John M Upton

Pre ordering does seem to be on the wane I think. You used to see posts from people on the day of Hornby or Bachmann announcements proudly proclaiming they have just immediately preordered thousands of pounds worth of stuff in a heartbeat which I could never understand. Still happens occasionally in N scale though where there are those who will immediately preorder pretty much the entire production run (it seems!) of Mk 1 or Mk 2 TSO's within milliseconds of the announcement going live.

Gostude has poshed up his name, now he is the very pretentious sounding "GOSTUDE ANTIQUE TOY SHOP" in big shouty block capitals! I could think of a few other more fitting names...

I have noticed from Social Media feeds that "everyone" thought the first special on Saturday night was brilliant. Either I am in a minority of one or was watching a completely different episode as, the welcome return of David Tennant aside and a couple of good moments, I thought it was mediocre at best and poor at worst, especially the completely unnecessary shoehorning in of the tedious binary/non-binary/pronoun nonsense.

Another annoyance, lazy listers. The prosecution enters the following into evidence: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/305287630796 Just a picture of the ends of the boxes, no contents and a few more listings all the same. Athearn Blue Box models combined with lack of UK based seller knowledge of US outline stock usually means contents can be easily nothing like what is described on the box. Do I take a lucky dip punt?

The guy wrecking perfectly useable models into "realistic scrapyard condition" has now turned his attention to US HO scale items (never seen a Santa Fe GP40 in the presence of a 1950's Austin van before, especially as I suspect in real life, huge gap between called the Atlantic ocean notwithstanding, the loco was built long after the van was scrapped!) and amongst the horrors is this sad specimen: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/305265332507 Is it my imagination or has the coal load been crudely hacksawed out?

I did the PAT testing course twenty or more years ago. The instructor had his Chamber of Horrors, an eye opening collection of dodgy and downright dangerous electrical appliances he had collected over the years. I found a few examples of my own over the subsequent years, best one being a standard lamp the Head of Music had smuggled in to illuminate her piano during the forthcoming Christmas concert. This death trap had a plug which was missing two screws and held together with sellotape (yellowed with age, naturally, the cord had several chewed marks with live exposed inner copper wire and to cap it all, not only was the metal frame live, due to the base being lost, she had stuck it in a metal bucket of wet sand!!! The light bulb was the only part of it that was safe, and I broke it...

Looks good, hopefully the light green visible in the window openings will be attended to before production? Worthy of note to those intending renumbering, in addition to the variations in the end dark green crescent on some (see previous posts), the red markings on the middle coach door you can see illustrated indicating the buffet car disabled area were only added in about 2012 or 2013, a couple of years after they were introduced down here.

"It’s extremely heavy so it’s much better to collect if you can" I suggest collection by the local council refuse team and should never be allowed within a mile of an electrical current.

Apparently a Southern liveried one has been sighted at Warley. Anyone get any pictures perchance please? I am at the wrong end of the country!

That is so obviously one of Ebay's AI created descriptions, the 1980's Estate Agent bull!%£# bingo sales patter and generally meaningless waffle are a dead giveaway. Another product of Ebay's Department of Stupid Ideas.

To be honest, lump together pretty much any combination of GP, SD or SW hoods and cabs to taste and the chances are, there is or was a prototype for it somewhere, either official manufacture or home grown special.

Only from Revolution, in this instance two 313's and a 59. Have very rarely preordered a Farish model but it is unusual (if a Southern 319 turned up, it would probably be a preorder job) but having been well and truly stung by Dapol's abysmally ballsed up InterCity livery Mk3a Sleeper last year, I won't hand over a penny for any of their output until I have physically inspected production examples first.

A sure sign of a dropshipper is when you purchase a new item, can be anything, even a dish cloth and it turns up in an Amazon box which is when you discover you could have paid a few quid less for it if you had gone to Amazon directly which is what the dropshipper did.

The TTS suffix has automatically triggered Hattons sound fitted tax which immediately bumps the price up, despite the fact it isn't even there!!!

