I.C.L. 11

Lion had just been restored to steam for that event; no petrol engine needed! You are thinking of Locomotion during the Stockton & Darlington centenary cavalcade.

Prototype photos - many detail close-ups and a few general views on flickr courtesy of the esteemed Jan Ford. Album link - https://www.flickr.com/photos/janfordsworld/albums/72157626333680696

Not yet. It's 16 months to the day since Hornby's cat out the bag announcement when they clamed they were already working on it and yet there's been no evidence of development except a poor sketch. Cards close to chest due to the rival model probably but it doesn't help their case. Accompanying the initial announcement with even one photo of, say, them measuring the real Loco would have been proof of some prior leg work and a project that isn't just all talk. Rapido, by contrast, have recently shown a running sample and were able to announce their models with the blessing of StudioCanal from the start which was proof or much prior work and dialogue on their part.

Yes and the latest Rocket mail train pack includes 'Treasurer' so a total of 7 first class carriage names produced to date for anyone who wants to collect them all. The point I'm trying to make is that they've already produced 1500 'Times' and 'Despatch' so why repeat these names which are incorrect for Lion's train when they could simply do the right ones. They were planning to produce 'Huskisson' at least for The Lady with a Lamp pack so why not for the L&MR centenary Lion?

The coaches ought to be Hornby's strong suit in all this, particularly since @rapidoandy has confirmed they won't be duplicated by Rapido. Lion was restored to steam and six coaches of the types produced by Hornby were constructed to form a complete 1838 "heritage" train long before the Titfield Thunderbolt movie was ever thought of. Very disappointing that Hornby have chosen to repeat themselves with two carriage names which are inaccurate for the L&MR centenary train that the newly announced packs represent. There is an often reproduced postcard photo showing the centenary train with the names 'Experience', 'Traveller' and 'Huskisson' clearly visible if you zoom in a little. Hornby have used this photo twice on the packaging and again on the web pages (albeit cropped) and still appear to have got the names wrong; incorrectly stating in the R4037 coach pack product info "The exhibition train was made up of ‘Lion’, plus three replica First Class coaches, ‘Times’, ‘Despatch’ and Experience’...". 'Experience' is a worthy inclusion in the pack as it has toured extensively with Lion since they were transferred to Liverpool Museums together with one of the opens and they remain in their care. 'Traveller' and 'Huskisson' are part of the National Collection and I strongly suspect Hornby are withholding those names in the hope of producing a Railway Museum edition Rocket pack in the future. Hornby should certainly know of Traveller's existence as it is the vehicle they measured and based their model on according to the photos in the Jan 2020 Engine Shed blog! I feel sorry for anyone who forks out for the full six coach train only to be fobbed off with two erroneous names.

The Rapido model is based on the 1929/30 Crewe rebuild of Lions remains for the L&M centenary when many missing parts had to replaced with guesswork replicas based on other locos or simply fantasy items (such as the brass "haystack" firebox cladding). A true L&M ownership Lion would be almost an entirely different model and full of conjecture as there are no contemporary drawings and some documented dimensions are contradictory. The different versions offered by Rapido cover only minor changes after 1930 such as the addition of a pressure gauge in the 1950s and some revisions during a final overhaul in 1980 for the L&M 150th.

The leading bogies on the Gilbow DMs incorporate an extension and peg to fit the supplied coupling bar just like the intermediate couplings. Certainly no NEMs. The Wedgelock coupler detail is clipped into place and looks like they can be removed to allow two Gilbow units to couple via the supplied bar. Any converter wagon just needs original buffers & couplings removed one end and replaced by a low level central buffer block with a peg to fit the hole in the coupling bar. Example of convertor wagon in use - https://www.flickr.com/photos/rgadsdon/27614406615/ Some excellent closeups of the underside of a Gilbow DM in the linked thread showing the buffer/coupling moulding which is absent from the EFE Rail release. It's a poor show that Bachmann have left out completely this front end feature but I guess the hole in the chassis has been enlarged to clear the NEMs and the old detail may no longer fit.

