GoingUnderground

You're wrong about Window 98. It was still a DOS program at heart as were the two versions that followed it, 98SE and Windows ME (Millenium Edition). The DOS based versions were 1, 2. 2.1 (286 and 386), 3, 3.1, 3.11, 95, 98, 98SE (Second Edition) and ME. Unlike earlier versions, ME didn't let you boot into DOS but it was still built on DOS. Windows 2000 was NT based, and the NT versions according to Wikipedia were NT 3.1, NT 3.5, NT 3.51, NT 4 and 2000. XP was the version that replaced the DOS product line, and it used NT as its basis and in doing so replaced Windows 2000 as well. Since XP we've had 7, 8, 8.1 , 10 and now 11 is about the burst on an unsuspecting world.

Windows 286 and 386 were versions of Windows 2 released in 1987 to exploit the greater capabilities of the Intel 286 and 386 processors. The firm kitted us out with Honeywell 286 powered laptops back in 1987, and we junked the Apple 3s and IIcs that we'd been using up to then. I did have a copy of Windows 286 on the laptop, but it wasn't that special, and we used Informix Smart, a suite of MS Office like programs, which allowed you to shell out to DOS and run another of the Smart programs. So I didn't make a lot of use of Windows 286. My boss's secretary's desktop did have Windows 386 so that it could receive files transmitted from our branch offices whilst she was doing other things, and that was worth having. If you have a look at Wikipedia you'll find the history of Windows which mentions Windows 286 and 386.

I've been a Windows user since Windows 286, and apart from Windows 386 and Vista, have used them all with very, very, very few problems on a variety of PCs over the years. But my desktop really is too old for 11, it's got an AMD Athlon 64 processor and runs 10 without any problems. But my wife has a Surface Pro 5 and despite having the requisite TPM module active, and meets all but one of the other requirements she can't upgrade because the missing requirement is the processor - it isn't supported by 11 as it is one of the early 7th generation Intel ones. So we won't be going 11, but sticking with 10 because we have no choice short of buying new PCs. I'm a bit disappointed, but I'm not sure that we need 11 as its new features are of no interest to us. But we won't be dashing out to buy a Crapple. I had the misfortune of having to use one at the weekend to help out a friend and I found it to the be the most infuriating and least intuitive product that I've ever used.

I forgot to say that I enjoyed the video, music and all. I must say, I don't personally regard it as "vintage ops" (running older models), as I still have all my Triang models and have added to them over the years and do run them. I'm currently modifying some coaches from the 1960s. Does running my Triang stuff from the 1960s make me a "vintage operator"? Very probably. I was watching a programme on TV last night "The last domino?" about the prog rock band Genesis's upcoming farewell tour, and seeing Tony Banks, and Mike Rutherford looking old and grey, and Phil Collins sitting whilst singing interspersed with pictures and videos of them from way back suddenly made me feel very old.

As a matter of principle, you should never scale, i.e .take measurements, from the drawing itself. The drawing should have all the dimensions marked anyway so there should be no need to scale. I worked in a drawing office for 6 months once, preparing drawings. We had one engineer close to retiring age who had worked abroad for many years. Just before he retired I was asked to modify some of his drawings to reflect changes made since he had first drawn them. On starting to alter them as requested, none of the marked dimensions matched what was on the drawing. It wasn't until I checked his scale (ruler) against another one in the office that we found out that his scale, one he had been using for most of his working life, had shrunk.

If you mean the Road/Rail wagon that could run behind a tractor unit or hauled by a loco then it was made as I've seen it and the rest of the set for sale by a well known 2nd hand models dealer. It was available as a set RM.925 comprising the wagon itself - RM.924, the tractor unit/mechanical horse M.1570 and the Railway adaptor bogie RM.923. They first appeared in the 1964 10th edition catalogue, and were featured on the back cover of the 1967 (13th edition) Triang Hornbycatalogue along with the rest of the Road/Rail Minic items, but not in the Tri-ang Hornby price list dated 23 January 1967. The same picture was on the back of a Minic Motorways catalogue from the same period and this version has the prices: M.1570 Mechanical Horse 19/6 (98p) RM.923 Railway Adaptor Bogie 3/11 (20p) RM.924 Road Rail Wagon 9/11 (50p) RM925 Road Rail Set containing all the above 32/6 (£1.63) Wish I'd got one at the time. In good condition they're worth a lot of money these days.

