Regularity

Take it to the local repair shop, and tell them it got damaged because of a discussion on a model railway forum abouts4xually abusing worms, and see how they react..

Look at it this way.Let’s, for sake of argument, assume that RTR and kit are each £100, and that the kit will take you 100 hours to build. We will also assume that you will enjoy building the kit, otherwise what’s the point? The cost of enjoyment on a per-hour basis can be simply calculated as price/hours. The kit therefore costs you £1 per hour. The RTR model takes no time to build, and we have division by zero, the answer to which is infinity. Therefore, the RTR model is ludicrously expensive. Even if you add in a factor for time spent playing with it, adding something to infinity is still infinity. OK, some will say, surely it should be cost divided by total hours of enjoyment, not adding a separate factor. Let’s assume that you get 100 hours of enjoyment out of operating the two. The kit model is now costing you £100/(100+100), = £0.50 per hour. The RTR model is now costing you £100/(0+100), = £1.00 per hour. The kit is still better value. Let’s increase it to 1,000 hours of enjoyment. The kit model is now costing you £100/(100+1,000), = £0.09 per hour. The RTR model is now costing you £100/(0+1,000), = £0.10 per hour. The kit is still better value. No matter what you do, the kit will always present slightly better value - although after 10,000 hours (that’s a lot of running!) we are going to be talking of less than a penny per hour, regardless of theoretical value. 100 hours of operating the loco is more or less 20 minutes per day, so not impossible. It is quite likely that a good kit, with lots of detail, may take longer to build, further reducing the cost per hour and thereby increasing the value for money. So, as long as you prefer the kit, as long as it doesn’t cost more than twice the RTR equivalent, on the basis of 20 minutes per day, it still represents better value for money. I have purposely not mentioned the additional issue of personal pride in having built or modified something, which in my experience is priceless.

“Can you tell what it is yet?” (‘Yes Rolf. A pair of handcuffs and a prison cell.’)

The problem is, many actually don’t know what that is.Which is why I ask so many questions, which usually boil down to, “What do you actually want from your hobby?” * Always worth considering, “How do you know you can’t do that until you have actually tried it?” Inflation has obviously devalued opinions, but that’s just my two denari’s worth...(And see above.) * There are no magic answers. That much I know. I am still asking myself what I want, although I have actually tried many things.

I used hot water only, and popped in now and then to help “persuade” it into shape. The water needs to be as hot as you can get it - some even use steam to heat the wood. (Two drunks standing on a bridge over a river, having a pee. One says, “Cold tonight.” Other says, “Deep, too.” Same joke, but slightly clearer?)

Nothing compared to treading on it with bare feet...

Nice. Maybe put a.m. EM1 cab on it? I think it could be made to fit the UK’s leading gauge, although like many of our home grown diesel locos, it would be a fitter’s nightmare inside.Also not that to be an RSC-1 (A1A-A1A). Necessary to keep the axle loads down. Probably too wide for the UK.

Big shelf!

Can’t quite see it myself...

Was the water hot?

Oh, I don’t know about that. I think there’s a pretty rich seam we can mine there...

...and it now decorates the wall?

That term would surely apply to the railways of South Wales?(You may need to say the bold bit out loud to get this to work.)

Any particular Christmas in mind?

You can get arrested for things like that! They were exceptionally well made motors, so I am not surprised how well they perform with a refurb.

Incidentally, if you follow the provided link, you can see the release date for the next issue...

Weren’t Alco involved in this idea? Take an RS-1, narrow the footplates down the sides (or remove them completely) and move a (lower-roofed) cab to one end. Run them “20 style” nose to nose... just an idea: not up to the required level of photoshopping, though.

And the antithesis (it didn’t even have any intermediate stations) of major and mighty, but still in the North East of England:

The current equivalent to the GWR branch of the 60s/70s?Or would that “honour” fall to DCC sound equipped MPDs?

Of course, there is then Rob Bennet’s ⅞” scale “Baldrig” conversion of an Accucraft steam power unit, Salopia... * * Land of (-ia) the b1tches?

