Buhar

Old fashioned ballot stuffing is pretty unlikely, it's when they start having recounts and get into trying to invalidate votes that chicanery is more possible. To prevent this observers have slept on piles of sacks containing votes in the recent past. Alan

Quick bit of context on the election this Sunday. Polls close at 5pm (3pm UK time) and votes are counted and signed off by the party observers actually at the polling station before being forwarded to the centres. The opposition have a huge operation in hand to maintain vote security and an independent system for tallying the votes by photographing the signed-off result in each polling station and sending it to their central office. The official results are announced by Anadolu Ajansi but that is AKP-controlled and they did try some tricks around the local elections a few years ago. This time they are joined by TRT, the state broadcaster, also AKP-controlled, possibly to present two "independent" sources. Rumours abound that there might be an internet outage to prevent the verification photos of the results being transmitted. The opposition say they have a Plan B and a Plan C. In Istanbul the CHP (opposition) published result for the locals was bang-on for accuracy. Alan

It's really very tense over here at the moment with concerns that Erdogan won't go quietly or otherwise interfere with the results. The indications are that Kilicdagoglu will lift the veto on Sweden's accession, but how quickly is less clear as the parliament make-up will be a factor. There is an international treaty regarding the Bosphorus and Dardanelles that guarantees free passage to the Black Sea. Blocking Russian warships would not be an easy step. Alan

Should have done a Penny Mordant training regime in preparation. Alan

I understand Phil at Hobby Holidays is seeing if there is enough interest to do a run of the jig. Alan

If I recall correctly weren't two water cranes installed at a number of locations on the London line, spaced for the tenders of double headed coal trains which would indicate it was fairly common. Alan

In Istanbul the tram drivers are a Vatman and I think the same applies to metro drivers. Train drivers in Turkey are Mekanist. If I get the chance I will ask around. French influence was strong around the late Ottoman period although the Germans built a lot of the lines. Alan

Hornby's stay alive is big and runs on for much longer than should be needed for crossing an insulated crossing or a track glitch. Anyone tried one of the smaller alternatives? I know nothing about the electronics of compatibility. Alan

In terms of a straight DCC decoder they're pretty expensive eg in comparison with Zimo. I see them as a cheap way to play with sound in a few locos. Given that steam sounds aren't that great in any decoder I've heard in 4mm, less than "full-fat" is probably good enough. Alan

I've bought a few items (on one occasion more than I intended!) from Tony/CRUK and the thought that the money spent is going in the right directions tends to loosen my fear of the scorpion in my wallet. My wife has a similar attitude in charity shops, she'll happily buy something she's not sure about prepared to regard it as a donation if she changes her mind and recycles it. On one occasion she bought a set of mugs, changed her mind and gave them to another shop. A few days later her sister, visiting on holiday, saw them and decided it was just the sort of thing my wife likes and bought them for her. We've still got them, this time. Another factor for me is that someone spent their money, hopefully enjoyed owning the model or kit, maybe got fun out of building it, they put something of themselves into it (perhaps not to to highest standards) and so keeping that going under new ownership has an additional meaning. I may not have known the person but I respect what they did as modellers. Alan

Hi Nick I somehow missed this at the end of last year despite occasionally checking @Compound2632's activities as a means of ensuring I've not overlooked any matters MR/LMS. It's often more useful to hear of mistakes and methods to correct them or how to deal with a kit's failings than to follow a smooth build. Attracting wise comments from the likes of @micklner and @Izzy only helps further. Also I find your writing style really engaging. Best wishes Alan

Perhaps not, but if you were ordering wagons it might well seem a risk not worth taking as either side brakes remained within the regs. Alan

10617 was the Railmotor used on the Horwich branch working the Jerk Proximity to the works could explain a wartime repaint. There is a good colour image of the loco and trailer in the condition @melmerby describes. The lettering is shaded red. Alan

If you have some heavier wagons, eg kitbuilt in whitemetal, try to have them at the head of the train, placed at the rear they may pull lighter stock off the rails on curves. Alan

Loco certainly black, probably still lined in red although unlined is possible if it had a substantial works visit during the war. The carriage would have been lake with simple lining by that time, the carriages were never black. Alan

If you go into settings on almost any two Android phones from different manufacturers you'll find a wealth of differences and that's just the user interface, underneath that is the architecture they've all developed in their own way to suit the chips they use, the features they want or to cut costs. This isn't an internet-connecting app like banking or ticket purchase so is more sensitive to the set up of the phone. Apple is Apple, very tightly controlled and positively against anything Android-ish, so it's quite easy to develop for. My phone brand isn't even on the Hornby list, so it may or may not work when the app is released and if it has deep peculiarities it may never work. I do wish Hornby had been a bit more transparent about the supply issue that led to an over-large chip (especially Next-18). Simply saying "we wanted to get it out to support TT-120, a smaller version that will fit a wider range of locos is being developed." A bit the same with power supplies, they should have left turning up to 11 on a standard DC controller for users to discover and stuck to telling folk to use either a DCC system or the 15v power-pack. Maybe with a note that other 15v supplies may be suitable but they have been unable to test the thousands of types available. Alan

I thought the maximum was 6" and even then could cause problems with slow freights, of which there were plenty at Penrith. Alan

Hi Grahame, Is the formula you use to check the position of the middle pin of three the length of the chord between the outer two pins squared then divided by twice the radius? So on a 1500mm curve (1.5m) with your pins roughly every 150mm you would get a chord of 300mm and so a versine of 30mm, the displacement of the middle pin from the chord at it's centre. 300 squared = 90000, 1500 x 2 = 3000 so 90000/3000 = 30. And now you can use the adjusted pin as one end of the next chord. Alan

You've not seen my tracklaying when I tried wood fibreboard for sound deadening. Alan

Rather expensive donor, although the body might be worth a bit to a P4 modeller. Older M7s are more readily available and comparatively cheap. Alan

No! They only do phosphor bronze rail joiners for bullhead, sorry. Might be worth giving them a ring, though to see of their insulated ones will stay on bullhead. Alan

DCC Concepts do some as well. Alan

Ahh, the Horwich school of measurement. Alan

No he didn't. As you indicate it was a development of Walter Smith's designs for the NER. Alan

Are you sure? 17mm is 4'3", 4'8" is a little more than 18.6mm. 56 inches at 1:76 is 0.736" x 25.4 gives 18.7mm. Alan