sjp23480

Has anyone seen one in the flesh and can confirm, or deny the froth?

Social media is a curse - my kids showed me Instagram recently and I have lost count of the hours I have lost just scrolling through a lot of squit (is that allowed?). I now recognise its not good for my mental health, its full of perfect people living perfect lives. The worst of it is that these people can earn a fortune producing this rubbish. I for one am going to do myself a favour and do more modelling, now what's happening in WWs!

Conferences I have attended (non railway related) usually offer a preferred room rate negotiated with a local chain, but you have to book and pay yourself and then recover the expenses later. You don't have to stay in that hotel, but can chose an alternative and the organisers will reimburse your expenses at a similar (usually slightly lower) rate.

@martink - thanks for the information. Sounds like this could be a really useful package, but I have around 35ft to cover - which probably rules it out - for now

@martink Do you have any indication of the maximum width of a backscene that can be created? Steve

Jeff, Great pictures. What I find interesting is that we can see the craters at all. As I understand it, as the moon orbits the Earth the same "side" of the moon faces the Earth all the time. At some time in the dim and distant, that side of the moon must have had a different aspect be hit by meteors. I also find the whole mechanics of eclipses interesting. The size of the moon and it's distance from the Earth are exactly the right size to obscure the sun. Fascinating stuff Steve

It will be interesting to see if the new 8F price point will have any impact on secondhand values on ebay?

Hi Jeff, I think I have guessed what you what you are up to! Are you building an observatory on top of one of the fells on Gill Head? 😊 Best wishes Steve

I had a similar experience - dropping from around 18 to 14st, but friends and relatives saidI looked ill! So eased off and now back up to about 16st and struggling with wardrobe choices - things don't fit, or if they do, they're a bit of a pinch. My wife and I do Slimming World - she goes to the meetings (I don't), which helps a bit but there are so many temptations thrown in my way. I work from home and the combination of the winter weather and the Christmas holidays has wrecked our regime, but we are slowly returning to normal, until our 22yr old daughter "boomeranged" after a trip to Australia and relentlessly complains there is no food in the house! I try to approach my weight as a lifestyle issue - much as you did when you started your journey. We have a weekly meal plan, have just got a new dog so we walk twice a day, we try to "eat out" as little as possible and I am trying to do more modelling work to keep from snacking! As I get older and my metabolism slows, I find it harder to lose the weight and need fewer calories. Old habits die hard, but as you know, with determination it can be done. Good luck, Steve

Finally, an article from the media that offers a balanced perspective in the wake of the news about Warley and Hattons: https://thecritic.co.uk/death-of-the-model-railway/

I think @Tony Wright gets it spot on. When he reviews modern RTR, his view is that it so good that few kit builders (even he) cannot match it and at 1/5th of the price of a professionally built equivalent. The Hornby Standard 2MT being the most recent example. As TW relates, he continues to build kits because it gives him pleasure and his kit built locos have the haulage capacity he needs for Little Bytham. Modern RTR is so good and still very reasonably priced, considering what you get for your money. This renders many kits redundant,unless you want a very specific prototype or/and you are in that select group that prefer to build your own. I also suspect others prefer not to risk ruining a pristine RTR model to detail or tweak it with extra details. I guess this is the same when it comes to weathering?

Will this be the last exhibition at the Angel Centre? https://www.kentonline.co.uk/tonbridge/news/council-told-to-demolish-failing-leisure-centre-298448/ Its always been super convenient with lots of parking and a short walk to Tonbridge station. Ironic that one of the sites being considered for a new leisure centre is on land currently used by the Tonbridge Model Engineering Society!

Building on my comments in the Hornby 2022 Black 5 new tooling thread on the very disappointing Hornby video presentations. What he said: How not to launch a product? | Hornby 2024 Range …: https://youtu.be/iTrtXKpc6l0

I never went to Warley, as I am in deepest darkest Kent. But still a sad day for the hobby. We owe a debt of gratitude to the members and trustees of WMRC for the Warley show, they have definitely done their bit for our hobby and no one can blame them for stepping back. For me, the last paragraph of the announcement is very telling. I attend 2-3 local exhibitions every year and I can count the number of "organisers" below 60 years old on one hand - I suspect this fate will befall more shows before too long and our hobby is not the only one suffering this way. The next generation (I include myself, although I am nearly 60), have too many other things to worry about - meeting the cost of living challenge, buying/maintaining a house, young (or not so young) families, aging parents and in laws to care for, increasingly demanding jobs with no work life balance (including website moderators by the sounds of it!), and other volunteering commitments (often expected of you by your employer to meet their CSR goals). All of which leaves little energy for hobbies and pastimes, other than binge watching box sets or social media immersion. I guess 2024 can only get better?

Do it live, but get some questions in advance, lift them from the Hornby site or have pre-prepared questions to feed the dialogue. Invest a little time in pre-production to give the session some structure and the Hornby team can prepare their answers and condense it to 30 minutes or less. If questions come in "on-air" then have the team field them live - with some excitement. It can still come across as natural/conversational - these guys are experts in their field and as we saw from "Hornby: a model world", they can speak quite naturally in front of the camera. This would allow their enthusiasm to shine through and keep the viewers interested. In other words: give me a reason to keep watching. Once the footage is complete, spend a little time in post production to make it more engaging - for example by adding graphics overlays (like a picture of the cover of the new catalogue) or make it more accessible with chapters to help navigate to the relevant/interesting parts of the footage. It would be interesting to see the analytics on the video, I wonder how many of the 3,800 viewers managed to make it past the first 5 minutes? I like what Hornby are trying to do, and my observations are offered constructively. Getting this right could be enormously beneficial for Hornby and the hobby as a whole.

I am sorry but this is a really poor production. I know it was a (presumably?) live Q&A session, but.......... 8.5 minutes of looking at a static screen followed by a monotone, slightly contrived dialogue for almost an hour? I didn't feel compelled or inspired to watch the video from start to finish. No graphics or visuals to break up the footage (that I could see), not even the new catalogue or any of the new products? No chapters to navigate to the relevant parts of the video? Surely Hornby can do better than this?

Thanks for all the workbench pictures, unfortunately my workbench doubles as my home office. So, all the modelling stuff is hidden under a mountain of papers, laptops(!), post-its and a diary. trouble is that all modelling has ground to halt (I was never that prodigious) because I can't be bothered to clear away the work stuff. I think I need to create separate spaces for work and my hobby. 🤔

No TT:120? Or will that be a separate announcement?

Given the prodigious work rate of some RMWebbers, I would love to test the theory and see pictures of their workspace: including @Tony Wright, @davefrk and @30368 amongst others.

Or did they get a tip off from Hattons that they were considering their long term future and there could be an opportunity? Oh the joys of idle speculation. 🙂

Dylan, What's the best way to get hold of that list? Steve

Interesting article - I think I need to tidy my workbench: https://hbr.org/2019/03/the-case-for-finally-cleaning-your-desk?

And there is a self checker here to assist as well https://www.gov.uk/check-additional-income-tax Interesting that if you follow this self checker, you can sell up to £6000 of personal possessions before HMRC will take an interest

£16.99 from Hornby: https://uk.Hornby.com/products/class-50-complete-drive-unit-x9232

Plus P&P, unless you are local to McTears