BoD

I don’t want to speculate or start speculation but it seems strange to me that the lead unit looks severely derailed but that the second unit has passed over and remained on the track. If I’m reading the location of the hole correctly from that video. I guess I will just have to wait for the report to find out the ins and outs of it.

The only saving grace, if you can call it that, was that it happened at 1.30 a.m. A very small crumb of comfort - but sadly not for those affected.

I think we need a ‘scratches head’ button.

According to National Rail website that work is scheduled to finish tomorrow. Whether it does or not …

… unless you are sitting on the toilet.

Forgive my ignorance, but what contract is that? With Network Rail? Given that the Jacobite has been running since Nineteen Eighty Dot I’m guessing the renewal must have happened automatically - unlike their ORR exemption - which they presumed would be automatic.

A car park for the heritage line with a bit more undergrowth and bushes on the lower part of the embankment?

Nowhere in their statement do they mention Harry Potter. In fact their entire blurb on the website is about the line and scenery itself. They do briefly mention that the Glenfinnan viaduct was used as a setting for Harry Potter but only in a wider description of the viaduct itself. As you and others have said this will probably be down to licensing but It would appear that it is others and particular the press that are making the Jacobite into the Harry Potter train and not WCRC. Not officially anyway and not that they would have discouraged it in any way.

If it’s all down to the Harry Potter power why doesn’t he just say Centricus Lockitus Fixitus or something like that. Strewth, I’m so embarrassed I even thought of that.

We can all justifiably criticise WCRC’s actions before now and how they have gone about this recently , but let’s not forget there will be a knock on effect and some genuine ‘hard luck’ stories. Whether that be disappointed punters, WCRC staff, or businesses (in the whole region and not just FW) they don’t deserve this but do deserve sympathy.

Brinksmanship? A sort of emotional blackmail? Manipulation of the press? I can’t see the ORR being swayed by any of that.

Mine too - and some of the ‘closer’ to scale couplings and smaller hooks are ‘flippin’ hard if not impossible to use. If you can use the second link without causing derailments then it is down to you to decide if the hanging third link is something worth putting up with to facilitate closer coupling. As an aside, I have started to move to using 3 links mostly in fixed rakes - but that is down mostly to age and eyesight rather than personal choice.

Remember that everything in 00 modelling - even fine scale - is a compromise. Smiths couplings are, if I understand it correctly, deliberately overscale to accommodate this. You could try some other makes or reducing the size of the links. Whether or not these would work on your railway would depend on lots of factors including your minimum radii, actual fidelity of the rolling stock buffers and buffer beams, and how you have attached the couplings. That wouldn’t deal with the overscale hooks though - another can of worms. Yes, the coupling distance is greater than prototypical when using many 3 links, not just Smith’s, but is often necessary to accommodate the compressions/compromises of railway modelling in anything but the strictest of standards.

Have they come to some sort of compromise arrangement with ORR? Do they believe that they can fulfil the previous conditions set for the exemption and ORR will accept that? Are they taking the pee?

Plastruct semicircular tubecut down the middle and a lot of bodging onto the sides. Plastruct/Evergreen quarter circle rod if you don’t mind the underside being solid rather than hollow. As above bodged onto the sides. Brass sides with the top turned over as happens to coach sides etc. Not particularly easy - but do-able. Im sure others will have suggestions too.

My brain fog may well be kicking in but, at one time, wasn’t there a competition organised for ‘Minories layouts’.

Nothing here for me. Well somebody had to. 🤡

Why? Im not trying to be facetious, just wondering why it would put you off. Unless all three of you are looking to exhibit the layouts, but that again would depend on relative location. If I wanted to build a model of a particular location it wouldn’t bother me how many other models of that location there are. It’s my interpretation and my creation of something I obviously like and want to model.

I seem to remember that in the very early days of RMweb a topic about a model of the railway at Auschwitz based on ‘that’ photograph. The model was actually started and progress was being recorded. It was, if I remember correctly, a commission for a museum type display. Again, if I remember correctly, it did provoke similar angst and controversy.

… and with another tunnel just a short distance away at this end (underneath where the photographer is standing?) what more could you ask for in scenic breaks.

… and with special thanks to the chief rugby writer at ‘Exchange and Mart’. 😉

Rugby - bloody hell.

Not for anyone who wants a ‘plug and play’ system though* In fact quite the opposite - but ok if you know what you are doing with this gear. * is dcc ever plug and play?

How very apposite a turn of phrase

I don’t think that it will ever be possible to produce a definitive list as you suggest - even though it would be useful. Each sound project is different and the choice of sounds included varies from developer to developer and even from loco to loco. Yes there are some functions that are common f0 and f1 always seem to do the same but thereafter I have some that f2 sounds the horn/whistle and on another it operates the brake - all defined by the individual who put the sound project together. They will often try to standardise within their own projects and some will try to use the same functions for similar sounds to others but there is no published ‘standard function allocation’. if you think about it, it makes sense. How could you stipulate that f7 say would be firebox opening and shovelling on a project for a diesel or electric loco? Or that f4 should always be the warning buzzer and doors closing as it is on some class 156 dmu projects. Flange squeal, to pick another example, is present in some projects but totally absent in others. This applies to decoders whether produced by the same decoder manufacturer, loco manufacturer or sound project developer. To produce a spreadsheet covering all the bases would be a huge task. I have done one for each of the locos/sound projects I have for my own reference but that would be of little use to anyone else - especially as I have moved some functions around on some locos to achieve some, limited, standardisation. Edit: posted at the same time as Phil above and I thing we are saying basically the same thing.