Andrew Emmerson

I wonder if the later "Sprat and Winkle" coupling was inspired by the Acro, they seem similar? 

It might have been, although I think the ACRO coupler came out later. The 'Sprat and Winkle' design was invented and patented back in 1949 by George Hope of the Liverpool firm of Hope and Nixon. You can see the patent at

http://worldwide.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/biblio?DB=EPODOC&II=3&ND=3&adjacent=true&locale=en_EP&FT=D&date=19490401&CC=GB&NR=621012A&KC=A

On page 81 of 'MRJ' issue 2 George Hope writes that he ran out of capital  after other people pirated his design, although he didn't have Derek Munday in mind as a pirate, as he congratulates Derek for reintroducing the design.

I am sure the ACRO design came out some years later. I see it was relaunched in December 1983 by Leslie Hubble Ltd of Leicester  (review and advertisement in Dec. 1983 issue of 'Model Railways' magazine).

Andy Emmerson.

I think I might have one or two sets somewhere or other and still in their original packets - all I've got to do is try to find them  (like a lot of things which have been mentioned in this fascinating thread I've got some stashed away somewhere from closing down sales or when EAMES were having a good clearout - I have some 3H wagon kits, some ABS wagon kits and all sorts other oddments)

The ACRO coupler was designed by the late and highly resppected Fleetwood Shaw (alias Sheetwood Flaw) for his own layout, so I guess he was able to make them work. A new company tried to relaunch the design a decade or two ago (I have the paperwork somewhere) but I assume they did not take off.

Fleetwood used to visit the Chuffs shop in Lisson Grove when I worked there in the early 1970s. He was employed at the 'Kremlin' (BR Headquarters).

Andy Emmerson. 

Not the full history but it appears that ACRO was related to, or the descendent of Teaness (i.e. T and S). They were based in Epsom (from memory). Google tells me to look at http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/82144-acro-nucro-teaness/

The wheels may well have been made for them by Jackson, who in those days (or later) were associated with K's of Shepherds Bush (and not with the Romford Model Company or W&H in those days). In pre-war times the Romford Model Company had Hamblings as its sole agents.

ACRO was reincarnated as NUCRO.

Andy Emmerson.

Hi  All  Bit off subject but nobody seems to mind,   NUCRO  /  ACRO.   Does anyone have the history of these two names. 

> Who imported the LMS Jap Crabs in the late 60s, i've seen a fair few now, but they were before my time? 

Brian, They were imported by John Underhill of Reading (and made by KTM in Japan). John Underhill is described in greater detail at

http://rmweb.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=12739

I made a mistake there when I stated the Underhill KGV (made by Olympia in Japan) was H0 scale. In fact it was 3.75mm to the foot, neither fish nor fowl!

Andy Emmerson.

Crikey, i thought this thread died out after Christmas, but it's still going! I've just been catching up on the successive posts, and i see Andy Emmerson has been on, we were both saturday boys back in the mid-70s (Hi Andy, didn't you go on to footplate work at Stratford? You mentioned Jeff Costa, didn't he go into the RAF?). Dare i say this, but at the time Ken Jones was not very popular with customers or fellow staff, i thought he was an ex-bus driver and suffered from back problems, which may have affected his nature? He was always very fussy about his cups of coffee (very milky) and nobody could do anything right for him. In the end, the management realized his attitude was affecting trade and they canvassed the staff, who voiced their opinions and Ken went away on extended sick leave, i only ever saw him once again, when he returned one day as a customer.

  

After his departure, it was as if a great cloud had been lifted and everybody, from top to bottom, got on like a house on fire. I enjoyed it so much, that i went full time, although the wages weren't great. The Model Engineering and Easter exhibitions were always exciting, with plenty of preparation beforehand, back then they lasted for nearly a week. Bert Collins was there long before i joined, and was still there after i left 10 years later, although the business only carried on for another two years to 1988. Yes, Bert did have his lovely Hitchin layout, it was built into the roof of his house, it was a bit of a tight squeeze, when there were a few of us up there! Sadly, Bert passed away about ten years ago. 

 

                                                                Cheers, Brian.