The modern Hornby 0-4-0 chassis as used on their cheaper 0-4-0s is a direct descendant of the Tri-ang Railways 0-4-0 from 1959, first used in the Steeple Cab R.252 (maroon with dummy plastic pantograph) and R.254 (green with a fully working pantograph). and R.359 (Black steam loco). R.355 steam locos (Nellie - Blue/Polly - Red/Connie- Yellow/27 - Green) and the North British diesel 0-4-0 R.559 also used this same chassis. All these locos use the X.04 motor with a twin start brass worm. When Hornby (it is just a name as the current "Hornby" models owe nothing to the old Hornby Dublo system apart from the name, and the current Hornby system can trace its origins back to a train set first made in 1950 by Rovex Plastics Ltd. in London), stopped using the X.04 motor and changed to a can motor, they also seem to have changed to a single start nylon worm, which means that the later 0-4-0 locos with the can motors go like "scalded cats" as we say in the UK. If you can get one of the Tri-ang or Tri-ang Hornby R.355 models with the original X.04 motor then you'll find it is slightly more sedate. The R.455 and R.255 0-4-0 steam locos from the early 1970s onwards have the same bodyshell as R.359 and R.355, but use a can motor. The first ones from this period use the old chassis with an adapter cradle to hold the can motor instead of the X.04, so they could in theory be retrofitted with an X.04 motor, but the worm may not mesh properly with the worm wheel (gear) as that too changed according to the service sheets, see sheets 19, 62, 82 and 82A here http://www.hornbyguide.com/service_sheet_menu.asp. I believe at some point the use of the old chassis was discontinued and a new one designed for the can motor and that new design cannot have an X.04 retrofitted.

Thst sounds like a customised version of the manual specific to Mehano. for a start that isn't how you spell "LokSound" I suggest that you download and read the manuals on the ESU website, I see that someone has saved you the bother of finding it on ESU's website. However, the manual won't tell you what each function does, as that will depend entirely on how the writer of the sound file in the decoder assigned actions and sounds to function buttons.

LokSound 3.3? There was a LokSound 3, but the model after that was the 3.5, followed by the 4 and the current 5. Before that there was a V2 and the original LokSound. The 3 and 3.5 used 100 Ohm speakers, so the earlier models may also have used 100 Ohms. The 4 and 5 are designed for 4 Ohm speakers. As Nigel has already said, ESU do have the manuals available to download for almost all of their discontinued products. Unfortunately, ESU have been, and still are sadly, the subject of a sustained DDoS attack since mid-August, and it can be difficult at present to get access to their website. I was able to access it earlier this morning, but it's timing out on me at the moment. They are trying to take steps to mitigate the problem. Why anyone would want to target a small company like ESU that specialises in model railways is a mystery to me. Once you can get on to their website, you'll find the manuals in the Downloads area. They will either be under "Digital Decoders" or in the section dedicated to discontinued products. [EDIT: I was able to get on to the website again, and the manuals for the "Classic" and the V2 LokSounds are in the "Former Products" part of the download area. Both manuals seem to date back to 2002, 19 years ago. The impedance of the "Classic" isn't given in the tech spec part of its manual, but the V2 manual says that it is 100 Ohms, so the Classic may well be 100 Ohms also. If in doubt work on the basis that it is at least 100 Ohms.] But are you sure that is is a V1 in the loco? If it is a genuine V1, then that will be a very, very old decoder indeed, possibly more than 15 years old? Should you buy the loco you might do better to replace the decoder, and speaker, with a new V5 preloaded with the Blue Tiger sound project, I think that there is such a sound file on the ESU website, but, as I said, it's timing out at the moment so I can't check. [EDIT: There is a sound project for the Blue Tiger for the V5 decoder.]

