of all, it gave me more time to view some fantastic modelling in all scales, though 0 gauge stood out this year and there were perhaps the best collection of 7mm/ Scaleseven layouts I’ve ever seen in one place. Will I be back next year? Why wouldn’t I?

Unfortunately what the passenger pays means this is all that some will get. Usually better to have less than perfect trains than no trains at all 🤔

Has anyone had any joy contacting Ticket Factory about non-arrival of tickets? Mine were ordered a week ago, no print at home option available so reliant on the vagaries of the postal strike and needless to say, they haven't arrived! Emailed Ticket Factory yesterday and tried calling the number, without success earlier today, about to try again.

I quite liked the crash box Reliances, the gates were close together but they were a slick (clutchless) change once you got the feel for the revs and road speed. Those and the four speed manual Leopards beloved of the Scottish Bus Group must have been about the last crash box buses built, there were some R reg AECs and at least a handful of S reg Leopards. Edit - Just been reminded that OGR625T, new to Weardale and built on a surplus SBG spec’ chassis, was probably the last registered in the UK

Try telling that to our local commuters who were promised 12, actually got 8 and are now being reduced to 4!

Major manufacturer makes significant announcement at Warley, who’d ever have thought it.

The reason the shareholders went the way they did was it paid them a substantial premium over the Nat Ex offer. From memory the Nat Ex deal gave them collectively about £450m in cash and shares, whereas the alternative DWS offer gave them about £600m in cash. The corporate and individual shareholders wouldn’t give two hoots about heritage buses, for them a 25% premium in their bank accounts was a no brainier.

I had the “pleasure” of driving 552 on a couple of occasions, the two most memorable being a trip to Epsom for the Derby in the mid-90s, and even more memorably on a school contract with one of the office girls acting as chaperone to make sure the little darlings didn’t go upstairs. For someone used to synchromesh Volvos, Leylands and AECs, the crash box on 552 was a challenge (much more so than 553 I’m told). I’ve lost count of the number of liveries that 552 has had. The ones I can remember are Tilling red from new, NBC red from 1975ish, Cambus blue, Cambus cream, Viscount yellow and blue, Premier blue, Stagecoach old, Stagecoach newer, Jubilee purple, Stagecoach latest. There were others In sure, there was also a very short lived all over advertising scheme for an ad’ campaign, for a drinks manufacturer I think it was. Stagecoach paid for major body repairs to it in the early 2000s, the result of poor upper deck drainage after it was converted, without which it’s doubtful it would have survived so I guess it’s up to them what colour they paint it and what they do with it.

Indeed, many of the subsidiaries which make up the Stagecoach empire are still those of the pre-NBC era. Whether Stagecoach, or any other public transport operator for that matter, survives is entirely down to their ability to innovate and develop networks that are able to exist on a much lower cost base, or can prove attractive enough to prise us all out of our cars.

As above, unless you can get a cheap day travel card (some return rail fares are more expensive than an equivalent travel card), contactless or Oyster is the best option. You’ll be charged for each individual fare up to the maximum capped fare so it’ll be no more than that.

It is possibly being offered for sale, though it’s not mentioned on the initial list of vehicles which Stagecoach are to dispose of from their heritage fleet in the coming months. Details of those for sale are here - https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/heritage-fleets-should-bus-companies-keep-them-going.239334/ but I’m told that this is likely to be the first of several sales as the cost of maintaining the fleet is no longer justifiable.

I just can't believe that anyone in their right mind would attempt an economy trial in a 3.3 litre Vauxhall! A college pal of mine had one, his dad worked for a fuel distributor and he got 10 gallons a week for free, half of which went to his son, which is probably the only way he was ever going to keep that car on the road. Even so, the way he drove it that was never going to get far, I seem to remember his best was about 15mpg but on a "fun" day it was about half that.