Harlequin

I believe Captain Kohler, like Captain Kernow, is a fan of the more exotic shorts - he's especially partial to flame patterns.

Hi Stuart, Good to have you and your handsome helper with us.

Do you contend, That the clickety clack on the viaduct track, Makes the sound of a chap, an autodidact, Who wishes to see an auto deduct, On his credited spend? Or would you retract?

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Talking of awful pop... All together now - on your bass guitars, please: dumdum DumDum dum Dum dum Dum duhduh-Dum, dahh-ahh-dah DumDum dum Dum, Nine Coronas! (It's a song, you see?)

On page 132 of David Maidment’s book, Great Western Moguls & Prairies, there is a photo of 5322 in ROD livery at St Omer, France, 1918. The ROD marking of the tender is very clear but, as usual with old B&W photos, it’s impossible to assess what colour it might be - black, grey, khaki, could be any of them.

Yes, most likely you'd need to replace the entire chassis - and that would require that the fixing points to the body are identical between revisions and that the current body has the necessary clearance to fit onto the new chassis, which may or may not be the case. Expensive but it would upgrade the gear ratio, the motion and the firebox in one go if it works.

Researching the 1930's ones that I might be interested in: 4321: Lined with Great Crest Western: Built 6/13, Steam pipes 2/33, Withdrawn 9/37 (Wheels and motion used for Grange/Manor) 5350: Unlined Great Western: Built 7/18, front buffer beam weight added 1/28, removed 8/44 (during which time she was numbered 8350), Steam pipes 12/45, Withdrawn 12/59 4377: Shirt button: Built 12/15, Steam pipes 9/45, Withdrawn 1/59 4321 would not still be in that livery in the 30's, I'm 99% sure. 5350 must not have outside steam pipes and would have to be renumbered to one without the bufferbeam weight, in the same or similar Lot, without outside steam pipes. Say, 5349 or 5371? 4377 would work as long as the model doesn't have steam pipes (or they can be removed). Shame about the roundel, though. Just thinking aloud.

Simon Kohler’s explanation of the Lion announcement in this weekend’s virtual exhibition was excruciating to watch! I will say nothing more.

Captain Kernow wears "friendly fashion shorts"? The mind boggles!

I see... Thanks for explaining. And what is your opinion of the DJM/Hattons 14XX?

Since the subject has been raised, I have a related question, if I may: @Not Captain Kernow Who he? Or she? Does the good Captain have an evil alter-ego who likes the DJM 14XX? (OK, that was three questions.)

This is very good news. It gives us a much more representative subset of the class and I look forward to the technical improvements.

It should be possible to load the files into your favourite drawing program and replace the bitmap textures with higher res ones if required. Using a drawing program would also be a good way to control the scale and to divide up the design into printable chunks.

Hi Achim, You said in the OP, "This is the lowest level.". That rings alarm bells!... Are there more than 2 levels? Even if there's only one level covering your storage and reversing loops that could be the reason why the design ultimately fails. Reaching stuck or derailed trains could become so tedious that it makes you reluctant to run the layout or not to run it as intended in the long run. And you will need to take special measures to know what trains are in what storage loops - cameras or train detection. Not insurmountable but you need to think these things through carefully. Have you calculated the gradient(s) up to the upper level(s)? If they are too steep that will also affect how you run the layout, Again there are ways to deal with steep gradients but it pays to think them through first. (When you think about gradients remember to leave some distance to transition from level to grade and back again and try to avoid those transitions being within curves otherwise locos may derail.) BTW: Holes in the bottom baseboard to access the reversing loops when there's a board covering them above are a pain in the neck in reality. I know from experience! Crawling around under the boards, scuffing your knees, getting dust on your clothes and contorting your arm to reach into the gap becomes an unwelcome chore.

Use the long crossing, SL-194. I'm not sure there is an electrofrog version, though. If you've got the space it would be much better to use Medium or Large turnouts, if you can.

Maybe there should be a sort of "Railway Model Clearing House" which manages the interactions between companies. Companies could declare their plans in confidence to the Clearing House and it would give out advisory information when those plans are in conflict. It wouldn't stop companies competing if they really wanted to but would give them early warning to avoid wasted effort and avoid the public, "I got there first", claims.

I know you often defend Hornby. (Do you have inside knowledge?) I'm just looking at what's going on from the outside, from the perspective of a potential customer, and what I see is Hornby trying to gain or hold onto market share in a way that appears to be very aggressive. All the manufacturers operating in this area are picking from a limited pool of commercial opportunities so there's bound to be some overlap between them - i.e. a lot of parallel development behind the scenes. But Hornby seem to be shouting, "Get off my land", as soon as there's a hint of anyone else going public with a competing product. And we've seen them rush products to market to beat the competition. Both those things are fair enough for any company in a competitive marketplace but because Hornby are the largest player they do it most often and so it looks like a very dog-in-the-manger attitude. All of this, and what we outsiders know of some of their dealings with retailers, makes me and I suggest many other customers feel uncomfortable about the way they operate. Appears, Looks, Feels: It's all about the presentation - the perception that they are creating by their own actions...

I came across another reference to how the brake whistle was used in practice in a video on Youtube. Driver Jim Watkins narrates some old cine footage (transferred to video and not very good quality) of workings at Pontypool depot. He describes a situation where they are trying to tell a loco not to come forward to the "ash hole" because another loco wants to come out first. In addition to the foreman standing on the track holding a brolly(?) above his head, the brake whistle is blown to try and draw their attention to stop them. (About 8m18s in.)

Bravo Rapido! Bravo indeed!

Hornby are developing a rather unpleasant reputation for themselves by repeatedly attempting to gazump other manufacturers product releases.

Superb! They didn't hang around in those days! At least, not when there was a film being made...

The advantage of the kickback, in model terms, is that it makes use of extremely valuable baseboard space. When it serves the engine shed, there is no real shunting problem so long as the loco can get in and out when required.

Just a quick note: The 3-way turnout you are using is only available in Streamline Code 100. The Streamline Code 75 version is asymmetric.