drmditch

Please excuse a naieve question: What are the handling characteristics of these 'new' cruise liners? They appear to have a lot of top-weight, and a lot of sail area.

Please excuse a possibly ignorant question, but was not the Battle airframe used for the Fulmar?

Re: 'Clone Modelling'. I can't speak for anybody else, but I am building/re-building my railway to represent the that period which allows me to model the infrastructure and rolling stock that I find most interesting. For me, this is the late years of the LNER in the NEA, without everything being quite as run-down and dirty as it probably was at that time. Actually, my working fiction is that it is not 1947 but 1954 , and not only has the LNER not gone bankrupt but nationalisation has not happened (at least in the form that it actually did). It being the centenary of the formation of the NER the LNE has re-painted some selected stock in NER livery. I grew up in GE territory, and I think my aversion to BR green may originate in my being frightened by what was probably a Britannia in Chelmsford station when I was in my pushchair. Since my adult life has been mostly in the North East, my railway scenario lets me research and visit such infrastructure as remains, and attempt to concentrate my library and research interests without taking up an impossible amount of bookshelf space!

May this follower submit humble congratulations! You not only produced an operable model railway, but also mastered the format (and the producers?) I was actually concerned (despite all the tacky presentation) to see who won! I shall have to watch the rest of the series now!

Thank you. I have done some of that. The fall being merely coincidental had occurred to me. The motor and gearbox are well protected in a heavy white metal body, and there was no (apparent) damage to the body, wheels or drive chain. To twist the gearbox should surely resulted in more visible damage. However, shock damage can not be ruled out. Most of my locomotive construction uses two-stage Comet boxes, and, once assembled, fettled, and run in I have not had this happen before. The gear in question does have a hole for a grub-screw in the centre of the teeth, and it is here that that the teeth failed, the rest of them are intact and providing drive. The grub-screw was not in place and had never been used, but the gear must have been weaker at that point.

This is an appeal for help for a poorly engine. My A8 - of which I am very fond - well it may not be the best but it's all mine - has encountered a mishap, and I cannot find my original construction documents. It uses a Comet two-stage gear box with extender. and the idler gear directly beneath the worm has partially stripped (or at least worn very heavily.) I am not sure what the specification of the gearbox is. It is certainly a Comet design, and (I think) is either a GB3/20 or a GB5/20. Before I contact Wizard Models (who I think have taken on the illustrious mantle of Comet) I would be very grateful as to which the gearbox is, and also (if possible) what the dimensions of the idler gear are. I should point out that until its recent accident (involving the CE Department not properly clearing the line after a track possession in the one place on the railway where a de-railed vehicle could fall all the way to the floor) it has been running very well since 2012. The obvious damage to its front buffer beam was easily repaired, and this gear problem has only shown itself three weeks later.

Ah - autumn is here! The best time for re-reading 'Lord of the Rings'. Then winter, and an afternoon with 'Wind in the Willows'. Just at the moment I'm back in the 17th century with the Bill of Rights. (Tim Harris 'Revolution - The great crisis of the British Monarch') Now I need to wake up and finish a model of an LNER Horsebox originally built in 1938. Significant year anybody? (Apologies for raising a post-grouping reference. The next rolling-stock project will definitely be much earlier.)

Should not the deceased insect shown a few posts higher up have been modelled to a proper scale? At that size it would give a different answer to the old question of 'what happens when a fly meets a speeding locomotive?'. Also Mr Wright stated that it was a bluebottle. Obviously LB is a greater and grander enterprise than my own humble project. The majority of the insects that need to removed from my railway room (usually from the windowsills) are , I think, specimens of the humble housefly. On a slightly more serious note I think that most humans have a relatively small 'bubble of comprehension' from which to observe the world. Things outside of that bubble they do not comprehend and often do not notice. Enough of this wittering - I have a railway to build and a clear day to work on it!

It is in the NE surely? As in Derwenthaugh, Redhaugh, etc. All important railway locations.

Please excuse my post above risking a return to the controversial matters discussed above, I have only just caught up with this rapidly moving thread. (Although I have enjoyed Mr Edwardian's features on our current legal and constitutional position and anyway what is wrong with the Whig view of history?) Of course, sometimes a subject which causes great controversy at one time becomes incomprehensible a few years later. Does anyone have information about the 'Gauge War' riots in Barnstaple in the mid 19th century? I'm sorry that I have no pictures of Ms A available on this computer.

And how much have John Lilburn, (and two centuries later) the Chartists, contributed to our present system?

This thread does travel doesn't it? I'm afraid my experience is very limited and I have never encountered a salt-water crocodile. I have seen quite widely separated (ie on quite a large head) crocodilian eyes peering above the water in a West African tidal creek. Also, on occasion, I did blame a crocodile for cutting my anchor line, or possibly eating the anchor which was quite a small one. But that was another story. The points I was going to make before being distracted by splendid survivors of the Eocene (I had to look that up), are that: W E Gladstone was noted as having retained a Lancashire accent in the House of Commons. G Stephenson was accused of being 'foreign' in a committee of that institution. I shall ignore the fascinations of the New Model Army (red coats and all) and must start preparations for a large tour group at Locomotion (the national Railway Museum at Shildon). We get all kinds of accents and indeed nationalities, but no crocodiles recently even GWR ones.

Good Morning. (Well, it is here anyway.) I've always used a solvent (In my case 'Plastic Weld'), and have never encountered problems. The critical aspect is to ensure that the coupling is at the correct ride height, and that the coupling bar is sufficiently outside the buffer heads to avoid buffer locking. This distance does depend on the tightness of the curves the vehicle/s are required to traverse. It's always worth while measuring and checking before fixing. Sometimes vertical packing is required, sometimes the coupling block needs to have its 'legs' shaved down a bit. I've always found these blocks and the Bachmann type 'dropped' couplings most satisfactory.

