boxbrownie

1 hour ago, Reorte said:

 

I make no apologies for regarding skills like map reading as fairly basic ones that just about everyone is capable of learning. There is no justification for being rude to me for saying that, or claiming that I'm belittling anyone for saying it. It's more belittling IMO to imply that there are so many people who aren't capable of it and couldn't be so with just a little effort. Using and getting the most out of technology is a skill in itself anyway, one that needs to be learned.

 

People would've probably once said the same about universal literacy.

 

Is there no such thing as a basic skill?

Trust me, Mrs BB cannot read a map, I have tried to show her for over 45 years since our first forays abroad.

The same way some people cannot take a good photo to save their lives, sure they think they have taken a world beater but they haven’t, the number of engineers who came into our lab and wanted to show us their latest competition entries which frankly were a waste of printing paper, but for some of them although keen amateur photographers I knew some of those for over 25 years (sorry Ken) and they never got better 😁……a lot of others did.

You cannot teach everyone everything no matter how good a teacher they have because some people just don’t have the mental ability to master that particular task.

I’ll never make an astro physicist, no matter who tried to teach me 🤣

2 hours ago, adb968008 said:

True, but a little balance.

The Fell is imo a lot like Heljan 10+ years ago.
 

its good, better than railroad, not at the highest level.

 

it was also priced like that too… You could get Heljans Kestrel, Lion etc for around £70, when a Railroad 47 was £45 and a Bachmann 47 was £100.

 

£160 for the Fell is not the £220-230  are being asked to pay for equally niche models 10800, 26500, 18100, and it is certainly better than the £100 asked for a Railroad model now.

 

 

Not so sure about the 10+ years, I have a Kestral I bought on discount at £70 odd quid it had been out a few years it was a lot more when new, which is why I waited, that was before I retired in 2012 and I think Kestral was out on 2008/09….and looking at the quality of Kestral and the way it still runs it is nothing like the KR Fell (which I sent back).

Now I am not saying Heljan are perfect, far from it but when they do get it right it’s lovely.

29 minutes ago, Reorte said:

I find the strange obsession with technology even odder,

How odd……just how do you know how odd I find it? 🤣

4 minutes ago, spamcan61 said:

Having rattled over to the swamplands of Brockenhurst yesterday for the NFMRS open day, spotted a couple of rarities in the car park.

 

A booted Nova, these were pretty rare back in the 80s, nevermind in 2022. Shapewise reminds me of the Viva HA.

 

Round the corner was a somewhat more mainstream in 'classic' terms but still quite rare Renault 4.

At least they give you room to open the doors in car parks 😁

22 minutes ago, 96701 said:

Water itself is not a particularly good conductor, it is the impurities that conduct so it is entirely feasible that robust track circuits will still work.

Our science teacher did an experiment with a beaker of distilled water and a scalectrix motor running and lower it into the water, water is not a good conductor but it is a good noise suppressor. 😁

11 minutes ago, Ryde-on-time said:

On again on BBC2 at 2.30pm today, one of those films I never tire of watching!

 

The models look stunning

But what’s on before it…..School for Scoundrels…..brilliant B&W comedy film with the great late Terry Thomas.

14 hours ago, Hobby said:

 

Perhaps we should go back to horses as well and get rid of these new fangled cars... No harm in using new technology which is especially useful if you are no good at map reading - some people are, you know.

Some people are absolutely useless at map reading, usually because they cannot visualise or have spacial awareness problems, Mrs BB couldn’t unfold an OS map without ripping it let alone reading one, where as I have always loved maps since being a dot, even before a teenager I was in the ATC leading a unit across Dartmoor, and later navigating in road rallies.

But that doesn’t mean I need to read a paper map before going anywhere, thankfully I am savvy enough to know where we are going without pouring over a map before we leave, but I always have the map view on the sat nav open on the screen because it is useful for seeing the general layout of roads coming up and also extremely good if you suddenly come upon traffic problems you can instantly see if there are roads which can be used to get around jams or accidents, I rarely use it with guidance on but for giving local knowledge of roads never used before it’s excellent.

I find this strange fear of technology very odd, after all as Hobby says we may as well ride horses instead of these technological machines 😉

15 minutes ago, 30801 said:

 

Look at it like this. You see posts here with people not liking computers in cars, which I think is a bit silly. But here you have computers in cars containing layers of encryption and authentication that's just there to control your access to the thing you bought. Now if you 'own' a bunch of features you paid for and you need some work doing  you may need some mechanism to restore your options in the new hardware. You're tied to the dealer network.

It's why farmers in the US (& probably elsewhere) are running cracked Ukrainian firmware in their John Deere (other repressive tractor manufacturers are available) machinery so they can actually fix them. When you're up against the clock/weather to get things done and you have to wait a week for the official John Deere man to come with his offial laptop and bless things.

Which is why we use New Holland on the farm 😄

And BTW they come out the same day, or next time we want to spend £100K + we’ll go elsewhere!

5 minutes ago, Wickham Green too said:

... but quite simple to replace them with real straight wire ! 🙃

BTW that’s what I have done on two of my Heljan locos, one came with a handrail snapped in the middle.

4 minutes ago, Wickham Green too said:

... but quite simple to replace them with real straight wire ! 🙃

Should we have to?

