34theletterbetweenB&D

I think for anyone who once had to build kits or scratchbuild to get decently satisfying models for the layout, this is going to be the attitude. It's a rare production that cannot be significantly improved in some way with this understanding. I'll pass on the handrail stanchions mod though, good though it clearly is: unless the optician can fix my variable astigmatism.

All and only about maximum profitability. Make the investment in 'better OO track' rather than NG track systems and what happens? Customers will buy it to improve their layout, build a better one etc. but of course most of those purchases would have occurred from your existing ranges of OO track. So it will sell, but undermoines slaes volume on your previous investments: probably not garnering anything like the sales increase derived from: Introduction of NG track systems. Now we tap into the 'dreamer' market. 'No one' builds NG layouts, but I bet there's a lot been purchased on the basis of 'one day' and still sat on the shelf. And it doesn't' steal sales volume from OO. (NG enthusiasts don't be insulted. Just acknowledge that the volume of active NG modelling compared to OO is far far smaller than the gauge ratio.) So why now the move to better OO track? Just as haoppened with the NA code 83 product, effective competition is now present. There's a new kid on the block in the UK with the potential to eat Peco's lunch. I have long believed and posted here before to the effect that only the emergence of an effective competitor would get Peco to move on this, and am pleased to have been proved correct by events.

This is not possible within the present spacetime frame. But if there was truly no relative movement, which is what you are asking for, then I suspect Horsetan's suggestion is correct, there's no time. Clocks would stop, there's nothing moving, not mechanism parts, electrons, photons, nada. You cannot just switch off 'some movement' selectively. It all moves, or it all doesn't move.

Spot on. Here's the proposition for Hornby. Knock out more from long amortised tooling at an attractive retail price, and mop up 80% or better of the likely purchasers for a pre-Hawksworth autocoach. That's as near risk free as it comes, and in their present financial position they need that sort of cash cow product. I'd say Hornby are the last place to look for a move on a new version. Which is not the same as impractical for another manufacturer to take up. It's only the RTR manufacturers and the large retailers that have solid data, and they ain't much for sharing that information, at least not directly. But lookit, manufacturers and commissioning retailers are very definitely being influenced by the wishlist poll in their product introductions. So we must assume that the sales of the wishlisted items have generally been sufficient until the present - and possibly correlated to the wishlist expressions of interest. (I would like to know, and maybe if I live long enough a Simon Kohler or Graham Hubbard type figure- since long retired from the fray - might just publish 'their story' with some of this information. Graham Hubbard got close to it in the interview in Model Rail circa 2007, and was free and frank with some home truths, so he'd be my pick for dishing the dirt.) We may have one data point in the public domain. Unless my memory fails me, the Stirling Single is coming in a run of 2000, in the large tender option only: the small tender option having gained insuifficient orders, which I believe may have been less than 350. How did this item stand in the wishlistery stakes?

Interesting. My example was parallel, and had to be dropped half a millimetre front and rear to eliminate the visible step. Think we may be looking at a stack of parts and assembly variances which means what needs doing will vary. I have seen one new and unmodified example with the appearance the designer intended, no step visible at the join. I had to make a replacement shorter drawbar to get loco and tender separation to scale, as the supplied drawbar fouled the wiring significantly if the closer coupling distance was used. Well worthwhile, because Hornby's representation of the timber built cab floor extension (so characteristic of Stratford works) is very well done indeed.

That's useful to know. As you may gather from my post #1423, none of our present band of manufacturers are consistently up to the mark in what they supply in loco to tender linkage and fall plate or cab floor extension arrangements, although Bachmann are easily doing best. (Drawbar correctly positioned in the drag boxes, adjustable slide on tender allowing scale spacing, freely hinging fall plate: recent introductions like the C1 and J11 have these features executed perfectly.) It looks to me that Oxford have cribbed from Horrnby's practise, which is not quite as refined, although way better than what they were doing ten years ago...

The full brake (BG) types I rode home in from KX in the wee small hours sitting on the newspapers were lit, but not that brightly! Don't forget the fug of baccy smoke, all railway staff seemingly smoked. The 'old railway', where service to the passenger with a ticket but no passenger train available for a while yet could still be left to the train guard's discretion...

