Nova Scotian

Oh I'm an idiot... Railway Children is Studio Canal. L&YR Class 25 would be fantastic - stands up in its own right as well as the film link. And to fit with the cute industrials a Hudswell Clarke 1369 long tank (MSC 067 for railway children). If Rapido do one or both I'd buy them in a heartbeat.

They could really piss Hornby off and do the James Bond Goldeneye Train that was a class 20 - I thought that'd be an ideal project for Hornby and their Limby 20. I also suggested once that Hornby could also run a Brief Encounter special of their Stanier 4P 2-6-4T. And Bachmann doing a Paddington 2 LMS Crab and A1 Tornado. One for EFE could be the Austerity from Chitty Bang Bang in blue. Fairburn tank from Swallows and Amazons? I should probably think of some Rapido appropriate examples rather than ones for other manufacturers... but drawing a blank. Oooooh, City of Truro from Howard's end could be good - would love a brilliant quality city class...

That's a very pretty little loco

Yeah I'm sorry, but they clearly got the compound curves on the cab of that 47 wrong, accentuated by the wrong paint finish. Look how flat and shiny it looks. Barely a step above Lima.

I was six or seven years old and so not intimately acquainted with magnetic levitation

I'm certain my father brought one of these home from one of his business trips in the 90s - early 90s - either the US or Australia. Probably 1991/1992? No idea what happened to it. I remember him setting it up and running it around - we'd just been to the NEC and seen the Birmingham Airport monorail and not knowing any better I thought this was a model of that.

A rare, vintage, luxury, highly detailed and accurate locomotive has shown up on Canadian eBay. https://www.ebay.ca/itm/266147753600 It was the class 17s that looked wrong, not the model. A must buy for n gauge fans

Something to run next to your Rivarossi Royal Scot HO - and a lovely model for the time it was! I have my eye on one on ebay, but not at the price asked!

A few stories on Vivarail today - liquidating assets. GWR picking up a few employees, some IP and some stock for the fast charge battery product. this is a quote from Rail Magazine - part of the blame for administration is placed on maintenance cost of the WMR 230s being higher than forecast. “WMT reports that Vivarail was replacing up to three engines a week on its Class 230 diesel multiple units, resulting in low availability and higher-than-expected operating costs.” What on earth? This was supposed to be a tested, easy to repair/maintain commercial van engine dropped into this product. Was the cooling package wrong? Vibration? This strikes me as very odd. It was the ford 3.2l five cylinder diesel right? No wonder operators were wary of the 230s if this was happening. Seems like core engineering they needed to get right for their customers, but pulled in lots of different directions with battery, hydrogen etc. That said, clearly GWR saw their battery IP as valuable enough with commercial potential.

About 15% of the original Class 37 fleet is in use on the mainline, right? Mid-40s out of 309 originally. Currently mainline in use Class 60s is what, 25? No more than 30, and usually a couple out at anytime. That's still 25%-30% of the fleet on the mainline. The initial size of fleet plays into it too - at 100 strong and with few shared major components with other classes that's going to impact longevity - the order for 250 66s is far more significant in terms of a unified fleet. As comparison, the 26s were about the same class size and lasted 30-35 years. The 40s were double the class size and lasted less than 30 years, Same with the Peaks, less than 30 years. The 100 86s lasted just about 40 years in passenger service, although a handful made it another 15 years in freight service. I think if things had been "different" the 60s would have had a better life. They came at the wrong time in privatisation. An order for 250 would have changed their fortunes, and I can imagine we'd have seen sub-classes rated for different speeds, some different power outputs as it was continously improved etc. I liked the 60s until I finally got the Lima model in early 90s I lusted after (I say finally, it came out in 1990 and it was probably like 91 or 92, but seemed like an age back then!) and it was a disappointment. Not as bad as the Hornby Class 58, but as a kid I didn't really *get* that a model of the real thing didn't necessarily mean it could haul like that real thing... Now they're being rehabilitated :)

Look out for balloons!

