BR60103

Stationmaster: thank you for the clarification of my post. I was remembering something my father told me years ago, and he isn't around to ask anymore.

An add-on to the Somme notes. July 1, 1916, the Newfoundland regiment went over the top. Right into machine gun fire. Of the 800 who left, 69 answered roll call the next morning. This has been their day of mourning ever since, even though the rest of Canada celebrates Confederation (Newfoundland was not in Canada at the time). A similar situation in Britain, where regiments had been recruited by county, led to a reorganization to keep areas from being totally denuded of young men.

In my schooldays, Canada was still in the 20,000,000 range. And our teachers were just getting used to sing "God save the King" instead of "the Queen". It looks as if most of London's population has drifted to Canada. and now back to our original whingeing...

Did I say this one before? One of the CBC's staff announcers would be reading the Farm Report, and having given the price for "Chickens, Dressed" would, in a horrified voice, supply "Chickens, Undressed".

I like to remember Canada as having the same population as London. (It did when I was in school; it still may depending on what's included in London.) So Canadian models should have a similar market to something that's exclusive to London. (Tube trains? "Can't buy that -- it's Jubilee line and I'm modelling Central.") I expect that Rapido will be able to continue supplying models by scanning, which sounds easier than finding old drawings.

John: Book exclusive use of a very nearby toilet for the day before. The goop has been improved. My sister had problems because of the volume of liquid required with the original mixture and never got her exam until it was nearly too late and had to have lots of stuff (body bits) removed. I had the old stuff the first time; the new stuff is easier to consume. The end result is the same.

On the engineshed roof, don't forget the pigeons and evidence thereof. I think John was one of the first to add such stuff to a contest entry.

I caught a bit of reportage tonight. Talking about blue and orange (or was it red?) and changing colours, but no suggestion of what the colours stood for.

We watched our recording of the Trooping of the Colour today (Canadian repeat). The first hour covered a lot of people talking about not much, the drive to, was it Horse Guards?, the first slow march of the bands across the parade ground, then the commercials, and the Royal Family was driving away, and then interviewing more tourists. It looks as if they dropped an hour out of the middle -- all the bit I wanted to see. Bought a photo at a flea market today. LNER 10000 pulling the Flying Scotsman. No information. Stand had a couple of boxes of railway photos, mostly Canadian. With older people losing their sense of place, bring up topics from long ago. My mother-in-law liked being read to from old schoolbooks. My father might not remember what he'd had for lunch, or if he'd had lunch, but could talk about the good and bad points of Oliver Cromwell (not the Class 7 pacific). Pension options are usually designed so that the company cost is the same, whatever you choose. That's based on its being averaged over hundreds or thousands of workers. Sometimes they'll offer a slightly better deal to encourage workers to leave sooner.

Brian: I don't know details about British pensions, but from Canadian practice: if you leave a company and start your pension immediately, they often continue some of the other benefits (insurance, supplemental medical) while if you defer your pension to age 65, these benefits aren't provided. Some are more generous, some less; check with your company. (not sure how supplemental medical goes with NHS). You should be able to make an Excel spreadsheet to see what the benefits are and where breakeven ages come. We had options of offset and level pensions. I went through the era of inflation and would go for a form that increases when the state pension kicks in. depending on your marital status, there may be an adjustment for presence or lack of a potential survivor. A lot may depend on how long you expect to live and how you could live if you last for a long time.

No, that is the very short book What Men Know about Women.

Only problem now is finding 4+ feet of space down the track for the carrier.

Kit: Could you fit a Peco LocoLift in one end to be able to roll the train out of the tray and onto the tracks? or just fit one in when needed?

Not the war. This was built by a mill owner who had his mill on one side of a bog and there were a lot of farmers down south. The creek that fed the bog has now disappeared in the downtown area. Much of the area was settled by Mennonites who had migrated from Pennsylvania.

During the construction of a new streetcar line, the following was unearthed under the main street of Waterloo, Ontario. This is the remains of a corduroy road constructed (originally) about 200 years ago. Corduroy roads were made from tree trunks laid crosswise. A poem started "Bumpety bump goes the corduroy road." This bit was laid across a bog or swamp. After being displayed for several weeks (and delaying construction) the logs were removed and sold, very quickly, for souvenirs.

2nd version: APTe as it sat after 30 years at the NRM?

I suggested this to Bill or Thomas on the weekend. For a train like the APTe with predictable clearance problems, put a downloadable plan outline, with bogie centres marked, on the website. This could be printed and cut out in card and used by the modeller to see what doesn't fit.

All of J.W.'s music seems to me to come from the theme to "Born Free", although I have an idea that it goes back to "King's Row".

I had to look both of those up. I did get the reference to Only Fools and Horses, though.

Thanks to the crew at Rapido who were at the Great British Train Show on the weekend and answered all my questions, showed me how it comes apart and goes together, even though I haven't bought one. (and thanks for showing me how my baggage car comes apart.) I think it may have run on most of the OO layouts that were over 4' long!

Why was it necessary to cut the electrical cables apart? Didn't they have some sort of plugs, especially if they had been separated during the development?

I have a Hornby Devon Belle set and I had to go up one size on the back of the tender because of buffer locking between tender and Pullman on a downhill 36" radius curve. I also noticed that the Pullmans seem to differ from one end to the other: turning a coach around meant that one end no longer coupled with its companion.

A lot would depend on what the contract with the author says. It may give RM the right to first publication, or only publication for n years. It may only cover print. We have a few published modellers here -- what is the wording? There are a lot of old TV shows (different field, similar law) which are not sold on DVD because of actors who can't be traced or won't release rights.

Pete: If you modify the points by breaking the connections, a polarity switch is needed. The extra connections for the point rails are a good idea; by the time you fins they're needed it's too late to add them underneath. if you don't break the connections, you mustn't add the point rail wires. The polarity switch may be a good idea or redundant; you can get interesting results if it changes at a different time than the points do. I am separating the frog and putting in the polarity switch where possible on my current layout.

Would there have been any "Men from the Ministry"? I picture a set of 6: dark suit, bowler hat, briefcase on knees and umbrella straight up between legs, and uncomfortable look on face.