Hroth

A word about the new Hornby 14xx. I got one and all it did was sit on the track and buzz. Its gone back, but I understand that a significant proportion are problematic and Hornby are having to weed them out (or let buyers weed them out?) and return them to the Chinese for rework. Its a pity as I wanted it to replace my ancient Airfix 14xx...

Well, as a family we've built two boats in pretty limited places. The first was a wooden 16ft speedboat that was built in a front room, steaming the ribs in a cast iron drainpipe with an electric kettle at one end. Luckily there were french windows that allowed it to be removed from the house relatively easily. The other was a 35ft steel narrowboat of traditional shape, build in a shed that wasn't deep enough. The bows of the boat actually poked through a narrow door at the end of the shed and the stern was off-centre to the main doors of the shed (there were reasons for this). It was removed from the shed by rolling it on the oxy-acetylene gas cylinders.... Not recommended! In addition, it was craned into the canal during a major drought. We got it back to the moorings through water that might be better described as "thin mud" in places. (There IS a railway connection to this anecdote, the narrowboats bottom was laid on railway sleepers...)

FPTP, STV, AMS, AV, SV??? Should be fun.... Just noticed I've fallen into the third division......

And beloved of the new independent record labels. The cover of The Human Leagues "Being Boiled" single on Fast was created entirely from stock Letraset!

The BBC 4 program was interesting, though I'd known a tiny bit about Gill and his private life for some time. Nowadays he would have been hung out to dry like Rolf Harris and to hell with his art and typeface. As for films, the scrubbing of Kevin Spacey from a recently completed film ( http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-41925767 ) is 1984 style erasure at its finest. Not to put too fine a point on things, but people are being condemned on the basis of public denunciation. I've no problems if they've been found guilty in a court of law (though even then there's room for debate), but the kneejerk destruction of character before allegations have been proven is a bit worrying.

"Flying Scotsman"? The service or the disintegrating loco thats fallen off its wheels again? I agree. If you're selling directly to the public, a journalist, or within an enthusiast group, then often a catch name may have more impact than than a corporate acronym. But if you want to position a product as new/advanced, particularly if its an improvement/refurbishment of a current product, then you need a name that is in advance of the zeitgeist. InterCity 125 was used in parallel with HST, marketing vs corpspeak. Both can be used to designate the same concept.

I'd forgotten about ITMA. Definitely civilian!

Haven't read it yet, but if you're not a regular, its almost worth getting for the mini-Metcalfe shed alone...... (Typical Peco, no prices in the wagon booklet!)

Given that by 1945 most of the population had been in the military, or engaged in warwork (My aunt was a Post Office telephones engineer for the duration), a familiarity with the use of acronyms probably transferred to civvy street quite rapidly.

There was also FIDO, Fog Intense, Dispersal Of, a marvellous way to disperse fog on runways during WW2, by burning large quantities of petrol. RDF, Radio Direction Finding, Americanised into RADAR. HFDF, High Frequency Direction Finding or HuffDuff, for pinpointing U Boats at sea by convoy protection vessels The military (as always) is rife with acronyms.....

But it does give the flavour of comparing a Patriot (5xp) to a Princess Coronation, an equivalent sort of capability hike! Of course, it'd actually be an IC100.

Thats the sort of upgrade that I had in mind and might have worked.... So if we want to keep the progression to the HST naming convention perhaps it could be one of the following Blue Fast Train (a nod to its predecessor) Fairly Fast Train Pretty Fast Train or perhaps Fast Express 100, shortened to FXP 100

I was wondering too - I'd keep the Triang Blue Pullman cab and roof, and try to mate it to a Mk2 BSO (Lima must have done one?) losing the passenger end...

I've always liked the "Blue Pullman" shape. Its a pity that BR didn't seize the nettle of opportunity when a/c stock became available in the mid-60s to ditch the "Pullman" branding, rebuild the power cars with upgraded engine/generator sets and lose the power car seating (too noisy!), retaining a slightly expanded luggage/staff compartment instead. Not imposing a Pullman supplement would make the refurbished units more popular and encourage the building of further sets, thus saving the class during the rationalisation era. They then might have had a excellent "modern" looking express DMU class, capable of maintaining a 100mph service on non-electrified routes, yet still leaving evolutionary space for the attempt at the ATP, with fallback space for HST.

I take it you've never had to deal with a Chihuahua? They have a serious attitude problem. One in a cakebox would make Schrodingers cat, alive or non-alive, look like a picnic!

If we're going to ponder..... At the end of the BRMTv preview trailer for the December issue, there is a shot of a sleeping dog. Now, this put me in mind of the dogs that were present (both live and stuffed) in some large stations for the purpose of collecting for Railway Widows and Orphans. I was thinking that a little diorama of one of the dogs (again live, or stuffed in a cabinet) on a station platform with a little lad and his mother/governess/whoever placing a donation in the dogs collecting box might be a bit different. Now, my figurative skills are naff to non-existent, so I wouldn't even attempt it, but perhaps???

Not a problem here, chicken carcasses would be boiled up for soup stock, the same with turkey at Christmas. Thus was unbridled carnivorous gnawing averted!

And if, as an Experiment, you could have persuaded the Prince of Wales to cut it for you, it might have set a Precedent!

Meanwhile at the other end of the Hornby scale.... Argos are offering a Buy 2 get a Third Free (cheapest is free) on selected items in their toys range. As far as trainsets go, the offer includes: Hornby Junior Express Train @ £34.99 Santa Express Train @ £59.99 West Coast Highlander @ 74.99 Intercity Express @ £89.99 Tornado Pullman Express @ £99.99 There may be other items in their toy ranges that might be useful but I gave up on the wastelands of pink.... The offer ends tomorrow (7th November) so if you're desparate for a fleet of Railroad Class 395's at the equivalent of £60 each complete with a third radius oval, siding and controller, then nows your chance! Its cheaper than ebay.....

And to make matters entirely sure, City of Truro too...

The Chinook of the railway system... I can already see the uncoupling not going to plan and it taking off, trailing wagons behind it!

They were also a bit of a liability in that even though there wasn't a fire to douse, it took quite a few minutes to lower the funnel, secure and make it watertight! As I recall, the reasoning behind the design was that the turbines would enable them to keep up with the surface fleet (while on the surface themselves) and in an engagement, submerge and sneak up on the naughty enemy battleships... I think at least one went to the bottom as the result of an overenthusiastic crash dive...

I suppose that the J50 might have shunted payloads for the Lancaster! And then Dum dum dum dummmmmmmmmmm "This is the BBC, here are some messages" "The Speckled Goose Flies In The Moonlight....."

Its like slipping into all those tutorials and seminars you avoided at the time, due to an active social life. Radio stations and programmes like these make me glad that the Murdochs aren't entirely in charge of the media.... And if you're into watching 6-gilled sharks gnawing the carcass of a dead whale, accompanied by the soothing tones of Boaty McBoatface Sir David Attenborough, then Blue Planet II is cracking viewing!

Basically, we're the "In Our Time" of rmweb. Good, eh?