Most TOC's have Sundays not as part of the working week but still rostered and paid as overtime. Any change to working times and practices will have to be approved by Trade Unions who are always very anti change. No chance....

Not model railway related but really? For a grotty book that isn't actually that good? https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/166435057076?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=_Gp1mGMrTyq&sssrc=4429486&ssuid=NiGtNyCuSh2&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

3S81 - 05:47 Totton Yard to Totton Yard via the World passing northbound through Hilsea this lunchtime, thankfully drowning out the colourful local on the opposite platform who was loudly issuing explicitly detailed death threats down his mobile phone to some lucky caller and the rest of his family and close associates!!!

Had a trawl through their discounted preowned HO selection and most of it seemed to be what my old farming dad would have called the sweepings off the barn/warehouse floor that nobody wants. Some of that tat has been there for months, in fact I am pretty sure some of it was discounted in the last preowned sale they did!!

For the wander controller, blue and yellow are the power supply from the transformer into the unit, the red and black wires are the power supply from the controller to the track. You can hardwire direct without a plug if you so wish although obviously a plug/socket setup would be easier.

The 1980's into the 1990's were a bit of a slump for RTR in the UK simply because we were decades behind many other markets. US outline models had flywheel drive can motors for many years that even now still work better than UK RTR made subsequently. Lima did come out with some nice if basic models, the 47 and 73 were the better ones and provided fertile ground for people to detail up uysing Craftsman Detailing Kits, Hurst parts, Flushglaze windows and all finished off with a coat of Railmatch (Notable that Craftsman Detailing Kits are long extinct, Hurst seems to have disappeared and I have not seen new packs of Flushglaze windows for years now). Whilst in the US you could buy a cheap reliable shunter/switcher that not only looked like what it was supposed to but ran well, Hornby and Lima were still producing comedy 08's which were tired tooling and capable of a minimum speed of about a hundred miles an hour, no wonder everyone grabbed a Bachmann 08 when they first appeared!! Even more embarrassing is that until relatively recently, Hornby were still churning out the old Triang era 08 with its outside motion and moulded paint guide lines, just charging a ridiculous amount for them!! Social Media is playing a big part in modelling these days, it's all posts about 'Oooh, nice shiny new model, I must post a unboxing video' which three weeks later is followed by them promptly selling it again when their pocket money has run out and the next big shiny new model is coming but they must have it so they can make another unboxing video for their legions of brain dead sheep 'followers'. Real modellers just get on with it, whether it being buying second hand and repainting/detailing old models or just building and running what they want to build. There is an elite clique at the moment that just buys all the new stuff for show, all mouth and trousers as an old friend of mines Mum used to say, and then gets all upset when Bachmann haven't announced a complete retool of a Class 37 for at least six weeks, these being the ones who see anything older than eighteen months as old and outdated tooling - they never experienced the 1980's into the 1990's when old tooling was all we had and we had to make do!!

You can bet the various Proto 2000 locos will all have cracked gears, and that dealers will mop up a lot of this and have it on ebay at a 100% mark up within twenty four hours.

Absolutely nothing whatsoever!! Mind you, I was pointing out plot holes in the whole Christmas story when I was six...

Rare and in need of attention... https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/176028224027 I think a dignified burial would be more suitable. I would not have even bothered to list them, just thrown them straight in the bin.

Took the plunge on an Atlas Alco S2 (or possibly S4, the number was for an S4, the long hood details suggested S2!) switcher in HO the other evening. Described as a non runner which is unusual for the type as Atlas's HO scale S1 to S4 switchers are normally extremely reliable and pretty much bomb proof. Arrived a couple of days later, powered on, nothing, dead and then a worrying puff of smoke appeared from under the long hood... Quickly whipped the body off before anything melted and discovered a badly bodged DCC chip installation (now somewhat melted) which I stripped out, reattached the power feed wires and in less than ten minutes its running again. Now just have to decide what colour to repaint it....