Sorry, I haven't looked in for a while! Good to hear from you Brian. My career on BR did not take me onto the footplate but was always office-based. I have not heard where Jeff went. Ken Jones joined King's Cross from the reatl photography (camera) trade but he may have been a bus driver before that. It was Ken who introduced the 'secret code' used on the labels of items displayed in the secondhand and commission sale window. The code (I can reveal now) was MECOBLITZA, where M was 1, E was 2 and A was zero. Or maybe M was zero, E was 1 and so on. The retail price was shown normally (e.g. £25) but the price at which the item had been bought in was in the letter code. This enabled Ken to tell how far he could drop the price when a customer tried to offer an amount below the asking price. I think all bargaining had to be done by him or one of the Morrises. Ken did have a soft side (and told some pretty 'rude' jokes) but we didn't get to see it very often. I would describe him as having a split personality.

Andy Emmerson.

On the subject of CCW kits, I wonder if anyone knows the definitive answer to what the initials CCW stood for.

I've just looked and it's there all right. Maybe your ISP suffered a 'blip'!

Or else, if you may not be logged into Yahoo Groups. If the latter, go to https://edit.yahoo.com/registration?.intl=us&new=1&.src=ygrp&.v=0&.done=http%3a//groups.yahoo.com

Good luck,

Andy Emmerson.

 many well known modellers and a few slebs came through, including Mr R Stewart who bought a Samhongsa Pannier from the showcase from a colleage one year. 

Ah yes. Apparently he was a fairly regular visitor and came in one Saturday. I missed seeing him as I was on my lunch break (not at Renzos but the Groan Indian restaurant next door). He was served by the redoubtable Ken Jones, with not much deference, and after RS left, the other staff asked Ken, "Do you realise who that was?"

"No and I don't care," came the reply. To be fair to Ken, he had no favourites and was rude to everybody! One day he noticed a customer lifting books off the bookshelf one after the other, flipping through them and then putting them back. After ten minutes, Ken couldn't stand it any longer and said, "You're clearly unable to find what you are looking for. We have the best selection of railway books in London, so what is it that we don't have?"

"Don't worry," the guy said. "My train doesn't leave The Cross for at least an hour, so I thought I'd read your books."

"Out!" screamed Ken, kicking open the front door and lifting the customer physically onto the pavement.

Ken had come from the camera trade and used his previous employer's secret code for price-labelling the goods in the second-hand and commission sales window. I don't think I am breaching any confidences now in revealing it to be MECOBLITZA, with M = 1 and A = 0. Each loco was labelled with its price plus a code indicating what the shop had bought in for, so £50 was BA. If a potential customer liked an item but wanted to haggle over the price, the alpha code told the salesman how far he could bargain. This was explained to us underlings (Jeff Kosta and me) but any negotiating was handled by Ken, not us Saturday boys.

One of the likable customers I remember was called 'Wee Fergie'. His day job was a signal designer for the London Midland Region at Stephenson House but he was also a good scratch builder and bought his supplies at King's Cross. Many Model Railway Club people bought their bits at KC too.

many of the trade came in, as mentioned and we were often sent to Hamblings and W&H to collect or deliver supplies, I often wondered why so many of the brass turnings we sold looked identical to W&H's, even though we didn't get them from W&H. Ted Morris explained that everybody bought them from Anglo-Swiss Precision at West Drayton, so they were not exclusive products.

I must put on record what good guys John and David Morris were. Totally honest and decent people.

Happy days.

Andy Emmerson.

Don't forget his 1954 Riley...... The same age as his sports jacket, he proudly announced on one jolly in the '70s.

Ah, I never saw the Riley. But I do remember a pub crawl co-arranged by Tom and Gerry Daniels in a motor coach having a dorsal fin at the rear. Dorsal fins are seriously cool!

>The nameplate ranges are apparently still available from a Mr. Burton of 6 Stratfield Park Court, Winchmore Hill, London, N21 1BU, but the website for this went down recently after the BT Web Hosting Service was discontinued.

 

Now residing at http://uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/kingscrossplates/ 

AE.

Kings Cross Models was also the last place I saw a friend who I suspect Stationmaster must have known - Tom Linfoot. Must have been about 1988/9, and Tom - 50-ish - was already ill.

