Flittersnoop

...don't use RMweb... please? Because we wouldn't want to upset Hornby by illustrating the strength of negative feeling that their actions have induced amongst their customers, not to mention the many retailers on RMweb, would we?

It must be a combination of the latter two. They're relying on new models being "must haves" - their attitude will seriously discourage me from buying their products, especially from their website. The S&D coach which I had ordered from Gaugemaster and now won't get I can do without. I wrote to Hornby in January after I had to place orders with half a dozen retailers just to get the items I wanted from their 2022 announcements. I've no idea what I'll end up with, and frankly I'm past caring, especially after the tone-deaf reply I received from Simon Kohler.

High fire risk, so the NYMR is trying to run a peak summer season service between Whitby and Pickering with two Class 37s. Three trains each way per day, pre-book only. Do you really have to pay for the whole Whitby - Pickering trip if you only want to go from Grosmont to Goathland? Not looking forward to my trip to North Yorks in two weeks quite so much now. Let's hope it rains.

A ground-breaking product would be something like a Class 120 DMU or a Maunsell U class 2-6-0, that people can run on their existing layouts. The number of UK modellers that are just sitting around thinking that what they really want to do is start a new layout for which they can buy a limited range of track and a couple of kits for buildings must be... hardly any.

My guess is that Rapido will be announcing brake vans to go with all the lovely pre-grouping RTR freight stock and locomotives that you can buy now! 🙃

Peco didn't invent TT-120, did they? They're just making track that existing Eastern European models can run on. In the current economic climate I don't think that there's a cat in Hades' chance of any company making any British outline RTR stock for TT-120.

I should probably know this, but are the projected HS2 trains going to tilt? If not, won't some of the gains due to the new line be lost on Glasgow trains by having to run slower north of Crewe?

This development seems utterly baffling. When Peco introduced the H0m track I hoped that a manufacturer would make some British or Irish 3 foot gauge models, especially when the die-cast Isle of Man loco appeared. I'm still waiting. There's still very little continental Metre gauge stuff apart from the Swiss models. Now we're to have TT gauge track - I wonder how much of it they will sell, when there's almost nothing to run on it?

So if it has little effect, cancelling the Golborne Link would seem to be a sensible move.

Reducing the number of platforms at Euston looks less controversial now...

On Saturday, 21st May I was in London with my wife, having been to the theatre in West Norwood. The car was parked at Bracknell station, so at 11pm we were on Platform 6 at Clapham Junction, waiting for the next train towards Reading. I was surprised to see that the first train was for Basingstoke, first stop Surbiton. I guessed that this was one of those rare trains that for some obscure reason uses the curve from Point Pleasant Junction to East Putney, and then the District Line to Wimbledon before regaining the South Western main line. I am a bit of a track-basher and have never been on the Point Pleasant curve, but taking that train would have made us very, very late home, so I had to forego the pleasure. Has anyone else had to pass up a similar opportunity of rare track or traction in the interests of the greater good?

I was at Birmingham University from 1982 to 1985. In the first year the line from Selly Oak into New Street was visible from the corridor in my hall of residence. The Class 50s made such a noise on the climb from BNS that I had time to dash out of my room and see the train, and thanks to the large logo livery the numbers were legible and by the end of my degree I had seen all fifty of them.

I was thinking of getting one of these. The planking means I won't bother. Hornby seem to have become very cynical about what they expect us to buy. I know it's only a toy; no big deal, just disappointing.

Not as shocking as that shade of purple! And yes, I am one of those people on Facebook. I think the loco looks hideous.

Locking the wagon turntable?