The brown box dates to the DCM era, when the company was called Rovex Limited. Catalogues from that era refer to the "company" as "Hornby Hobbies, Rovex Limited", which would be consistent with DCM buying Rovex Ltd from the Lines Bros liquidator as a going concern company. Rovex itself went through several name changes, and possibly company changes as well. Added: The Rovex business was founded in 1946, and when it launched its toy train set for Marks and Spencer in 1950 it was trading as a limited company under the name Rovex Plastics Limited. The name remained unchanged after its acquistion by Lines Bros. in 1951, and it wasn't until September 1953 that the company name was changed to Rovex Scale Models Limited. (Taken from Pat Hammod's "Story of Rovex Vol. 1) Using the Triang Railways catalogues as a guide from 1955 onwards, the company name changed over the years: 1946 - 1953 (Sept) Rovex Plastics Limited 1953 (Sept) -1967 Rovex Scale Models Limited 1968 - 1969 Rovex Industries Limited 1970 - 1972* Rovex Tri-ang Limited 1973 - 1980 Rovex Limited * The name would probably have been changed sometime in 1971 or early 1972 by DCM to Rovex Limited after the connection with the rest of the Lines Bros group was severed. The catalogue was already printed and overstickering the 1972 catalogues with the new name would have been an expensive task with no immediate benefit. During the DCM era the company seems to refer to itself as Hornby Hobbies, Rovex Limited, as shown on the brown box, but the legal entity seems to have been Rovex Limited as the legal notice in the catalogues about the right to change designs and specs refers to "Rovex Limited". I don't have any of the 1981-89 (27th-35th editions) catalogues, but the 1990, '91 and '92 (36th-38th editions) catalogues show the name of the company as Hornby Hobbies Ltd, as does the 2011 (57th) and the 2020 (66th) catalogues. And I for one will keep buying the red and yellow boxes, but I do fear for the future as they do seem to be being outmanoeuvered by Kader/Bachmann.

I did say "everywhere". I've known for 30 years that some folks take taxis to the supermarkets, and the poorer the area the more likely that shoppers would use taxis. And has been pointed out older folks may no longer drive, or be able to afford a car. But many of them will use the free bus passes for certain journeys where that is at least as convenient as a taxi as it will certainly be cheaper. For relatively short distances in towns they are very practical, I used them from time to time when I worked in Central London but my journey into London was on the Tube, or in very rare instances by car, but that was over 40 years ago. But for folks living outside of towns and cities or for longer journeys taxis quickly get very pricey as you have to pay for the dead leg of the journey when the taxi has to come to you, or get back from your destination to its base as there's no certainty that its last fare was to somewhere very close to you, or that its next fare will be from somewhere close to your destination. I also know about the apps, but taxis still aren't as convenient as your own car sitting outside the front door, at least for those of us who have that luxury, as you need to book taxis in advance or wait for them to turn up even with an app.

Rail will always be more expensive as it has to maintain its own infrastructure, with governments topping up the shortfall in many places, which is far easier to link to revenue as it is a relatively closed system. Air will be always be less expensive in cash terms because it's infrastructure costs are much lower - no permanent way to maintain. Aircraft are expensive but the lack of serious PW costs more than compensates. Cars, no matter how they are powered, will be somewhere in the middle because drivers don't pay directly for the infrastructure, being paid for by local and national taxation including fuel duties, and the massive usage of the network makes for massive economies of scale. You only need to live next to a main line railway to realise how silent it is for the majority of the time compared to a motorway or trunk road. And please don't point out that fuel duties exceed the cost of maintaining the roads. Electric cars don't pay fuel duties, and as their numbers increase governments will have to find new ways to tax us to replace the lost hydrocarbon fuel duties. Cars, for those that have them are just too convenient, just get in and go, even if it's only down to the shops at the end of the road. That's why sharing or leasing won't catch on as that takes away all the spontaneity as you have to arrange for the vehicle to be available at a time and place etc. OK you may be able to do that on line, but taxis are virtually the same thing, and does anyone goes everywhere by taxi? Vehicle convoys all under central control on motorways and trunk routes will probably happen, increasing the capacity of those roads roads, but that won't help when you get to your destination as you'll still need somewhere to park the damned thing, and possibly recharge it. And I can't see central control coming all the way down to minor roads and back streets in towns and cities, it wouldn't be cost effective. A vehicle self-driving itself to a parking space away from the driver's & passengers' destination may help, but at the expense of creating more traffic. Hence I believe that ultimately parking capacity, and possibly availability of recharging points, will be the limiting factor for car ownership. Once you get central control, then road pricing becomes very possible as all the necessary data will have been captured by the system at least on the priced roads. That may be the solution to the lost fuel duty, but it will make the cost of travelling by road much more visible. We need a fully integrated public transport system that recognises the existence of the car, but doesn't make it primary mode of transport as we do today. And there isn't the overwhelming public will to create a fully integrated system that would make it politically possible.

