Pete the Elaner

Please explain why you believe a slow line would have any less 'environmental baggage'.

The M1 widening was horrible. Not surprisingly, the section between Luton & Milton Keynes had its budget cut, so instead of a full 4 lane motorway with hard shoulder, we got some smart motorway with bits not widened at all. It is usual to expect delays in this section & feels like the job is still ongoing. I think using this & the M40 as a comparison between another WCML upgrade & HS2 was actually a good one.

The road system is not too bad: A421 is a grade separated dual carriageway from M1 J13 to the Black Cat roundabout on the A1. An upgrade of the Black Cat has recently started to transform it into a free flowing interchange. The addition of a decent rail service would still be a bonus though.

I have read elsewhere that it is proposed to be near Kempston Hardwick. I think that was one of the stations which they planned to close to allow both a fast & slow train in each direction every hour. If that was the case, it would incite a re-think.

The pantograph for the real 91 has a smaller base than on other trains. The 91 has a narrower roof because it was designed to match the profile of the Mk4s, which have a skinnier profile than previous coaches because they were designed to tilt. The Pendolino should also have a different pantograph for the same reason. The APT certainly does.

I remember there was something unusual about the 90s board which prevented programming. I cannot remember whether reading or writing CVs failed. So even though you may think you have reset the decoder, you may not have done. A decoder tester is useful for this. If you don't have one, then try it in another loco.

Only accurate for pre-c1984 class 87. The only Lima models of Royal Sovreign I can find are in swallow livery, which is post c1987. If it is indeed in swallow livery, a BW pan would be correct. I have just tried my spare Heljan one with a Lima 87 body & as mentioned earlier, it will require drilling. Heljan spares are available from Gaugemaster & I understand Bachmann also sell their BW pan although they do not advertise it.

What we are seeing is the media exposing themselves. They normally ask weird questions intended to get unwanted quotes from drivers/teams so they can cut half the words to twist the meaning of whatever the interviewee said. Now they have no interviews to work with, they have to stoop lower & print complete lies. A suspicion from somebody gets published, splatted on social media & many seem to believe it. The more it gets repeated, the more will believe it.

A small solar panel may help. I am not sure you will be able to just place it on your dashboard & plug it into the cigar lighter, but it should not be too much work to provide a socket which it can be plugged in to. I have a car which does not get used in the winter months & I have no power in my garage so I had to run the engine for a while once a fortnight to stop the battery going flat. It was not always possible to do this & after it went totally flat, the battery was sometimes damaged, requiring a replacement. When I got a solar panel to keep the battery topped up, some of my friends laughed at me because when I need to use it (in winter), we do not get so much daylight. They were wrong. It easily provides enough power to keep the battery topped up & after the wiring was ripped out by a failed door, it charged the battery up from flat in a few weeks during February-April.

The first batch is quite large but they still cannot produce every variation. Assuming it sells well (which looks very likely) subsequent batches will be produced & I am sure these will contain different variations.

Look for images of 90136 then 90036 in its Sybic livery. Although the red on the sector logo stayed red, the "Railfreight Distribution" branding on the lower bodyside faded from red to yellow.

Nice to see I was driving the banker properly too: Stopping short of the train before moving forward to couple up (or in this case, connect). 😁

While I don't fall for the "they spent it on food not the car" rubbish*, I do not believe their amount of overspend was enough to give them as much of an advantage that they enjoyed. They have either found a clever loophole, simply done a good job, or most likely taken a development route which worked & the budget cap prevented other teams from throwing their work away. I agree that any advantage this year will carry over to next, especially as they had a big enough lead to switch development to next year's car much sooner. Other teams had to fight each other for the minor places. *All the budget gets spent on the car one way or another, which is why the FIA have defined it so carefully. If they shove some of the budget outside which should be inside, which RB did with their catering, they have more to spend on other things like the car itself.

I don't remember seeing any locos in Swallow with light grey. I have found a couple of photos of 87031 with the Italic Intercity branding with yellow ends (but no wrap around) & light grey but no swallow logo. But I would not be bold enough to state that no locos ever ran like it. Exceptions are the 43s & 91s which had both silver white on the lower side of the nose end & light grey on the lower side at the coach end.

I can see the point of dropped scores. It was a strange system back then which worked with how the cars were designed, but poorly suited to how things are now. It allowed designers to stress cars & their components so highly that they were faster but risked failure. Having a car that was really quick but failed to finish 5 races was better than one which finished every race in 5th because the results from 6 of them got dropped anyway. So cars were designed within these rules. It was also in the era of qualifying engines which were only required to do 1 lap at full throttle before being replaced. Things have moved on. Cars are expected to be more reliable & in many cases can go through the season without a retirement due to a technical issue. If worst results were still dropped, teams could afford to change everything & absorb the penalty of starting at the back for 1 race then retire from that race on the first lap (because their worst results would be dropped anyway, so who cares whether it is a 3rd or a DNF) then have a new, powerful car for the next when everyone else's was a little tired. This was similar to what Merc did in 2021 with their 'spicy engine' & also when RB did the same year in Russia after Max's collision penalty from Monza had already put him at the back: All perfectly within a flawed set of rules.

Air Conditioning does not just provide cold air. The clue is in the name. It is called Air Conditioning for a reason; because it conditions the air. It can provide warm air just as well as cooling it, but it also dries damp air. It could potentially humidify dry air too, but there is no need inside a car.

Bottas was good on his day but lacked consistency.

How can you include Hamilton in there? He drove alongside Alonso, Button or Rosberg in 7 of his first 9 seasons. Alonso & Button were both the reigning WCs at the time. Alonso fully expected to dominate Hamilton. Rosberg had ambitions of winning against Hamilton & achieved it.

That was not as often as it has been repeated. I read somewhere that it was only 5 times, but has been exaggerated over the years. 4 of those were in the second half of the season, when Vettel was challenging Hamilton for 1st. Vettel was way ahead at the summer break one year (2017?) so any team would favour their only driver left in contention for the title at this stage. The only time when it happened early in the season was when they were on different strategies & Hamilton promised to return the favour. He did that 2 races later by moving aside to let Bottas take a place (I think it may have been for the win too). Nobody wants to remember that part of it though.

It is not problem free, but layouts rarely are. The problems were manageable though. We were able to keep things running. There are plenty of things going on around the layout besides trains moving so having Paul or Gordon interacting with the viewers was very helpful & I am sure both enjoyed it as much as those viewing it.

Tomorrow lunchtime? I thought today is Wednesday, or have I slept an entire day?

I recall that CMX recommend cutting material from an old pair of corduroy jeans, but they seem to be out of fashion now & I have not seen any for years. There must be another material with similar properties?

Re-sizing is quite a simple function with Sketchup but I cannot import a .stl file with the free version.

Usually not. The interviews with teams & drivers are ok but the media, even broadcasters, seem to try & give the impression there is more needle between teams & drivers than actually exists. I still do not like pit stops behind safety cars. They allow the possibility of causing an incident to gain an advantage. I also feel that something tougher needs to be done about passing by dive-bombing. The driver sending the dive-bomb needs to stay in control, but Verstappen was not because he did not stay on the track. It reminded me of Verstappen & Hamilton in Brazil 2021. The team clearly thought that Verstappen could negate the penalty by staying ahead & creating a gap. Penalties need to be deterrents & obviously this was not.

Their status page is the most informative of any manufacturer too. I can understand them not wanting to over-commit by promising delivery dates. There are things outside their control which can go wrong.