D9020 Nimbus

Ian has had books published by Santona — think they may have been taken over by Book Law. At a York show in the 2010s, there were mentions on his layout stand of forthcoming books on "Modelling the North Eastern Region" and "Modelling the West Highland line", but there's been no sign of them since.

I'd suspect a 120 from Revolution Trains might be just as likely — they're doing it in N gauge. ISTR 101s had a different body profile to other DMUs — a 101 trailer in any other kind of DMU looks odd.

The theatre indicators at Newcastle Central display the platform number (for incoming trains) and a letter indicating the track on the King Edward Bridge (for southbound departing trains). I'm not sure what happens anywhere else, but it looks like "either a letter or a number" is possible! These are current practice with colour light signalling. Was this type of signal much used in semaphore days? Seemingly not at Newcastle, if photos are any guide!

In Germany — the major market — and the other German-speaking countries — most of the viable prototypes have already been done in H0 and multiple times. How you judge the market across all European countries is harder; there are many brands, especially in France, which never get a mention in Continental Modeller — Mistral and R37 to name just two. And of course there are more prototypes in U.K. to start with. There aren't anything like that many forthcoming models in N. And, outside Germany, Britain has one of the widest ranges in N gauge, especially steam era. Aside from (prototypically) reliveried German locos, there is only one "French" steam loco avail@ble in N, the 141R, and that only made available within the last couple of years, a class of over 1000 locos that lasted to the 1970s. There are no RTR "native" Austrian steam locos at all in N, despite the existence of two native manufacturers.

The LNER is well suppported for mainline coaches in N RTR — the Bachmann Thompsons are superb — but there is no non corridor or pre-grouping stock available RTR in N.

The main thing missing in N is probably the Fowler 2-6-4T, and for earlier periods the ex-LNWR types to current standards (some were done by Union Mills).

Yes, it must have been Llandeilo that was featured in Traction. Those names can be confusing — and the GWR used to have its own spellings for many Welsh place names anyway.

There was a layout plan, based I think on Llanidloes, which featured in Traction a little while ago. You might be able to find it among the back issues on World of Railways +.

I've pre-ordered models from a number of manufacturers in the past, but will not be doing so with Dapol N gauge in future as currently I don't trust them to get it right—they have made too many basic mistakes which should never have gone into production — the M7 tilt and the 156 with incorrect double arrows for example. They're not the only firm to have issues — there were issues with the Rapido class 28 — but I have confidence that if Rapido do make a mistake, they will put it right; I don't have the same confidence in Dapol. I've pre-ordered the Accurascale "Buckjumper" too; it's competitively priced and I don't expect there'll be a competing product that will be better.

A significant part of leisure travel — on Saturdays pre-COVID, at least — on main line trains to and from Newcastle was hen parties (always hens, never stags). Other custom was often students. I don't think the "traditional" leisure market being referred to above still exists. Even short distance travel to the coast locally isn't what it was — many years ago when the Tyneside loop was still 3rd rail, the timetable on Sundays had a basic service of one two car train every half hour. On fine days in summer it would step up to an 8 car train every ten minutes. That no longer happens, though the Metro does (or did) run additional trains on busy days. But the new trains due to come into service have all longitudinal seating, instead of the transverse seating of the additional stock.

I doubt that the signature will actually be the buyer's anyway — since COVID I have only once been asked for a signature. Usually the postman/woman signs for it.

What button is used to trigger the steam running sound? Usually it is F1, but if it is F2 this type of issue can arise—though usually with controllers of US rather than European origin.

Class 87? 91? Ruston & Hornsby?

Your source is reliable. I received an email from Hobbycraft yesterday stating that "Airfix is back" — but no mention of Hornby whatsoever.

There's detailed coverage of the T.I.C Railway in Memories of the LNER — Tyneside by Allan W. Stobbs. This was a self-published book (there was another on Rural Northumberland). The booklet has no ISBN and no copyright date (nor even a copyright claim) and was self-published by the author. This was available in the local sections of bookshops in the area a long time ago — probably 30 years ago or so. How you might obtain a copy though, I've no idea.

ISTR they would be used to pull the Royal special to Tattenham Corner on Derby day.

Chris Ford's The Art of Compromise, (RM OZCTOBER 2018) based on a Roy Link plan from 1978, made intentional use of rolling stock and scenic items from that period, but included some newer scenic items. Since then it has changed hands and been given away in a BRM competition.

There was one other surprise as well as the class 70 — the introductory countdown sequence was different this time, counting down mostly in tens; the previous sequence had been used on all the previous announcements.

Wasn't that proposed some years ago as an updated chassis for the current body tooling and later dropped?

If the T3 is to come, I'd expect it to be by Rails of Sheffield with whoever — Dapol, Bachmann, ? — it would fit with their Railway Icons range. Even if Bachmann do the production, in those circumstances it wouldn't feature in the announcements. Bachmann haven't announced a new standard gauge steam loco (aside from retailer commissions) since before the pandemic. Given the Accurascale 66, I'd have thought it would be risky for Bachmann to do one — though they may feel that they have to have an updated model in their range. And the Farish 66 is also being threatened by a new Dapol model, too. There aren't many diesels left for them to do; the 24 doesn’t seem to have sold that well — some shops are selling the DC versions cheaply at the moment. Of course, there's nothing to say that any/all of the projects are in fact locomotives. In coaches, one thing missing in OO is the pre-Stanier LMS coaches. Didn't Mainline once do these?

I'd have thought a "Terrier" might be more likely than a "Jinty". They have a recent OO model to go on, and there are more possible liveries. Also, it could also be a tender loco — I don't think they explicitly said 0-6-0T — although none of their recent OO models looks to be saleable enough for this stage of TT's development — and the 4F they do have is quite old too.

Class 101 DMUs on services from Newcastle. Services to the junction at Alnmouth remained steam hauled to the end, usually K1 2-6-0s though oddities including a 9F and V2; earlier J39s had been used. K1s would also have hauled freight traffic. As far as I'm aware, the only diesel loco class to have appeared on a freight was a Clayton class 17. The line didn't make it into the blue era. There is a book on the branch, published by the NERA I believe (NER Association). It's also covered in Ken Hoole's NER Branch Line Termini. The terminus itself was quite grand with a complex track layout; the building survives as a large secondhand bookshop.

What? The point about NEM sockets is that you can change the couplings for another type. By fitting non-standard pockets, you make the use of the Kadee coupler (IMHO the most popular alternative) impossible — it is very height sensitive — and make compatibility with other brands that do use the standard impossible. Far from being sound, it was arrogant and totally mis-conceived.

What about the different versions of the "blood and custard" livery on coaches? Even within one manufacturer’s range (Dapol N gauge) there are big differences between the orange-red appearance of the Collet coaches with the much darker red on their Gresley coaches. Possibly they are going by colour photographs at a time when colour rendering between different brands of film varied considerably — and the most stable film of the time (Kodachrome) would be too slow for much train photography (it was originally ISO 10, and eventually made it to ISO 25).

It's obviously Windows 10, with the Opera browser, FWIW…