Mike at C&M

http://webcam.deg.net/?a=showcam&w=showarchivimage&o=pla&id=201606061400 A real throwback in time. A Class V160 in the old red and black livery. Thought I was in the 1970s for a short while, until I spotted the ICE in the platform

You can tell it's a model as they have forgotten to put up any catenary for the electric units.

Yes. Our stock of the latest release is on it's way from Bachmann as this is written.

Your second point has now exacerbated the first point even more, and many retailers are extremely annoyed about the 'cash convertors' action which comes only a couple of months after Hornby themselves quoted that they were now going to commit their support to retailers. There is talk of the scale of this 'cash convertor' programme being far larger than many of us can believe. And as a result, the market for Hornby model railway products through most retailers has already becoming greatly destabilised.

Dotty? Surely that's a Ring Tail Lemur! Those under 50 years of age are invited to google "Dotty the Ring Tail Lemur". Those over 50 can recall the animal magic of Johnny Morris.

I too had the absolute pleasure of seeing one of her live performances - one of the best evenings' entertainment I have ever had. Such an amazing depth of ideas and characters that she generated over the years, and an ability to turn them into such watchable material. How on earth could anyone gain such inspiration for "Two Soups"? R.I.P. Victoria. So many of your catchphrases will continue to cause merriment in our household for years to come. Coconut Macaroon, anyone?

We have received our first supplies from Peco, which coincides with the publication of the May "Railway Modeller".

Got an interesting surprise driving up the A7 from Carlisle to Tweedbank: SELKIRK - TWINNED WITH PLATTLING.

We have no intention of doing another run of the Scotrail Mark 3s for a number of reasons. Amongst these are: - A second run will not sell anywhere near as quickly as the first run. We are a business, and whether anyone likes it or not, first and foremost, we are there to make money - I cannot recall anyone ever having repeated a limited edition commissioned series - As with the first batch, we would need to piggyback on to the back of Dapol producing a run of Mark 3 coaches for their own range, and we are not aware that that is going to happen. One batch of coaches is not enough to trigger a production run by itself. Mike at C&M

The website and e-mail links are certainly not there for our shop, despite having definitely been there in times past. Following a problem with our e-mail during 2015, it took them 5 months to re-instate us on to their trade e-mail listing, so I don't hold out much hope of getting the e-mail/website links re-instated in a hurry.

Hornby website this morning: "Visit you local model shop. Find yours today" "As an ongoing continued effort to support the independent trade, the [above] will be displayed on the website for the next 48 hours." [Hornby e-mail received this morning]. Yes, we had a busy day today. A couple of Heljan 'O' gauge locos can have a major effect on our daily takings!

The loco on the right is one of the new 'Vectron' electric locomotives, but no idea as to who it might belong to. Platform numbers in Germany are not necessarily allocated consecutively, instead, it is the individual lines that are usually given consecutive numbers. So if there is a line which does not serve a platform, then the numbering system may, to British eyes, seem to jump for no obvious reason. However, my knowledge of Plattling is not good enough to fully explain why there is no platform at Gleis 7 (or as the Americans might term it, track 7)

An excellent model, and the perfect layout upon which to show it off. I am sure that those people who saw the Pendolino in action over the weekend will agree that this model is going to be something special, once the required changes are implemented. The wait will be more than worth while. Congratulations to Ben and Mike for having the courage to put their ideas into practise.

An area of the world I love, and knowing it reasonably well, I can visualise the route proposed. Looking forward to this developing.

There is an early sample of the body moulding on display on the Oxford Rail stand at Model Rail Scotland, at Glasgow SEC (Stand B51)

I had the pleasure of seeing this at close quarters this afternoon, and it is extremely impressive. It certainly drew many admirers when running through Law Junction. As Ben has pointed out, there are still some improvements to be made, which will result in the Pendolino being one of the most eye-catching N gauge models there is.

With regards to the order book taken in January not being up to expectations. As we did not travel the length of the country to visit the toy fair in London, our order for the 2016 range was not placed until the 1st week in February, and at no point was there any urgency from Hornby to get our order in before that time.

Andy Y asked: An open question for any of the retailers around here if I may. When did you last see anyone above sales rep level? The answer - never, in nearly 13 years. The northern half of Britain was without a dedicated sales rep. for nearly 18 months up until autumn 2015, although some of us received occasional visits for a southern based rep. The previous two reps. were a complete waste of time, and we need to go back some 3 1/2 years since we had a Hornby rep. who had the knowledge and attitude to prove helpful to we retailers. With him, you felt that Hornby and you were working together in a relationship that was beneficial to both of us. Thankfully, a new Hornby rep. for northern Britain was appointed in autumn 2015, and I am glad to say that I find him willing to help, and he provides a good stream of information. Just a shame that he has to battle against the lack of trust we now have for them.

Hornby have done very little to encourage we retailers to want to do business with them, whilst there are plenty of reasons which discourage us from wanting to put business their way. Their January sales figures will surely reflect this.

We are now able to accept orders for the TEA tankers, but be aware it works slightly differently to how Revolution Trains have handled their direct orders. Payment will be taken when the wagons are despatched (please follow the instructions given below), this will be shortly after Revolution have despatched their direct orders. So if you have been unable to commit to ordering all you would like because of cash flow, we are able to buy you more time. The link to our the relevant page of our online shop is: http://www.ekmpowershop7.com/ekmps/shops/cmmodels/tea-bogie-tank-wagons-340-c.asp When you get to the checkout page, make sure you choose "Secureform.com" as your method of payment (at the bottom of the page), this allows us to delay payment until the time of despatch, The "Cardsave" option will charge your card immediately. We have a limit on the number of each of the options that we will be receiving, so once they are all spoken for, there will be no further supplies available from us. We can also be contacted using the details at the top of our home page: http://www.candmmodels.co.uk/

As of 07.15 this morning, 1Z87 is shown on Realtimetrains as leaving Carlisle at 14.25 and heading down the Settle and Carlisle. It would make sense that anyone wishing to see the southbound working checks as late as possible which route is being taken, as there are obviously different options still open

The ScotRail Mark 3s are covered in great length in the following thread: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/69564-cm-models-commission-scotrail-mark-3s/ I know that Oxford are not going to flood the market with every possible livery of Mark 3 going, at the same time. They will start with the most popular versions. My hope is that by taking care in the design stage, they are then able to allow for the detail differences from down the years which have been omitted from previous runs of Mark3, by various manufacturers, e.g: Roof details, door closed warning lights, correct style of doors, window arrangements on catering vehicles etc.

In this day and age, colours can be computer matched, I believe the system uses 'RAL' prefixes. There is another method, which we used to get the colours on our Dapol Scotrail Mark 3s in 'N' gauge - sight. Languishing somewhere at Chirk is a Bachmann 'OO' ScotRail 47/7 which was used to match the colours for the 'N' gauge coaches. So that when both the Graham Farish 'N' gauge 47/7 and Dapol Mark 3s both appeared in the flesh, the colours matched. I suspect the Dapol 'OO' Class 68 will be available well before the livery samples of the Mark 3s are produced.

John, We have both the Western prefix and Eastern prefix TGS in stock, so they certainly exist.

I know that Bachmann/Farish are announcing on March 1st, at around lunchtime. The Hornby date baffles me.