Godfrey Glyn

My Freightliner 66502 Basford Hall arrived this morning, beautifully packed and all in one piece. Not had a chance to run it, or check it carefully against photographs or the 'opposition' but it looks very very impressive. Many thanks Hattons! all the best and Christmas Greetings to all! Godfrey

Many thanks Ian, down in SW Somerset the Bristol buses had moquette both on the upper and lower decks. I do remember when the school buses were provided by a local firm called Wessex Coaches we occasionally were taken to school on old double deckers that had been bought from up North. I can recall we young teenagers were shocked on seeing written up at the front of the top deck of a bus from, I think, Bradfield, the injunction No Spitting. We was terribly innocent in those days in Chard! As I said above it is a lovely model. Godfrey

The one I ordered from Rails has arrived (well packed) and it is very impressive. I have no reason to have one other than to admire a beautifully created model which goes well beyond anything I have seen from other manufacturers of British outline buses. One small question for the experts, the moquette on the seats is indeed very impressive, on mine the moquette is only printed on the seats downstairs, is that the same as the prototype? It really is a stunning model and those of you whose models are based in the Birmingham of the period must be in seventh heaven. All the best and many congratulations to Jason at Rapido and all those who helped to produce it. Godfrey

PeteN92 said "Brilliant, seems as the old An illustrated history of southern coaches is hard to find as it is and at a reasonable price. This may serve as a good alternative." Sorry to disappoint you but this new, but wonderful, book does not cover the coaches built by the Southern Railway, so you will not find any information on Maunsell or Bulleid stock. It specifically covers the periods before and after the Southern Railway. I am afraid you will still need to hunt down a copy of the Illustrated History of Southern Coaches. Hopefully if this book sells well, and it deserves to, we might see a second volume in this series AND a re-print of the Illustrated History of Southern Coaches! One can only hope. all the best Godfrey

Another masterpiece by Mike King which covers both Pre-grouping and BR Standard Mk 1 stock. The pre-grouping companies covered include the London and South Western, South Eastern and Chatham Railway, the London Chatham and Dover Railway, the London Brighton and South Coast Railway and the Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway. There is a huge amount of text, loads of plans, tables photographs - both black and white and some colour. At £25 I think its great value. Paul at Alton has plenty of copies and certainly I am going to be spending quite a bit of time with my copy in the coming weeks. Mike hints that he has more than enough material to fill a Volume 2 but that it will depend on the sales of this volume. Well worth a look if you're interested in the topic, I hope Hattons have one in their collection! all the very best Godfrey

Picked up my copy from Alton last week. It's excellent and well worth getting if you're interested in Southern Region electrification. Godfrey

Waterstones provided me with my copy this morning. Simon you must be delighted and very proud, well you certainly deserve to be! Hope it sells well, I know book writing is not the path to great riches but I do hope you will enjoy the additional income well as the kudos! all the very best Godfrey

There are some photos of the latest batch of refurbished versions taken in the Eastleigh works on 30th September on Carl Watson's excellent site - http://www.carlswatson.com/trains. You can also access them through the www.47soton.co.uk website which is always worth looking at and doesn't restrict itself to just news from the Southampton area. Godfrey

I can see these flying off the shelves from Hattons and presumably the other shops that sell Hatton’s own products. They will be attractive for collectors and anyone who would like to run something that is either pre-grouping or just after. For many they will form the basis for modifications and for some modellers they may very well encourage them to build kits or stratchbuild ‘more accurate’ models. IMHO at this price point, for at least the first batch, they will prove to be irresistible for enough to make it a financial success for Hattons. It will be interesting to see how the big boys will respond, I don’t believe that developing more accurate versions is financially viable for any major manufacturer but they could respond with some more pre-grouping liveried locos. Its a thumbs up from me. All the best Godfrey

Congratulations Simon, have successfully ordered a copy from Waterstones and looking forward to reading it. all the very best Godfrey

I do think all the big companies ( 'commissioners') are, especially at the moment, between a rock and a hard place. Let us assume that they do a whole shed load of research and announce a model that the retail trade sees as attractive. The retail trade will worry that the demand will exceed supply and over order on the anticipation that they will be cut back to the number they really need. The 'manufacturer' may then over estimate the demand and arrange for additional production. Hay presto the retailer gets what they have ordered and the supply exceeds demand and models stay on the retailers' shelves. The retailer then doesn't order anymore of that model and adjusts future order numbers; we end up with a cycle which neither helps the 'manufacturer' or the retailer or indeed, the consumer. I do wonder if the major companies make full use of the intelligence that could be gathered by their reps rather than relying too much on the spread sheets that derive from orders received. If you then add in the difficulty of choosing a suitable model in a very crowded market; the lack of obvious money making models when most suitable prototypes have been covered, the competition from new commissioners who go directly to Chinese manufacturers and the huge uncertainties over currency variations and the decline in retail spending you are operating in, let us say a very challenging environment. Its interesting that the new entrants have successfully established themselves by taking direct orders and then having the 'right' number manufactured, not something the major companies can do if they want to offer a full range of models and accessories. I can think of a number of models that I would love to see brought to the market but whether they would make the money that they need to is another matter. As Mike says above, producing the 'right' number and pitching it at the 'right' price to produce a good profit is the key to success. Sounds simple but it's not, remember BL produced a super little car in the late '50s called the Mini but lost money on each one sold, we all know what happened to them! I wish all the success in the world to those who bring us the lovely models we have available to us at the moment! all the best Godfrey

Prototype Models made a kit for Sidmouth Junction signal box, a mixture of card with glazing and plastic pieces. It is still available from some suppliers/shops. If approached carefully it makes up into quite a nice model. I have no idea whether its accurate to the nearest scale foot or not! If you Google it you will find a supplier. There is a really nice guy at some exhibitions in the south who stocks it together with a range of brick papers and kits that must go back to the '80s but still worth looking at. Sorry I can't remember his name or that of his firm. Sorry to be rather vague but all my modelling stuff is in store awaiting a house move (ever the optimist) all the best Godfrey

Alton Model Centre also!