Or got an unpowered battery loco from Radley and let the tube stock push it? Anyone wanting to run them purely as "hauled stock" behind a powered loco may be better off getting the original EFE Gilbow models and changing the wheels or bogies so they're free running. A set going for scrap has been created this way using old wooden open wagons as barriers. Part way down the page - http://www.emgauge70s.co.uk/model_omwb40.html I must say the Bachmann paint finish on the recent EFE Rail version looks so much better to my eye than the old Gilbow releases which suffer from quite thick paint fading the detail as well as being super glossy which doesn't help.

As an NRM fan with good memories of seeing 13079 at the museum I welcome the return of a Railway Museum range. It's nice to see a black 350hp but I think the Hornby tooling is unlikely to cover the differences on the very early locos such as small buffer beam lifting slots and wooden cabside window frames.

Newman Miniatures on Shapeways have a range of 3D prints. Hornby's L&MR open coaches are much better in terms of detail and price once to cost of wheels, paint, shipping (expensive) etc is added to the 3D printed items but Newman have other early locomotives and alternative rolling stock not offered by Hornby. There's an old plastic kit by defunct K's for Spanish Mataro coaches. It is also HO scale but the proportions of any early coach will always be on the small side when compared to more standard later types. Often available on ebay. (That link will take you to an ended auction but that user has been selling a trickle of them for years) You get two coaches per kit; a 1st class and a 3rd class. They're passable as Manchester & Birmingham and Stockton & Darlington to give a couple of preserved examples.

I haven't seen the film either and only heard of it with reference to Lion but it's available to rent on Amazon and curiosity may get the better of me soon. I think the consensus is not much screen time for Lion. Being a B&W film how can we know what colour the cover-ups actually were? Were they painted or just pasted over with paper for easy removal? Hope Hornby have done their research!

I feel the replica Liverpool and Manchester coaches included in 'The Lady With a Lamp' could be Hornby's strong suit in all of this as the only items not duplicated by Rapido's offering. They were built to run with Lion, not Rocket, and even Rapido's Lion product page has a classic photo of the loco at the head of them. It's interesting to see how the coaches' livery has been modified for the film and one can imagine the film crew hastily painting over the words 'Liverpool' and 'Manchester'. Hornby's description of the pack says "three L&MR First Class coaches, one of which was intriguingly unnamed" - the 'unnamed' coach actually being 'Traveller' (the one Hornby measured up at the NRM). I wonder why the other two got to keep their names for filming - possibly because the gold leaf would be more difficult to reinstate than the rest of the lettering but one anonymous coach was needed for close-ups. Personally I would rather have them in proper full livery.

Yes. Lady With a Lamp frames in the background of the Thunderbolt box and vice versa! But pastiches rather than original frames implying there is no permission to use anything from the actual films. The 2013 licenced Titfield pack had actual frames on the box.

Lion deserves to be known for more than just the film. I don't think it can even be said it assured her survival as we need to thank those who 'found' and restored her for the L&MR centenary for that and her survival as a historic curio was fairly secure after that, even if no film contracts ever came along. There would be no shame in Hornby offering their Lion simply as a loco rather than a film star.

I agree that "Trains on Film" appears to be purely a means of justifying the Titfield duplication. In fairness though, during the WOR March 2021 virtual show I seem to remember SK telling AY in interview that Lion will be part of a special range or words to that effect. I took this to mean an "era 1" range but it is likely that Trains on Film was already planned back then. How many people have actually watched The Lady with a Lamp? Never seen it but I would consider buying the set as I'd like Lion but those defaced L&MR coaches don't appeal. I'm surprised nobody has suggested Brief Encounter to continue the Trains of Film range with it's Stanier 2-6-4T, LMS suburban coaches and streamlined coronation all possible from the existing range to name a few.

No track & controller included, packaging not very bright or eye-catching, bit pricey for an impulse buy and imho the included models are probably too delicate for an average new to modelling supermarket customer. If the Hornby Rocket packs are anything to go by there would be a risk of high return rate especially when used by people with no previous experience of model railways. Far safer for supermarkets to stick to the classic 0-4-0+wagons type set.

Lion/Thunderbolt owes much of her appearance to various rebuilds most notably being restored and tarted up/embellished in 1929/30 so today looks quite different to her original sisters.

