Someone said to me in an exchange of opinions over the interweb recently that no-one did any proper railway modelling anymore as the standard of the ready to run stuff you could buy was so high these days all you needed to make a cracking good model was a healthy bank balance.

Interesting point of view but not one I personally go along with as there is so much more to the hobby than having good looking models .

However when I put the wagon castings from Woodham Wagon Works on to ebay I must admit I did wonder if there would be much interest as not only were they from early and quite obscure prototypes but also they were more a scratchbuilding aid than a kit . Were there, I wondered, be people happy to source bits and pieces such as wheels and couplings , to assemble a model and paint it accurately or did they all just want to take it out the box and plonk it on the layout.

I need not have worried . There has been lots of interest and views and some healthy competitive bidding .

Conclusion : Railway Modelling is Alive and Well !

However one surprise did not come from the wagons but from listing some railway postcards I had lying around . These were some modern reproduction cards of old photographs of railway subjects which I thought might make 50p or so each if I was lucky.

Predictably several which were pictures taken during the filming of the Titfield Thunderbolt Film in 1952 generated quite a lot of interest but the star was one of Weymouth Harbour Railway in the 1920's which went for nearly TWENTY TIMES my estimate .

Even more of a surprise was the buyer - a very well known railway author . Is there a new book on Dorset Railways in preparation ?

Time will Tell !