John Isherwood

Quite - sh*t happens; it is astonishing that this level of damage can be sustained with the driver apparently being uninjured. No doubt it was a traumatic experience for him, and my sympathies are with him. Nonetheless, no occupation in the world comes with a 100% safety guarantee - and trying to achieve the impossible can sometimes lead to that occupation ceasing to exist. Constantly changing safety regulations will no doubt be welcomed by train builders, as viable stock is condemned - but the cost ultimately falls on the traveller, who may ultimately judge rail travel to be beyond their means. (As happened years ago in my case, and apparently the majority of the population). CJI.

Am I not correct in thinking that DHP1, the Clayton hydraulic ' Super Clayton' had an element of Fell technology in its design? CJI.

What I see - and my eyes may deceive me - is a series of contacts, bent into a shallow 'V', in order to make contact with a series of flat(?) contacts on the matching half of the connector. The shallow 'V' contact is intended, I surmise, to flex and allow it to slide over the matching contact plate. As such, it matters little if the actual bend - or in this case soldered break - becomes locally rigid, provided that the bulk of the contact strip remains flexible. Indeed, I note that the connecting wires are soldered to the contact strips in the immediate vicinity of the break. I accept that a novice at soldering would find the task of repairing this model very onerous - even impossible. My point, however, is that we cannot continue to consign models with minor defects such as this to the scrap bin. The model in question is eminently repairable by a moderately experienced modeller, and a way for that to happen will have to be found - sooner rather than later. As to the cause of the problem; it is not for me to speculate - manufacturing defect or heavy handling at some point; who knows? Please don't be your often offensive self, Mick - I stated that the defect was repairable; which it is by someone with the necessary skills. I did NOT suggest that the owner necessarily had such skills. Bottom line - I was concerned that a perfectly viable model would be binned. CJI.

Mick, You clearly have no faith - if we don't try, we don't learn. ..... or is that the future - chuck it in the bin and try another? (That's what will ultimately happen to the - marginally - broken model). I know - customer rights and all that - but what skills are being lost in the meantime? Ultimately, we have to find a way to continue our hobby without the waste that minor defects generate. I don't know the solution, but gashing models which are 99% OK is not it. CJI.

The broken part will reattach very easily with a touch of the soldering iron. CJI.

I can't tell you the differences, but it's unlikely in the extreme that two class designations would be issued for one design of loco. FURTHER INFO. The difference was the source class for Maunsell's rebuilds - see https://www.google.com/url?q=https://sremg.org.uk/steam/d1(secr)-mob.shtml&sa=U&ved=2ahUKEwjMmN-ij62DAxVTUUEAHfRZAVEQFnoECAkQAg&usg=AOvVaw30gpyuNMiTVANgGDlx-WQD CJI.

Err - thats £9.59 for TEN, or 96p each - a bargain, I'd say! John Isherwood.

Safety rails for the tops of lampost or signal ladders? CJI.

Have you also got the accompanying curled processed cheese slice sandwich - worth a lot more to collectors as a pair? CJI.

Best wishes for Christmas and the New Year from Cambridge Custom Transfers. Special thanks to all list members who have supported CCT during the past twenty-four years - we are about to embark upon our 25th anniversary! John Isherwood.

If I recall correctly, something similar is included with the Airfix dockside crane - or possibly the Airfix loco shed? CJI.

Even down to having exactly the same weight! CJI.

Please, if only for my obsessive sanity, could the OP change 'fitched' in the title to 'flitched'? Pretty please? CJI.

No need - I have glued sideframes, metal and plastic, to the plastic side arms, with no adverse effects in the long-term. By all means roughen the side arms to aid adhesion if you must, but this is a perceived rather than a real problem. The side arms are there for a reason - to glue the sideframes to. Simples! CJI.

I know that you enjoy over-engineering, but I'm afraid that any suggestions from me (and others?) would be far less involved than what you propose. John Isherwood.

Politics and politicians are pragmatic - why would you put forward a policy which you know the electorate would not vote to fund? The root problem is us - by which I mean the majority of the electorate - and our failure to value cycling and walking as sustainable modes of transport. The various lobbies can shout as loud as they like - the majority of the electorate are not listening! Sad, but true. John Isherwood.