Contra: circa 800 wagons, all fitted with Bach miniature tension lock. RTR product from H-D and Triang circa 1960 and every manufacturer since with something useful to offer, kit and scratchbuilds various. There's no difficulty mounting this coupler at all, other than a few specially constructed vehicles such as Lowmacs where some ingenuity is required. Nor has any RTR OO manufacturer looked at a dedicated OO coupler mounting system and matching auto coupler design(s) which puts the coupler where it should be, through the headstock, and is acceptably close in appearance to the correct prototype coupler: save one. Step forward Bachmann, who have provided knuckle coupled modern wagons, with their Kadee clone knuckle coupler body mounted in the headstock. It's still somewhat of a kludge in that the coupler used remains the HO design, and so the magnetic dropper is out of position for magnetic actuation. But a slight DIY straightening of the dropper puts that right, and full autocoupler functionality is available. I rate these the best RTR OO vehicles ever made, simply on the basis that they are supplied with a coupler both in the right location, and that actually looks acceptably close to prototype.

And then the 'full on' technique: separate the boiler from the cast footplate, unscrew and remove the cast ballast inside the boiler and fill the resulting void with solid lead to whatever is the required weight for traction. An advantage of removal of the cast ballast is that the upweighted loco will be balanced in the centre of the coupled wheelbase which is optimal for traction. It is a 7F rated loco, so on my ballasting system it is made up to 50g less than 8F classes (bearing on the driven wheelbase), 400g rather than 450g. But if looking to max it out and not concerned for centre of balance I should think an all up weight of 600g is possible.

In that case I commend to you '100 masterpieces in colour' pub Hamlyn ISBN 086136 6921 as a very approachable outline of development of Western painting. There may be better titles now (this was first published 1972) but it gave me a very effective start.

But Kevin, you know the answer. As with any specialised subject there is endless analysis - not by any means unanimous! - available in document form on library shelves and online. All it needs is enough interest to go and read through it for the next ten years. Alternatively you can just go look and form your own impressions. One view of the portrait of Sir Thomas Gresham (National Portrait Gallery collection) told me all I needed to know: 'Do not fucking mess with me' would be my full colloquial expression of the impression conveyed. A very serious man indeed.

So long as Bach's retailers can shift the new ones, the s/h activity doesn't matter. With only the very dated, mechanically flaky, (and few produced at that) Trix A2 as a RTR alternative, Bachmann are shooting at an open goal in offering a model of the most attractive of all the post WWII (just my opinion) constructed UK pacifics. How many of the 15 have they offered now? Without checking up my recollection is 60525/8/9/32/3/4/6/7, total of 8 of the class: and so roughly a release per year averaged out since introduction. Bet they are saving the ultra funky names of the 60538/9 pair; 'Bronzino' and 'Velocity' until last...

Someone should only show a current TOC with high density services the way old tech really packed the walking freight into a given train length...

Which design of tension lock coupling? Even the very similar looking miniature tension locks from the current manufacturers are all to different designs. I established by test that the path to reliability was to use a single manufacturer's design. Mix them and the slightly different hook lengths, hook profile and latching detail on the fixed bar, resulted in tangles, poor coupling, random uncouples. If it's a mix of the large, medium and small versions in all their variations, that's a formula for hell on wheels.

Quite true, because that's the nature of undetectable abuse. For me at least, the clear evidence that the sport as a whole condoned the now acknowledged abuses has left it permanently tainted. The reputation that has taken many years to earn, lost by proven conspiracy. You can repair the broken china plate, but the crack will always be there. It's over for me...

