RANGERS

I visited with my IT expert son just before Covid hit and despite spending the entire day there, we barely scratched the surface of the place and had intended to make use of the 12 month ticket, which events prevented us from doing. We’re due to make a return visit next month and I’d say to anyone who has an interest in technology of any flavour, go and see the place, it has an atmosphere like no other museum I’ve ever been to and my son remarked that you could still sense the pressures that were on those who worked there in WW2.

Not sure that this counts as a “barn find”, more of a “showroom find” - https://www.silverstoneauctions.com/sa076-lot-16778-2002-volkswagen-golf-gti-25th-anniversary

I wouldn’t mind a wager that it’ll be another 15 years, probably more, before the whole trunk EMR network is wired. That would put the new units on a similar footing to the current fleet in terms of replacement age. As it is, the full plans/ timescales for reaching Sheffield are still to be declared (reaching Sheffield is still only an “ambition”) and depending on whats to come in the Budget/ Fiscal Statement/ whatever else it might be called, it may not happen before the replacements for the new fleet are life expired!

Their supplies didn’t come from the Acle Marshes coalfield! It had to come from pits somewhere and as the GWR had their fare share of them, these could have been just as likely seen on their metals as anywhere else.

You could be describing just about any of the club or commercial shows anywhere in the country there!

Is this the first stage of deflecting the criticism when the announcement is made that the East Mids leg of HS2 isn't going to happen?

As is the Superb, both use the Volkswagen MQB platform.

Our economics teacher had a Dyane, L reg from memory, in a pale grey colour. He'd bought it new and still had it when I bumped into him in a pub in the early 1990s, he clearly practised economy as well as teaching it. Not sure what the heating system was like on them, but I'd hazard a guess that it wasn't very good, he used to come in on icy mornings with more layers than even our woodwork teacher, who rode nearly 40 miles in on a Honda CB400/4. It had a black grille cover like the one in this pic has (an essential part of the heating system I'd suggest) but he'd neatly picked out the badge and the horizontal bars in the same grey as the car, looked very smart. I don't think the chrome embellishments this one has were standard, from memory they were just a moulded on the grille.

Yet another Mickey Mouse event hits the NEC....

It looks very pretty and whilst there seems to be a view that the price is high, against current product prices, it doesn't seem out of order but I do wonder if there's enough of a market out there? Its in the same boat as the Met' electrics in my book, an attractive prototype but a prototype that had a very restricted operating area and will only have wider appeal as a "showcase" model. I'll wish Heljan every success with this one, but its not top of my shopping list I'm afraid.

Him referring to them as "the yellow trousered fire folk" in one of his books still makes me smile!

Assuming its the same person and not a scam impersonating her, she's Oxford Die-Cast's MD, daughter of founder Lyndon Davies and who's now CEO of Hornby

There’s a sound argument for exemption based on precedent elsewhere, the counter however is that the heritage vehicles aren’t used to provide essential transport, or for services that couldn’t be provided by modern vehicles. In other words, there’s no actual need for them to be there so why should they be exempt?

This completely omits the time taken to repair/ replace the things you spend 25% of the time breaking, which takes about twice as long as the time to break them, so you actually spend 125% of the time not doing the job that needs doing, meaning you could save yourself all that time by not starting it in the first place but still ending up with the same result 🤔

Was sat at the traffic lights this morning when a very tidy Y Plate 4.0 Range Rover Mk2 pulled alongside (always had a soft spot for them), my Skoda has stop-start so with the window down slightly, all I could hear was the burbling Rover V8, which for a brief moment made my car sound very exciting!

Its said the mayor has ambitions to recreate this kind of scene....only with fewer buses.

Somebody clearly agrees with the thoughts on this thread about Routemasters in London, this new service popped up on Twitter last night. https://www.ianvisits.co.uk/articles/vintage-routemaster-bus-to-return-to-regular-service-in-london-58028/ Whilst there is a fair amount of tourist traffic in London in the pre-Christmas period, it’s nothing like the summer volumes so it seems an odd time to be launching it.

Not sure when it ended but Northfleet had two MGR trains a day from Welbeck Colliery, southbound they worked via Manton and the northbound empties generally worked via Market Harborough.

The estate looks like a Hillman Hunter.

You may choose to say to think that that's the case, I couldn't possibly comment.....

There’s nothing to prevent anyone making an application for a London Service Permit to run a tourist or heritage service, it’s not that TfL don’t necessarily want it, they just don’t want (or can’t afford) to run it. They may place restrictions on the times, route and use of certain stops, but with bus services in central London in decline, now would be a good time to do it as capacity will be opened up as services are reduced. The 15 ran on a special Authorisation from DfT but there’s also an allowable exemption in PSVAR 2000 which allows a specific vehicle to be used on a specified number of days each year (20 from memory) without having to comply. The exemption is vehicle specific and age related, so Multiple vehicles can be used providing each is used on no more than the number of days allowable under the exemption.

Lovely kits these, when you’ve 5mins to spare, can we have some GE 50’ corridor stock please?

Visited with a slightly less than fully mobile friend on Saturday and whilst disabled parking was available and well located, the lack of a working lift gave him real difficulty getting up four flights of stairs to the galleries, and coming down again was even worse! Asking one of the staff if there was another lift available (there wasn’t) she told us it had been out of order for a while and frequently broke down anyway. That coupled with the lack of much seating made it a challenging day for him and not one he’s likely to repeat. Overall his experience soured what was otherwise a very good show, encouraging to see the crowds back in numbers and noting the comments about overcrowding, we were there as the morning arrivals would have been departing so whilst it was busy, it wasn’t uncomfortably so.

Shocked to read of Iain’s passing this morning, his diagnosis was never something he kept secret but he was of my generation and to have lost one brings home our own fallibility. For all his contributions in layout construction, Butley Mills and Woolverstone were my own personal favourites. Iain opened a door to how layouts could learn from the theatre in their presention - wings, proscenium arch etc - which are commonplace at shows today. Iain might not have devised this single-handedly, but he was responsible introducing it to mainstream modelling via his books and articles, and it’s probably the biggest single contribution to raising the standards of how layouts are presented today. We’ve much to thank you for Iain, may you rest in peace.

That isn’t strictly correct, the requirement for periodic maintenance inspections (PMI) on vehicles at nominally six week intervals is a requirement of an HGV or PSV Operator Licence, but there’s no requirement that it has to be undertaken by a third party, operators are perfectly in order to undertake it themselves. The responsibility for ensuring that the inspection regime is maintained lies with the operator and is a mandatory undertaking when an O Licence is granted, any suspected failures would result in a DVSA investigation and often a call to Public Inquiry, an adverse outcome of which can result in restrictions being placed on the Licence and/ or the company officials named on it (Transport Manager or directors). The level of funding required to obtain an operator licence (financial standing) is a standard amount now set by the Traffic Commissioner (previously based on an EC formula), reviewed annually. It’s currently £8000 for the first HGV/ PSV and £4500 for each subsequent vehicle.