Nova Scotian

I do think you're discounting some of those on this thread with this statement though - those who are choosing what rooms to heat in their homes, scraping a few pounds here and there in monthly outgoings - and yet we're starting to see those energy "cap" forecasts come in. 300 quid a month, easily, for most people. The rate of increase is so high it's threatening to literally flip large portions of the UK not just into energy poverty, but also abject poverty. Health outcomes through your life are linked to things like having a warm, dry (no mould) home, and having good nutrition. We're dooming this entire generation of kids to short lives because there is not the will to do what is necessary to head off energy prices. The rest of it is painful - especially with how most prices have a component of energy (eg food), so inflation in energy trickles across so many goods and services. I reckon many on here could cope with a 10% increase on most of their bills, by trying hard to cut back, etc. But seeing a 500% rise in energy prices - there's no way to budget for that. No way to save your way out of it. Also wondering when the last time you tried to use the NHS was? Or the last time you went into a state school? The drop in capital spending over the last 10-12 years, exacerbated by COVID, have put so much of that "first world" infrastructure at risk. Don't worry though, am sure we can all go for a bracing swim the UK's coastal waters to shake off the doom and gloom. Oh... wait....

Thanks for the photo Phil - and it looks like a gorgeous model

Yep - newer roof and looks like newer windows (PVC double glazed in many rooms). However the walls and floors are pretty rotten and definitely out of true. It'd be a huge amount of work to set it all right - and you'd want to set up a wall cavity to insulate it, which will eat into that interior room. I was quite excited, then started looking through it... 300k for it in that shape is extremely hopeful.

Peter's spares have lima replacement wheelsets - thread here

TMC with an extra 10% off their sale using the code PAYDAY https://mailchi.mp/tmc-direct.com/hot-summer-extra-1177985 Some decent prices on newer stuff with that 10% off on top of their usual RRP discount. Nothing stands out to me, but if you were planning a purchase of something newer this might be the time to do it

Ah - very cool! I go through Moncton once a week - and know that industrial park well. Let me know if you want any photos on the ground? When my parents visit we'll often drive around some of those streets as occasionally some good spotting over there, though it's getting harder and harder to see the Moncton yard. Interesting personal links for me - my Grandfather worked for Lord Beaverbrook at the start of WII - Ministry of Aircraft Production. He later joined the RAF and was sent to Canada under the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan - and he started in Moncton! Clicked through the blog links - all looking good, a very interesting project.

I just feel really bad for all the modern image modelers who are desperately painting over their carefully weathered rails with white paint to stay true to prototype.

I'm sorry I had not seen this thread until now. Fascinating subject - I live about 1km from where the HSWR used to run, it's now a walking and biking trail. I had thought about a shunting plank of a part of the industrial park just slightly closer to downtown Halifax - with an X is where I think he's modelling, and the O is where I had thought about doing a plank: So I am going to follow this thread with great interest. Living so close, can I help with any modern day photos? It's 3.5km to where you're modelling, good enough for a dog walk when it's cool or a quick bike ride out. There was a HSWR museum near Lunenburg, it closed "to relocate" a couple of years ago, but now all seems to have gone quiet and the facebook group disappeared. They had some amazing scenery modeled, and the chap was very knowledgeable on the railway. I'd suggest he was more interested once it had left Halifax, rather than the industrial spurs in Halifax... but I'm happy to try and find him and contact details for you if that'd be useful? If you're ever over in person let me know if you would like a coffee/beer. I'm glad you have fond memories. I moved to Halifax in 2016, and have been in Canada since 2009.

Reading "Five Children and IT" to my kids at the moment - which has had a number of TV and film versions. I've not seen the 2014 film, the 90s TV version was good.

They very much have moved to a model to do so for some of their range - but I think you're right for the steampunk range they were trying to make it widely available in general modelshops etc as opposed to be 90% sold out on preorder. However, two years without a further announcement, and retailers moving these in the 50% off bracket (no-one enjoys discounting that much - 20%-30% everyone can still feel like they made a good margin) might be concerning.

Noticed these are starting to show up in clearance sections... There were a couple of great projects posted on rmweb last year, the photos of which are now lost to the servers... but otherwise I've not seen much engagement? However, I can imagine the audience for these are probably slightly different than the main audience (s) here? Unless I missed it there's been no expansion of the range announced in further years. However with COVID fundamentally changing the hobby over those two years (delays, lack of production slots, much more demand) I wonder if this got a little sidelined?

Anyone seen it yet? Release date was yesterday, right?

Right, and my children were born 50 years after the event you describe. 🤣🤣🤣🤣

The point to be made on the “poor” stuff is not that there is no poverty now. It’s pointing out that although the children become poorer compared to the life they led previously, they still have occasional help, they are not poor by the standards of many around them. It begins with their new “poorness” being treated as a game. It’s not a game for people. Peter’s stealing of the coal is a great one to talk kids though. My kids come from a privileged background and don’t understand poverty - I doubt they’d comprehend the nuance of that story without talking it through given their age. Stealing coal is not something they can relate to. I have copies of both books for my children, thank you. My grandmother left school at 14 and grew up in the docklands. Same thing on indoor plumbing etc. However this isn’t about my connection to that time as a grown man. It’s about how my kids understand it, yet another generation removed, at the age of 8.