Yup, it's proven the worst of all tested options for national government, except for all those others. People en masse are 'stupid' everywhere in the world: thus giving them the least possible power as a group is always the best plan. 'Republican Party Reptile' by PJ O'Rourke sums it up so well. I would be a US citizen by now, had I not been married to a lady who wished to remain in the UK for family reasons, when the opportunity arose. Had I naturalised over there I would have held my nose and voted for Mussolini-lite rather than Eva Peron too. I had an excellent discussion last week with a US cit wearing a 'Not my Pres.' Tshirt. Did he think that his parents generation living in the McCarthy era - there are significant parallels - had gained nothing from this experience? The current Trumpery event will I hope re-energise 'government by the consent of a free people' among this generation of the USA's voters.

That's the part of the original question I failed to answer: the Bach 57XX has fiddle free NEM pockets: pull out tension lock, insert Kadee #19 for 24" minimum radius, #20 for set track radii. Bob on gauge height on all the ones I have tinkered with.

https://www.lner.info/locos/N/n5.php

I saw on the photographs up thread that the drawbar looked to have two distance settings, in the style that Hornby currently employ. Have you tried the closer setting to see if that keeps the fallplate permanently on the cab step so it doesn't drop into the gap? It might be worth saying that Bachmann and Hornby with a very significantly larger number of tender locos in their ranges on which to 'learn how' have made similar recent bloopers. The Bach C class, and Midland 3F 0-6-0s ( first releases no idea if corrected since), could not be set close enough for the fall plates to bridge the loco to tender gap, and these 'fell in' as a result. On Hornby releases like the J15 and K1, attempts to use the closer drawbar setting were not possible as supplied because the new position of the drawbar fouled the wiring bundle. On this basis I would suggest that Oxford's relatively inexperienced design team isn't performing significantly worse than the competition. None of which alters your decision either way of course.

I was brought up on road cycle racing as the athletic sport above all others (continental European family) and love the spectacle. But I don't believe the sport is clean, which knocks the heart out of it for me. (Reason: the competitors haven't slowed up any, so either all previous illegal medico-pharma technique that is now detectable was ineffective - or - currently undetectable abuses are occurring to give the performance advantage. The best solution by far is to make it open: legally use whatever dope or technique you like that is openly declared on your entry form.)

I detect a subtle pun: the name is surely 'Carillino', a fairground 'Roundabout' and the GWR's wayward early route was satirised by a pun on its initials as 'The Great Way Round'. QED.

The French are permanently politically confused by the legacy of Napoleon. That the ouster of a totalitarian regime of notable waywardness and cruelty, was followed after suitably revolutionary due process by the inception of a totalitarian regime of notable waywardness and cruelty, from which they had to sprung out of jail by outsiders, still rankles. CdG never got his head around it, just for a start. Whatever the formal history may show, sadly chattel slavery still exists in every continent you may wish to name, other than Antarctica. My wife thinks it interesting that chattel slavery was ended by debate in the British Empire, while generations later it required fairly aggressive protest to win for the UK's women the democratic franchise on an equal basis with men, with the gradual consequence that British women ceased to be effectively the property of the men of their family. She's made it her personal mission to beat up every teenage female she knows to exercise their hard won franchise on every available occasion!

What's new? William Hartnell was a complete old woman.

The wonkiness at least is correctable with patience. Usual acknowledgement that 'we shouldn't have to', but with my practical 'cheap and dirty' hat on it is an easier choice by far than building a kit for those like me wanting a loco to run on the layout pulling trains, and since it has to come apart anyway to get enough weight in for the tractive mightiness.... It is no secret at all that annual staff turnover in assembly work runs at circa 30% in China. (That would have been enough to get me to quit from assembly management had we had that in the UK: 7-8% annual churn was hard enough to cope with, those young women on electronics assembly, they would fall pregnant!)

You have to suspect an LMS group loco for the next steam introduction. Something characterful and neglected from up North that might just: break open new modelling territory; be received gladly by folk long starved of RTR. Part of the opening pitch was 'a complete range' not just cherry picking the hot 'want' of the moment: logically traction for the mk3s will appear at some time or other. My own wish would be for HST power cars and the mk3 trailers, available in matching full formation sets. It was possible for the Blue Pullman, (and I still feel that was a lousy investment for Bachmann, compared to the huge livery and formation choice of the probable near half century service the IC125 offers; and it still has liveries unknown to come...).