cessna152towser

Some years ago I spotted a huge bargain job lot on eBay buy-it-now, "collection only". Day one I drove all the way from Scotland to buy the stuff in Taunton, two nights in a hotel, West Somerset Railway trip to Minehead on the middle day, then drove home on the third day with a long break in Kidderminster to allow for a round trip to Bridgnorth on the Severn Valley Railway. By the time I had resold all the items I didn't intend to keep I just about covered the cost of my three day trip.

Sorry to hear this. I believe the motor isn't up to the job as the railbus is quite a heavy model. I bought the Heljan Park Royal railbus. Unfortunately the steps got damaged when placing it back in the box after its first test run. I glued the steps. After a few slow runs on my short fiddle yard to branch terminus layout the railbus expired in a puff of smoke, first time I opened up the controller to above half speed. After sales service from both the retailer and Heljan was non-existent. If I had not damaged the steps I would have taken the matter further with trading standards as an item not fit for purpose. As things stood, I resold it on eBay as a non-runner for half the price which I paid. I will never again buy a motorized Heljan item.

"i have pisted this Loco as spares or repair" Pissed when he listed or pissed on the item?

The postie came to the door on Thursday and offered his most sincere apology. He said he hadn't realised there was a lock on the door. It takes a great person to admit their mistake. All's well that ends well.

Someone bought it. Best offer was accepted. We will never know how much. This https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/284472483215?hash=item423be19d8f%3Ag%3A5ngAAOSwasRhVy3q&LH_BIN=1 looks like a bog standard Triang horse box in Wrenn packaging and over priced.

Over optimistic or delusional? https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/124956622647?epid=4049023906&hash=item1d17febf37:g:UiQAAOSwJUFhapxZ

I am eagerly anticipating the MC Metals wagons from Rails of Sheffield. Next step will be to find or fabricate suitable scrap metal loads.

Oh no! I gave away free a huge amount of Hornby-Dublo 3-rail track and points at a show a few years ago, only kept enough for my display layout of a double circuit with sidings. Never suspected it was worth that much

Thanks for all your responses, much appreciated. Maybe I made too much of a fuss. I often leave my conservatory unlocked for couriers or posties to leave items and a neighbour rarely locks their summer house. Just wonder what came over the postie today when finding my conservatory locked went up steps to my summer house and forced it open despite it being obviously also locked.

I returned home to one of those red "Something for You" cards from the post ofice, on which was written "On seat inside summer house". True enough there was my parcel of Hornby wagons which I had bought on eBay, but the postie had broken a bolt in order to force his way past a secure and sturdy lock to gain entry to the summer house and had therefore then left the premises open. I will be submitting a claim to the post office but would be interested to know how others would react. Nothing stolen, but is forcing your way into lockfast premises perhaps a matter for the police?

Sorry, no.

My wife asks "Are you jealous?

A longer wait than I expected. In the meantime I bought a green one second hand via this forum. I wanted a pair to create a trip working and missed out yet again on Hattons who sold out almost immediately (as I type this their website shows only one version of the white ones remaining, only nine left). However I managed to secure a second green HIA from Rails and it has just arrived today.

Since my excellent Rails Iron Mink arrived to replace my Ratio one, the Ratio chassis has now been dismantled for spares and the Ratio Iron Mink body is now a grounded shed in the garden of one of the houses on my layout.

It looks like I am lucky then. My wife already had a model railway colelction with her ex. She was also treasurer of a heritage railway for three years. So she shares my passion for trains.

Yes, I have that experience too. I lost an etched nameplate off a loco. Months later, after I had bought a replacement pair, the original turned up on the floor, even though the floor had been checked and cleaned several times in the intervening period. My wife still hasn't found her three metre long guitar cable which went missing a few months ago from the top of her amplifier.

From bitter experience I have to agree about wood prices. Around Easter my wife and I decided we would treat ourselves to a decking and summer house instead of going on holiday this year. The work should have been completed by the end of June, but even now due to shortage of labour and materials the decking is not yet complete and the summer house which eventually arrived during August is still a kit of parts. The prices for the various aspects of the job, timber, labour, electrical, associated landscaping keep going up and I just want to see the job finished before prices rise any further. Just like HS2 the project is running way behind schedule and over budget.

