PenrithBeacon

The Watford & District Model Railway Club The club has embarked on its latest layout project and if you would like to be involved, come along and see us. See the attached leaflet for details of the layout and where the club meets. We look forward to you getting involved with us in this new layout. Watford Advert.pdf Regards

Just add to 'LMS2968''s comments. If the modeller wants to a model of this engine with a 5A shed plate I'd check first with photos to see if it had AWS fitted at this time. I'm by no means sure it did, but photos will prove it one way or the other. Not many of the LMS and BR mixed traffic engines had AWS fitted until the 1963-67 period and even then only if main works had a set in stock, usually taken from a withdrawn engine. 42968 certainly had AWS fitted by 1966, I have a Roger Carpenter photo of that date which shows it. Regards

Perhaps I was thanks Regards

Don't recollect a 142 in NSE livery and as far as the 156 is concerned perhaps my memory is playing me false, sorry.

Any thinks on the original Sprinter livery? I'd go for that or Notwork Southeast.

Did anybody get close enough to see any of the design features? By this I mean does this model have a similar keeper plate concept to the G2a model and are the axles the same 3mm diameter. This is important to those, like me, who will want to convert it to EM/P4 using the AGW wheels and axle sets. Regards

Thank you for that. I think I ought to point out that your signature is not available to those who use the mobile version of RMweb. Regards

Could you provide a link please? Regards

I think that FW Webb was so obsessed with standardisation that he probably insisted that there should only be one splasher for the H Section spoked wheel. It made everything that much cheaper so the LNW could afford his compound experiments. Good to hear from you Larry Regards

Unlike so many Bachmann models the splashers are the right size. I'm amazed and I shall most certainly buy the LMS one come retailing time!

I wonder if they've insured against broken springs? Regards

Thanks for the recommendation, David. I have been thinking about a CAD system so I tried to download but got the error message "Your operating system is not supported. Fusion 360 is supported on 64-bit Windows 7 or newer and 64-bit Mac OS X 10.10 or newer." Seems that Windows 7 32bit is not supported, but a nice idea. Are there any CAD systems (2 or 3D) that will work on Windows 7 32bit, I get the idea that other variants of AutoCAD are very expensive. Regards

My experience suggests that there is a lot of truth here. Another aspect is that project management demands a lot, huge amounts of discipline and a work ethic which many members of a project team are not willing to offer. Most of the time of a project manager seems to me to be in managing the team and not the technical issues that arise. Also there is the issue of the departmental commitment. When I was involved in these things many projects failed because although they started out with a viable project plan (they had to because the bean counters wouldn't give them the budget unless they had) all commitment to it went out of the window afterwards and the same old undisciplined approach manifested itself. The result overspend and project failure. Bearing in mind that one of the features of NR and its predecessor is a lack of discipline I would mind betting that this is the problem. Regards

Actually I said "As the civil engineering sector were pretty well the only people who were using project management techniques" not that they invented them or that they were the only user. I didn't claim that they invented the methodology. I first came across the technique in a pamphlet issued by the 'Draughtsman's and Allied Technicians Association' (DATA) in around 1966. I still have it, it's on the top shelf above this computer. The point is that project management techniques are not new. They have been with us for ages and there is no excuse at all for NR to get this project so wrong. This is particularly true since the early 90s when project management software was released that could run on a PC and the development of techniques like PROMPT. I'm sure that those early packages have been replaced many times over since I retired in 2000 but they are part of the mainstream now. They are no longer 'cutting edge' and there is no excuse for not using them and not getting it right.

In the mid 1980s I attended my first project management course. As the civil engineering sector were pretty well the only people who were using project management techniques we were instructed in things like critical path analysis and then told to go away and apply it to telecoms! This with the caveat that we shouldn't fall into the traps that the TSR2 team had managed to get themselves into. The point here is that civils invented project management techniques and it's come to a pretty pass when NR have forgotten 40 years or so experience. This is basic stuff You don't manage a project as the GWML Electrification has been managed and that should have been clear to all. This isn't new stuff it's a fundamental part of engineering in all its forms now. Regards

I think there is a presumption that all things that people disagree with come from the EU.

Thanks, John

John, Can you offer some advice? I am about to start building a small shunting layout. I've finished the Templot and I bought the last (or I think it will be the last) components from C&L at the Portsmouth show yesterday. I have stuck the Templot plot to the single baseboard and my understanding is that the sleepers/timbers are stuck to the Templot using double sided cellotape, so far so good. But how do you get the finished section of track off without damaging it? Cellotape is very sticky! I think I ought to add that it is the intention to building the track separately from the baseboard on a piece of contiboard and then add the sections of track to the baseboard as and when. Hope you and yours are well, Regards David

They shouldn't be engaging in such extreme manoeuvres so as to tie their vehicle in knots!

What if it had not closed? Cambridge University would have to have found a different site for its radio telescope and might not have discovered quasars.

Falcon Figures do a set designed for the 1F Regards

I was intending to go on Sunday, but the weather forecast is horrendous; sorry.

I think the meaning of the word 'accident ' has changed over time. It once meant an unavoidable incident it now means an unintentional incident. Regards

Should keep Mexicans out.

All but three of the class had 5'-3" drivers: the exceptions had 6'-0" drivers but were later converted back to standard. They were, nominally, rebuilds of the earlier 2F 0-6-0 engines some of which had 4'-10" wheels. Bill Bedford IIRC did a resin body of the 4'-10" wheeled 2F locos, but I don't know if it's still available. Keyser did a cast whitemetal 2F with 5'-3" drivers, I still have it somewhere in the loft unmade. 5'-2" drivers will do the job for you, I think. HTH Regards