From memory, not much, just a couple of things - compared to many it has lasted much better. It's just placing it in historical context. It's set more than 100 years before my kids were born and they don't pick up on the subtleties of class, "being poor", etc. It's educating them on the way things were at the time - what was okay then, what's okay now. Phyliss near the end talking about marrying a man with a smashed in nose rather than not marrying a man at all I talk through with my daughters - it's not a nefarious one at all, but a great opportunity to talk through why someone might say that, what's good about that view, what's not, where my kids think they land. (FYI I love that quote and often use it at my partner!) It's one of my kids' favourite films. They asked to watch it this weekend. Other films require more - Swallow and Amazons is another favourite, but there's more to talk through there in terms of certain depictions... (though it's still gentle and mostly not problematic). We watched the original Lady and the Tramp recently, the depiction of the Siamese cats (the eyes, the "Chinglish" etc) is problematic, as is the stereotype around the Italians. Beforehand i just talk to my kids - why people may have thought it was okay then, why it's not okay now, why it's better not to be mean. I own the original on DVD, but it's region 2, and multi-region DVD players are hen's teeth now (I live in Canada). For a while laptops etc were a good fix, as you could set those to multi-region more easily, but then they took dvd drives out of laptops! Not sure when this one will make it across the pond. My kids will want to watch it, they like Bobby.

Christ, some threads I should know better than to read. Reading back over the twaddle - if you really think the younger generations are that broken, guess who raised them? The film will be on my watch list - love Jenny Agutter, even though I don't hold high hopes for this given the reviews. The original was brilliant, though of its time - when I put it on for my kids there are a couple of things we talk through beforehand that aren't okay today.

Given the structure I can't see that happening. The company that owns NBSR (and NBM etc) has significant industrial interests served by that rail line. It does not make sense to me that they would give up control. CN are the only game in town in Halifax, so don't see them diluting that. CP would be more likely, as they used to own that line, but I think where they're now in a situation where there's run-through power (eg. CP locos on NBSR lines) to make it faster and more efficient, and there's obviously some partnering going on (Lancaster Logistics Park eg.) I'd say they're in a good place to be able to partner with NBSR while unlikely to be able to take ownership. My 2c.

I was in Saint John, New Brunswick. New Brunswick Southern Railway have a relatively interesting mix nowadays - the eastside yard (where CN arrive), operations to both refinery and the three yards west, plus the port. Some "switchers", the GP38-2s and GP38-3s which I usually see working with slugs, the SD40s I typically saw leaving the west side (Lancaster) heading off to McAdam. Now with the run-through agreement with CP, and their lease of SD70M-2s, there are some pretty large locos making their way through. Most are in their livery, but a handful of GMTX lease, including what I think is an SW1500 etc.

I'm sorry - brain fart. GP38-2, GP38-3, and SD40s. Was misremembering on some of the GMTX leased locos up this way.

Happy Canada Day eh Surrounded today by GP38-3s, associated slugs, a GP39-3, and the SD70M-2s that are new to this area

I agree that much of this will end up being "generational", although I fear for those who have retired and are on fixed incomes. A fixed income with little discretionary spending normally is going to rapidly disappear given the rapid increases in costs such as utilities. I should also be clear on my situation - I am in a position of privilege, I'm relatively well paid and my financial situation is the result of divorce, and then how I have chosen to be in my kids' lives. My career took me away, and I could decide to see them much less often, but I have committed to being there much of the time, with a second house, and all the travel inbetween. I can only do it because I have support from my parents. Because of these choices I get a glimpse of what it would be like to have the financial pressures that others have to live with and have not chosen. The idea that a major household bill can't be paid. There is no family member to bail you out.

I'm enjoying my 1.5% "economic adjustment" against 7% inflation. 15 years ago I was a teacher in the UK - and I've watched how that profession has been gutted, and their pay significantly reduced in real terms. It started around 2008 I'd say, and accelerated from 2010 onwards when there was a government change... For example, my student loan, which I had to become a teacher, was tied to RPI - and in 2009 the interest rate was going to be 4%. However my pay rise was tied to a different inflation measure, so my pay was only going up 1%. Very quickly you get a divergence in real wages when you don't match inflation, and it impacts hardest those entering a profession or in earlier stages of their career - when their debt and outgoings are at their greatest. I was lucky to leave with twelve grand of student debt, I only had one year (my teacher training) where tutition was three grand a year rather than one grand. It's now nine grand. Doing it today I'd have been in about 48,000 of debt to become a teacher. Completely unsustainable. The UK's entire system is broken, skewed against everyone from the middle-middle class and down - progressively getting poorer and poorer, especially for anyone who wasn't already a home owner from the right-to-buy Thatcher years. Perfect storm of stagnant wages, higher student debt and massive house price increases.

You're just checking you've not accidentally PVAed a grain of ballast to the rail to force the flange up over the top!

Nah, someone's just finished laying the track, ballasting and weathering. They're now testing with a short wheelbase loco first to check clearances and for any shorts before they run the bogie stock through.

I can not get out of my head that a new Honda Civic should cost 12,000 pounds (under $20k Canadian). Despite that being the price twenty years ago - and so I'm always shocked when I check out the prices of new cars. And yet I shouldn't be - that cars have still not risen as quickly as inflation (particularly in the 2000s) is quite incredible. The recent price increases are catch up. My parents bought a new car in 2010, with 20% off because of the recession at the time, a Skoda Octavia Scout that I think rang in at 16k. They're looking at over 30k if they want to replace with similar now. Another contributor mentioned the potential for growth in detailing parts, custom runs etc. I'm not sure I see that? From the comments (I typed complaints, then changed it!) on the forums, the art of scratch building, detailing, bodging etc is declining as the hobbyists age. I don't know if that's totally true (Corbs et al.), but I have a hard time wrapping my head around my generation sifting through bags of identical looking tidbits of white metal or printed plastic - not unless the way production, stocking and searching is done is improved significantly.