mdvle

But do they require no intervention by the operator of trains, which seems to be the goal for making it the layout reasonably easy for young kids?

Does it? If the model was really that popular, with the prospect of selling that many units, why hasn't anyone else decided to do it?

Part of the problem with the current franchise system is the "shoot the messenger" approach that protects DfT, who is likely the real culprit. In the specific case of Northern, the service being provided is that which DfT is willing to pay for. Per this (1) BBC article from the beginning of the year DfT pays Northern £284 million to operate the service - this means the passengers are getting exactly what DfT is willing to pay for. As explained by others over the last several days solving the Sunday issues will require hiring additional staff, something that it would appear DfT are not willing to pay for (otherwise I assume it would be in the franchise agreement between DfT and Arriva). So unless DfT suddenly start spending more money (and with an election wanted, I suppose anything is possible), removing Arriva will solve nothing - although if enough of the delayed upgrades to infrastructure and rolling stock suddenly finish it may appear to solve some things. But in the meantime if the people served by Northern want a better service they really should be directing their anger at the responsible party, which for the most part is probably not Arriva. 1 - https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-46750304

Thanks to DCC reverse loops require no intervention electrically, you simply buy a device called a frog juicer and it will automatically handle reversing the polarity on the rails. You simply need to create the isolated section of track an run the wiring through the circuit board (note this will also be the easy way to handle your proposed turntable). So for your kids perspective the only question is can they set the points? Another possibility, if you operate all of the points using motors, you could likely wire up a "big red button" that anyone could push that would automatically ensure all the points were set so the layout becomes a safe racetrack. Actually, only the points on the racetrack would need motors which might help. Most obvious would be to make the 2 lines at the back of the board elevated, and if you want bridges then at each end have the 2 sets of lines swap position - so as the tracks at the left end come from the back of the layout and round to the front instead of turning and following the front of the layout they instead climb up and go over to become the back tracks. One end you can have the this done via a tunnel, the other end a cutting/bridge? Depends on how comfortable you are doing the necessary work, and what vertical space you have / don't have. Easiest would be to create some storage underneath an elevated back set of tracks. More difficult would be to create a fiddle yard beneath the layout, accessed by the same end return loops if you are doing an elevation change there anyway for the visible section. So if you have the front track climbing through the curve to become an elevated back loop you could also create a "siding" that does the reverse to go down. Place it on the hillside at one of the ends?

Go in December and you get a different outcome. They essentially have gone direct to China and they import a bunch of O scale stuff, primarily (only?) flatcars and boxcars, but the price is right as the saying goes. Emphasis is usually at Christmas but as it gets more popular it's possible, at least online, that stock is available year round.

Most / all online stores somewhere have a link to either a shipping information page, or a help page to start the search, usually located at the very bottom of the page (or occasionally maybe at the very top). It is also often in a very small font. In the case of Menards at the bottom they have a link to a help section, which if you follow it and make the appropriate choices you get to https://www.menards.com/main/help-center/orders-shipping/c-19280.htm#helppages Near the bottom they have the convenient question "Do you ship internationally?" with the response of you can't directly from their website and that instead if you need international shipping to use their contact form: https://www.menards.com/main/contactUs.html?online=true

Search found TrainDesign, but the reviews aren't great. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/traindesign/id820553356 I suspect for most people having to use a finger just wouldn't offer enough precise control, hence why it seems to remain a Windows or macOS target.

Model from a different era, with less competition. Now the big 3 have to compete with the smaller companies and retailers are doing, which is pushing the hobby forward with the better selection of liveries and specific details. So Bachmann / Hornby would possibly / likely make different choices today.

Price will rule out many ($4,500) but a UK brass importer is expanding into the US prototype market and offering the SP GS-5 Daylight 4-8-4 https://leemarshmodelco-usa.com/products/sp-daylight-gs-4-5-h4-1-48-0-scale-h4-reservation-price-500-h4-page-under-construction

Walthers New Product Express

Yes and no. Yes, in that it (at least in the short term) shifts infrastructure costs onto the customers through higher fares (with the possibility that the improvements will lead to growth thus perhaps reducing fare hike pressure) thus sparing the government from having to fund them through NR. But the no is because it leads to the same feast/famine that plagues government funded stuff. Once Chiltern (or any long term franchise) reaches the second half of their franchise period they cut off funding any investment because the franchise has essentially become that standard short term franchise and no longer has sufficient time to make a return. So Chiltern did Evergreen 3 (a commitment made to DfT to get the long term franchise) but haven't provided funding for any improvements since then and - with the usual caveats about Wikipedia - there is on the WIkipedia Chiltern page a list of desired improvements with no funding or anticipation of funding from Chiltern as they have fulfilled their DfT franchise obligations.

