The angry thread

[kaiwhara]

Well, yeah, just a tad. Its not the $10 that I am worried about, its the extra hour and a half it has taken to sort out Dinner when I start work at 0410 tommorow morning (1610 yesterday your speak?)

[Lawrence]

Model Rail Magazine or Bauer Media   

Last year Della got me a 12 month subscription and has just had the renewal through, and have been faced with a multitude of options, and all of those providing a free gift cost about £9 more than without the free gift, then there are different prices for direct debit over 12, 6 or 3months, debit card or cheques, this is on top of the offer received through the post which is different again, actually at the point of not bothering with renewing at all 

[Gordini5]

I took them up on three issues for a £1. Great intro I thought. Only got two issues and the second one had half the pages incorrectly cut & glued>

Think I'll stick to here & RMWEB.

[bigbear]

I've given up with most of the magazines now. After several years of buying them, I'm seeing similar articles returning time after time. It sometimes seems that it's just the reviews that are current. (Huge generalisation, I know, but...). Also, the n gauge content in most magazines is swamped by 00. I end up skimming a lot of it...

There was a time that I took Railway Modeller, Model Rail, British Railway Modeller, The Hornby Magazine, Model Railway Journal, Steam Days and the GWR Journal, plus the N Gauge Society mag., but I'm now just taking the N Gauge Society mag, The Hornby Magazine, (until my subs runs out), and the GWR Journal. I don't think I'm going off the hobby - far from it - but I do feel that the trade press needs to be given a shot in the arm.

[EtchedPixels]

but I do feel that the trade press needs to be given a shot in the arm.

A lot of it needs shooting somewhere else and putting out of its misery IMHO. I regularly buy specific issues of old magazines for drawings and reference material and the quality nosedives after the early 1980s. The oldest one I have is from 1926 and covers such interesting news as the new upcoming Schools class locos and removal of some LNER lower quadrant signals. (plus a cracking article on the changes to the GWR fruit vans complete with drawings)

[Newportnobby]

The oldest one I have is from 1926

Strewth, EP You must be one of our elder statesmen

[EtchedPixels]

The oldest one I have is from 1926

Strewth, EP You must be one of our elder statesmen

No .. I bought it second hand

[d-a-n]

One thing which has started to irritate me is the lack of model shops which open on a Sunday.
I work all week in my primary school, I usually have lots to do on a Saturday (shopping, cleaning etc) and that's if I'm not shooting a wedding; on a Sunday I'd like to trawl around local model shops to spend my disposable income. I shop locally in the butchers, greengrocers, fishmongers and deli etc for my food on a Saturday (as they aren't open Sunday), I'd also like to extend the buy local courtesy to local model shop owners.
I could shop online, but I like to see the models first hand and talk to friendly shop staff about the hobby. I live in one of the largest cities in the country and I can think of 3 shops in easy driving distance but they are all closed on a Sunday. I have done and will continue to make the drive to Hattons in Liverpool so I can buy models there and then as I would rather drive an 80 mile round trip and have the model immediately than pay £4 postage and then have to wait two days and go to the post office at 7am to collect my parcel, making me late for work.
I read an editorial article in the Railway Modeller magazine bemoaning railway modelling as a dying hobby and they are right. Most kids aren't bothered about trains, they have no connection to them; no kid wants to be a train driver etc. But then you get my age group (I'm 28) - lads who both fired up the Nintendo AND broke out the Hornby as kids. We have space for a layout in our own places and have the disposable to buy model railways. The next generation of modellers are used to convenience shopping, have well paid jobs but are time poor; most of us DO shop online and take business out of the hands of local shops.
I care about the hobby and want to see it survive - Sunday opening is one survival strategy worth considering.

[Newportnobby]

I have been against Sunday shopping since Day 1 not, I hasten to add, on religious grounds.
What did we do before Sunday shopping - we planned our lives! I was against it because staff who needed their jobs were being browbeaten/bullied into working on Sundays or face losing their job It further infuriates me that supermarkets open so often over the Christmas period For pity's sake, most of us have fridges and other appliances so why would we need to go and get milk etc if we just planned correctly?
I appreciate the world has moved on and that, owing to money grabbing bosses, lots of folks have to work Sundays, but spare a thought for the poor sods who don't actually have a weekend to themselves because of this. To me, weekends are a 48 hour period to spend time with loved ones away from the pressures of my working week (Mon-Fri)
I am utterly against Sunday opening but more on a principle than anything else

Sorry - didn't mean to go off on one

[Oldman]

My little Arnold shunter has just stopped working.
Think it is going to get stripped down to see if I can find the reason why.

[Jack]

I have been against Sunday shopping since Day 1 not, I hasten to add, on religious grounds.
What did we do before Sunday shopping - we planned our lives! I was against it because staff who needed their jobs were being browbeaten/bullied into working on Sundays or face losing their job It further infuriates me that supermarkets open so often over the Christmas period For pity's sake, most of us have fridges and other appliances so why would we need to go and get milk etc if we just planned correctly?
I appreciate the world has moved on and that, owing to money grabbing bosses, lots of folks have to work Sundays, but spare a thought for the poor sods who don't actually have a weekend to themselves because of this. To me, weekends are a 48 hour period to spend time with loved ones away from the pressures of my working week (Mon-Fri)
I am utterly against Sunday opening but more on a principle that anything else

Sorry - didn't mean to go off on one

I hear what you are saying and in some ways agree about being organised, however there are lots of people who have to work the weekends for our benefit before Sunday trading came in. My mrs' is a Staff Nurse caring for the elderly, then there are the various emergency services that we hope we never need, but the various worker have to be at their place of work, just in case. How many people travel over the two days of the weekend? Most of us like something to eat and drink when we arrive, so are normally grateful when there is a restaurant or cafe open... and so it goes on. For some of us weekend work has been a way of life for a long time.

Please don't think I'm having a go, just trying to put a little balance to the weekend working situation.

[Malc]

I appreciate the world has moved on and that, owing to money grabbing bosses, lots of folks have to work Sundays, but spare a thought for the poor sods who don't actually have a weekend to themselves because of this. To me, weekends are a 48 hour period to spend time with loved ones away from the pressures of my working week (Mon-Fri)
I am utterly against Sunday opening but more on a principle that anything else

Sorry - didn't mean to go off on one

When I worked on shift in a TV control room, we covered 7 day a week, 52/3 weeks a year. I got 1 complete weekend and 2 half weekends off a month, so the ones we did get off were very precious. Xmas and New Year were also just days of the week. So I agree with Mick about Sunday opening. Why do they bother?

[EtchedPixels]

I remember Sundays in the 1970s, it was the most boring pointless day of the week when nothing happened, you couldn't get anything done, and if you something turned out to have gone off or be unsuitable - tough nowhere to buy food either.

I'm all for workers rights, but I'd rather have Sunday opening and staff not treated like crap by tax avoiding scumbags !

Hoping for the EU mandated 40 hour week we opted out of too - then I'd have more modelling time   

[Oldman]

Found the reason my Arnold shunter died.
Slivers of black plastic gear up around the armature.
Motor is*****d so will now be display only.

[Bikeracer]

I'm all for Remembrance Day and all it entails and I always buy a poppy.
However I was angry that the BBC on the red button channel cut the Moto 2 race off with three laps to go so they could duplicate what was being shown on BBC 1 at the same time.

Allan