Just now, BR traction instructor said:

I wouldn’t give a Satnav houseroom…never used one and have no intention of starting. The maps facility on our mobile phones is perfectly adequate…why pay twice?

 

BeRTIe

Your choice, I don’t want to buy a mobile phone big enough to read the maps on it, thank you, or risk being arrested by needing to touch it to change something while driving, with a Sat Nav you can, anyway I don’t think this conversation was actually about whether sat Nav are a personal choice or not.

1 minute ago, 30801 said:

 

I bet when when you buy that Merc a couple of owners in that $1200 PA doesn't reduce with time.

It's why I'm not a fan of battery leases.

No it most likely won’t, but then as a secondhand owner you should have been more careful with your choice on the market if you don’t want to pay after 😁

But what it does do is give the subsequent owners the choice, that’s got to be an advantage over not being able to upgrade it at all, like virtually every dealer will say if you wander in and say “I want heated seats please” sure Sir, that’ll be £3500 foe the seats and fitting, oh and by the way it’s a modification and the warranty is no longer valid.

21 minutes ago, Ian J. said:

Subscriptions for features on a car (any car, not just electric) sounds awfully close to 'renting' a car rather than owning it. I'd prefer to have ownership and not be paying ongoing subscriptions (as I do with media like music and films). It's an 'old-fashioned' view in modern times, but I stick by it, especially in these high inflation times when people suddenly have to cancel subscriptions so they can afford to heat their homes and put food on the table.

You can, when you buy your new car just specify the option, you have it for life.

2 hours ago, 30801 said:

 

It's really not. Traffic updates are a service. It's data someone needs to collect on a continual basis. It has an ongoing cost.

I get traffic updates all the time, I have never updated my system……are we really talking about map updates?

2 hours ago, 30801 said:

 

In the past the faster model had better bits in it...

 

What they might/could do then is make one with the nice bits on and if you want luxury and smoothness buy the “basic power” version, if you want a whizzy Tesla chaser pay the extra or buy it as a secondhand owner.

45 minutes ago, NCB said:

Nah! A GP7, box  car and caboose would get them started nicely.

Box car with a “ducking giraffe” 🤕

2 hours ago, andytrains said:

The cab handrails on these appear to be quite chunky. Wire would have been better, if they are plastic.

 

D12040 at Crewe.

It’s Heljan, they are plastic 😁

It’s just very difficult to get plastic handrails that stay straight like wire.

11 minutes ago, luke_stevens said:

 

It's a new Rivarossi item, anounced at start of 22. Rivarossi have done America prototypes for many years. Recently some have been available via the Hornby website.

 

Now all Hornby need to do is Big Boy in TT120...

 

Luke

I did say “or one from the many” 😄

1 hour ago, andytrains said:

The rear rod on 7120 seems a bit bent. Otherwise looks nice.

 

Just don’t like the plastic cab handrails Heljan use on a lot of stuff, it is always a bit bent.

3 hours ago, APOLLO said:

 

That is wrong on so many counts.

 

Brit15

Is it though?  If your a secondhand car buyer and you bought the model which the original owner didn’t buy the more powerful model, it gives the secondhand buyer the choice of a faster car if they want it, if they don’t all well and good.

On 25/11/2022 at 12:46, frobisher said:

 

Looks like the body tooling is also shared with many of these...

https://uk.Hornby.com/catalogue/train-sets-rolling-stock/playtrains?encoded=JctBCoAgEEDR27hrEUS5GbqC-wiZ0lQyjXFcePuitu_z54jJKWQPPlPaWldPcYTIlspyYTLImZr-RW9tXW7Kpu6sd2Tr3raCitiYMKQibnRWBwNSjsMkSiZ-H5CfQ_8A

Similar but not the same, no doubt the mechanics are the same I would guess, certainly the cardboard scenery is the same.

On 25/11/2022 at 12:10, Jeff Smith said:

https://www.hornbyhobbies.com/products/amtrak-acela-high-speed-electric-train-set-hr1000t

 

I've just been made aware that Hornby Hobbies USA is selling an HO model......

Presumably an Jouef model in the Hornby stable, or from one of many.

16 hours ago, jcredfer said:

 

I had a mate who had an Alpine and replaced it with a very nice dark blue Tiger.  I seem to remember that the Tiger had the chrome side lines and a V8 boot badge, but the Alpine didn't.  It also had an engine that required more rear axle tying down than the manufacturer provided!!

 

Julian

 

PS.  He still has it, with a few more modifications, too.

 

The lad that bought our first house had a Tiger and he had it in total teardown in the back bedroom, his Dad owned a very respected panel beaters/repairers locally and when the Tiger was finished it looked concours, only issue was during that time his wife divorced him.

Salutary tale there somewhere 😄

47 minutes ago, 57xx said:

 

That is a complete strawman. I honestly cannot remember the last time a meter reader came round. it must be at least 5-6 years now if not more. I have been submitting readings online all that time with no problem. It's far from a "logistical overhead".

We’ve had one of our meters read at least four times this year, we use so little gas in the annexe they don’t believe our readings so send a man around to read them, f*****g waste of their time and mine, as I have to go and unlock the gate for him to read it.

Is it a Tiger with the side badges, I think so…….not sure the Alpine had the rear wing badges.

Although it’s Rootes, not an expert.