BoD

24 minutes ago, APOLLO said:

I wonder where HS2 rails will be made

At the Steelworks and Rail Mill in Workington...

... oh, wait a minute though.

17 minutes ago, LNER4479 said:

As already spotted by philip-griffiths above, 'tis a jigsaw puzzle, an occasional weakness of mine 🧩

You have time for jigsaws too?

4 hours ago, nightstar.train said:

I'm not sure the end of Mk1s on the mainline is in sight. There was a plan to get rid of all of them in the 90s/00s due to crash worthiness etc. But it was felt since then that the mass withdrawal of most Mk1 stock and the introduction of TPWS has reduced the risk of a crash involving a train of Mk1s to such a low point that it is still acceptable to run them. Yes they will not stand up to a crash as well as more modern stock, but the chance of them being in a crash is so low that the overall risk is acceptable. 

Obviously that assumes that the AWS/TPWS etc systems are all working as they should.  Nobody would ever dream of overriding them, would they?

If you have the LZV100 command station with your LH90 you can read the address of a decoder.  Page 23 or thereabouts in the manual.

If you have removed the decoders from the locomotives how are you intending to ‘connect’ them for testing?

14 minutes ago, johnofwessex said:

 

Well, there was supposed to be '....another way to manage the perceived risk...' but it wasnt applied

… and wasn’t that ‘management of the risk’ only supposed to be in place temporarily whilst the particular risk itself was dealt with?  That it wasn’t is why we have this topic today.

13 minutes ago, frobisher said:

My experience with cruise liners is more concerned with the pro-active UK visitors who're organised enough to have booked private tours.  I know what value they bring into the local economy.  I also know that for every tour my company took last year we had to turn back 3 more turning up on foot and trying to book on the day, plus a similar quantity rebuffed beforehand due to being at capacity.

I don't know the actual figures so I'm only speaking from observation and that report quoted earlier but I guess Kirkwall has a much greater number of cruise visitors than Lochaber.  When I was visiting Kirkwall, not on a cruise, there were two largish cruise ships in each day.  (Do you ever get more?)  According to that report on the cruise economy Fort William only allow one cruise ship to dock per day and then it is one of the much smaller boutique size ships. I have only ever seen that size ship at Oban too.  Do any cruise ships get to Mallaig?  When I have been in Mallaig the town certainly seems to fill and empty with the coming and going of the Jacobite.

I don't think WCRC are overstating things when playing the tourist effect on the economy card - I'm not saying that that it makes it a valid argument in this case though.

1 minute ago, rodent279 said:

They're just playing stupid pr games, trying to make ORR take the blame if the Harry Potter thing falls apart.

It’s quite possible that some of the media will report it that way too, without undertaking any investigative journalism to get to the real reasons behind what is happening.

1 hour ago, 6990WitherslackHall said:

WCRC have just released a statement regarding the current situation. The article can be viewed here.

So they wanted the exemption to run until it’s planned revocation at the end of February so that they could ‘work with the regulator to find a long term solution’ 

Genuine question - how long have they actually had to work towards that long term solution already?  And a rhetorical one - what makes them believe they would reach a solution in a few short weeks when they haven’t wanted/been able to do so up to now?

19 minutes ago, adb968008 said:

seriously though… WCRC pays real wages… a lot of people must be uncertain tonight and thats never a good thing.

They are (or were up until now) still recruiting stewards for the Jacobite.

https://westcoastrailways.co.uk/careers

Interesting thoughts, thank you. I appreciate the notion of gently leading and encouraging rather than ‘driving’ and then letting nature run its course.  As soon as he has developed more manual dexterity we will try making things together.  We do many other things too so I am not forcing it upon him.  I just hope that if, after all the other distractions on the way, he does wish to pursue railway modelling, there is still a hobby there for him.  As some have said, yes, I am probably being pessimistic but it’s not solely the Hattons situation that has prompted these thoughts.

Obviously the sad news from Hattons today has affected many in different ways.