Affectionately known as Nitfool and several other anagrams, Tom was a marvellously likable  character, He ran the Excursions section in the Divisional Office at Reading, when I was in Passenger Development there. He organised many beer-drinking outings introduced me to CAMRA when it was still new. Much missed by his friends and colleagues (we had plenty of secret railway enthusiasts on the staff at Reading!).

Andy Emmerson.

I went to Chuffs once when waiting for a train from Marylebone as it wasn't to far away. I remember it being in a basement? Piles of stuff all jumbled up on tables? Met a guy from my cycling past who I hadn't seen for years! It took us a few minutes to realise that we knew each other. Also went to Kings Cross when train waiting. Seem to remember them being a bit 'off hand'.

There were in fact three Chuffs shops. The original one was in Broadey Street, with an old enamel sign saying GENTLEMEN over the door. It was owned jointly by Peter Hunt (now of Perfect Miniatures in Sudbury) and Dave Fuest (who died soon after I joined the staff). The shop manager was a guy in a hippy fringed leather jacket called Terry and another staff member was Jon Mackechnie-Jarvis. I'm still in touch with him after all these years.

As business expanded a larger shop was bought in Lisson Grove. Regular visitors/associates  included Royston Carss (a cerebral guy who later had a business called Metal Models, I think --- is he still around?), Simon Goodyear (now Train Time, Huddersfield and seen regularly at the Rugby Vintage train shows) and Allan Levy (then of Philips Electrical but later to run New Cavendish Books). 

A City branch was opened subsequently in Bucklersbury, run by a Scotsman we knew only as 'Jock'. This shop did have a glory hole of a basement; the others didn't. Iain Rice was associated with the City branch, as I recall.

At some stage the Broadley Street shop closed and the Lisson Grove establishment was renamed The Dolls House (pronounced doals house) and run by Peter's wife. Happy days! When Chuffs closed, I was hired by the King's Cross model shop.

Andy Emmerson.

Hi Everyone,

Another member has brought this thread to my attention, as Roy and Bernie mentioned, i worked there full time from 1976 to 1986 and before that as a saturday boy for a few years, who needs university when you could work here! I'm currently racking my brains, to work out who Captain Kernow was, i vaguely remember a 1334 loco being built. As Roy has probably already said, by my time, most of the production had been switched to sister company Eames of Reading, which was another Aladdin's Cave, sadly now demolished.

Eames bought "OO Scale Models" of York Way and it became MRM Co.Ltd. (which stood for: Model Railway Manufacturing Co.Ltd). Bob Treacher, now owner of Alton Models (or AMRC)used to work at EAMES and famously he once had a customer claiming a discount "because he was a member of the Eames family". Sadly, the customer didn't realize that EAMES stood for "Electrical and Mechanical Engineering Supplies".

For the record, Tony was Tony Dyer, the directors were Ted Morris, John Gauld and Ted's son, David. Alan Brackenborough was based in Stroud, although we later gave more and more work to a young Larry Goddard of this parish. RMweb's "PMP"- Paul Marshall-Potter was also full-time for a few years. There are loads of funny stories to tell.

Cheers, Brian.

Apologies for nit-picking but I am sure that the S in E.A.M.E.S. stood for Services. When Ted Morris was demobbed after the war he chose a trading title that would cover the broadest possible range of activities. That's what I remember him telling me anyway. I was a Saturday Boy as well during the early 1970s, when Ken Jones was manager (and used throw out time-waster customers bodily!). Occasionally I was 'lent out' to work in the Reading shop, which although under shared ownership was run as a separate enterprise.

Andy Emmerson.

I believe that the Marshall part of the name was Percival Marshall,the founder of the Model Engineer magazine in 1898,not certain about the Stewart part of the name.

 

 

Ray.

With respect, I don't think Percival Marshall had any involvement. Stewart was "Archie" Stewart Reidpath. The first Marshall Stewart catalogue had exclusively 7mm scale products but under Stewart Reidpath's direction, he refocussed the firm's direction to 3.5mm scale. He was certainly the first person to sell 3.5mm products commercially. He also proved that it was perfectly feasible to fit motors into (most) H0 locomotives, regardless of what Henry Greenly claimed. By the way, the Oerlikon in question was previosuly mine. I bought it from Peter Corley but I do not know who owned it previously.

Andy Emmerson.