If you mean the owner of the Hornby name all the changes since company names and company structures since 1980 are irrelevant as the right to use the Hornby name has remained within the same group of companies with the same ultimate holding company since the management buy out in the early 1980s. There are 3 parts to any business: 1. the trade or activity that it carries out, sometimes called the "undertaking". 2. the legal entity that carries out that trade or activity. This could be: a person (Sole Trader); several people in the form of a partnership; a limited liability partnership; a private company limited by shares or by gurarantee; or a public limited company (plc) with shareholders. 3. the owners of the legal entity. That could be a single person, or a partnership, or in the case of a company with shareholders lots of people or a trust or another company or a mix of any of these. Undertakings can be transferred between different legal entities at will and bought and sold, and such transfers have often been used until the TUPE regulations to degrade employees terms and conditions. Groups of companies often restructure and that frequently means name changes or activity changes, sometimes both and sometimes simultaneously. But the company that has been the the ultimate holding company for the former Rovex undertakings (which included the right to use the Hornby name) since the management buy out of the former Rovex business and called the shots is the same. It started out as Wiltminster Ltd in February 1981, was reregistered as a plc with the new name Hornby Group plc in 1986, and changed its name again to Hornby plc in 1996. If you want to follow the history of a company follow the company number, it never changes unless Companies House impose a new numbering system during the entire life of the company. Wiltminster was company number 1547390, and Hornby plc is 01547390 (the addition of the leading 0 was a Companies House change as companies cannot change their registered number). Wiltminster is a holding company, meaning its activity is to own other companies, its subsidiaries, and provide their finance, not to make products. In the case of Wiltminster/Hornby plc, it seems to have had two main subsidiaries in the UK. Hornby Hobbies and Hornby Industries. These two subsidiaries swapped names in the 1980s. Bot when the swapped names the Roves business activity of designing, making and selling model railways, Scalextric etc was moved as well so that the active company was always the one named Hornby Hobbies. Phoenix Asset Management holds the majority of the shares in Hornby PLC and to that extent it now calls the shots. But owning Hornby PLC does not mean that it owns the Hornby registered trade mark name. Ownership of that name may lie with Hornby PLC or the current Hornby Hobbies or possibly another subsidiary company within the Hornby plc group. It all depends on how the group is structured internally. But provided the company selling the trains is still able to use the name it really doesn't matter which legal entity owns it. And, incidentally according to the 2020 (66th edition) Hornby catalogue, (I don't have the 2021 67th edition to check if there have been any changes but the 2021 Hornby plc accounts suggest that there have been none), Hornby Hobbies Ltd owns not just the Hornby name, but also the following trade mark names: Hornby Railways Tri-ang Hornby Tri-ang Hornby Dublo and Minic.

