Regularity

But they’re not the same thing. Which isn’t to say he doesn’t need both.

They’d produce a vinyl, and stick it on.

I always thought that a finescale version of 00 was EM, given that “finescale” is a state of mind about getting things closer to the prototype, and a track gauge that is 96.7% of the prototype measurement is closer than one which is 87.7%. If you define “finescale” as “improving the running of 00 without changing the gauge, but otherwise working to EM standards, then that works, but how could that definition be applied to, say, military modelling? Just pointing out the contradiction in terms of “finescale 00”, and asking what your “state of mind” might be? :) * See “Proprietary to Scale”, C J Freezer, Railway Modeller, January 1974, for this - indeed the only to my knowledge - definition of “fine scale”, where he makes the point that “scale model” was first applied to differentiate away from “toy trains” and meant (in his words) “authentic”. I think realistic might have been a better choice: “like the real thing”. His point was that unless you accepted this definition, then “fine scale” was meaningless, but (in précis) actually means “even less like a toy”.

Yes, because once a standard is defined, it becomes the standard. Fact is that Ian Pusey had already done the true scale calculations for S scale (incidentally, the flangeways and tyre profile are EM Pendon standards, save for the depth of the flange - EM is bigger) and somehow, someone in the MRSG messed up, and added a bit extra for manufacturing tolerances. As people have successfully produced Proto:87, and 2mm dead scale wheels and track (and even Z gauge, I believe!), this increased tolerance wasn’t necessary, but we are stuck with it now.

Not wishing to stir anything, but P4 isn’t dead scale: for that, you need Ray Hammond’s S4 standards.

Just remember to keep the “u” in the spelling and the pronunciation…

The thing about Minories is that it’s a urban terminus, where the freight facilities are dealt with separately, apart maybe from “express” goods, for example traffic carried in “Grand Vitesse” vans. So, if you are modelling the inner-city part, the only freight you might see would be passing through (and not at peak hours). The outer suburban part is a different matter, of course. What you could do is build an EM layout based around the RTR C, D and H class models as a starting point, and then gradually replace them with pure Chatham locos and stock. I say EM, as done to Pendon/Manchester/Ultrascale/EM-fine standards, it does look better than 00 and almost as good as P4, for a lot less hassle.

“A Mars a day, is all we will pay”

IIRC, the main difference between “Old Class I”and “Class K” (some of which may have been new class I) was in length: boiler and wheelbase (middle to rear). If that’s so, will you be producing a K class as well? (Picture below from ColinBinnie.com, via http://britbahn.wikidot.com/manning-wardle-k-class)

High cocoa content (aka “plain”), adulterated with vegetable oils and milk solids (aka “milk”) or that strange variety known as “white”?

It’s appearing at the Ludlow show on September 3rd.

Nope. Wouldn’t do that.

I know a few, who whilst happy to be “Steve”, get upset if the full name is spelt with a v instead of a ph.

A common phrase was, “Lloyd George knew my father” (or Grandfather, but not both, Stephen). After the TV show, people were replacing “knew” with “was”…

Is there a typo in the caption in Ken Lucas’s book, or were there two companies?

After the eponymous TV series was aired 40 years ago, several people wondered if their father/grandfather was Lloyd George, so maybe that should be singular?

Stephen’s & Co supplied signals to the LSWR, amongst others. The MSE kit for the lattice post signal is ideal for making a model: even more do in S - that’s the source of the signal on Lydham Heath. However, these signals remained in situ, despite being unused, as the BCR remained privately owned and esoteric. We’re it to have been foisted on the GWR, I imagine that the signal would have been removed.

Had a neighbour to the rear who had a new fence put up, and it was the wrong way round. When the shoddy workmanship he had paid for was revealed a few years later, but well before the anticipated end of life of the panels, and it needed doing properly, he tried to get us to pay half. I told him to look at the deeds, and it was his fence and the replacement that he had already put up was still the wrong way round.

Of course, this is all based on men’s ideas of how women (should) behave. Being the sensible half of the human population, they simply comply when (the wrong sort of) men are around, and then do what they want to when left alone…

Why make it work? The prototype didn’t, or at least, didn’t for very long.

I hope to finish off my log cabin this weekend. Just in time for us to put the house on the market.

I think that’s a really sound point, Rob. According to some, I am responsible for all the world’s ills, for I am a well-educated, middle age, middle class, white-skinned male. I am also English. That makes it worse! I have been told that I need to apologise for many things, or at least feel guilty. Yet 3 of my grandparents were disenfranchised at birth, and I haven’t personally colonised any foreign countries. Yes, lots of things were done which were wrong, according to contemporary sensibilities, which means it shouldn’t be tolerated elsewhere. The point, to me, of history is that we understand how we got to where we are, and what things (looking back) we don’t wish to see repeated by us or anyone. I am reminded of the GCR and LNER motto at this point, which brings us back to railways…

I didn’t say that you did, merely said that I certainly wasn’t.

That was my point. The limitations on knowledge at their point in time, meant that the full long-term cost wasn’t considered - it couldn’t be.

Indeed, it that’s as much because of the freedom to innovate as to anything else, and we simply don’t know how many ideas/developments might have happened sooner, if that freedom to innovate was a liberty available to all. Not suggesting that this is an argument for state control - some form of regulation/oversight is always a good idea if only for safety, but not control - but I am suggesting that it is isn’t necessarily capitalism that provides the solution to drive things forward: it doesn’t have to be that the only way forward is to allow so many people to starve in the world, so that sufficient resources can be controlled by a single individual who has almost everything: what he doesn’t have is a sense of “enough”. Neither am I denying that progress is a benefit of capitalism, either. Just not accepting the premise that because it has been the major engine of progress in transport technology over the past 250 years, that it is the only way - it has cost us (and the planet) a lot in terms of carbon consumption, which the investors of private enterprise never even considered until recently. Sorry Rob: going off at a tangent.