Was that this year? We were absolutely walloped by Fiona in September. I live and work in Halifax. September and October here are my favourite months, as you say the weather is typically pleasant, but not hot (other than the tailend of a hurricane that occasionally comes through...) David

I hope you enjoyed it. We love Lunenburg and Mahone Bay (live in Halifax). Cape Breton is stunning. Well worth coming for a week or two if you can swing it ;) Shocking lack of trains though :(

Continental are a good brand (German). Bridgestone are good, but my bias comes in here on Michelin being better :) Goodyear fine. Pirelli a good niche brand. Dunlop seem to have slipped. Never got on well with Toyo or Yokohoma - I find they're loud and gravelly. Michelin have lots of factories - but when you look they make their premium tyres in high-skill/wage countries.

I put Michelins on my car - partly loyalty as they’re made here. But also they’re a great tyre. X-ice snow for winter, and defender in summer. Nokian winter tyres are excellent. Bridgestone Blizzak are great to start with, but not great as they age. We are between a Japanese made Mazda (the engines appear bulletproof on this generation - the petrol ones) and a Mexican made VW. The VW had a rough first year, but each year or half year of production after that they’ve seemed to fix the issues. We’re doing a high mileage lease this time - hand the car back after four years and 90,000 miles. Should limit our risk. Honda have raised their prices too much here. Subaru were a close run thing, but the lease rates were high as they predict lower residuals than I think is likely. I hope my next car is a Canadian made EV. For cost and driving routine I couldn’t do it this time. It’s going to be -25 on Friday night (-37 with windchill) and I’m driving 250 miles straight through. At a steady 70mph. Not many EVs can manage that range at that temperature and that speed. There are rechargers along the way, but stopping for that long isn’t great for me - and anyway the long range EVs are out of my price range

The Ford powershift here would grenade multiple times before 60,000 miles. An absolute embarrassment. Until COVID dried up used car supply (by function of drying up new) the prices for a Fiesta or Focus with that transmission were absolute rock bottom. Now they’re going for silly money because they’re desperate. Luckily it’s not the same as the VAG DSG, it’s a similar mechanical design (eg dual clutch), but Ford f***** that one up all on their own! My auto has been fine. The tranny fluid is in the schedule here and I had it done about the same time I think. What’s the engine in your i30? They brought the first gen here as just the estate, it was a good car but a four speed auto. The platform is still here under the Kia Forte5, and previously the Elantra GT, but again because of the engine line over here they have the same problems (piston slap, spun bearings, overheating, fires etc).

Agreed - everyone makes a howler sometimes. Sometimes it was in design, other times manufacture, or a supplier didn’t meet standards. What is important is if the car maker supports their customer. If they ignore it, blame the customer etc that’s a cautionary tale. While the environment here is hard on cars, my driving is not. And my care and maintenance certainly is not. What’s amazing is despite that all I have the same problem as hundreds/thousands of other owners out there. There’s a class action lawsuit I’ve signed up for, previous ones over here have been successful against the automaker due to just how widespread the issues are (for example the Theta II they didn’t deburr the oil passages properly in manufacture).

Toyota were on our shortlist , but it’s a 4-8 month wait, or 18 months for the one we wanted.

The 1.6 diesel is apparently bulletproof. It’s not available over here. The 1.6 petrol (Gamma) is also apparently much more robust than the Nu and the Theta II. Other than the engine the Kia has been decent. Frustrated at how quickly it eats brakes, and the calipers seize, but the suspension has been more robust than most.

