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Deliberately Old-Fashioned 0 Scale - Chapter 1


Nearholmer
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A genuine test card this time.

 

My slide scanner has been defunct because the driver software refuses to cooperate, so I’ve been trying a few drivers, maybe to buy a decent one.

 

This test shot sums up a lot really - I’m the one on the right, and ‘next down’ bro is on the left.

 

I still can’t resist a toy shop window.

 

 

6CAF24DA-6535-4195-9B74-852CA27BBFB7.jpeg

Edited by Nearholmer
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Triang seems to play a big part in these deliberations.  Had them as a kid as usual and over the years realised they were a better fit than the average Dinky for O gauge trains.  For me though they were a little high in price for what I wanted them for - background for the trains, so I stuck with Dinkies which was OK with me as they were Meccano products and I like to keep it all in the family.  Also there was no play value in spite of the clockwork motors as they would have been rooted to the spot on the layout for months on end.  One memorable example, the grey convertible was lost on the beach at Blackpool Sands near Dartmouth before the war!:fie:

       Brian.

Edited by brianusa
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The ones in that photo were about a foot long, so a bit big for most layouts, but I know what you mean. My one Minic lorry is dreadfully rusty and in need of restoration, but the clockwork does still work.

 

(Commiserations on the loss of the grey convertible)

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I know for a fact there's a 1/32nd-ish (Britains?) sheepdog I left on a beach near Silloth in 2004, whilst doing a Uni project.  The perils of doing combined forced-perspective miniatures and model photoshoots on location with a rising tide!  I wonder if someone ever finds and takes home things like those toy cars dropped at the seaside?  As kids we used to do quite well for buckets and spades, beach balls and things that were left behind or blown away on beaches in Wales.  What goes around, comes around :)

 

From a more railway modelling perspective, on my 00 'Ivor the Engine'-themed layout, there's a bridge made from a bit of plastic drainpipe bracket (a kind of half-arch shape in chunky plastic).  I found it on the beach at Talybont near Barmouth, it was used as a bridge for a weeks-worth of sand castles, and has now been on half a dozen 00 and N layouts...

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13 hours ago, GRASinBothell said:

...and I lost a Dinky Hillman Minx to the sea at Hayling in the early 1950s.

I really should get another for the layout!

Gordon

 

Marion saiys her brother had a Dinky toy found on the Beach at Hayling no idea if it was a Hillman Minx. Her  Uncle and Aunt had a place converted from a railway carriage (none of carriage left when I met her although strangly when talking with my Parents Dad produced a photo of the same place taken when I was very young when we stayed there before her Uncle and Aunt had bought it).

 

Don

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I still have a matchbox ambulance dug up in the garden of a house I bought in the early 90s, in remarkable condition and for many years a newer matchbox pickup found on a cornish beach was stuck to the dash of my car!

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13 minutes ago, kernowtim said:

found on a cornish beach

 

So, now we know where they all go!

 

My distressing near-loss of toy car was when I was rather older, and prized them as models, rather than toys. A dark red Rolls Royce Silver Shadow, with opening doors, boot and bonnet, a very fancy late Dinky, which somehow got left in our "camp", a shanty made from scrounged oil drums, wood and corrugated-iron, in an abandoned brick pit. I remember the moment of horror when I realised ............ but luckily it was still in the "camp" the following morning.

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The house on Hayling that was a converted railway carriage was probably not too far away from where I lost my Dinky Toy in the early 1950s. We lived on Southwood Road (on the sea front), and even in the 1960s the furthest end of that road had many houses that were converted railway carriages.

Gordon

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My goodness!

 

You must have lived very close to my great grandparents. They had a cottage along there, with a big, long black-tarred shed at the back which was my great grandfathers model-engineering workshop. He built traction engines, telescopes, a couple of beautiful grandfather clocks etc. He died within months of my birth, so I never knew him, but was utterly entranced by the clocks, one of which showed the phases of the moon, and the state of the tide at Hayling. There is a picture of him somewhere way back up-thread. My grandparents lived in Stamford Avenue, off the sea front, but moved away from Hayling in 1952. The Life Boat Inn was run by my great-great grandfather, who had originally run another pub, over by the Southsea Ferry, made from old ship's timbers (I've got details of the vessel somewhere), from which he did so well that he could take on a new pub in a prime spot as tourism developed. At one point he was licensee of both The Life boat and The West Town Hotel.

