Ian J.

Sorry, but couldn't resist with the typo...

The picture of the underside of these coaches on Graham's site (https://southern-railway.com/2022/10/06/Bachmann-bulleid-coaches-are-arriving-soon-a-review/ part way down the page) seem to show the couplings mounted with a close coupling mechanism.

I've just watched the LV@KC game, and I think there's an important difference in the sacks. Jarrett didn't land on top of Brady, but rolled under him first, then in the roll over didn't put any weight on Brady at all. The KC rusher ran into Carr head on and landed on top of him, with only a feeble attempt with his left arm to stabilize himself. Other than that, his full weight landed on Carr. To me, Jarrett's sack was one of the safest I've ever seen.

Are the marker lights on the flush end too big as well, perhaps?

The consumers of our hobby are changing. 30+ years ago, manufacturers were still supplying to teenagers and upwards as hobbies were still relatively limited and modelling, railways particularly, were seen as a general hobby. Now, many people, teenagers/20s/30s/40s, have many other interests they can and do follow, plus social media is a time consuming activity that many of those people are connected with. Hobbies like model railways are becoming a specialist hobby of a much smaller part of the population, one that at its older end can only dwindle. Therefore the idea of continuous production of a given model is very difficult, and probably reserved for a few very specific items (Flying Scotsman, etc). The rest, unfortunately, has to be by limited runs (but hopefully not limited editions). The only hope then for getting a new example of a limited run of a model that has run out, is for additional runs. But that's very much dependent on demand, storage space waiting for sales (in a world dedicated to 'JIT'), and whether other models are in development that will take up the production space.

I watched the NYG vs GB on NFL Game Pass. Shame GB couldn't get the win. In the ATL game against TB, we had a very questionable roughing passer call that pretty much destroyed our comeback that might have coat us the game. I'm not at all happy about that 🤬

Moist?

Isn't that IP67...? I'd like to see one or more mid-80s versions of a 31/4, plain blue with plated over headcodes, suitable for Cardiff/Bristol - Pompey services when a 33/0 isn't available. Oh, while I'm on... how about a 33/0...? 😉

I suppose there are all sorts of people in life, and that includes those who find it difficult to accept they might be wrong about something. I am personally a 'mea culpa' kind of guy. I accept when I make an error and do my best to correct it, rather than bluster and attempt to save face. I think the AS folk might be similar to me, but I don't know the about the people who run Rapido, Revolution or Cavalex. However, KR's folk are less able to do so, something they share with Heljan and Dapol. Bachmann and Hornby I'm not able to comment on.

A little experiment tonight: I took one of the 'spare' turnouts and removed the 'clips' holding in the check rail on the non-stock rail side. Then I filed away some of the foot of the rail that faces the stock rail. This was done very awkwardly using fingers and tweezers to hold the check rail against a piece of scrap ply. The results weren't entirely clean, but good enough to know that if I could more reliably reduce the width of the foot on that side of the check rail and get it 'pointed' again so if fits against the double-sided clips that also hold the stock rail in place, then the gap would be reduced by the needed amount to get the gap to about 1mm. There is enough plastic in the base that Peco put in for the check rail to glue the check rail back into place, probably using Araldite or similar. Any constructive advice on how to accurately reduce the width of the foot of the check rail on the stock rail side and 'reprofile' it would be gratefully received. I have around 60 of these little blighters to do and I want to be able to do the work cleanly and accurately.

Silly thought: could two models be 'split' down the middle, and the resultant four halves mixed correctly to produce two 'accurate' Fells for different time periods?

I'm a relative newcomer to the game, having only started watching it in late 2014, but from what I can see it's relatively difficult to improvise when so much is dependent on pre-trained moves for players, and systems based on those in order to try and 'fool' the opposing team into making the wrong decision about what you're set up to do. What I can see though is that players who can improvise successfully after the snap when things start to evolve rapidly, tend to do better, both visibly on the field, and in their stats.