I have a Kia Soul (no laughing at the back). It was the smallest car I could find that suited my life at the time; two kids, regular travel, but needing an automatic for my partner, and needing to replace my dearly departed Mazda people carrier that had been bashed to pieces by our roads over here (about 115,000 miles, but had punched a strut through the strut mount, the other was about to go, wheel bearings damaged from all the pothole impacts etc etc). I'm pretty diligent buying used, this car was 6 years old with 37,000 miles. This is typically perfect - high enough mileage that the car hasn't sat unused for months (which is bad for all the rubber bits and oil coated bits), but low enough I figured I could get 3 1/2 to 4 1/2 years of my high mileage punishment out of it. I do 22,000 miles a year, but through the worst weathers and some pretty beaten up roads. Cars don't like starting at -25! The car had 12 service stamps, twice a year, so the owner had it serviced far more than the mileage needed, and bang on the "once every 6 months" schedule they demand over here for most cars. Well - you can see where my story is going. Just before Christmas the car starts making a ticking noise. I've been driving a while, I know cars enough to know when something sounds wrong. I check my oil every 650 miles, suddenly it's burned through 1/2 a litre of oil in 325 miles. My heart sinks, knowing this isn't likely to be injector tick because of how it rises and falls with revs, engine load, etc. It gets progressively worse as I try and get it into a dealership. I'm now checking the oil every 325 miles and topping up. At 85,000 miles (and 9 years old) my meticulously maintained vehicle has piston slap and the fix is a new long block (not cheap!). It "passed" the bearing clearance test, so Kia have abandoned me stating it's not a fault with the engine that they've legally had to agree to fix (unlike the BCT on that engine, or pretty much any Theta II engine). I am used to a car falling apart around an engine, my Hondas would do double the mileage with not a hint of engine trouble. My nissan, Mazdas, all were completely free of engine trouble at higher mileages, because I get my car serviced every 5000 miles. Dealership agreed it wasn't a service issue. Not "on file", but admitted how they hate how many people they have to tell the same story too when their engines die after similar mileages, but out of the 5 year warranty and Hyundai/Kia refuses to stand behind their product. The internet is now full of owners of these brand cars with engine issues - the Theta IIs are known as the worst, and when I purchased there was only a sprinkling of complaints about the "Nu GDI" in the Kia Soul. Now it's a flood of people facing massive bills or scrapping their cars. The dealer network have been good, they gave me a better trade in than I deserved and got me into another brand, I won't touch Kia/Hyundai again. I believe the dealership will replace the long block before resale, and with the shortage of reasonably priced used cars they'll still do okay out of it. The issue would have been almost 4 grand to fix. I think it wiped about 3 grand off the trade-in price, and the dealer met me part way (about a grand). So I'm still down about 2 grand on the value of the car, but it could have been worse, but for a dealer network that appears to have a heart. I can only recommend to everyone that they avoid this brand - while many of you may say a 9 year old car with 85,000 miles is clearly out of warranty, it's also very clear to me that the engine in any modern vehicle should last many times that when properly maintained. While I wait for my new vehicle mine is now burning a litre of oil for every 25 litres of petrol - I joke that it's a two stroke. Only it's not funny because any moment soon it's going to punch a rod through the crankcase and leave me stranded, probably in a snowstorm. UK buyers seem lucky - you don't buy bigger petrol engines. The "Gamma" 1.6 seems to have less problems, whereas the 1.8 Nu, 2.0 Nu (the one in my car), and the 2.4 Theta II have horrific reputations now. The problems also seem more concentrated in northern US states and Canada, so my assumption is that temperature has something to do with it. I've been very surprised at how quickly the car would try and drop the idle revs when started cold - most cars maintain a high idle until they're warm, these cut it very quickly and run quite lumpy. Internet forums suggest the piston skirts are too short, and the lubrication channels aren't right. Once piston slap starts you're basically toast - it scores the walls, oil runs through those channels and it gets progressively worse faster. Anyway, just came here to complain, and if my experience nudges anyway on their car purchase journey away from Kia/Hyundai and into another brand I think that's a win for everyone (apart from Kia/Hyundai, who don't deserve it). Happy to answer any questions. I've owned quite a lot of cars, and even an old Ford with that horrible Kent engine, or a bloody BL A-series in a Metro, went to a higher mileage than this Kia. Since the late 90s (multipoint injection, decent oils, etc) I've found engines extremely reliable and long lasting.

Just got a pop-up ad on RMWEB from TMC - a 4CEP for 210GBP is a spectacular discount. https://www.themodelcentre.com/31-427b

With CN #2 (7551 - then Bowater Mersey) only 45 minutes from me that's going to have to be a purchase I find the money to make. Great little microbrewery outpost right next to it too :)

How does it feel hauling 22 MJAs?

So the plan isn't 7 mk3s 1:76.2 - you're planning on hauling 7 mks 1:1 with all that traction weight?!

Big Jim's hint seems to be a Hitachi IET? Or a 395 I suppose.