Horsetan

Yes, but they wash their hands of those....

The amusing thing was that IRM let slip a video about 48 hours before the official announcement, showing the working roof fan, plus a link to a half-completed webpage about the Hunslet. It was all deleted after about 15 minutes, but if you were lucky enough to spot it, you'd definitely have known!

Anyone fancy funding a replica 207 Boyne? Only the engine portion to worry about.....!

207's tender survived, though

The Woolwiches were a good six inches wider than the N they originated from. Also the K1a/393 were given 6' drivers. The SR U had a different wheelbase and boiler pitch to the N/Woolwiches, and were subdivided into low or high footplate depending on whether rebuilt from the K tanks (longer frames behind the rear axle) or built new as Moguls. The N1s are probably the easiest variant of the N, but again there are differences in front footplate, cab front, and no. 822 in particular had a somewhat different valve gear arrangement. Maunsell Moguls are not easy to model, even though they look superficially similar. Kit manufacturers do get it wrong, especially when trying to portray the U.

You might want to read Robert Harris' novel "Conclave". The film version, starring Ralph Fiennes and an ensemble cast, is being launched round about now....

I wonder if he ever met David Icke....?

Hopefully I'll still be alive by the time it's ready....

There's an IRM RPSI set listed by a UK-based eBay seller for just under £300 at the moment, so someone's onto a nice little mark-up.

Just after submitting a pre-order for no.102, so can forget about this until it actually arrives in 2025/26. 21mm gauge conversion, naturally.

Market panic is the last thing anyone needs.

Monitoring eBay for these things might be a start....

Hiding in plain sight

Wonder how many of these "genericoaches" will eventually end up in bargain bins after a few years?

Park Royals. Sounds almost like the name for a popular type of biscuit....

Would be interesting from a statistics point of view to see what percentage of initial sales of new releases actually go to eBay traders / price gougers.

Being cynical, I'd say the panic is more to do with missing out at the chance of turning a quick buck on eBay...

Incidentally the old Sharman "B" profile was little different from his original "Mike's Models" wheels, which had a "universal" profile and flange thickness supposedly suitable for use in both EM and P4. Having samples of the Mike's "universal" wheel and comparing them to a proper P4 profile reveals that the only real difference is the thickness of the flange - it should be possible to skim off just the back of the "universal" flange to end up with a wheel that will work for P4 clearances, being about 2mm wide overall. The tyre tread doesn't need touching at all unless you're really fussy and fancy skimming a bit off the front face.

Nothing like a bit of greed, is there?

On the J15 I have now ended up with two types of driving wheels, one being an old set of Sharman 5'2" 16-spoke pin between, and a currently available set of AGW wheels which are marked as 5'0 16spk, but pin inline. The Sharmans are very slightly too big in overall diameter. The tyre wear allowance that was commonly adopted in steam days was to permit up to 2" in wear before new tyres were needed, so the AGW wheel is suitable. BUT...and there's always a but....the crankpin is inline with the spoke. The available photos of no.186 as she is now clearly show crankpins set between the spokes. When a model is moving, nobody's going to see that kind of detail, but when at rest it's something you can't unsee once you've noticed it.

There's a few parts of Google Maps for Ireland that don't seem to have been updated since the early 2000s as the overhead view is very low-res

Who knows....?

The Woolwich 3500 gallon tenders kept the same body width as the ones coupled to many "N" class moguls on the Southern Railway/BR Southern Region, so will likely be 8'3" wide. However, the overall footplate width was widened by around 6 inches to allow for 5'3" gauge, so the Woolwich tender footplate would be 9'6" wide.

This is probably not true of France, where the government long ago lost control of the Paris suburbs, and hasn't had much sway over much of Marseilles for decades.

What did it cost? Is it big enough to park bicycles?