PMP

Maybe a more positive question might be which is the next to come? The shows you listed were two day shows, why shouldn’t we see excellent one day shows, and why shouldn’t they be smaller, or perhaps a different format. Simon Georges Heaton Lodge for example when it was mixed with a model engineering show at Harrogate was an interesting concept. As also when he mixed it with other layouts at Shepton Mallet. There’s opportunities for different formats which may come t the fore. I think since 2020 the hobby and many things in life have/are changing, specifically here how people interact within the hobby. My gut feeling is there will be a ‘National’ show in some physical rather than online format, within the next few years.

I always forget to include 0 😂 This example I think has seen a bit of action, runs well and pulls ok. Hope to get next steps underway in the next week as a few bits to come from Alan Gibson to give it that ‘lift’. I don’t anticipate mine running extensively at ‘high’ speeds so the top end hasn’t been a notable issue for me.

One of the things I try and do at any show is to give interested youngsters a go where practical, regardless of size of show, and obviously with guardian supervision. I have a small team of regular operators, and they too do the same thing with my layouts. You get a feeling for those that it’s worth offering the opportunity to from their and their guardian’s demeanour and behaviour. Whether this subsequently engages them to do something actively rather than passively I have no idea. But if you hand over the controls to something like this: Which clearly isn’t a Thomas type train set, it does seem to light a fire within them in the moment.

But he’s right, reading your list he hasn’t changed in the past fifteen years.

Oh dear. It’s presumably in the same place that you found it. You know, when you told us about an hour ago that you knew about them.

For me, 90 miles away. Return fuel for car £20-30 Day parking NEC £18 Ticket on the day £25 Burger and drink at venue £12? NB if I went by public transport the cost would like be higher and far more difficult to attend. So perhaps £80 for a day out. If I went to see Stevenage FC at home league one, (old money division 3) and took a seat in the stands, with slightly further to travel the cost is probably around £10 less. if using public transport the cost would be quite a bit higher. Warley was in my opinion reasonable value for money as an event, most of my modelling friends were of a similar opinion. As to attendee numbers my understanding is that they were usually around mid teens for the whole weekend. NB a FB post from a friend who’s at the motorsports show at NEC today. Door entry £38 for basic ticket, car parking NEC standard £18.

That’s not what you said though. You said there was little new blood in the fifteen years you’ve been away. There is, there’s plenty of it. You’ve not bothered to mention that Hornby have specifically said this is a year of catching up. 200 new products will be in their range this year including new tooling of at least one new locomotive, and their TT120 range. So that contradicts your comment and that’s information from Hornby themselves. Not to mention their excellent and enthusiastically welcomed Airfix products. Hornby are important, of that there is no doubt, but the hobby won’t die if they aren’t there.

You’ve not been looking very hard if you’ve not seen the large number of new entrants into the manufacturing, and social media side of the hobby.

Presumably one of the strengths of the excellent Warley team, was that one to one contact and knowing each other and external reliable resources and history made it happen. Tapping into a reliable volunteer workforce may be key, online contact makes hooking up ‘easy’, engaging them sufficiently to show up, much more challenging.

Excellent questions. What is certain is that deriding ALL social media influences, or wilfully not understanding them will undoubtedly turn people who use it away. It’s perhaps new thread material as to if we need clubs in the traditional format and if they’re the best vehicle to use to organise the exhibitions of the future, or what ‘we’ want as our National show format, if indeed we need one.

Ahh I lost my bet. I said ten minutes before the first one appeared.

Tik Tom? Good lord! what’s that?

This will set the chin wobblers and head nodders off. People like Francis Bourgeois, and social meejah influencers are going to be the areas where regrowth can be anticipated.

A difficult question to answer potentially, Though I have an physical environment theory. Are most of @jjb1970 a350 images taken at the same terminals in roughly the same parking stands? I.e. a regular trip between the same airports, and/or airports visited having the same general terminal parking NESW orientation. If so the the annual prevailing wind will have an impact. Eg if the prevailing wind is 70% westerly at both locations, and coincidentally the parking stands at those locations are north facing, 70% of the time the rudder would naturally free fall starboard side. Therefore there’s a 70% chance of every image reflecting that environmental effect if taken facing the nose of the airframe. I need to get out more🥸

Some rolling stock was built and/or allocated to specific traffics. The van shown wasn’t AFAIK a specific design for solely carrying flour, but to minimise cleaning, and to ensure a ready supply of rolling stock to meet production demands, the railway companies kept some stock allocated to specific routes and produce. Flour transported in the van would have primarily been in sacks. As industrial processes improved and increased productivity more specialised equipment was developed, such as hopper wagons.

The open wagon above is a coal wagon despite what’s written on the side. ‘Large’ factories often had their own coal wagons which were sent to collieries to run between the colliery and the factory bringing dedicated coal for the facility. You can see the route marking on the bottom left hand end. The writing and Logo was in effect advertising the factory or brand, not describing the contents of the wagon.

