MarkSG

It does look broken, yes. Just for reference, a useful way of seeing whether a website problem is their end or your end is to check it at https://downforeveryoneorjustme.com/

It would have been very seasonal. In winter, a much greater proportion of the traffic would be inbound coal, which would obviously have used open wagons, and the outbound traffic would be root veg, which, as you say, could be either vans or opens (probably dependent mostly on what happened to be available). But in summer, the outbound traffic would be soft fruit, which needed vans, while at the same time demand for coal would be lower so there would be less need for opens. This is one of the things that's both enjoyable and challenging about modelling a rural location. As well as setting the season with the use of appropriate scenery, you need to get the balance of traffic right as well. Most people prefer to model a rural location in summer or autumn (trees with leaves on are a lot easier to do than bare winter trees!), but that choice will also affect typical agricultural traffic levels which need to be considered in the train formations.

Ditto. And, given that my current project is based on the W&U, where the primary (in fact, pretty much the only) outbound traffic was fruit and veg, it is, unusually for the timescale, a location where the most common wagon type was vans. So I could do with a few more of them, especially since most of the wagons I've bought recently have been opens. Some Midland/LMS van types would be an excellent addition, given their ubiquity, but it would be nice to have some GER/LNER types as well.

Just out of interest, which is early and which is late when it comes to axleboxes and buffers? And is there an early/late distinction with the different types of roof, as well?

Next question - of the three in early BR condition, does anyone have any information about where they were most likely to have been seen?

They're certainly in danger of saturating me! I think, though, that Rapido have accurately identified a market sector that works for them. That is, primarily steam era prototypes that are neither so obvious they've already been done by other manufacturers nor so obscure that hardly anyone will want one. And that just happens to be the sector that I model. So a very large proportion of Rapido's announcements are of products which would suit my current project. I'm sure that there are DEMU modellers who feel the same about every announcement from Cavalex and Accurascale, for example (although Accurascale are now encroaching on my territory as well, which is worrying for my bank balance). Eventually, I suppose, that seam will start to run out, and maybe then Rapido will start producing models that I'm not interested in as they swing towards a different market sector. But in the meantime there are still a lot of steam era prototypes that haven't yet been done in RTR form. Some GER wagons and brake vans, for example, and maybe an E4.... 🙂

Aaaaagh! Yet another model that I can't say I've ever really wished for, but would nonetheless fit in very nicely on the layout! So far, I've already got, or pre-ordered, at least one of more than half the wagons announced by Rapido - that's a massively higher hit rate than any other manufacturer. At this rate, I'm going to spend all my savings on Rapido wagons. And that's before we even consider the locos. Ah well. At least I don't buy buses.

Any news on how close these are to delivery? Specifically, the Titfield variant? Now that the train pack itself is sitting in my Hattons trunk I was planning on emptying it this week, but given that the delivery date for the coaches is showing as between October and December - and we're now approaching the end of October - I did wonder if it might make sense to hold off a week or two to give the coach a chance to be in the same box when it arrives on my doorstep.

Got an email from Hattons today saying that they expect the Titfield train packs to arrive this week. So, I need to tidy up a bit so that I've got space to set up the test track roundy-roundy in my study. 🙂

Because left and right are relative to you, but up and down are relative to the ground. If you stand facing north with your arms outstretched, then your right hand points east. Turn around and face the other way, and your right hand is still your right hand, but it's now pointing west. Face east, and your left hand is now your north hand and your right hand is now your south hand. And so on. Left and right move with you whenever you move. Put a mirror in front of you when you are looking north, and your east hand in the mirror is still the east hand of your body. Turn around (and take the mirror with you), and your west hand in the mirror is still the west hand of your body. Up and down, though, don't move with you when you move. Stand up straight, and your head is at the top. Stand on your head (assuming you're capable of it!), and your feet are now at the top instead of your head. When you look in the mirror, whether standing upright or standing on your head, the top of your body is still top of the mirror and the bottom of your body at the bottom of the mirror, just as the east of your body is still the east and the west side of your body is still the west.

Something notable about the cartoon is that the cartoonist is clearly familiar enough with Hornby to know what their product codes look like. Including codes beginning TT. So maybe there's a closet modeller on the Graun's staff.

