34theletterbetweenB&D

Wait and see on that front. I'd guess the flanged wheelset is being provided for 'showcase' purposes, and only useable for any modeller in the happy possession of 4' and up radii on the layout; that is if the past pacific releases I own are anything to go by. The recent MN has a fixed truck and unflanged wheelset in the photos I have seen: does it come with a flanged display wheelset included in the packaging for the owner to install?. It is no legend. There's film of the NYC Niagara (400 ton 4-8-4 and seven axle tender ensemble) with roller bearings everywhere including on the rods, being kept rolling - very slowly - by two men. What with physics being the same both sides of the Atlantic... the brakes had to be properly off, cylinder cocks open and track level. This is the secret of the iron road, very little energy is absorbed in rolling friction, starting from a hard and elastic tyre on a hard and elastic rail. (Elastic in the sense used in physics.)

Despite the trials reported, that's a fine looking result that has been achieved. It captures the solid and purposeful appearance of the class and shows off the late LMS lining scheme very well I think. Is articulation of the tender to apply weight to the loco rear, feasible as a solution to the lack of weight in the boiler and firebox?

Mr Stirling would probably agree. He wouldn't have a brake standard on the front of the 4-2-2s while he held office, they were not to run double headed! Whatever, the underside view reveals that with the front bogie wheel unclipped the pocket will easily enough be cut away. That will be my choice. If there is any future owner he or she may cement it back on! (I usually leave such small deleted parts in the bunker space so they stay with the model.)

The Mediterranean (and its subsidiary seas) is fruitful of examples, in that small coastal ports that got a railway service very frequently had the station colocated with the port, because that was where 'everything' worth mentioning of the town's economic activity was anyway, and there was only the narrow shelf of flat land on the coast suitable for a railway route so choice of site was severely restricted. And then of course there's Venice.

Nonetheless, the system is very simply, vote for those you believe will best serve the country in whatever policies they may introduce; whether mentioned in a manifesto, or subsequently introduced. It's a very crude and messy process, but to date all the evidence suggests the least worst one available for national governance.

Good move. ends all arguments about 'mandates' - one way or another - and as a bonus gives the Labour party an early 'get out of jail free' opportunity.

Lovely result, now I have caught up with this thread. That's the definitive 'rain dance' that has spurred Dapol into action do we think? The other easy alternative for OO types if a cheap Bachmann 24 or 25 mechanism can be obtained, is to fit that inside the Hornby mouldings. The top sides of the stripped clean main casting has to be attacked with your coarsest mill file to give it the necessary taper, but that done it practically builds itself.The Hornby body and underframe mouldings - with a little internal and fully concealed hacking for fit - clip around the casting, and the cosmetic bogie frames given locating holes to match the lugs on the Bachmann gear tower, just clip on. It really is that easy to upgrade to an all wheel drive and pick up.

All too true. Apart from this prototype's importance to UK express power development, and its outrageous beauty; not least of my interest in a purchase is seeing how Rapido get around the many 'inconveniences' that Mr Stirling's design visits on those required to produce a set track capable OO model. Having a representative of Rapido prepared to discuss their doings 'ices the cake' on this project.

Just considering the steam loco boiler, not least of the attributes of a well designed multitube, exhaust blast draughted, boiler is the ability to work with reasonable efficiency over the likely range of power output demanded: when placed in the hands of a crew who knew what to do. What's rarely mentioned in the peak output trial of the Princess Coronation is that when those two firemen put the coal on at the rate to produce 3,300 drawbar horsepower, the boiler was well outside the efficient operating range, coal consumption was about 60% higher per dbhphr. Useful 'stretch capability to have for a short period in normal operation if the fireman was strong enough! (The all time achievement is credited to a French chaffeur who in the trialling of a Chapelon design managed a firing rate of 180 lbs a minute for 20 minutes.) On the East Coast operation the A4s on the 400 mile runs were typically well overfilled, a 2' peak above the bunker top, generally reckoned to be worth somewhere between 11 and 12 tons of coal in total on the tender. In the winter with the demand for train heat, headwinds etc. there was an incident where an A4 had to come off at Htichin (roughly 30 miles short) as the bunker was empty. I believe the LMS managed a PC out of coal by Nuneaton, not sure if it was going North or South ;-). (For comparison the really fast operations on the other side of the Atlantic. The F7 'Hiawatha' on its 400 mile 6 hour schedule route had a 27 ton bunker - which was refilled half way along - and the Niagaras on the 1,000 mile 16 hour water level route had a 46 ton bunker, and were also refilled half way along! The train weights were much greater than in the UK, heavy cars and many more of them. Good footage to see what this looked lke on Youtube, search on 'NYC water level'.) Alternative explanation: the adhesion is sufficient, until it isn't. The little 4-6-0 didn't have sufficient force available to reach the adhesion limit, while all pacifics always very definitely do.

You mean this will be a RTR OO model where I won't have to fiddle around with carrying wheel springs to optimise performance? (In all fairness both Bach and Hornby have shown significant improvement of late in this matter.) Really interesting to see and read what has been achieved in the process of development of this model, thanks to those who made these recent posts. Mr Stirling's high stepper properly looking very sexy indeed.