Thanks for correcting my dates, I should have checked myself before posting. But I'll think you'll find that there was no "Hornby" company as such, same as there was no "Dinky" company. They were just brand names used by Meccano Limited for its non-Meccano construction system products to differentiate them from Meccano itself. So the question of ownership of the Hornby "company" doesn't arise. It was a registered trade mark, just like the Triang name, and it ended up being owned by Rovex who progressively through the 1960s became the focus for management, control, and manufacture of the Lines Bros Group's range of plastic models, including Scalextric. On the subject of catalogue "names", including Minic in the railways catalogue was a marketing exercise intended to boost the sales of Minic Motorways following the move of the manufacture of the Minic Motorways from Minimodels at Canterbury to Rovex at Margate. It was a natural move as Minic Motorways had been designed from the start to be compatible with the Triang Railways OO gauge system, and took up slack caused by the gradual decline in the sales of model railways through the 1960s. And it wasn't the first time that the OO railways system catalogue included other products from the Triang range. Previous Triang Railways catalogues had included: the Triang Lionel science kits (9th edition - 1963); the 3mm TT system (9th edition - 1963); Minic Motorways (10th edition 1964 with the Minic Motorways name and logo on the front cover); and, the Model-Land building kits (10th edition - 1964) which were never sold under the Triang or Triang Hornby brand. The 1965 11th edition had a picture on the back featuring Minic Motorways, Arklitex, and Model-Land items to show how they could all be used together, along with their respective logos at the top of the page. There was also the inclusion of the Triang Wrenn models in the 1969, '70, '71 and '72 catalogues. Also the 1972 18th edition bore the Triang Hornby logo and name, but it was printed before the sale of Rovex to Dunbee-Combex-Marx by the Lines Bros liquidator and the loss of access to the Triang name. Presumably some agreement was struck to allow existing packaging (the boxes) and stationery (the 1972 catalogue, instruction leaflets etc.) to be used up.

I'm no expert, but I believe that it was inspired by an actual plate steel carrier, see https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co207634/trestol-well-wagon-railway-wagon It is part of the NRM collection and was, and may still be, on loan to the East Lancs Railway https://www.eastlancsrailway.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/east-lancashire-railway-wagon-stocklist-september-2019.pdf Pictures of the BR 6 wheeled bogied Trestrol EC seem to be hard to find, https://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/img/s/v-3/p895983931-3.jpg from the Paul Bartlett collection. The 4 wheeled Trestrol AO seems to be more common in the photographic records. But the Triang one will be a compromise because of the need for it to go round 1st radius curves.

Spot on. It's called "opinion shopping" in business circles. There's no point in commisioning a report from someone who isn't going to give you the answer that you want. Beeching's card was marked by his terms of reference which were set by the government of the day. And governments of all complexions are still doing it today, appointing folks to head up quangos, agencies and the like who are known to agree with the govt's aims and hence guaranteed to give the govt/PM the answer/result/outcome that it/he/she wants. It's naive and totally ignores human nature to think that they'd do anything else. In the highly unlikely event that the opinion isn't quite what's wanted it gets questioned, then sidelined, followed by being ignored in the hope it'll be forgotten and then they go find someone else to do it again on the basis that circumstances have changed since the earlier report. Every time I hear a politician speak I see Jim Hacker and Sir Humphrey pulling the strings in the background. No wonder everyone is so cynical about politicos.