What is not being mentioned here - and I agree with most of what is being proposed as best practice - is cost; and the willingness of taxpayers to fund this. Whilst there would appear to be a concensus that UK cycling facilities could be much better, I doubt that there would be that level of support for funding the facilities on the Netherlands model; (if they could be accommodated). From my professional knowledge, we are talking of a factor of around 1000% when compared to the 'white line' basic provision. John Isherwood.

In the London example, could we have a photo of the other cycle lane on the opposite side of the road? If the widths of the two London cycle lanes were added together, would they not be similar to the Amsterdam TWO-WAY cycle lanes? Once again, selective (misleading) evidence in order to vastly overstate a comparison. Since you have rested your case, I will do likewise. John Isherwood.

Each to their own - I am of the opinion that it should be more widely known what abuse politicians are prepared to visit upon their employees in the pursuit of their political ambitions. I will accept the label of bitter - but not twisted - is it any wonder, given my experiences? John Isherwood.

I don't - I'm retired, and therefore excused thinking. CJI.

I'm sorry - I have neither the time nor the inclination to favour you with my career autobigraphy. I will, however, give a taste of the context of my firmly held views / experience. I spent forty years dealing with the sector of society which believes that they know far better than those with professional training and practical experience. Very early in that career, I learned that facts mean very little to those with a political agenda. Suffice to say that those same 'amateur experts', in collusion with would-be politicians of the liberal / left, sought to defeat facts and practical considerations by bringing a private prosecution against me (and others) - alleging riotous assembly, affray, criminal assault and criminal damage. All of this, and the evidence of academic professionals / council candidates produced by the prosecution, was shown in open court to be lies and perjury. (The foregoing can be verified in court records, and the archives of the 'Cambridge Evening News'). So, your conviction that our current planning problems are rooted in the dubious politics of former generations ring hollow for me - there was and are plenty of unprincipled and murky politics about in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. You will forgive me if I delve no further into a painful period of my past. John Isherwood. (Who regularly turned up on site to find his effigy hanging from a lampost).

I'm not defensive - I speak from a position of practical experience over many years. The fact that that experience totally undermines your avowed convictions is an unfortunate fact - for you. ..... and, once again, where on earth has this mythical statement that the Netherlands is flat come from? Not me! John Isherwood.

I am not going to prolong this - let us just reflect upon who actually made a career of urban transport design and implementaion, and who didn't(?). I can assure you that I embarked upon the task with all of the high-flown ambitions which the cycling lobby so loudly proclaim. Forty years of practical experience proved to me that there are no easy solutions, and it was NOT the legacy of poor decisions in past generations that was the problem. The past was a very different place, with its own pressures and priorities. Who are we to criticise our forefathers from today's perspectives? John Isherwood.

Sorry, where did I suggest that Cambridge had hills? I now reside in Bodmin, Cornwall; where we do have lots of hills. Funnily enough, cycling is virtually unknown, apart from in the holiday season when gaudy, sweating lycra-clad stoics are followed, for mile after mile, by crawling convoys of motor traffic quite unable to overtake in the narrow lanes. This, despite the existence of the Camel Trail - a converted railway line stretching from Bodmin to Wenford Bridge and Padstow - dedicated purely to cyclists and pedestrians! John Isherwood.

If you want to see wide boulevards designed in the 1920s and 30s, you don't have to go to the Netherlands; try the outskirts of any UK city that expanded at that time. Dual carriageways for motor traffic; wide central reserves for tramways; separate footways and, yes, cycleways were, and are once again, becoming commonplace. Sheffield, Leeds, Sunderland, Glasgow etc., etc. spring to mind. This is what really gets my goat - anyone would think that the Dutch invented urban transport planning - WRONG. Cycling in urban Britain is a far from ideal travel experience, but then the same can be said of all modes of transport. Those who believe that this is entirely due to a perceived basic difference in politics between the UK and the Netherlands are living in cloud cuckoo-land - it is MUCH more complex than that. John Isherwood.