DK123GWR

£82.75 for a DCC fitted 2010 tooling Hornby Castle, including delivery and accessory pack. The only caveat (unless I've been hoodwinked) is that the front bogie has come off, which should be an easy (and free) fix.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/rails-sheffield/m.html?item=203825048349&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.m3561.l2562 15% off ebay sale including Rails using the code 'TAKEIT'. I've already managed to get a 2010 tooling Hornby Castle DCC fitted for £82.75 (the bogie has come off, but it looks like an easy fix). A few others that I noticed: - Sound and Kadee fitted Bachmann 57xx £129.07 (has some dodgy weathering though) - Hornby Grange at £86.57 - Hornby Adams Radial £69.75 - Hornby 2005 tooling King £52.57 (loose pipework) All prices quoted above (except my Castle) are the advertised price with 15% discount and £2 postage. However, Rails usually accept offers (the castle was advertised at £109, my offer of £95 was accepted first time, so you might be able to get them a fair bit cheaper). Postage can be combined at £3 for 2 items or £4 for 3, up to a 1.8kg limit. Obviously, it's second hand, so look carefully before buying.

I wonder why Hornby are planning some FGW stock... It was in short supply, fetching silly prices, even when I was a (proper) child and FGW was still around. I know this because I was given a Virgin HST instead (complete with what I now know to be an aircon Mk2). Grr...

If I had to guess (and this is a guess, based on the characteristics of the locos rather than how they were used): -The driving wheels on the 4-6-0 are 5ft 8, rather than 5ft 3 on the mogul. So the 4-6-0 was perhaps better suited to higher speeds, and the mogul to heavier goods work and faster acceleration. -The 3MT tender engines have a tender (so larger range) and the 3MT tank engine was a tank engine (so didn't need to be turned). One was probably suitable for long-ish rural branchlines, and the other for suburban work which didn't require a 4MT, or for much shorter branches which lacked the equipment to turn locos.

Regional restrictions could also be used for price discrimination. If (for example) demand for a film in Europe is judged to be less price-sensitive than in North America, regional restrictions allow the firm to maximise profits by selling the product at a higher price in Eurpope than in North America, without having to worry about North Amercians who have bought the product at a cheaper price selling it on to Europeans for some intermediate price, and undercutting the firm's price in Europe. Multi-packs often have 'not for individual resale' lables for the same reason.

Perhaps they could give it the tender from this large prairie: https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pinterest.co.uk%2Fandytyrer64%2Fswindon-town-fc%2F&psig=AOvVaw0l_5GupIlZC9KAc9PxwQFm&ust=1644064708954000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CAsQjRxqFwoTCIjdwtSI5vUCFQAAAAAdAAAAABAD

I wonder if they'll be able to move the track on. When I last went the track from Thorpe Park's old railway (closed 2011) was sat in a pile under Swarm - I think it can be made out to the left of the track at 2:05 in the video below. I can't help but think someone would take it (or would have done a few years ago) and I can't imagine that letting it rot is the most profitable use.

I wouldn't trust people from the South East with geography. I've been asked by (supposedly intelligent) Londoners if Wiltshire is in the North. This is after having to explain that it's near Bristol, and that Bristol is near the Welsh border. That said, a large proportion of the population of the western side of the county would probably agree that they live in the West Country. It's only a few miles from Somerset, Bristol is the nearest big city, we're surrounded by farmland, and the Wurzels once sang 'you never get surprises livin' in Devizes'.

Definitely OO, and no I haven't (and won't) consider scratchbuilding in brass. My soldering is not good and I don't really want to worry about things like working out how to mount the motor so that it's in the right place. Using an RTR chassis would eliminate much of that.

A locomotive which I have wanted to build for a while now is a GWR-style 4-6-2T using a Manor boiler. The body choice seems obvious - a Mainline Manor boiler combined with an Airfix 61xx bunker, cab, and tanks. I can't quite work out how they would fit together. The Manor has a raised section over the cylinders which would suggest to me that either the Manor running board is lower or its cylinders are higher than the 61xx. I'm hoping that the 61xx running board sits at the same height as the raised section on the Manor's, since this would probably make it easier to join them while extending the running borad to accomodate the longer boiler and extra pair of leading wheels. Does anyone know if this would be possible? There seem to be two broad approaches to this problem: start with a 4-6-0 chassis and add a rear pony truck, or start with a large prarie and change the front bogie to one with two axles. From the first approach, the options are: - Mainline Manor - cheap, but by all accounts most are reaching the end of their serviceable lives now. - Bachmann Manor - much more expensive than the Mainline version. I'm not sure what the differences between them are. - Hornby Grange - I would expect this to be the best running option of the lot, but at a higher cost again. - Future Dapol and Accurascale Manors - disqualified on cost grounds. On the other side: - Airfix GMR 61xx - cheap, especially if the body is used as well. The one I have is very good when running freely, but there is a fault with it which seems to produce excess friction from time to time, with the loco sometimes binding up alltogether. - Hornby and Dapol 61xxs - disqualified on cost grounds. I would lean towards the Airfix 61xx since I'm really not keen on the idea of a rear pony truck to a 4-6-0. My main concern is the position of the cylinders. These are much closer to the driving wheels than on a Manor. At the very least, this will mean that they are out of alignment with the smokebox and steam pipes on the Manor, and will need moving forwards (meaning that longer connecting rods will need to be sourced) or that elbow steam pipes, as seen on the 4 cylinder locos, will need to be found from somewhere. There might be other complications if the vertical alignment is not as I am hoping (see first paragraph) or if the cylinders foul the new front bogie - though without having all of the bits in front of me and test fitting them it probably won't be possible to know whether this is an issue or not. Any thoughts with respect to this would be very much appreciated. Finally, I am not aware of any actual models of locomotives like this (though it is something which gets discussed or photoshopped occaisionally, but if anyone does know of one and can provide information on how it was built I would very much appreciate that.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/393336188494?epid=12011263584&hash=item5b94a9ee4e:g:sLsAAOSwKdZgpoRP