 

 

 

 

Edited by Nearholmer
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HMS Impregnable (a name to tempt fate!) which was wrecked in 1799

 

“At dawn the crew discovered that she had beaten a mile and a half over the shoals and now lay in mud flats near the entrance to Langstone Harbour.[2] The following day she was found to have bilged.”

 

"On 6th November 1799, the wreck was sold to a Portsmouth merchant, Mr A Lindenegren who broke up the ship as far as possible."

 

And, some of the timber became The Norfolk Lodge pub on Hayling, which was the one my G-G-G(?) G started his licensing career at in the 1850s.

 

 

Edited by Nearholmer
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I remember walking along the seafront at Selsey and seeing many converted railway coaches,  some with their original etched glass windows, there were more at Pagham.

The excavated ambulance has been residing on a shelf for a few years now! 

20210304_190456-1.jpg

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5 hours ago, GRASinBothell said:

The house on Hayling that was a converted railway carriage was probably not too far away from where I lost my Dinky Toy in the early 1950s. We lived on Southwood Road (on the sea front), and even in the 1960s the furthest end of that road had many houses that were converted railway carriages.

Gordon

 

Their place was on the north side of Southwood road.

 Don

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I never went to Hayling, even in my Sussex days. The nearest I got was when I visited some friends at Havant, but we got sidetracked to the Royal Oak at Langstone and that was the end of that.

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Ah yes, the Royal Oak at Langstone was a very nice pub, at least the last time I was there, which was more years ago than I care to admit!

However, after this digression to Hayling, we should probably return to coarse scale O gauge trains. Keeping a bit of the Hayling theme, how's this to get us back on track?

DSCN0313.JPG.7a9247ebc45b8115ca850e587c30bba2.JPG

And no, I don't run it on this particular track. I  don't think it would do very well, as it's O-36 (18" radius). It also only has an AC controller. I put this loop in to run my Lionel Hall. But it's the only single-track section I have.

Enjoy!

Gordon

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Aha! The Billy. I grew-up on tales of that. My mother used to chase it, 'cowboys and indians' fashion, on one of the beach ponies that were pastured in a field by the line, and which she used to look after when she was a girl. Much later, I remember 'Newington' plinthed outside the pub, which was the favoured watering hole of one of my mother's uncles - it was a new pub, and he held that they built it to save him walking another four hundred yards to the old pub.

 

I don't remember the terrain being that rugged though.

 

I shall definitely make every effort to attend one of the 'Fenchurch 150' events next year, circumstance permitting. I found the very good 'Fenchurch 100' booklet, which I bought at the centenary, the other day.

 

Incidentally, 2662, your engine, is much reproduced as a model by multiple firms, I think because there is a really good Dufaycolor slide of it at Havant c1937 to act as a reference.

 

Now, what about this ETS one? 

https://thestationmastersrooms.co.uk/item/J38428/ETS-O-Gauge-184-SR-Southern-Green-A1X-Terrier-Tank-Loco-R-N-2662-Electric-2-3-Rail-Boxed

 

It is an A1, rather than A1x, which is wrong for Southern livery, and the livery looks hand-applied to me. A pre-prod prototype? Funny wheels too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by Nearholmer
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13 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Now, what about this ETS one? 

https://thestationmastersrooms.co.uk/item/J38428/ETS-O-Gauge-184-SR-Southern-Green-A1X-Terrier-Tank-Loco-R-N-2662-Electric-2-3-Rail-Boxed

 

It is an A1, rather than A1x, which is wrong for Southern livery, and the livery looks hand-applied to me. A pre-prod prototype? Funny wheels too.

 

The couplings look pre-prod as well. Good thing it is sold, I could have been tempted.

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Anyone in the market for a very tidy, probably scratch built, brass 48xx, green "Great   Western" btb 28mm, 5mm thick wheels, look like turned Cast Iron, 12V DC, really lovely runner, not a great lot of use on finescale track.

 

I know a man who has one.  PM me for more details if of interest

 

atb

Simon

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