Ah - the Euston Square Confederacy tries again! These commercial monopolies just won't give up will they? I would stand up for the plucky little GNR in this dispute. I am also glad that the LNWR didn't manage to bully it's way into Hartlepool.

This thread does travel to interesting places, but none more challenging than the above posts with regard to effectiveness or otherwise of violence in society. I am extremely concerned about the current social and political situation in England (and I state the nation deliberately). I deeply dislike the apparent reduction in tolerance, common sense, and common decency in the last five years. Edwardian's analyses are quite acute. However, we do have a society built on violence, both explicit and hidden. I would invite you to consider the following selected examples:- A system of representational parliamentary government established after a civil war which killed a large proportion of the male population of Britain and Ireland. What happened to many women was savagely brutal. The 'improvement' of agriculture by the many privately sponsored enclosure acts, regardless of what happened to the people whose livelihood it removed. The defence of the nation and it's commercial and political interests by a naval workforce partially recruited by explicit violence. (Although this is a complex subject and nowhere as simple as popular myth makes it.) The construction of a prototype inter-city railway to convey the slave-grown products of one oppressive society, to be further manufactured in a factory system whose workers were treated in a way which many of us would now find equally objectionable, although we now wear clothing manufactured in conditions not much better. The passage of the 'Great Reform Act' amidst the actuality of large scale public disorder and the threat of more. The forced removal of 'slum' populations to enable the construction of great railway termini. A legal system in which a Lord Chief Justice in the 1970's ( sorry Edwardian to trespass into your field) could state that what went on between a man and a woman in the 'privacy' of their home 'was not the province of the law'. A Prime Minister describing in the House of Commons a young woman abused from childhood as 'a light woman of loose moral's.' I have not even touched on the terrible thousand year history of the English in Ireland. (I could use stronger words but might get myself banned!) Yes, we have corrected much and I for one am grateful for the legal protection of the Gender Act of 2004 and the Equality Act of 2010. But, where there is radical in-equality, oppression, and 'injustice' - depending on how justice is perceived - then there is the potential and perhaps even the necessity for violence. (Discussion of perceptions of the nature and ownership of justice omitted!) It is too easy to regard our apparently settled state prior to 2016 as normal and natural. Perhaps this was not so. Please excuse this long post. I am away from home and away from the consoling delights of my railway. Home tomorrow. Opaque lavatory windows. Fastening couplings. Lubricating bearings. Lineside fences. Wiring Matrices. Control Panels. Re-starting a locomotive project. Sanity! Caroline.

Thank you for the information and pictures. Without wishing to seem ungrateful, was there any news of the V2 ?

Re 'The Slow Train'. I understand that Chester-Le-Street is still accessible by train. Not sure how many trains on the ECML stop there, but there is still a service. (For the moment anyway, unless and until the whole system is sold off to Amtrack or something.) Oh tempora oh mores.

Only if your name is Haydn, and then you also make viola players count very long rests!

My understanding was that the viol family of instruments were normally bowed. Obviously any stringed instrument can also be plucked, but I personally have never fully recovered from the pizzicato passage at the start of the last movement of the Eroica. I broke my A string (top string on a Viola) and the remainder of the symphony, which is of course magnificent, left scars on my musical psyche. However, if readers will excuse a random enquiry to save searching on-line, does anyone know of a kit available for an NER horsebox?

What about the (LNER) J21s?

I remember this. It was very impressive, and just the sort of thing I am currently trying to build (in 4mm/OO). I hope there are more pictures of it somewhere.

Re: 1472 et seq. My post on this locomotive above was meant to be slightly to tongue-in-cheek. I am currently (last iteration at 11am and 2pm tomorrow) delivering a tour/talk/demonstration regarding this engine and why it is so famous. This covers all of the points Tony mentions above, plus a few more such as the initially unsatisfactory design of the frames. I did mention this on RMweb a few weeks ago, but of those attending no-one has identified themselves as a follower of this forum. So if anyone is visiting Locomotion at Shildon tomorrow do come and say hello. I confess I do like GNR apple green, but I also like the engineering concept of the double Kylchap and I think it is a good idea if the Driver can see the signals. To risk further controversy, here is another scenario: Gresley is quoted by the late Dr Hughes as saying that when the licence fee for the Kylchap ran out, he would equip all his large engines with them. If Sir Nigel had not died untimely and if BR had had a more enlightened and gradual dieselisation policy perhaps we would seen a large fleet of double Kylchap V2s in the 1940s. Since (other than the A4s) Doncaster's previous attempts at smoke deflectors were untidy and unsuccessful , perhaps the said V2s would have had larger deflectors as fitted to Humourist in 1947. (It might have been unlikely that a German example would have been copied at that date.) I am tempted to model a V2 with those features!

I note that this thread has now reached page 1472. How long will it take to reach 4472 I wonder. Do you think it might need the additional power conferred by a double Kylchap? Would trough deflectors help it keep focussed? Must leave this computer to go and spend the day with 60103.

The 1974 article was in one of the first RMs that I bought. I still have it. Broad Aston inspired me in many ways. What I liked especially was the simple, uncluttered space of the original layout and the ability to emulate a train service to different destinations. These are aspects that I am still working towards on my own railway. Having said the latest development of Broad Aston appears to considerably 'less simple' !

It was actually out-shopped on the 24th February 2923, which I think was the day after Gresley was confirmed as the CME of the LNER. It the first of the batch of 10 authorised by the GN board before the grouping actually happened. Obviously unlike the NB the GN board was prepared to commit to expenditure!