Don't know how it relates to the start of the franchise but the linked news stories indicate that ridership has dropped in the last year.

But would you and others still be saying the same thing if the NRM self financed a new model, and the new model didn't sell enough units to cover the costs so the NRM lost money? The biggest benefit with this relationship (and other others) is that the NRM reduces it's risks and benefits from the market knowledge that the retailers/manufacturers have as to what the market is actually willing to buy in sufficient numbers. I would point out that the new D is £200 or below, so not exclusively a Bachmann issue. I suspect it reflects that these are more niche models that won't sell in the volume that most models do.

An interesting question would be would the franchisee do any major investments even if they were given a 25 year franchise? A lot of the chaos around franchises of late has been caused by franchisees losing money or infrastructure projects taking longer than expected, neither of which would necessarily be solved by longer franchises. My perhaps faulty recollection is the biggest issue raised years ago was around getting new rolling stock as the financing partner would want expectations that any purchase could be used longer than the short franchise, but that issue seems to have been solved given the amount of new rolling stock appearing (and in one case appearing and already scheduled to be replaced after maybe 2 years of service). Which sort of leaves maybe providing extra service, provided by self financing the rolling stock without DfT guarantees, but how realistic is that? Most/many of the routes where it might be possible seem to have capacity issues that would make it problematic, and the areas with capacity typically need government subsidies to exist.

It likely won't be steam given the announcement is happening at a Modern Image show, however there is validity to your suggestion. A safe way to expand the selection of steam outside of the current GWR focus would be to choose (to start) some BR Standards that ran in former GWR areas so that the models could appeal both to the GWR BLT themed existing layouts while allowing people to start creating steam layouts set in other regions (or, adding some steam to an early diesel layout).

In fairness, having a Kingsbridge, Kingswear, and Kingskerswell all in close proximity leads to confusion.

Regardless of party, anything like this at the moment has to be considered as posturing for the wanted/expected election. As the linked article states the poor performance of Northern is not new but rather an ongoing, chronic problem so any "sudden" need to make changes should have the unofficial reasoning considered. It may, in addition to the election issue, be a case of the government trying to take the lesser of 2 evils given that the article also mentions ongoing financial losses which could mean the government perhaps expecting Arriva to hand back the franchise, which would publicly be worse than the government stepping in for other reasons.

True for Kingswear, but the station in question in that case was Kingsbridge. The aerial photo posted of Kingsbridge, and the comments on the Disused Station site, all indicate that Kingsbridge had a healthy amount of goods traffic but there isn't any obvious reason why.

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I understand the decision making, because to a certain extent you are correct in grouping models that are so close in design that someone undertaking to make a model may wish to take advantage in the tooling stage. On the other hand, history is showing that when a company announced one version of those "families" they don't really seem to be intending to take advantage of those similarities, for whatever reason, to make the rest of the family. This seems a bit old fashioned to me though. Yes, Hornby/Bachmann/Dapol and maybe the hobby shops have other sources for market information but as we have seen China has enabled individuals to enter the market by dealing with China directly. Those individuals are unlikely to have access market information in the same way that the existing big ones do, and thus the poll can likely be their only source of market information. Regardless, you have my thanks for doing what is in many ways a thankless task.

Maybe look at the Network Rail provided stuff (1)(2), while they don't provide any measurements the page and video all suggest it is far more than a 5m shift. If you squint at the small graphic showing alignment on (1) it looks like Sprey Point entirely disappears, and using Google Maps Sprey Point is 40m. So it would certainly appear that the beach will be history for much of the length of this work if it goes ahead. Nope, far more ambitious than this - they intend to create buttresses (aka a new sloped cliff face) to "support" the existing cliff face. (1) - https://consultations.networkrail.co.uk/communications/swrrp/ (2) - https://www.networkrail.co.uk/running-the-railway/our-routes/western/south-west-rail-resilience-programme/parsons-tunnel-to-teignmouth-resilience-project/

Maybe someone is trying to make it an election issue as it does seem strange that it would suddenly become "news" again about 6 months later.

Rails of Sheffield announced a D this morning, Dapol is simply making the model for Rails. While it is possible that whatever agreement Rails of Sheffield made with Dapol could allow Dapol to use the research to make a model in a different scale the fact that it took a retailer to do the model may indicated even in OO it is a niche model making O unlikely (particularly given that as discussed earlier there is no complementary products like suitable coaches in O)