Thank you to the Warley team for many years of excellent shows personally having attended as an exhibitor, trade team member, and walk-in punter. The biggest loss of course will be felt by non visiting foamers regarding back packs, soap marketing gurus and the well regarded car park team.

The OO Bachmann BR Standard Class Five has been a consistent release since the early noughties. It was one of their first Blue Riband releases and one of those models that made us sit up and think that this is a good thing! Primarily it it is a fundamentally very good model, especially when you consider it was released something like twenty plus years ago, and the changes within the hobby since then. It’s core attributes are that is an accurate and well captured model. (They run pretty well too) The core dimensions are correct and the shape is correct, so why would I mess around with one? Well around 2010 two releases came out that had an incorrect mix of tender and locomotive, and the model here in the video is one of those examples. I should immediately say that Bachmann did recognise the issue and made correct locomotive bodies available for customers to swap over. There are undoubtedly a few originals kicking about, as per the subject of this makeover project. The weathering was exceptionally heavy on one of the releases and that too will be addressed, as well as a replacement of a few items either missing from this model, or improving those fitted. Cutting to the chase, for this release the wrong tender, a BR1G was supplied fitted to locomotives on these two models. These models should have been supplied with the BR1 tender fitted. In the video above the relatively easy back conversion to a BR1 from the BR1G is shown. The reason for modifying the tender is that I want a Central Wales line example and some of the first 50 locomotives regularly operated that route. The locomotive body and cab is correct for one of those first forty nine. You often hear or read mention of the cab being wrong, or the wrong shape, but it isn’t. All those years ago Bachmann got it right, and it still holds up well today, but with a little TLC it can look really special. That’s what I’m aiming for.

You have to take a pinch of salt with these media reports due to inaccurate reporting. There had been two previous incidents of a pressurisation warning light coming on. Not a depressurisation. The aircraft had been taken off the Hawaii routes. A sensible operations decision. If you have an aircraft with certain technical problems, you keep it closer to ‘home’, you don’t want an aircraft with a technical problem ‘overseas’, as recovery and rectification is far more difficult than if it’s on the same landmass. The flightcrew were very likely aware of the previous reports, both through reading the tech log on accepting the aircraft, and route restrictions placed on it by operations. Any sensible captain scan read the previous few days/flights tech log before signing for it. Passengers certainly wouldn’t be informed. If the aircraft is airworthy, it’s airworthy.

I think I started going around 2006 ish, I don’t ever recall seeing controls on the front. I bought Strove around 2009 from a contact via “Retford” and by that time I’d been going regularly for a couple of years. I might have some images of those early days, however Roy’s reluctance for pictures to be taken means there’s very few.

I’m possibly in part responsible for it being on Retford. Around 2010 I’d been doing some limited stuff with Pete W on Leamington, and he gave me a few reasonable sized off cuts to try in 4mm scale on Albion Yard. Simultaneously I was helping out on Pete Kirmond’s Blea Moor which also used teddy bear fur extensively. I’d used car spray paint and Tamiya spray acrylics on mine and scissors, and recall taking it up to Retford to show Roy J, whom at the time wanted to do the southern end around the flat crossing. At the time John Mcrea was looking at the large grass areas and trying different techniques. Around then the Retford mob visited Leamington to see progress and share ideas etc. John Mcrea either subsequently or simultaneously got into developing his teddy bear fur technique for Retford and demonstrated it on the EMGS stand frequently. I reworked some of the Albion Yard grass with Johns better techniques. Whilst a few of us helped with bits of the large grass areas of Retford, I think I’m correct in saying the core of it was John Mcrea’s work.

With scenery on Shelfie2 I used MDF trackbed and DAS modelling clay. Topography done with insulation foam landscape carved and then plaster bandage top coat wetted with PVA water mix. Ends up looking like...

This is a seven minute interview on Radio1. There’s nothing in this or any of his other mainstream media interviews, that makes me think he’d need, or in particular want, to have any ghostwriting done. Nothing indicates that he hasn’t the vocabulary to write the prose in the section I show on the blog, I’d suggest quite the opposite. And yep it would be interesting to see your thoughts on the audiobook.

I don’t disagree one bit Mike. The point I was picking up on was the suggestion that the passage shown was AI generated, or was filled with words to meet a word count. Anyone who knows anything about or has tried AI to generate a passage like that knows just how daft that suggestion is. Let alone the fact that the book was published October 22 when AI text generation was leagues behind its current abilities. The book has plenty of well written prose in the first person, describing how Luke (FB) gets to locations, interacts with people and how he feels about the whole enthusiast ‘thing’, (not just focusing on acoustics). The second element was that it was too whimsical. If you cut it back to its basics it’s like suggesting he should have written something like: Me and a mate went to watch some trains. We stood on a hill to get a good view and it was cloudy. The train came past with class 37xxx and 37xxx pulling it. They were loud and we watched them go past, enjoying ourselves taking pictures of them. Then we went home. I know which version is more likely to engage readers, regardless of whether they are enthusiasts or ‘normals’ .. 🙂

I think all you’re doing is showing your pre-conceived prejudices about the author.