The 8P pacifics in good condition and with a crew that knew how it was done, could produce outputs in the 2,000 to 2,500 hp range in regular service. That's why a special diesel design able to produce that much at the drawbar was required to enable fast schedules previously successfully worked by steam to be maintained on Eastern Region. The power production task required of the fireman was in truth always excessive on the really fast high power demand schedules. In the prewar period there were instances of the LMS and LNER pacifics burning off all their nominal nine tons of coal before the six or six and a half hour run was complete. The bursts of maximum power output required the fireman moving coal at a hundredweight a mile, and maintaining water level against the high demand from the engine: any pretence that he was also able to fully assist the driver in keeping a lookout for signals while under the cosh like that was just that, a pretence. Power is force multiplied by distance travelled per unit time. For any given power output, that means high force at low speed, much smaller force at high speed. Churchward's famous target for his express loco is an expression of this, two tons drawbar force at 70mph, equivalent 836 hp. The drawbar force at speed is much smaller than the tractive effort estimate at starting, which was circa 12 tons on Churchward's Star class. (And once more, the tractive effort estimate is no power indicator, it is a starting force estimate only.) Actually, one of the key features of the steam engine which made it ideal for mechanical power purposes in an unsophisticated engineering environment is that it can exert full torque at a dead stand indefinitely with no risk at all. Your electric motor in the same circumstances quickly requires a large blower or other cooling arrangements to prevent meltdown. For all its limitations, the steam engine has some characteristics that were key to getting a large scale mechanical power based civilisation properly underway.

Counter suggestion: Then again, it's getting crowded 'down South', with a fair number of competing recent releases, and several announcements in the pipeline. We've seen a retailer commission for a large and popular express class from that area dropped recently, and no-one wants that sort of thing repeated. The spending power isn't infinite, good though it may be. While there's a zillion prototypes without models from the Sheffield area northward, and much less competition to be anticipated. And there is some regional preference observable in purchasing choices, I am told. Lovely prototypes available from Cowlairs, Darlington and St Rollox, with not a hint of RTR models.

Certainly makes a very handsome model. This must be the first high standard RTR model of a clerestory roofed coach. Two in a decade even! Keep the faith, the NER's star had to rise sometime...

I thought this was the GWR design of dynamometer car, but as built elsewhere. Relivery opportunity?

As models get closer to replicating the prototype, small deviations which would pass unnoticed on a lesser model start to become very apparent. For my money, the glaring item which needs tackling amidst all the other refinements are coupler systems. Of the RTR autocoupler choices for HO and OO it's the Kadee (and clones) where that suits, and that's it.

It works remarkably well doesn't it? From the appearance of your pics, mine has the mechanism set slightly further back, so that neither front or centre wheel is perfectly aligned with the splasher, the positional error 'shared out' between the two. From all viewpoints except side elevation the eye passes over this. I did think about the full 'Iain Rice' treatment of sawing out the underboiler skirt and the splashers, in order to create light under the boiler and the splashers aligned with the (correct!) mechanism wheelbase. But the test assembly of the modded body which just push fits onto the mechanism with no screws required, resulted in victory being declared at that point. Life is too short to stuff mushrooms... Although I must put a piece of masking tape over the hole in the back of the cab, (quality job, spared no expense) that has daylight shining through it in an unexpected location.

He has some ulterior motive - he need only have offered £10.50...

And seen from another perspective, all hobby interests and childhood games have their rise and fall. Where now toy soldiers, Inaction man, Vegetable plot dolls and much else that crazed parents could once be seen beseiging toy stores for? The currently overwhelmingly dominant electronics software based games makers are going to be blown away forever by Froobaloola in 2021.

Except that Tolkien provides the required translation, and arrows are correctly loosed or shot. Sorry about that. Generally the production was creditably careful to exclude evidence of the coming age of men and their machines intruding on the landscape.

Why words survive or fade, and which will metamorphose in some way, it's a puzzle. Not least of my liking for the late PK Dick was his ability to credibly play with language in his science fiction, to create novel forms to describe the imagined future. An overdubbed 'loose' can fix that at least. The straight lines of mechanically clear cut forest above the plains of Rohan in the same movie savaged my eyes to far worse effect. But all this pales into insignificance beside the complete lack of a fourth film covering the scouring of The Shire. There it is made apparent that those adapting Tolkien's parable simply had not understood the message. 'Niwcliar' made me laugh when first I saw it. If you want to yokel it up, ane fule kno it's 'Niwcular'.

My own opinion is that the largest currently sustainable market is adult. Yes, time's conveyor does mean it is a foreseeably diminishing market. However it is still recruiting and at almost any age, although circa 50 years old and up would probably define most new entrants. Therefore it still has some future and the prizes go to the suppliers that best adapt to that. What to do for a children's market other than TTTE for the young, I haven't a clue! Small children often want to see Thomas on the layout, so I made one, with a hole where they can put the face they make out of plastidough. He knocks some wagons around, tows a couple of coaches which are A&C even though bearing no resemblance to what's in the books, and they are done. Last one, after twenty minutes asked to be read a story from a TTTE book, and she fell asleep over that. Didn't ask to see Thomas two weeks ago, but asked me to read her another TTTE story.

Indeed, and the loss to the world of such as Black, Hume and Smith (Adam) had they written in obscure dialect and thus not been widely appreciated doesn't bear thinking about. Burns would be a more widely appreciated poet had he been willing to stay closer to standard English.

Likewise, although I didn't understand until a little later in life that the women who spurned him after previously being so free with their favours, were of course working girls hired to grease the wheels on a deal. Then again Sam apparently never quite understood that...

There are always competing views on how best to realise the value in a business. At least those with the votes in this kind of contest actually have money on the table. Get it wrong and it's usually their own and other's money that they are responsible for, that's gone forever. If this succeeds, I too suspect a very rapid break up, to leave a profitable core business unemcumbered by 'distractions'.

What! The Stirling class F 4-4-0 and Stroudley 'Gladstone' 0-4-2's surely? The former the clear ancestor of Wainwright and Maunsell's very successful 4-4-0 development for the SECR and SR, and the Gladstone type as improbable as it was successful.