The history of Hornby models and the use of the name is quite simple, really, if you separate the name from the models that bore it and just look at the lineage of the models themselves and then at names under which they were sold: Hornby: 0 Gauge: 1920 >>> 1960 Hornby OO Gauge: 1938 >>> 1964 - Hornby Dublo, produced at Binns Road, Liverpool. 1964 >>> 1968 - No models produced. Selected 2 rail locos sold off under Triang Hornby brand. Remaining stocks of 2 and 3 rail models sold off through the model trade. 1968 >>> 1971 - Triang Wrenn, from new production by G&R Wrenn at Basildon. 1972 >>> 1992 - Wrenn Railways, produced by G&R Wrenn, Basildon. 1992 >>> 2001 - Dapol, but only a limited selection from the old HD range. 2001 >>> Today - G&R Wrenn for collectors primarily. For the Rovex/Triang OO models the picture is much, much simpler: 1950 >>> 1952 - Rovex, produced at Richmond. 1953 >>> 1955 - Triang Railways, produced at Richmond. 1955 >>> 1965 - Triang Railways, produced at Margate. 1965 >>> 1971 - Triang Hornby, produced at Margate. 1972 >>> 1995 - Hornby Railways/Hornby, produced at Margate. * 1995 >>> Today - Hornby Railways/Hornby, produced under sub-contract in China. * The 1972 18th edition catalogue is branded Triang Hornby as it was printed before the sale of Rovex to Dunbee-Combex-Marx by the Lines Bros liquidator. The Zero 1 system was the brave first attempt at a digital system in a time when microcomputers were in their infancy. Maerklin also introduced their own digital system in the 1980s. Zero 1 is not compatible with DCC, which itself was a development of a second digital system from Maerklin this time created by Maerkkin and Lenz Elektronik. A guy called Robin Palmer was said to have been involved with the development of the Zero 1 system, and when Hornby discontinued it, Palmer founded ZTC (said to stand for (Zero Two Company) to try to keep the Zero 1 system alive and exploit better technology as it became available. Many of the early ZTC DCC decoders were Zero 1 compatible as well as being DCC, but the later ones were DCC only as interest in Zero 1 dried up. The ZTC511 had a Zero 1 mode, but was not multi-protocol as it could only be switched between one of 3 modes: true DC, Zero 1 or DCC. If you want to try going digital don't waste your time on the early digital systems from Hornby or Airfix, just go DCC with new decoders, and a decent DCC command station. There does seem to be some very minimal residual interest in the Zero 1 system so you could try putting the decoders on auction sites. But don't expect folks to be falling over each other with bids.

As we buy fuel in litres but our cars still measure distance in miles (daft I know, but that's the UK for you), I use miles per litre. So, personally, I couldn't see what was wrong with using kilometres per litre instead of litres per 100 kilometres. So should electric cars be required to express their "fuel" economy in terms of kWH per 100 kilometres instead of range, or is range a better real world measure?

I completely agree. I learned about both Imperial and Metric systems back in the very dim and distant past at school. I don't know if it was because we did all our physics and chemistry lessons using SI units, but whenever I do any DIY or modelling, in short anything that demands accuracy, I use the metric system, but admittedly at the 1/100 level, i.e. centimetres and millimetres as I find them so much easier to read off a tape measure than fractions of an inch.

Metric systems are based on the metre unit of measure for length. Metric is the adjective derived from the noun metre. Hence, by definition, only a system that uses the metre as its unit of length can be a metric system. Decimal is any system that uses a base of 10, which I believe, as it is over 50 years since I last looked at a latin textbook, comes from the latin word "decem" which is the number ten, and the latin word "decimus" meaning tenth as in tenth place.

The ESU website has been subject to a DDoS 'bot attack. The latest firmware is 4.2.8 for all ECoS models. Just make sure that you download the version for the ECoS 50000.

And what if the item isn't a multiple of 3 inches? As the basis is supposed to be 3.5mm:1 ft that's damned damned hard in anybody's language. Working in 0 gauge at 7mm = 12 inches is just as bad. It really looks like dreaming up some sort of scaling that fitted what had been made and the closest fit was this weird hybrid of Imperial:Metric. My point is that you just wouldn't define a scale in that way, especially if you were working in the metric system as they would have been in Germany from 1872 and from that date the dimensions of the prototypes would have been defined under the metric system. So defining a scale by reference to a measurement system (Imperial) not used in the country just wouldn't happen. Equally, in the UK it was a strange way to define scales back in the period between 1900 and the 1940s as the metric system has only really come into everyday use here from around the 1950s.

That sounds about right to me. If you were defining a scale from scratch it would make sense to make it a ratio within the measurement system, metric or imperial, e.g. 1:100 or 1:80 or 1:75. or even 1:64. The idea of devising a scale where the prototype is measured in imperial units and that is translated into metric units is, to me anyway, bizarre. To me it looks like a way to force a definition for a scale for something that wasn't built to a specific scale in the first place. Does anyone know the rationale for doing it this way?

I hope that you got the board out of the kitchen before SWMBO found out. If I tried that and was caught, I'd be for the high jump. I always wait until 'er indoors has gone out and I know roughly how long I have before she comes back. Nice combination of Dublo and Triang 1st generation platform and station buildings, even if the booking office is back to front.

Thanks, I'll have to see if I can find them as they're all new names to me.