. I find myself violently agreeing with you, Martin. Must put a stop to this!

Re the turntable issue, they were more common than many people think when stations were originally built. But they were small. Ashburton had one, of a format that the French call a “plaque tournant”. It could only take a small engine like a 517. The table at Cardigan was only 22’ long, and was used to turn small tank engines, but was too small for even the 4500 prairies. It was perhaps unusual in surviving, but the route was of a reasonable length (as was Fairford) and quite hilly, so worth keeping and using, but not worth increasing in diameter - it would have required quite a lot of track realignment, too. But if you have a table at one end, you also need one at the other end. So with Cardigan trains working to and from Whitland and Fairford trains to and from Oxford, then it makes sense. I am not sure if there was a table or a plate at Totnes, and once auto trains were introduced, Ashburton really had no need to turn engines. (On a side note, this is why suggestions that Bembridge and Ventnor had turntables are wrong: nothing at the other end. What they had were centre-pivoted sector plates.) So, if you know enough about the prototype, it is not a case of finding an “exception to the rule”/“prototype for everything” as an excuse, but real life examples and the real justification behind the choices that were made. I am not saying here that you should or shouldn’t have a turntable, nor what size. Ultimately “rule 1” applies. But, if you have done your homework properly, you will know whether or not one would be needed, and be able to explain on the basis of prototype reality why you went down that route. This is important if you wish to cultivate the respect of your peers as a serious modeller*, and to create a believable layout that doesn’t require you to pull an unusual one-off example out of the hat or invoke rule 1. If that isn’t important to you, then who cares - rule 1 applies and as long as you are happy with the result, and continue not to be bothered with stretching believability to the limits, then ignore prototypical practice. * There is nothing wrong, or indeed snobbish, about this. It’s just a question of what you want from your hobby. I have seen plenty of 00 layouts which were much better in this respect than some EM or P4 layouts. I would much rather see a well researched, well executed thoughtful layout using good old code 100 Peco Streamline than a thoughtless P4 concoction bearing little semblance to reality. Indeed, I would class the former as being more “finescale” than the latter. As the S4 Society used to say in its adverts, it’s not just about wheels and track.

Accepting the spin for a moment - and if he was talking about a class of locomotives in production rather than a prototype for testing, he may have had a point - this belies the oft-repeated “small engine” policy of the Midland (they were also building the 3F 0-6-0s which would rank very well contemporaneously in terms of power). Until some point towards the latter part of the Edwardian era, the MR was generally at the forefront of locomotive design and development. At this point, someone did some sums, and worked out that double-headed freight trains, and fast, frequent passenger trains of relatively short length was a more economical way of making a return on capital investment for the shareholders. That is, after all, the fiduciary duty of the Board. The much-derided “small engine” policy applied for fewer than 20 years of the Midland Railway’s 88 year corpate existence, and then because the engines had simply become big enough to do the job required. The decision to impose this on the whole of the LMS without a proper assessment of the impact, however, was the kind of ill-considered arrogance we see all too often from “successful” businessmen (not been enough businesswomen making this sort of balls-up to be able to use gender neutral words!) throughout time. What worked once in specific circumstances is not necessarily universal. GEC-Marconi anyone?

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/110021-rochelle-illinois-webcam/?hl=rochelle

There are trees at each end, with a road bridge at one end and another grade crossing at the other. For someone who wanted to watch the trains and do a spot of switching, this would make a great layout for an oval fed from storage sidings. Worth spending some time scrolling about, to get a feel for things, although incorporating a pedestrian crossing the tracks might be demanding to model! I noticed that on either side of the crossing, there is a broad white paint band. Presumably this is a limit marker for cars parked there? Also, there is the concrete footprint of a former trackside building: freight house, passenger depot, industry? One question, though. It looks like there is a pump house on the (shortened) spur, I guess for unloading tank cars. How would the cars on the siding be switched in and out of this spur?