Pete the Elaner

Absolutely I would. What is daft about it? Why have track limits if you only enforce them in certain places? It may be draconian but the best rules are those which are easy to enforce. Removing the grey areas would make this easy. Drivers would adjust instantly. We regularly see cars leave the track as they exit a corner. They all do it so 'none gain an advantage'. So why do they do it then? The truth is they all gain the same advantage, but for some reason (which I find ridiculous) this is deemed ok. They usually seem to manage within the track limits by the 'wall of champions' & you do not hear of them arguing for that to be moved a bit further out so they can accelerate earlier. The penalty for not keeping within the track there is a damaged car.

That's definitely worth adding to my own DCC folder.

No, because it seems they have a strange way of implementing it. The infringement seems to be 'gaining an advantage by leaving the track limits'. It therefore gets applied to some corners only & also where a driver passes another. The 'gaining an advantage' bit is a complete joke. If they put all 4 wheels outside the white lines marking the edge of the track anywhere (unless avoiding a collision) then they should get a penalty. The avoiding a collision clause would allow drivers to squeeze each other out when exiting corners & for 1st turn incidents. Black & white. Easy to implement. Would save all this nonsense. You would need more stewards to monitor all corners, but junior ones since most would be clear-cut decisions & it is not as if F1 is short of cash.

Not everyone. Some have already produced some very nice OLE. Not me though. I will be attempting something a little better than my last effort.

Sutherland was never streamlined. It is Hamilton which has had a casing re-applied. I am not sure the restoration would be 100% accurate anyway. It would depend on how detailed documents were...those which have not been lost for various reasons. There may even have been some differences within the class, especially after a re-visit to the works for some repairs.

Some made their way to the Anglia services too. I think they had 74 seats, which was more than a (longer) Mk3. TSO No wonder they felt cramped. As for regular declassification, I understand the Thameslink services have a 1st class section at each end of the train, but the rear is always declassified.

Euston-Birmingham, probably not. 395s do not have tilt so would be restricted to 110mph on the WCML. 350s cover 110mph services. They have corridor ends & more doors making them better suited for single guard operation & shorter stopping times.

I wasn't going from any 2nd hand news reports. The radio comms between Vettel & the team were played on TV. He clearly said "I saw him but I had nowhere else to go".

Actually Vettel said he could see Hamilton but his car was out of control so had no choice but to use that part of the track.

There are 2 sides to this decision. We want to see racing, & this robbed us of that. or In some corners, leaving the track would lose you a few seconds. In others, you would either get stuck in a gravel trap or hit a wall, both of which would end the driver's race. These automatically penalise the driver for leaving the track. It is really fair to drive straight back on & impede the driver immediately behind you? I believe that apart from being forced off to avoid a collision (which was not the case here), drivers should always be penalised for leaving the track regardless. I think this should be a hard rule enforced rigidly for anyone who leaves the track except to avoid a collision.

Consumer rights state that your issue is with the retailer, not the manufacturer. Your retailer's issue is with whoever they bought it from, etc. Eventually this will be passed back to the manufacturer but they are not obliged to deal directly with you.

One of mine has a faulty speaker. It sounds weak & hissy compared to the other one's roar. Whether the speaker itself has fault or it is simply not sealed properly is unclear because I have not taken it apart. This could be an isolated case or it could be a common fault. It would only be apparent to those which have been sound-fitted, which may well be a low number.

I think it is often who you are with & who you see there which helps. This made Leytonstone enjoyable for me. Being a 1 day show made it more relaxing but I always went with a group of friends, taking a layout between us & met up with several other friends there...then some of us also used to meet up in a pub before heading home.

Gaugemaster make 3 ranges of controllers. Those with a cream coloured front panel are 'plain' DC & safe to use with a DCC logo. Those with a black panel are feedback. It is these which DCC locos do not like. They also do a series with a red front panel. I do not know what the significance of this is. Maybe higher current for larger scales? I have asked several times on here but never got an answer. I believe the Combi has a cream front, which makes it safe to use with a chipped loco running on DC.

Feedback controllers or high frequency track cleaners can damage decoders. Maybe Zimo feel that it is easier simply to recommend not running on DC than go into too much detail? Decoders are normally fine with a smooth DC. They sometimes improve performance over a non-fitted loco.

But aren't the flexicoil springs mounted to both body & bogie on the real thing? Working springs are not really an option because train set curves are much tighter than the real thing, so they have to be mounted either to the body or bogie.

I assume you meant the screws which attach the roof panel which hides the DCC board? They are phillips-type screws, but they are quite blunt so a nice-sharp phillips driver will have no grip. I spoke to Charlie at the weekend & he suggested getting a slightly oversized phillips driver, but make the point a little blunt by filing off the end first. I did exactly this & the screws came out without too much effort.

I was unsure with previous pre-production models, particularly the bottom of the windows being flat like on Hornby & Lima models. Getting this correct was a deal-breaker for me. The later demo models look a lot better, so I now expect to buy one.

Of course you don't. "I would like an APT please". "Certainly. I will need £250 now & the project will take about 2 years to complete, although it looks likely that I will go broke in about 6 months time". I think you are right though. Some may not really care about their customers but to others, their business is a matter of pride and will cling on to any hope of keeping it alive in the hope that they may just make it happen.

& we wonder why manufacturers have preferred to make steam & diesel rather than OLE models?

There is no 'matching' of decoder & 'controller'. The 'controller' actually breaks down into 3 components: Throttles, command station & booster. Many systems overlap some of these by combining 2 of more components into 1 device. NCE's PowerCab combines all 3, although you can connect extra throttles to it. From throttle to command station is proprietary. Some may be compatible, usually where one is a re-branded version of another. For example, you cannot use a Lenz or NCE throttle with your Gaugemaster command station because they use different protocols. Everything after the command station should be NMRA compliant, including booster & decoder. Some allow extra features like asymmetric braking & Railcom, which are not part of NMRA standards. Performance is almost entirely down to the decoder. A decent Zimo or Lenz will always out perform a Hornby or Gaugemaster decoder on any system.

Elite, yes. Select, no.

Having had my hands on my pair of 90s now, I think Bachmann have tried to be too ambitious. I have sound-fitted both models after running them in on DC. Both are nice, quiet runners. I fitted the RF one first & it seems to be fine. I had to adjust the maximum height of the pan to fit under the bridges on my layout & this worked as it should. I fitted the IC one last night. It sounds wrong. The RF one has a nice roar, but the IC hisses & the horns have a more hollow sound to them. I suspect the speaker may not be sealed properly. I optimistically hoped that it just needed a few minutes of running in for the speaker to settle. (Hi Fi buffs recommend this but I have always been sceptical about it). I tried this today & it sounds no better. Overnight the pan has stopped working too. This was fine last night but refuses to work this morning. Both faults are probably fixable but they are both with 'extra' features . I would really have preferred the option to fit my own choice of speaker...unless I know it is a good one, like Hattons are fitting to their class 66. I know I did not break the pan with the decoder because the RF one is an identical installation which still works after a few days running & I copied the CV changes to lower the pan height. If they had not tried to make the pan work & had provided space to fit a speaker along with a service sheet to tell you how to remove the body, then these issues would not exist.

That would certainly melt the wiring quickly.

Patience. It is normal to produce the expected best sellers first in order to recoup as much of the development costs as quickly as possible. We may even have improved OLE by the time the next batch of 90s arrive.