To me, one of the things that helps set a good railway layout are a few vehicles.

Cars of any vintage can be found off the peg or RTR at a scale of 1/43...

Trying to find Trucks, Lorries and Buses at this scale in any kind of UK outline vintage or not - impossible.

It appears that the scale of choice is 1/50... In other words useless....!

Many have tried to persuade me that 1/50 when seen from a distance is just fine.

Fine for them maybe but not me.

So imagine my joy to discover that one can buy from EBay a fully finished diecast Regent III at 1/43...

And at a reasonable price of around £20 or so...

Now Orpington is nowhere near St Pancras and the words 50p a tad too modern.

But it provides somwhere to start from.

I also found a ford Thames for a similar price, but it suffers from Chinese language comprehension disease...

Can you spot the deliberate mistake?

...

Unless there was in the early 1950's a town called "North Restern"...?

My sense of humour and the complete unavailabilty of any 1/43 RTP at a reasonable price, lets me live with it.

It is excellent starting material to be formed into something else.

There are other UK outline trucks flaoting around, but with foreign markings.

There is a nice Bedford coal truck - but how does one explain coal being delivered from France?

A miner's strike perhaps? They were quite common in the 50's and 60's...

Now its about time the layout was designed... Mmmm...I wonder...