Most dealers of collectible stuff have probably had speculative customers asking "what can I buy as an investment?". I think, as far as models are concerned, most would say pick something you like and buy it only because you like it. Expecting to make a decent amount of profit on it in the long term is setting yourself up for disappointment. If it does make a profit on top of the enjoyment you have had from owning it that is just a bonus. A collection is a liability in terms of damage, theft, etc and even when catalogued and insured getting your money back could be slow and painful and what are the chances of the insurers paying more than the original purchase price?

In the absence of any genuine LLC parts it might be worthwhile contacting MM1 Models who produce the former JLTRT diesel kits. Ideally send a photo of what you are after and they may be able to supply brass castings from the kits. Although JLTRT didn't produce a class 15 their class 17 has many similar parts. Alternatively, MMP's Diesel Locomotive Fittings Set, currently sold out but returning soon, includes lamp brackets, small steps and step treads to assist scratch building. No connection between me and any of the businesses mentioned!

They have owned a class 108 for decades which spent a few years on the East Lancs Rly before being recalled to York "for display" a few years ago. I think it is currently stored in the green tent "depot" area (as it has been for virtually all the time it has been at the museum). More recently they acquired a 101 which is currently at North Norfolk Railway. Surely a first gen DMU, whilst hardly unique, merits better display at York or Shildon purely because it's a style of train so many people will recognise and remember. On the HST side of things they have two production power cars and a buffet trailer in addition to 41001. Rocket and royal coaches are all very interesting but there is also interest in seeing how our grandparents travelled, parents travelled to school etc. and obviously that will change with time but it would be a shame if it meant a continuous loss of older vehicles from the collection. Deaccessioning items to more appropriate homes may always be necessary but I hope it can be kept to a minimum. The Railway Museum in common with all others is certainly having to be increasingly selective in it's collecting, even for small objects offered by members of the public.

I used the word conservation in an extremely broad sense and should have been more clear. What I really meant was any work required to keep a vehicle in suitable state for museum display and that a dedicated space for this is useful, even if the demand will be infrequent. The museum have stated that the workshop is needed to carry out asbestos remediation on the collection in the short term and this is obviously best done away from active public areas. Of course there are logistical issues around the museum site when rail vehicles require moving from the Station Hall/South Yard to the Great Hall/Works they have to either travel by road or access the national network and Siemens depot. With that in mind it's probably often easier to work on them in situ. The museum have stated their intention to retain some form of mainline steam loco servicing and light maintenance facility but we are yet to see what form this will take. When not required any workshop space can be used as secure storage for rail vehicles, as the current workshop has often been, wonderlab is taking rail accessible covered storage space away from rail vehicles. I'm not joining in on the cries elsewhere of "NRM left xyz outside to rot", I'm grateful for the level of restoration and conservation they have achieved, but this does seem short sighted even if the new shed at Locomotion will increase covered space. The collection is only going to grow over time, or at least I hope it does, as vehicles are designated for preservation and offered to the national collection. Several successful overhauls have been carried out in the NRM workshops though, some by a now dissolved NRM team. The Meanley report on 4472 was critical of planning, project management and lack of suitable skill sets (with reference to staff retirement and absence) but I don't think the failure of the project was due to a lack of facilities in the workshop itself. That build a loco interactive is on the workshop viewing balcony iirc. I think a fair portion of visitors will gravitate towards ANY interactive display (even if every visitor doesn't stop at every one), it's very much a "build it and they will come", the challenge is to keep it reliable, educational and in keeping with the museum objects around it. The small goods shed in the South Yard where Boxhill lives used to be a popular interactive zone with many hands-on devices demonstrating railway wheel principle, continuous braking, adhesion issues from leaf fall, braking distance to name a few plus a full size lever frame signalling display. It is now "Learning Platform" and I think all those wonderful interactives are long gone in favour of an empty lecture and packed lunch room for school groups. I do look forward to seeing the museum develop over the next few pivotal years and from an enthusiasts point of view it will be interesting to see how key dates such Flying Scotsman's 100th in 2023 and S&DR 200th in 2025 are marked. In my own mind though the memories of the museum in the very early 2000s with "The Story of the Train" narrative and the recently opened workshop will be hard to beat.