Personally it has got me thinking about encouraging my grandson into the hobby.  He is very enthusiastic about trains (I wonder where he got that from) and he loved his Brio trains.  He has some Hornby Playtrains and enjoys helping  put layouts together and ‘playing trains’. At the moment it will probably be a year or two before we make the move, probably to settrack and more complex things.  

There are lots of other factors involved but today’s events have brought into focus something that has been in the back of my mind for a while.  Am I doing the right thing or am I likely to be leading him down a dead end, encouraging him into a hobby where there isn’t much of a future? Should we cut our losses now or carry on hoping that there will be a model railway hobby in the years to come?  
 

We could argue that the future of the hobby depends on us encouraging youngsters into it but is it likely to be a futile exercise?  Perhaps I am being over pessimistic about the future.

6 hours ago, young37215 said:

Elsewhere I continue to scour Ebay in the hope of finding a suitable donor coach for Hornby Commonwealth bogies that I require for another BSOT conversion

I haven’t attempted it but could you adapt Bachmann Commonwealth bogies?  They are readily available as spares.

4 minutes ago, AY Mod said:

 

From experience that's just a statement of fact.

That explains a lot of the Mod’s posts. 

46 minutes ago, whart57 said:

Nothing wrong with that except that it is not a commercial proposition.

But it didn’t need to be did it?  Membership fees, bar takings, occasional grants and other activities covered running costs. 
 

Moving away from that, what about the idea that has been suggested, by whom and how seriously I know not,  of a two division, ‘British Isles’ (for want of a better description)  League?  Any chance of that working and solving some of the issues?

1 hour ago, woodenhead said:

This feels like something that might cause a number of people who are already concerned about selling on Ebay into the hands of secondhand dealers who will offer a pittance for the items.

 
is there a difference between selling on your own second hand pre owned items and trading for profit. 
 

It does say they don’t have to report under 30 items per annum which I guess would cover most selling of personal property. Although if I (or someone else) tried to list all of my rolling stock at once…

You too.

9 minutes ago, Neil said:

Anyone who has read the classic 'Red for Danger' will appreciate how the search for greater safety has driven improvements over the years.

… and with the various powers that be over the years achieving those safety improvements by encouragement and partnership rather than by compulsion.  By the time regulations were enacted most if not all railway companies had accepted them and were at least starting to comply. Perhaps someone should send copies to the management at Carnforth.

11 hours ago, SM42 said:

Currently sat in the  Poznan Honda dealership awaiting the replacement of a headlight lamp to be carried out. 

 

The DIY handbook instructions talk of doing it by feel with your arm shoved up between wing and wheel arch liner. 

My brother-in-law gave me a great tip when talking about changing car light bulbs.  He advised going in first with your mobile phone and taking lots of photographs so that you could actually see what was where, what needed to be done and how to do it.

I’m not sure if there was any connection but he was a gynaecologist.

14 hours ago, Hroth said:

I've got a little hand-cranked gadget.

Too much Information.

The Peco 00 track sticks out like a sore thumb too.

Might it be worth grabbing a couple of screen shots so that you can show that the item was defective before seller sent it to you?

I bought my own cheap mister bottles example here although there are many other suppliers.

Experiment with a pva/water mix until it does job.   I found 50/50 works for me on slopes.  Adding usual drop of washing up liquid helps too.  Don’t forget to clean them and flush through several times after use.

27 minutes ago, Tony_S said:

The other one, Freya, after appearing in Norway was killed.

Wasn’t that the case where people, despite being warned otherwise, went too close to her but it was she who was deemed to be a danger to the public and so shot? 
 

I know in which direction I would have pointed the rifle.

2 hours ago, Tony Wright said:

by the way, what happened to steam crews when they were caught short?

1 hour ago, jwealleans said:

 

.. slowed the J27 down a bit and went out of the drivers' cab side. 

... or they just held on until a lineside fire needed extinguishing.

On 13/12/2023 at 01:38, Martino said:

Thereafter we used to threaten first and second form boys who’d displeased us that we’d put their fingers in the toaster as a punishment.

Fingers?

Really?

What a genteel set of prefects you must have been.