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That's kind of what I was thinking, although my dilemma is I have unfinished projects and too many AC's finished for a layout that I doubt will ever be exhibited again, and they're all of the same modelling style - it's hard to explain, but most people in a club could identify who built which loco from the modellers individual style. Then along come the boys from Barwell with something of such fidelity that I can hardly turn one down, but decide to get one from an earlier period just in case it outshines all of my own withering efforts. I'm sure I can find eight vacuum and unfitted wagons to produce the most unlikeliest of inglenooks....

Ssshh, these manufacturers might realise there's more variation in these boring Roarers than demand for a simple model with a couple of variations could fill. I'd have thought there would be more demand for a single pan in BR blue with E numbers, air tanks and modified chokes than a pre-rebuilt one, but all the variations are easy to model and I'm sure will be covered in the future. Photos of locos with a single pan but no airtanks are rare, as I'm sure are the modellers who want locos in this specific condition.

I'm not quite sure what you mean, 'Chard....?

Damn it, I've just ordered one. I did fancy something a little different from the current fleet, so I've gone for the Electric Blue livery.

As they say, there's no such thing as bad publicity (plus the threat that anyone else who tries it will be slapped with a minimum £3k fine).

I'd want mine to sound like a Stuka Dive-Bomber.... ....or just it's natural quiet noise. If the motor car had been silent from the start, would it have been engineered to be audible, or just made do with a simple horn...? Perhaps some need to be reminded who the infallable one is in a person-car intereaction.

I've only just found Jim's comment. I've done an 81, two 85's, and the class 84 loadbank. I've enough bits to fill in the missing gaps but not enough time or inclination to do so. For the record, I'd use: 81- Triang body on Hornby 86 bogies 82- Triang body & bogies 83- Triang body on a Roco DB110 chassis 84- Hornby 86 body on Bachmann Commonwealth coach bogies 85- Hornby 86. Obviously these are from a time when a good diesel was regarded as a pancake powered RTR model with a Craftsman detailing kit, so I'd like to think in the decade since there are more advanced bits to use such as a Heljan Hymek or Bachmann Warship chassis.

They could be early DC kits, I'm sure they did a brass and whitemetal 83. Another alternative is to use Roco DB110 or 140 bogies & chassis, I have one tucked away for an 83 that I've yet to start....

Having checked with the Missus (who isn't a Jedward fan), the full comment was "they make Dappy look like Stephen Fry".

Is that the NMTB episode when the host points out that they might not be on the same intellectual level as Stephen Fry. "Who is Stephen Fry...?" they ask....

I was about to give a clue (the location was discussed at length on RMWeb recently), but it is indeed Cathiron.

OK then...:

Is it Norton Fitzwarren...?

Of course.

My turn...? Go on then, I didn't want to make it too hard, so the name of the station please:

Eastleigh...?

I think thats the model we've had for three and a half years, 100% reliability and has never lost it's memory as can happen when unplugged for a long time). The remote buttons and the way you label recordings could be better, but these are only minor niggles. We only use the DVD to record programmes we want to keep, so it sees sporadic use compared to the HDD bit.

My current avatar is an image of a sign on the Yakima Valley Trolley line in the US, and was probably taken in the mid 1970's. There was no fencing and the right of way was either through farmland or down the middle of the public highways There was obviously some kind of problem that required signs to be used, the threat being from arrest. My experience on trips is that despite well known tales of someone taking legal action against a restaurant because their coffee/apple pie filling was too hot, there is in fact the atitude that you can look after your own safety and a little common sense goes a long way, so walk on the line at your own risk without the railroad having to resort to using miles of pallisade fencing to stop you doing so. (But at least we don't get dozens of cars trying to pace a steam engine on a parallel road, as happens in the US...) As for a rogues gallery, I doubt it would work as there are similar ones for general stoats or well known celebrities, but that doesn't prevent trainspotters appearing incognito, instead of their usual apparel. I may even suggest there isn't and won't be the social stigma there for photters to remain the right side of the fence, if they know of a quiet location away from the crowds where they won't be bothered and can bag their precious shot.

I don't think there is any confusion, he has clearly strayed off a recognised footpath and his intention and motivation is clear. Surely one issue with trespass is if someone witnesses someone else doing it, they think its OK and put themselves in a riskier location, until you end up with an incident like the one seen on YouTube where the photter of Oliver Cromwell nearly gets taken out by a 170 on a foot crossing.

I know the area well but don't recognise him as a regular, but then again Cathiron seems to attract photters from all over. I had a similar experience at the same location with a member of the public waiting for Tornado, who also decided to stand right next to the up slow whilst his family waited, almost for the inevitable. Thankfully he decided to move after a Pendolino gave a particuarly long blast on the high tone, the driver having overtaken the steam engine further up the WCML and probably on the lookout for trespassers. Long gone are the days when tresspass was OK if you had a camera, and fences were generally post and wire. In the future, I believe the only solution lies with moves being less in the public domain (the railway really doesn't need local press reporting loco XXXXX will be passing through at a certain time), and enthusiasts setting a good example and ostracising those who misbehave. However, I'm not so sure reporting tresspass on this scale is a good idea, as there is only limited resourses to deal with such a problem.

I don't mind what could be considered as visually OK on the screen (such as the Mk1 stock in the Wartime film "Enigma"), or something that would be a clever spot for a movie buff if only the subject wasn't a train (like the Mk3 WCML coaches in East is East, supposedly set in 1971), what annoys be are the blatant continuity errors between scenes, and the presumption that it doesn't matter because the only people who'll complain are Trainspotters. One trick by the media is to use stock film or images for a news story, regardless of the operator. I'm sure if there was a recall of Vauxhall cars, Ford wouldn't be too happy if the story was illustrated with a photo of a Focus, so why should it be OK to use any old photo when it's a Train...?

The font doesn't look too bad, I'm wondering what it is and whether the numbers could be used...?

I can see why the Ford dealer would be trying to sell you a petrol, at lower mileages they're cheaper and some diesels take an age to warm the cabin up. The contract hire figures for cars with low depreciation would be interesting, especially if you're entering the deal with equity from a part ex. My employers are thinking they're trying to do me a favour by promoting a company car tax redemption scheme, the obvious downsides being its only over 2 years and limited to <120 kgs of something per something else, which means teeny diesels and moped powered superminis. A base Corsa D is £260 per month....

Just to prove NATO does have a sense of humour, they nicknamed the MiG MFI "Flatpack"... As for reverse engineering, I'd have liked to have seen what the US made of the Ekranoplan after finally working out what the wrongly put together oversized Airfix kits actually were.

Livio D. Porta..?