Kings Cross Model Shop

[Metropolitan H]

My memory of the Kings Cross shop is of Dave Morris recounting the trouble they had with various customers after the shop started grinding the ends of the "Dermic" oilers to a blunt face. Must have been early / mid 1970s.

 

Regards

Chris H

[rockershovel]

I worked in London between about 1984 and 1992, so I commuted to Kings X. I remember both places, although I rarely visited either - commuters hours being what they are...

[roythebus]

On 10/05/2020 at 15:04, Grovenor said:

Indeed, Renzo's provided us with regular meals on Tuesdays and Thursdays en route between Kings Cross Models and Keen House. Long gone unfortunately.

Yes, we all used to meet there after the shop shut fr the night, then into Renzo's with Margeritta serving us, the fod was good as well. then off to the MRC for the evening, then to whatever pub we used at the time! So many shut down round there we had to keep changing pubs!

[jwealleans]

To revive this thread: I've just taken custody of two locos from Bert Collins' collection which I was told probably came from the King's Cross Model Shop.

 

They are both scratchbuilt, both to a very high standard and clearly by the same hand.  Both have 'MJS' stamped into the brasswork underneath.  I'm assuming from this thread that that would be Mike Sheppard?

 

Can anyone recall the time he worked there so I know roughly when they might have been built?  Did Alan Brackenborough sign his paint jobs anywhere so I can check that as well?   Bert may have painted them himself but it would be nice to know.

 

Edit - added images of the locos in question.

 

 

 

 

Edited April 18, 2022 by jwealleans

[Oldddudders]

On 16/01/2020 at 22:15, 5050 said:

The best bit about going to London is catching the train to come home......................................

Arnold Bennett said much the same about Boston, Mass., declaring implausibly that the best thing was the 5 o'clock train back to New York! He found Boston to be too English..... This would be about 1911, so long before the splendid New Haven I5s worked that train, the Merchants Limited. 

[roythebus1]

On 15/04/2022 at 21:24, jwealleans said:

To revive this thread: I've just taken custody of two locos from Bert Collins' collection which I was told probably came from the King's Cross Model Shop.

 

They are both scratchbuilt, both to a very high standard and clearly by the same hand.  Both have 'MJS' stamped into the brasswork underneath.  I'm assuming from this thread that that would be Mike Sheppard?

 

Can anyone recall the time he worked there so I know roughly when they might have been built?  Did Alan Brackenborough sign his paint jobs anywhere so I can check that as well?   Bert may have painted them himself but ti would be nice to know.

MJS was indeed Mike Shepard. He made many locos during his time at KX, and made the patterns for my LT "Scooter" and GS bus kit in the late 1960s and early 1970s. He also made a nice Austin 7 car, I forget what scale, possibly 7mm/ft or bigger. He was at the shop from maybe 1966 in the days when it was 00Scale Models under Keith Dann's management. As may have been mentioned earlier, Keith Dann originally worked from Biggleswade producing one of the first, if not the first fine-scale 00 track system using the right size Bullhead rail with wooden sleepers and punched brass chairs. There was  also a self-adhesive ballast and point drawings to go with it. Production was moved to the shop at 14 York Way maybe in 1966. Sadly Keith was killed in a car crash on the A1 at Biggleswade one evening and the shop was taken over by MRAS Ltd. under whose "management" I was employed for a year or so in 1968/69.

I suspect the paint job on the 2 locos were indeed done by Brackenborough. I don't remember him signing his paint jobs. I don't recall meeting him, but certainly spoke to him on the phone and posted models for painting every other week.

[Halvarras]

I was a semi-regular visitor to the shop from autumn 1972 until spring 1977. Having watched the Cornish railway scene mostly around Truro since 1966 I was astonished to find a book 'Diesels on Cornwall's Main Line' on its shelves in 1973, then even more astonished to discover that the publisher, Bradford Barton, was located in Truro of all places. I still have it - the first of many which followed - with a written list of its many caption errors! 

 

That same year I bought an MTK Peak kit there, together with the shop-recommended new-fangled cyanoacrylate adhesive, otherwise known as 'superglue' - this proved to be useless as it required the parts to fit perfectly....🤔. 

 

In February 1974 I visited the scrapyard at Barry where amongst all of the steam locos I viewed the hulk of D601 Ark Royal, which my spotting books say I had seen in service in Cornwall along with its classmates although my memories of these locos are scant now. Spurred on by this, on my next visit to the shop I bought the KX etched plates for Ark Royal and shortly after picked up a wrecked Tri-ang EM2 for its bogies, but it would not be until 1993 that both were used with an MTK D600 kit. I still have that too, but the Peak is long gone.