LBRJ

That picture of Hercules on the "sea wall section" at Tregarrick, when I first saw it or similar in the old Model Railways magazine, probably affected my tastes in small railways more than any other single photo ! 😄

Screwfix* sell them, I think that they are about £2 for a packet of two. They are called loose pin butt hinges, and are used for hanging doors that you want to be easy to remove. I do not know how small the sizes go, but the 3" ones could be fitted onto the top of the baseboards rather than the sides. *other shops are available ;)

Hinges with removable pins on the sides of each shelf would work for alignment, and they be cheap enough and very easy to fit. You could even just screw a plywood splice plate over the joint; depends how often you want to be able to separate them.

Very nice indeed! I particularly like the area around the mainline viaduct and the little touch of the the station sign saying "Alight here for the Carlyon Bay Hotel" There used to be a similarly worded advert type sign on Par station quite a few years ago now.

At the current price of sheets of plywood I would snap their hands off regardless! Any large sheet of whatever thickness of plywood is going to be rather bendy if it literally has no framing at all, so I assume that is not what you mean. 9mm is more than adequate for a model railway if it has a decent frame under it - You could even make the frame members out of the ply itself.

Talking of Northern, I didn't spot Yorkshire as an option in the where are you from question!

For the pedantically minded that is OSB board ( its says so on it!) which is structurally far sounder than the stuff more usually known as chipboard and as you say will dampen the vibrations in thin ply.

Google tells me that Hoare Brothers of Marsh Mills operated a roadstone and ballast quarry on the Launceston branch and a tarmacadam works at Marsh Mills.

Having lived on the stretch of coast of that name, and worked on the train of that name on occasion I have never heard it said any other way than Riv- e- airer

I have cast my vote, but each one of the "Big 4" encompasses far too large a geographical area to accurately reflect my preferences. I would have voted GWR with a small splash of LSWR if I were being totally truthful. But I also find parts of the Midland, the Great Eastern and the L&Y to be of at least a passing level of some interest.

Well CK, that one of Parkend brought out an audible term from my lips! One that we will translate as being "Wow!" at the sheer realism of that shot. A little cropping to the top left and make in B&W and I reckon its one of your best images yet!

Is that a large dog in the back of the pick-up truck?

Talking of huge lumps of limestone. Darley Dale was another location. https://www.andrewsgen.com/photo/derbyshire/darley_quarry_stancliffe.htm

The guy who invented it died recently, his funfair was last monkey. They say that the old ones are the best ones 😉

The American NMRA have a list of such things on their website. Obviously it refers to HO but it is close enough for 4mm scale. Without checking something like An ounce plus Half an ounce per inch of vehicle body comes to mind.

If it was me in your position I doubt I would be looking further than a basic PSE ladder frame with a plywood top for the base on which to lay the track etc. 18x69 mm PSE is more than adequate for that frame. 9mm ply for the tops. Cutting the timber with a tenon saw used with a mitre box should make sure that the ends of each member are square and true. For the glue I would be using either Titebond III, Everbond 502 or Gorilla Glue. Screwing (or gluing) into the end grain of wood is never the best idea, but you could use little blocks (of 47x47 mm or similar) at each internal corner for the screwing and gluing purposes, these will also help keep the frame in something like a square. Talking of squares, something like a Speed Square (Swanson are the original) and/or a T square would come in most handy for checking things as you build your frame.

Ill be honest. Way back when I read your OP I just took it as being a bit of a dig at P4 layouts - It is not like you are the first, and I doubt you will be the last one to do so. My issue was, and is, more that you are applying the Rule Book to times and places where it was observed as much in the breach, and taking that as a bench mark to criticise the whole thing.

I would never say that Trip Advisor is often manipulated and is always a bit skewed. But then one is reminded of this sort of thing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shed_at_Dulwich

I am pretty sure that middle aged and older folks with some spare cash and a liking for toys, is a large section of the targeted market. What one may think of as The James May Effect.

On the subject of computer systems that had overly sensitive naughty word detectors I seem to remember that at one point Wessex Trains wouldn't allow one to find / enter their own website !

Assuming that the largest percentage of any model railway sales end up in cabinets, or on an archetypal 8x4 board, I think I can see where Hornby may be going with the introduction of this range. TT after all stands for Table Top, and when the board size above is suitably reduced to match the scale, it is around five foot by 2foot six. That actually is the size of a table, and would fit into a lot more domestic situations than its bigger cousin.

This is the issue as it were; people with "trade skills" or even just some degree of manual dexterity are currently very much in demand. An old (as in way past retirement age) mate of mine does bespoke woodwork / joinery as a "paid hobby" - It must be a very well paid hobby because he often offers me £100 for half a days work as a glorified labourer.

The idea of a large flywheel to provide inertia sounds like the Dynadrive system of some years ago!

At one well known station with a long platform and mostly short trains, we used to stop a long way short on occasion. If we had not done so, the arriving passengers would have ended up in some sort of platform melee with those trying to board, and we would have been late away thus missing the mainline connection :O

Complaining about non-adherence to operations as laid the Rule Book is all well and good, but as the OP, and no doubt others, should recall, the Rules were observed more in the breach, when it suited. You could say “rules are for the obedience of fools, and the guidance of wise men” and not be too far off the truth.