Yesterday's Guardian cartoon: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/ng-interactive/2023/oct/04/hs2-model-of-a-shrinking-railway-the-stephen-collins-cartoon

Here's a classic triple play from a layout at the Stafford show today (sorry, I didn't make a note of which one, so I can't name it - I'm sure someone else can tell us, though). A city street featuring a department store named Grace Bros, a tardis on the street, complete with flashing blue light (and yes, it is a tardis in this context, because the location and timespan is wrong for a working police box), and, finally, a cinema which, in a nice nod to much debated events here on the forum, is showing The Titfield Thunderbolt. Phone image, sorry - I didn't take my DSLR to the show today - so the quality is a bit poor, but I think you can see all you need to.

It's the next big thing, didn't you know? We've got DCC lighting and DCC sound, and now we're moving on to DCC weather!

Hope everyone attending today has a great time. I'll be heading to the show tomorrow morning. My daughter will be coming with me, so, as always, we'll be on the lookout for layouts featuring cats or pigeons!

A few years ago was working on a layout set in Stoke-on-Trent in the 1950s, with a working title based on a placename from Arnold Bennett's "Anna of the Five Towns". The reason for picking a fictional placename was so that I could have a fictional location in an otherwise realistic setting, with the usual modeller's licence to create a station in a location which, in reality, didn't have one. Unfortunately the baseboard was damaged beyond repair in a house move, and I cannibalised it for a different project rather than reconstruct it, so it never got finished. I do still have several of the buildings built or acquired for the layout, though (which survived the move due to being carefully packed away), including a bottle kiln scratchbuilt for me by David Wright, so if/when I get the garage converted to give me a bit of extra space I'll probably revisit it on a new baseboard.

Yes, but they were almost all in London (and some in Glasgow, but they were red). So a blue Mackenzie Trench police box anywhere else is an interloper, and hence a Tardis.

A Tardis is so common it's almost a cliche.

I have no idea how big the GEC hall was (and I have no idea where it was, either!). But the total available space at the Bingley Hall, including the annexes, is 8,170 sq m, compared with a total of 3,531 sq m in the combined Prestwood, Argyle and Sandylands Halls. So it's more than twice as big as the space previously available. That's from the venue hire section of the Stafford County Showground website. Which is, amusingly, still using a photo of the Stafford model railway show to illustrate the Prestwood, Argyle and Sandylands page. Can anyone identify the layout? https://www.staffscountyshowground.co.uk/hire-of-facilities/exhibition-halls/prestwood-argyle-sandylands/

Possibly a little off-topic, but what was the point of that? Under what circumstances would you ever want to apply the brakes on only one side? And if there aren't any such circumstances, all you're doing is unnecessarily doubling the amount of work needed to apply them on both sides.

You've got to run it at least once over the weekend. Preferably when I'm watching.

The Mainline J72 was the first loco I ever bought with my own money. It was, at the time, a huge advance on the motley collection of Triang and Hornby locos that I'd acquired as gifts up to that point. I've still got it, although it's a non-runner now - the bushes on the motors had a reputation for wearing out, and on about the third time I needed to replace one I lost a spring as well. But that was about the same time that I left home and my model collection had to be packed away into storage boxes at mum and dad's house, so by the time I eventually repossessed them all I'd moved on. Maybe one day I will get it running again, just for nostalgia, although I'm not sure now where I'd get the spares from. I do still have one item of rolling stock from that era which is still in use on the layout today, though. That's a Mainline 14t tank wagon in Royal Daylight livery. Even now, that's still a lovely model, despite being a bit generic, and it was still in Bachmann's catalogue until only a few years ago.

That's one of the ones I'm really looking forward to. I'm a fairly bog standard UK steam modeller myself, but I love seeing layouts of rarely modelled and exotic prototypes.

Looks interesting. This was first announced in 2020, with a target opening of 2021 (see RMweb passim), but presumably that fell by the wayside along with a lot of other Covid-affected projects. It's good to see that they've managed to get it back on track.

I entirely agree. My current layout is only a shunting plank, so I'm not going to need a full rake of them - a single pack of three is likely to be all I'll ever need. Given their real life numbers, that means I ought to buy a pack of 1/108s. But I actually prefer the 1/109s - the rivetted look is just more appealing! So a mixed pack of two 1/108s and one 1/109 would be ideal.