Not Jeremy

The show will also be graced with the presence of Alan Buttler and his brilliant Modelu business. I am very much looking forward to catching up with Alan, here is the last time we met up - at Jerry's excellent Warminster show in the summer of 2019. Alan doesn't know it yet, but Steve Harrod and I have come up with a great new product for his range(!) We intend to bring this historic artefact and get it scanned for posterity, I certainly want a couple for my new garden line.... I'll give you a clue - they go on poles and this one came from Newton Abbott... Simon

Wow, those two small scale projects are really something, I am really look forward to seeing them both. At the other end of the model railway scales, we will have Steve Harrod and Andrew Vines at the show, demonstrating and showing their latest projects in the form of two of Fred Phipps' fabulous kits for the "Heavy Warships". Steve's "Active" in weathered green and Andrew's "Bulldog" in ex works blue, complete with monstrous head code boxes{!) Last night I had the huge pleasure of a visit to Rob Mabbbett's Elmbridge stabling point, where I found Active and Bulldog looking utterly Magnificent... Come and see them both on the 23rd, we will also have Dave Easto and Steve Cook at the show with other examples of larger scale railway modelling. Simon

Oh go on then, the shop and parking is up the A4 towards Chippenham, just above the Tollbridge to Bathampton.

Wow, that layout looks pretty good - might mosey on down there myself..... Parking will be available under the old brewery at Tollbridge road, just down from the bookshop, There will be a free minibus shuttle running between the bookshop and parking at Tollbridge studios and the show itself in Larkhall, about a mile distant. There are happily still no residents parking schemes in operation in this part of Bath so parking on the streets is no worse than it was before. Depending upon how far back one goes of course..

I rattled and farted happily back to Bath!

Looking very good, clearer here than on your phone - great to see you both earlier! Bonne nuit Simon

I have just packed up my little Titfield book and a bumper bundle of nonsense - poor Chris! Thank you very much Paul for facilitating all of this, I hope he feels appreciated by a lot of people, he certainly is. Simon

Looks really good - well done! Simon

It was through a series of articles that Chris Published in Scale Model Trains on making the Titfield Thunderbolt towards the end of 1994 that I made contact with the very wonderful late Bernard King, and his wife Jean. Bernard was a film enthusiast, and also a model maker, and after writing to him c/o the magazine we met up and became friends. Bernard was a brilliant character who had lots of stories to tell about the filming, and it was through this meeting that I ended up writing my little book and getting more immersed in Titfield-ery. This is the picture Bernard took the year before the film was made while out on a walk, and which appeared in the article as I recall. I hope to publish a second book on Titfield this year, and it will include a short chapter on Bernard and his involvement with the filming etc. Bernard gave me prints of his photographs, a poster and some lovely card models he had made, all of which I now treasure. So thank you to Chris for facilitating a very enjoyable chapter in my own life. Simon

I watched it from the bottom of the garden, which mostly consisted of listening to it before a distant and fleeting glimpse of it and train where they cut vegetation back when they raised the pylons for the electrification that didn't happen. Apologies for the extraneous lineside detail.... It sounded fabulous!

A sack of ferrets for Mrs Postlethwaite perhaps?

Good question! It can't be the cat, because Schrodinger's got that....

Seen yesterday on the containers a stone train through the Avon Valley. Sorry for the excess of pictures, those iPhones are so quick and I just couldn't help myself....

Drums Roll Expectant hush And here.... Fresh from RMweb live... And the Ricoh Arena..... (Steve's back pocket) Please give it up for... None other than.... Your friend and mine... Timmmmeeee Twooooo Trowserssss! Coming to a show near Bath quite soon..... Huzzah!

That’d be your William Clarke, lovely buildings!

Good God man, where's your spirit of adventure, he gets over it soon enough anyway. Mind you, me playing the "Archers" over his S&C video some years ago did take a while to recover from!! It wasn't deliberate - honest!!

I'll have a word with Cookie, we wouldn't wish to disappoint anyone.....

