Regularity

There’s always clockwork...

If anyone knows of a site where I can enter, say RGB codes and get a simple ratio of the primary colours plus white and black, please share it here: it would be a godsend!

I wonder how much hidden, long term damage the common user obligations caused freight transportation and environmental harm. 2-8-4s were designed to shift long trains at good speeds, far above safe limits for short 4-wheel wagons. Not just the common-user obligations, of course. In what was a typical short-term view of paying dividends rather than investing, many customers simply did not want to change their operating practices, as the GWR found out with the South Wales coal exports.

There are other typos in the ukmodelshops’ listing: Glenuig is EM, not P4.

I though they said, ‘softly, softly, catchy monkey’?

Re the picking out of the ironwork, was this in the official photo? I can’t imagine any manufacturer going to the extra expense of additional embellishments than specified by the customer.

That 2mm point rodding is stunning, as is nearly everything in the modelled trackwork. Shame about the gaps in the pcb not being filled: completely destroyed the illusion.

Is “Portway - 0 gauge” the same as Jordan’s Portway Centre?

Also depends on what you mean by leaving the ends of the sleepers exposed: fully exposed, or partially, and on era, company, location. North American practice stems from laying track quickly across vast distances, where ties were spaced by the length of a workman’s boot between them. With such an approach, staggered railjoints - occuring just where they fall - make sense. As for ballast, there often wasn’t any. From this evolves a different approach to suspension: the classic American 4-4-0* is compensated with the front truck (bogie) as one of three points, the other two being either side of the firebox. Rolling stock has trucks, etc, as the permanent way is often hard riding and uneven. In the U.K., the track was part of the “total suspension system”, with deep ballast and the wooden keys to the bullhead rail providing dampening, accommodating a more rigid design of locomotive frame. All “Americans” are 4-4-0s, but not all 4-4-0s are American.

Pluto?Sounds like a Micky Mouse operation to me.

Yes, and so it was.

Clerihew.

Well, talking about contracts...

How would the GW/GC/LBSC connect with the Highland: more sensible to put it in with the LNWR group. The other alteration would be to put the Rhymney into the LNWR group, and something similar such as the Taff Vale with the Midland-based group, providing competition for Welsh coal traffic, and access to/from Cardiff for 3 of the groups. GNoSR with the East Coast group.

And that was laying Peco track...

Quite possibly, but the best explanation I have seen of it.

Why would you replace the class 47 with something restricted to 90mph? You would want at least 110. And put simply, wasn’t the class 59 essentially an SD40-2 revised an rearranged for the BR loading gauge? In which case, we already know what it looks like.

It was only in its later years that the Bishop’s Castle became so wonderfully overgrown. In 1906, it was rather tidier:

Confused: I read your comment as implying that ‘Minories’ was an exception to prototypicality, but suspect you meant that aside from Minories - which are ipso facto prototypical - the “Deane” style layouts were generally closer to prototype.Is that correct?

Yep. Just like many expectations modellers have of manufacturers! With a small p, yes. I was careful to be even-handed with my condemnation of the two major parties, but ultimately maybe we get the services we deserve, given that we elect a government every so often? (We don’t actually live in a democracy, we live in a republic with an hereditary monarch as head of state. Not saying that I have any problems with either of those, just the short-termism inherent in a popularly-mandated republic with regular elections.)

Replace “education” with “health” and “Academies” with “NHS Trusts” and no other editing us required to that sentence. The current despair dominating the news cycle is rather late in the day, as this is the result of years of underfunding and wastage (everyone said that PPI as enacted in the NHS would be more expensive in the long run), But, we overspent (as a nation and government) when we should have been saving during the mid noughties and have overreacted since. I think Gordon Brown had forgotten about Pharaoh’s dream with seven fat cows and seven lean cows... (If you prefer to avoid religion, then turn to Tim Rice’s lyrics!)

To quote Mr. Lennon, “They hate you if you’re clever, and despise a fool.” I learned 3 things. How far I could push things without getting into (serious) trouble. How to wing it. How to be a git*. Well, and some O and A levels along the way. I’m not proud of those three things, by the way. * Also known as getting through sixth form. A friend calls it, “Learning to stand on your own two feet,” but I still think it was about being verbally dexterous and coming up with put-downs, or more simply, being a git.

Oh, I trust him alright. I trust him to make a b@lls of anything he goes near.

You build it, and Chris might run it...

I thought that was your normal quality of track laying...