Horsetan

Thank you for your fulsome praise, Darius. Let me return the compliment. 1. I had no idea about your state of health. That was something you chose to share. You didn't have to. 2. All I commented on was the impressive speed of your building, which to me is always indicative of someone in a hurry. It is an unfortunate fact that some are aware of their own mortality, and that's a figure of speech that I make no apology for. It's much the same as Arthur Kimber discovering, in his eighties, that he had a talent for CAD, leading to a flurry of fine etched North Eastern locomotive kits in a very short period of time; the only thing that brought him to a halt was a stroke shortly before he turned 90. Or John Armstrong, who was notorious for being able to build a locomotive kit in about 3 days. You are very much in that same mould. 2. As far as the memory of your late father goes, that is regrettable but I had no intention of "dumping", as you poetically put it, on his memory. However, your mention of Michelin sparked a memory of my own. People can have wildly different associations from a single object. 3. I make a point of never sharing personal or family problems, but for you I make an exception: perhaps you should be aware that I lost my own father in January. He collapsed and died in my arms, and I will take the memory of that to my own grave. 4. We now live in a society that is much too prone to over-sharing. I am of the view that people need to rediscover the sense of reserve they used to have, and to be much more matter-of-fact. Things happen, and it's our lot in life to deal with them as best we can and move on.

I have to say that, in the 18 years when I was lucky enough to run a BMW, I found Michelin TRX metric tyres very expensive. Nowadays they're something like £280 + VAT per tyre. I couldn't wait to swap to imperial (i.e. normal) wheels and tyres!

This is where the Irish talent for smuggling stuff across the border to/from the UK will come in handy. This means you require regular visitors....!

There is an excellent series of Swiss railway videos by REOS Network, a Dutch filmmaker - these were previously available as DVDs in the early 2000s, but REOS decided to make them all available on YouTube free of charge, as well as filming more recent developments. The videos include North and South Ramp footage. I particularly recommend watching the Zurich Hbf video as that is spread over one day's services, so you can see arrivals and departures from the platform ends, with good views of the incredibly complex track layout (imagine trying to recreate that in 1:87!) and signalling arrangements.

I thought it was the Berner Oberland Bahn (BOB) which runs services between Interlaken Ost and Lauterbrunnen, rather than the MOB.

He's spent something in the order of tens of thousands of Euro so far to reach this stage....and then there's the cost of his locomotives and rolling stock....

I'm more an Emmentaler, despite the holes... Appenzeller's pretty good as well, but not really sold in the UK.

Madness

Also cheese with holes in it.

First thing to remember: the Swiss are very service-minded and have always prided themselves in their ability to provide an efficient operation. Only the Japanese are able to match them. The reason why others can't do it is because they don't - and never will - have that particular Swiss mentality. You need to work with the regularity of a Mondaine clock, which is never going to happen in the UK or Ireland....or Germany, for that matter. Second thing: Swiss transport timetables work because they don't try to be over-ambitious. On the railways, the Swiss don't try to cram in more trains than the route capacity can realistically handle, unlike the British. Hence it is easier to stick to the timetable because there's less to potentially go wrong. Having said that, outside factors can undermine the system, which is why SBB has taken to barring some German services from entering the Swiss network simply because the Germans have - over the last 35 years - lost their ability to be punctual to the extent that German rail services are often worse than UK ones. A late-running DB train can have quite an undesirable knock-on effect.

If you look at the surviving GWR railcars no.20 and 22, they also have a single-drive box. I think they were originally built with two on each bogie, but I've only ever seen the preserved car having just the one.

The final drive box to the driven axle appears to be virtually the same type as was used on the GWR AEC diesel railcars.

Well, Dolly Parton has reportedly just gone to meet her maker, so anything is possible!

He liked - and still likes - messing with fast cars. Still, he's happy enough living the good life in CH and has long since settled there, with no intention of ever coming back to Turd World Britain other than to visit his parents every now and then. Maatjes herring is also good. As found in most supermarket kosher aisles, and Jewish supermarkets.

The marriage, by the way, lasted six years.

The only reason why my 2006 wedding trip was affordable was because the newly-weds asked me to look after their apartment in Zurich, a couple of tram stops away from the city Art Museum, whilst they mitched off on honeymoon for a week or two. I used the flat as a base and travelled round half of CH on SBB, BoB, WAB and RhB. Migros and CoOp supermarkets are commonplace, but everything goes mad in the run-up to 4pm on Saturday, as they all shut for Sunday. All of the rail services were scarily punctual - not one train late.

Practically at parity now. It's one of the perhaps accidental factors that CH benefits from to dissuade migration!

It was about 2.3 SFr when I last went (October 2006 for a wedding). I remember ending up in Luzern for a day and stumbling across a model railway shop not far from the Kapellbrucke. The price tags visible in the window were enough to dissuade me from going in to have a look. I think that may well have been the last ever visit to CH, as the exchange rate is even less favourable now, prices have gone up anyway, and I definitely can't afford a week there.

That reminds me of the LMS's other experiment: no. 1831, an electric shunter on the chassis of a Johnson 0-6-0T. Mad little thing.

There's another one in Luzern and two or three in Zurich....

I'm guessing that's in N-gauge

It may still be worth asking Chris if he'd be willing to sell the LongRider etch only, so that you can experiment with other motors. I have two full LoRiders/LongRiders for my Derby Lightweights, but would probably need more etches for other purposes.

I still have the problem of bushing the AGW P4 wheelsets down to 1/1.5mm dia. but think I might - just might - have a solution that's been hiding in plain sight all this time....

Feeling a little cross?

Some of them might have become nuns.