Regulators, they work really well don't they? Take your world of financial institutions, all as tightly regulated as you like The result of which is lots of pointless crap that has to be trotted out in any conversation and nobody normal can open a bank account without idiotic and pedantic difficulty. Meanwhile any crim with obscene amounts of money can have what they like, oh and buy up half of London's property as well, no questions asked. Grenfell Tower? The utter disgrace of the post Office system that drove people to suicide and ruin? All properly "regulated" no doubt, so all arses covered and stuff the poor sods who suffered as a result - that's what regulation is about. You can take your regulators and stuff them all somewhere dark and painful as far as I am concerned, they all make me want to puke. Thank God for the likes of RMweb, personally I like the fact that it is "imperfect" and without regulation or spin. Sure sometimes I think Phil Parker talks cobblers*, but then so do I, but I always get the feeling that everything on here is sincere, well intentioned and fundamentally honest. And yes, some pictures might be lost, possibly, but probably not, but then again, but luckily I saved mine, (actually I'm glad quite a few of them have gone), but then maybe they haven't, but they might have done, best to take back ups, (or off to another forum and wreak havoc there instead), but still come back here to worry about the pictures that might be gone, obviously, or possibly not, and repeat ad nauseam.... Not Jeremy * Sorry Phil, I was just using you as a cheeky example for cheap effect in another post that adds absolutely nothing to the subject at hand but which made me feel slightly better for a brief and fleeting moment....

Safely back from a great weekend. There were indeed a lot of booksellers and I was one of them, out of respect for the others I only took my own (ie Wild Swan) books along to the show. Commercially worth doing, just great to be at a show again, many more conversations had. And very nice to spend the weekend in Jerry's company. We did however unfortunately suffer a key equipment failure at taking down time... However, Jerry very soon had the situation in hand! Thank you to Jerry for your help and everyone who organised and came along to what was a very good show. Simon

Just back from a second day at the "new improved" Bristol show with the books, ably assisted and accompanied by Jerry "Queensquare" Clifford. This is a really good show in a venue which has definitely upped its game since I last visited it. Loos revamped I think, internal spaces and corridors looking smart and well cared for, catering provision massively improved, jolly staff serving good range of stuff in the public space on the ground floor, exhibitors teas etc in nice side area, run by nice people, with merriment and good humour much in evidence. Had lots of nice conversations with the "old guard" and the "new guard" and it struck me that for a first venture the whole thing was going really well, with lots of positive vibes throughout the exhibition. Several good conversations with Phil, very nice to meet Bev from Warners and the whole thing feels really upbeat to me. Lots of happy visitors and lots of traders and lots of good layouts, met up with lots of friends old and new, lots of RMwebbers and some very nice model railways to boot. We sold a fair bit of stuff and will both be there again tomorrow.... Well done and thank you to all involved, it is a pleasure to be a small part of it! Simon

Thank you Mike, you are right as confirmed by Dave Summers over on "Western Thunder". The picture features Reading Middle Box. I'm guessing the date is just before it was renumbered in 1946. Simon

That would make sense as according to the BR database it was allocated to Reading from 1935 until after it was renumbered.

Can anyone please help in providing any information on or identifying this location? The loco is 4807. Many thanks, photo from the David Hyde collection.

I do hope you all spend the money you saved with the traders at the show!!

Thank you very much for checking Mike. The result of whatever happened was that a string of box vans in the commercial numbering series, ie presumably vans used for local storage, were shunted through the buffer stop on the siding nearest the up main. The first van ending up on top of the collapsed buffer stop hard up against the goods shed, it and the van behind it suffering some interesting damage because of the resulting height difference. It must have been quite a heavy shunt to detach the bufferstop - I bet it made a bang! In the same collection of negatives I have pictures of the same vans in the same positions but on another date I would have thought. All very intriguing, and as you say it must have happened shortly before closure. Sorry to be not showing the pictures here, but they are deinitely worthy of publication in a book, such a thing from WS is heading for publication this year. So much to do and so few brain cells... Simon Simon