The number of people interested in Midland Railway 1000 class locomotives used to be approximated by the equation i*(1.01^t), where i is the class' initial following and t is the number of years since the class was introduced. Now it is goverened by the equation. Now it is better approximated by i*(1.02^t). This is due to a rise in rates of compound interest.

As a thought: NWR #1 was a very non-standard loco, working at the other end of the country to the works that built it and to all of its classmates (and there were only 10 E2s built). Spares must have been a nightmare. Can we imagine Thomas with a 57xx boiler and Belpaire firebox? That would at least allow standardisation with Duck, and given that 57xxs were far more numerous, worked further north, and were built by Hatt's former employer, spares might have been easier to obtain as well.

I always thought it was because Awdry's Pannier had a waddle (like the one Duck was alleged to have). A Gaiety Pannier with a deformed wheel, according a few secondary sources: https://ttte.fandom.com/wiki/Duck/Behind_the_Scenes#Behind_the_Scenes

Screws? You don't get that luxury on a 121. I've no problem with bending the body to get it off of the chassis clips when I'm dismantling a Lima 47, but it's a bit scarier on a £110 super-detailed DMU.

I think NR and the TOCs should support you in that, and kit it out with entirely prototypical signaling, with the trains responding to it as though they had a real driver, with realistic acceleration and braking profiles. Then when members of the public are stood on the platform mouthing off at station staff because their train's delayed, they take them upstairs. "Why don't you show us how you would handle this situation?" At least it'll give them something to do while waiting for their train.

I think these were SG, but I'm not too familiar with Mexican Railways. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairlie_locomotive#Mexico There appear to be some Russian ones as well, presumably broad gauge: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairlie_locomotive#Russia

To drive home the point: Rousseau believed that amour propre was a (the?) main driver of human behaviour in civil society. Amour propre is (essentially) the tendency for human beings to compete for each other's approval. He wrote books (and what tedious, vague, frustrating books they can be!) which very often had among their aims finding ways to inculcate virtue into a population to control what he saw as the threat that people driven by amour propre would act in a way which was detrimental to society in order to pursue their own interests and gain recognition from others. I'm sure that other philosophers from the 18th Century and even before have examined similar issues, but Rousseau's work sprung immediately to mind when I read the initial comment. See also: - Palaces - Old houses with big windows - Bulleid's pacifics - The Colloseum - Lambourginhis - Statues of politicians, colonialists, etc. made of precious metals - Long job titles - People with so many military medals on their jacket you wonder how they remain upright, especially dictators who would be on the first plane out at the hint of a battle - Every major sporting contest ever - The Eiffel Tower - The Empire State Building, Chrysler Building, etc. - Railway termini, in London and elsewhere - Statues of the Ancient Greeks, who are all suspiciously athletic - Rich people in days gone by with artificially pale skin, to emphasise that they can afford not to work outside - Rich people now with artificially tanned skin, to emphasise that they can afford to spend half the year on a beach in Spain - Copper-capped chimneys and inside valve gear Need I go on?

On the other hand, a surprisingly large number of chess players at my uni seem to have played when they were younger and then come back following the Queens Gambit. Obviously, a lot of the people who started playing at that time will have now given up, but since there are still people playing chess 15 months on who otherwise wouldn't be. Given that (for first years at least) they will have a lot less free time now than they did when the programme was released, I would suggest that it does provide some evidence that something becoming a craze for a few months can have a lasting impact and draw some people in for much longer.

They did something very similar on the Great Model Railway Challenge. And there's no reason why putting a low DC voltage across tap water should be dangerous - most younger viewers have probably done it at school already as part of an electrolysis practical.

My feline is the director of a railway. We call him Sir Topham Catt.

I think it's one that makes you see double.

I liked Graham Y.'s review:

A bit before your time, but there was this: The base model needs a lot of work, but don't worry - after the latest price rises it only costs £50.99!