As a very small and impressionable boy I first visited the NRM around the time the current workshop facility and viewing balcony opened and I was lucky enough to visit regularly in the following years. I always found the bright and well-equipped workshop totally awe-inspiring. Standing on the nearby mainline viewing balcony as a youngster I was quickly bored waiting for a train to appear but the workshop was always full of interesting things to look at even though there never seemed to be anybody working during our visits. Based on this I'll be very sad to see it swept away and it seems very short sighted to me that the wonderlab, appealing as it sounds to the wider audience, couldn't be housed elsewhere on the site, in a new building if necessary. Watching overhauls and maintenance isn't everyone's cup of tea and the general public might think more along the lines of "if I wanted to see a workshop I would take the car in for a service". Many recent workshop developments at heritage railways have viewing balconies though, Mid Hants boiler shop and new workshop under construction at Bo'ness are two examples that spring to mind, so there must be some public interest and visitor education opportunities. The full Heritage Railway article mentions that the wheel drop and gantry crane are staying (as static exhibits) but this is surely only because they would be too difficult to remove. The artists impression of wonderlab shows the crane still in place railwaymuseum.org.uk/2025 Whilst there is a cost in keeping these assets operational with certification etc it seems so wasteful to effectively abandon them as they'll add little to the wonderlab narrative. The museum has a policy of conserving their vehicles rather than overhauling or operating them at all (with very few exceptions) and I fully support this. With the objective of being a largely static museum rather than a TOC the workshop could be seen as a waste of space but, personally, I think it's shameful that it can't be retained in the current form with just a refreshed narrative on the viewing balcony. It provides somewhere to carry out conservation work (as it actually will be doing in the short term) as well as potential income through hiring the facility to other loco owners as with 60007 recently and others in the past. In an ideal world it could also attract funding as a training facility.

I'm looking for info about numbering and any further photos please if anybody can assist. A search of RMweb reveals much information about internal use vans but nothing about these BR owned vans used for onward despatch. Between at least the mid '50s and mid '60s Cadbury were one of a number of firms for whom BR allocated vanfits specifically for carrying their goods and as such these vehicles, although retaining standard bauxite livery, had "Return To Cadbury Bros. Bournville" prominently painted on the top section of the doors. I can see the reasoning behind this, especially for firms that were despatching food, ensuring that the interior remained reasonably clean and hadn't been used to carry fertiliser for example which could leave a lingering odour to taint the next load. Two plywood LMS design with clasp brake examples can be seen fleetingly in the 1957 BTF "Fully Fitted Freight" and these appear to be either LMS dia.2108 or BR built dia.1/200 but I can't make out the numbers. I'm unsure about the copyright position regarding posting a screenshot but the film can be watched on the BFI site and the vans in question appear at approx 14:41. https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/watch-fully-fitted-freight-1957-online Interestingly the film focuses a fair bit of attention on distribution of Fry's Chocolates from Somerdale in similarly branded vanfits and it's just by coincidence that the Cadburys vehicles show up later in the film. On the right hand side of the above photo is another example with variation in the lettering. Still LMS design but this time planked and one that was built unfitted and converted to vacuum later. Lifford West Junction and a train of vans for Cadburys at Bournville featuring a sole branded LMS design plank van amongst five vanwides. Photos are not mine, credit goes to the respective flickr users, but I would love to see a photo with a clear running number so I could model one. The East Lancs Railway have restored a BR standard planked van with return to Cadbury lettering but I'm not sure if this is authentic and it's the LMS design vans I'm most interested in as I already have a few kits for these which I'm looking to build with a bit of variation. Any info gratefully received!

Looking for a 7mm scale Hobbyhorse Developments Reynalds range 7RI109 Silvertown Lubricator 16 Feed. I am aware of other manufacturers offering Silvertowns but few are as good as Reynalds range imho and I would like to match the 8 feed that I already have. Best prices paid for your brass if you happen to have one of these! Many thanks.

Looking at the current renders of Lion/Thunderbolt, it appears that the trailing axle springs (below frame height) have been incorrectly copied across onto the driving axles whilst they also have their own correct springs (above frame height). The prototype is not double spring in this way. Don't mean to gripe but it just seems an odd mistake on an otherwise excellent looking design. Very much looking forward to seeing the figures!