Just heard that Paul is going to stock Accurascale. That seems to me to be great news for modellers in Hampshire and Surrey. I think I might very well be tempted to add to my collection of their wagons, in particular the Accurascale PCAs. Nice to see that Accurascale are widening their coverage, I am sure it will bring their superb range to many who prefer to see the product before buying. all the best Godfrey

My two have just been delivered by the postie and I am mightily impressed. Well done Chris and his team! Photos taken on my iPhone which tends to distort some of the colours. They also never ran past Chard but that is covered by Rule 1. all the best Godfrey

The customer is always right until either: 1. they have left the shop, or 2. they have put the phone down. Easy. I am obviously an outstanding candidate. Good luck to he or she who gets the job and can tolerate the rest of us! Godfrey

Its a bit of a hike from Bishopstoke Junction in the windy conditions but well worth it. I really enjoyed my visit today; I had never seen Totness before and was enchanted by it and when I was watching there was a steady stream of trains running very smoothly. I was fascinated by Roger Orpwood's Sefton Park in 3/4mm Finescale. It is an engineering masterpiece, the loco even has spoked wheels. Building the track to the standard required for it to function is a total universe away from my skill level and the concept of having points in the next development of the layout is still beyond my comprehension. Great to see AlanButler's new productions on his ModelU stand and looking forward to his barley twist lamps when they come out. I gather Wizard Models will not be attending future exhibitions as he is going to concentrate his efforts on working at home to satisfy the orders that he gets directly. I have had excellent service from Wizard in the past so I hope this change is successful for him. Wells is such a beautiful place, the coffee is excellent in the Cathedral cafe and I enjoyed an excellent lunch with an old colleague in the Greek Taverna down the road. So all was good. My thanks and congratulations to Chris Challis and his team who organised this rather special event. all the best Godfrey

And, although I haven't been for years, a discount shopping centre in Street which had something to do with Clarks shoes if I remember correctly. Not quite the same as it was in my youth when the whole family would make a trip to the High Street to buy Clarks seconds and after diving into the various shoe shops would depart with at least one pair for each member of the family. I know, we was lucky, we 'ad shoes. Godfrey

I've agreed with John Tomlinson's comment but then on re-reading I am not sure that Alexander Johnson is a real Tory, particularly in the sense that Torys don't think that money grows on trees. The evidence from his time as Mayor of London would suggest that he is very happy to spend money on high profile attention grabbing projects in the hope that someone else will come along later to pick up his bill. all the best Godfrey

Yes indeed I was, thanks Mallard, I was trying to find any reference to the Crimson/Cream 59' Bulleid coaches in any other books but I think we are going to have to bow to the expertise of people like Mike King and Graham Muspratt (others are possibly available!). all the best Godfrey

Well I managed to get over to Alton at lunchtime and pick up the first of my Bulleid 'shorties' from Paul. I must admit to being very impressed with them, they certainly live up to my expectations! I was particularly interested to see the photograph posted on the previous page by Hilux5972 which clearly shows that the glass was not flush and I think Hornby have got this feature correctly modelled. I hope these will be as popular as the Maunsell ones. Gould in his book ' Bulleid's SR Steam Passenger Stock' suggests that by the 1950s some sets had been painted in crimson lake and cream but that all were green again by 1960. It would be nice to see some in Crimson/Cream if it is possible to identify which were painted in that combination. Many thanks to those very much more knowledgeable than me for their contributions above, clearly it isn't just Bulleid tenders that are a minefield! I do hope Bachmann can pull their finger out, noting that their 64' versions are still only at the drawing stage. BTW Paul at Alton Model Centre seems to have a very good supply of the ones released by Hornby this week. Congratulations to Paul Isley and his team. best wishes Godfrey

Rang Paul to see if he had any news of the Hornby Bulleid coaches and hopefully I will be able to pick my first group up from him on Friday. He is now stocking Testors Dullcoat which is excellent news for me as I still find the best way to dull down models. I gather that he will be closing for the afternoon, early, at 2pm next Tuesday (25th June). Must be a bit of a record, I don't think he has missed any scheduled opening since he took over from Bob. Back to normal hours on Wednesday. all the best Godfrey

Great to see the 442s back, in my opinion one of the best looking EMUs and certainly much more comfortable than the 444s which replaced them. Saw these two sets coming through Eastleigh last week, they look OK, certainly the design has lasted well. I gather they haven't replaced the old motors yet which seems bit of a shame if they are hoping to improve the reliability, the old motors will have been looked after but they were inherited from even older EMUs. Looking at the last photo it is clearly authentic to have one bus on the bridge over the track, despite what Graham Muz says!! all the best Godfrey

I think there may have been changes, certainly on the SWR 158s. I travelled over to Romsey on one on Saturday and the groove has been covered with a very wide black layer that makes them very obvious. I wonder if Bachmann did their drawings from data collected by a SWR (SWT) version. all the best Godfrey

Picked up a copy from Simon at the Titfield Thunderbolt whilst at the Warminster Show today. It is published by Crecy and is a series of photographs compiled by Kevin Robertson from the Roy E Vincent Archive at the Transport Treasury. I have to say that it is a real delight with masses of photographs from the period, offering loads of inspiration for anyone wanting to weather locos, stock and indeed infrastructure. Enjoy! Godfrey