John M Upton

This has been absolutely trashed:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/326137753985

But there is more, the seller has another one that he has deliberately broken up to part out at eyewatering prices, the prosecution enters the following into evidence, the box alone he wants just shy of seventy sheets for it!!

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/326137621703

This is weird, and more than a little disturbing.  I just got an offer on that hairy rusty thing but I am not and never have put that abomination on my watch list...

The feedback for hairy rust loco man makes for interesting reading...

...and whatever you do, do NOT use the AI description generator!!

All sounds very OTT to me.  I have tried acryllics and water based paints, they were quite frankly utter rubbish.

I am sticking with enamels to the end of my days (mind you, even they are not as good as they used to be) as I reckon any potential damage has been done by now and the constant consumption of biscuits and chocolate over the last forty plus years has probably done far more damage to be honest.

Too much H&S scare mongering going on.

Local shows always try and pay in cash (and correct change too if possible) although I see card payment now becoming more popular at shows.  Trouble is, if I pay cash to the club running the show, they get the lot, if I pay by card, they lose 75p on every transaction in fees and times that by the number of bodies coming though the door adds up to a significant reduction in income for what is for many the primary income source for the whole year.

Of course you could charge an extra charge for card payments, except I believe some silly sod in Whitehall has now banned that practice.

One issue I think is that there is an increasing amount of youngsters, logging on, bidding on things to ridiculous levels then assuming Mummy & Daddy will pick up the bill when they realise their pocket/dinner money will not cover the cost by a country mile.  The buyer then either starts to wriggle out of it when the Bank of Parents refuses to cough up or they just disappear and then resurface with a new user i.d.

Look at the Eastleigh works lot's sales of bits of Class 313 last year, parts bid up to eyewatering levels, I am told many were never paid for and they later gave up the sales, probably too much hassle.

If there were better parental controls on what youngsters were doing online (yes, I know, that particular horse bolted, came back and was sent to the proverbial glue factory long ago) then there would be less of these issues, as it is, I fear it will only increase.

Good evening from the Night Shift...

Dustbin for most of that lot I reckon.

1 hour ago, Hroth said:

 

Dad! Do you know the pianos on my foot?

 

"You hum it son, I'll play it...."

(Gawd, that shows my age...)

Well, supposedly the GN 387's in dealer stock white (yes, just change the fleet names for the third time!) are heading south at the end of the year when GN get the ex Stansted Express 379's which in turn is meant to send the errant GatEx red ones back to proper GatEx work.  I have to sign 387's by the end of the year I have been told.

6 hours ago, Ray M said:

Gatwick Express , Eastbourne.

To become a regular sight at Southampton from the beginning of June too.  They won't be actually going to Gatwick though....

10 hours ago, 298 said:

Athearn B&O observation coach? Looks more like a pile of spare parts from RTR and Ian Kirk? kits...

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/226069236587

 

Seems to be a common problem with UK based sellers and US HO scale stuff, particularly Athearn Blue Boxes.  Useful boxes, often used for storing bits in, but then when a junk dealer like this one clears the house, they often take what is printed on the end of the box as gospel and sell accordingly.  More often than not the contents of Athearn boxes and what is written on the end are of absolutely no relation whatsoever, this is an extreme case mind!!

52 minutes ago, griffgriff said:

… but they’re bloody loud. 

An empty barrel makes the most noise....

Yes, unfortunately such ancient bigoted attitudes still exist, rarer than they used to be thankfully but still bubbling beneath the surface.  Unfortunately in recent times we have seen a rise of right wing Daily Mail sector media churning up underlying hatred and getting all huffy puffy about "Johnny Foreigner" which sadly is starting to drag us back again to a less tolerant time of the past. What is worst is that certain political representatives are happy to nail their flag to the mast of these Daily Mail types purely in the interests of grabbing votes.

Just seen a modern tooling Farish Large Logo Class 37 go for the thick end of two hundred sheets plus postage.  They were available freely for ninety to a hundred and ten originally.

Seems to be some sort of insanity whenever one of those comes up, even a wrecked one the other day got nearly a hundred!

Just out of curiosity (and the way my mind works with potential new projects!) how long does a four car set measure please.

Run for the hills my wallet, I have had an idea.....

I am a subscriber to Classic Trains, absolutely fascinating read from cover to cover four times a year (a shame over the counter availability in the UK is so poor, hence my sub) and have managed to collect paper versions of most back issues with electronic ones filling the gaps right back to the first issue so I hope they don't mess about with it.

Model Railroader is (usually) available from WHSmiths in the UK when my local hopeless branch bother to stick it on the shelf that is and I have to say, it's not great.  I have a copy of the July 1974 MR on my desk at the moment, thick with pages, well written how to articles (I mainly bought it for a brilliant article on paint schemes on SP switchers) and larger pages, the current issue of MR (April 2024) is little more than a flimsy pamphlet.

Trains used to be worth a read but has descended down the same rabbit hole that Rail Enthusiasrt/Rail did in the UK, becoming little more than a thin bottom kissing trade magazine and if it went I would not rate it as a loss, thing is I suspect as has already been mentioned that Trains was the one mag the new owners actually wanted.

I do subscribe to Diesel Era and MRC though, different publisher and the difference in quality over MR is noticeable.

I read the new owners statement regarding the acquisition and it was typical PR indecipherable gibberish, fluff and with a generous sprinkling of entries on a male bovine excrement bingo card.

Just seen this:

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/firecrown-media-grows-again-with-addition-of-trains-astronomy

Kalmbach has sold off its railroad and astronomy publications to new owners.  Having seen the utter mess sectors of the UK print and online media are in after countless takeovers, mergers and sales, I have got a bad feeling about this.

Looking around for old magazines and came across this for just fifty of your pounds:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/175933990940 

Ironically you can pick up the actual complete set of magazines from that same year in a binder for thirty quid less, which is still too much!!

1 hour ago, G-BOAF said:

I strongly suspect that this model is derived from the Hattons CADs or however much further they got with their project. It looks identical to the Hattons CAD.

Of course it is identical, they are both of the same prototype!!!

The blue Gulf one looks decidedly bent!!!

The N scale announcements were a bit light!  So much so that no one has even bothered with a separate announcement in the Farish section!

Maybe next time....

Sorry to say it, but I do miss Traction as a separate mag.  Does the Traction section pull out as a separate part as I am more likely to keep the Traction part and recycle the rest down the line?  I could try it in WHSmiths but I might get very odd looks...

I too would like a BSO(T) so the announcement of a OO scale BSO (apparently with BSO(T) option) is very interesting news indeed.

For now my converted BCK masquerading as a BSO(T) will have to suffice.