I beg to differ on either of the OO Heljan 33/0s. Both have deficiencies, and I'd very much like to see someone like Accurascale, Cavalex, Rapido, Revolution, etc, do one to a really good, accurate quality. The Heljan 33/1s and 33/2s are more or less OK though. I'd be happy to keep my existing ones of those, where I'd happily replace the sole 2nd generation 33/0 I only got recently.

WLTP isn't reflective of genuine real world conditions, despite being better than the previous efficiency tests. So take about 30% off those figures for the Teslas to get closer to what you're actually likely to get.

I think my point was that Vick could have been a long term mobile QB for the Falcons, but due to the conviction for the dog fighting (perhaps along with other issues as you state), he 'threw' that opportunity away, and instead had a relatively lacklustre career afterwards compared to what it could have been.

NMRA standards are pretty good at making sure everything runs pretty well. Even Peco have worked with them for their code 83 trackwork, as I have recently (to my chagrin) found out (check rail gaps). UK outline OO just doesn't have a proper standard that is fully agreed upon and all in the industry work to, so we end up with sloppy running that can only be corrected with a fair bit of time and patience. The advantage of such effort though is you can choose how far to apply your effort and get the standard you want (presuming you're not interested in running your stock on others' layouts or their stock on yours).

I try to always keep that in mind as a first thought approach. However, in the case of any situation where something is being touted as 'OK' to the general populace, and is in fact simply a lie because it truly is not 'OK' and there is at least some degree of attempt to cover up something, then I do believe it should be called out.

I'm stuck in that state with front of cab footsteps on these Bachmann 47s. For all that they're not that bad from normal viewing distances, I can't stop seeing how poor and unprototypical they look in photos on here, and remembering that Lima did a better representation purely from a moulded on version on their tooling thirty something years ago.

Vick was finished by his own stupidity in thinking that dog fighting was acceptable. Who knows how long he might have lasted had that not happened. Re ATL QBs, Matt Ryan was never the mobile quarterback though, and he's still feeling those effects in Indy where they haven't been able to protect him for some reason. So far, Mariota is looking reasonable for mobility, but he keeps lunging forwards when finishing scrambles which could lead to injury as it makes him a viable tackling target. Our back up, the rookie Desmond Ridder, hasn't seen any action this regular season yet.

I hope that Rapido may do the 14xx, as part of filling out the Titfield Thunderbolt items. However, I've no idea if that is even in their thoughts, let alone actually likely to happen.

Something I'm trying to rectify with my modelling. However, all the things that are needed to be done to get good quality running that looks realistic are extensive, and not for the faint hearted. Bear in mind that the first of these is accepting that 2nd radius curves are out, and settling on a minimum of approx 36 inch or more radius throughout a layout, something that many will not accept as they want to cram as much in on their layouts as possible.

My first thoughts for a modification are to try and add some 'fill' to the side of the check rail to narrow the gap, as per some suggestions. To that end, I've measured the rail, and it looks like I'll need a 1.2mm wide / 0.175mm thick strip of some kind of metal that will solder to nickel silver to 'fill' the gap of the web related to the head. Then I need something similar, but 1.75mm wide and 0.2mm thick, to sit on the outside of that and be the actual padding to fill the gap between check rail head and stock rail head. I did wonder about using thin plasticard strip, but I'm not sure it would be available that thin, and also I'm not sure how well it would glue to the nickel silver check rail, and also hold shape with the flared ends.

That reminds me of 'Friday Night Lights'... As for taking the helmets off, that's been an idea for a while. Back to the leather bonnets then...? 😉

Re Class 56s, don't forget that Cavalex have theirs coming out soon-ish, and it's looking to be a quite significant upgrade in terms of appearance and features from the Hornby versions.

The turnouts have all already been purchased, and that was because I am not interested in handbuilding them for the fiddleyard. I've never been happy with the idea of even narrower gauge track for scenic areas, so 00SF has always been out of the question. I will have to do some experimenting on the best solution. I have a couple of spare Code 83 curved turnouts due to a minor change in turnouts I eventually settled on, so I will see how difficult each idea for narrowing the gap is likely to be then make a decision. Right now though I have other things to concern me so that slows things down, and it could be a few weeks before I have an answer.