This afternoon I decided to run an enthusiast special. Class 66 and coaches taken from boxes, placed on fiddle yard and run to branch teminus. Send out a steam outline loco, Hornby 34070 Manston, light to take the return working. Then use the class 66 to work back as a trip freight for a single VDA which has been out to the goods yard for a couple of days. Start packing the stock away again and now there's a buffer missing off a Hornby coach and a coupling hook missing off the Bachmann VDA. Logically one would expect to find the broken off bits either in or beside the boxes which they were taken out from earlier, or to have dropped off somewhere along the layout. I failed to find either the buffer or the coupling hook despite an exhaustive search. I am thankful for my spares box that I was able to repair the rolling stock before repacking into its boxes, but I wonder where all these small bits, buffers, coupling hooks etc. disappear to. Does anyone else have the same problem?

I have no problems with adverts, the site needs to cover its costs in one way or another. I have not yet seen any of these pop-up ads which would obstruct your screen view and of which others have complained. There does appear to be something wrong with the creeping box ad at the top of the page. It's mildly annoying when you want to click an item on the forum index and the index is slowly creeping down the page. However once the box eventually expands to its maximum size, nine times out of ten it is only a clear box and I have very rarely seen any advert actually appear within that box.

Thanks for your helpful replies. I sold 8 items, 7 by auction and 1 buy-it-now. All the payments reached the new bank account on the day following sale. Result! Six out of eight buyers have already posted positive feedback.

Agreed. I once bid 77 pounds on a rare Lima 37 but did not win it because of "reserve not met". The seller immediately relisted and the runner up renewed his 75 pounds bid (back in the day when eBay allowed you to identify bidders). I did not bid but watched the item. The runner up went on to win the item for less. Obviously the seller had now removed or lowered his secret reserve. Karma to the seller for playing silly games with his "hidden reserve" first time round, he sold in the end for less than I was initially prepared to pay. That's the give and take of eBay and I wasn't going to write to him complaining that I had lost out. Instead I later bought the same item elsewhere for 40 pounds. Buy-it-Now versus Auction is always, in my opinion, a gamble. I recently restarted selling on eBay and listed a trio of common Hornby 1970's/80s era wagons on auction at 0.99 plus 3.20 postage. Within minutes I was offered 7 pounds plus the postage if I would change to buy-it-now. I checked the offerer's own eBay profile and saw that he had hundreds of model railway items listed for sale, so was almost definitely a dealer. If he wanted to pay 7 for quick sale the items were probably worth a bit more to him for resale so I politely declned his offer. The wagons sold on auction ten days later for just 3.49. You win a few, you lose a few.

Hattons appear to have sourced a supply of several varieties of new Hornby wagons which were last listed in the 2011 catalogue. These have the big Railroad couplings but the newer finer scale wheels. Currently being offered at 20% discount on 2011 prices, so a basic 7.49 wagon four or five plank wagon can be bought for just six pounds. Seeing how prices have risen over the past ten years these must surely represent good value for money, either as collectors items or for a weathering project. https://www.hattons.co.uk/stocklist/1000389/1000588/1000637/0/hornby_oo_gauge_1_76_scale_wagons/prodlist.aspx?sort=5&pageid=1 Scroll down the page past the second hand stuff and about five different brand new wagons appear, more than ten of each in stock. Edited to add:- Or near the bottom of the page, a pair of "New Era" wagons for nine pounds.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/OO-GAUGE-TUNNEL-SCRATCHBUILT-938/284431394414 I admire his optimism that this might sell, plus 5.50 postage.

I had a North British track chair dated 1906, which I salvaged from the course of a long closed hospital siding. I reckoned it was of little value and so I left it behind when I moved house in 1989.

I actually had one of those because at the time I was collecting Wrenn wagons and would buy every new issue from Hattons. According to the Wrenn "bible", From Binns Road to Basildon and Beyond by Maurice Gunter there were 129 of these wagons originally issued in grey in 1991/2. Mine went about twenty years ago as part of a job lot of around 200 Wrenn wagons which I sold to a serious collector for 2,000 pounds. Both of us were very pleased with the deal, 10 pounds per wagon represented a very good return on my investment and no doubt that among the many more common wagons there would have been a few rarities which were changing hands for inflated prices. In the context of the many "Limited Editions of 100" which retailers have commissioned from Dapol in more recent times, 129 is not that rare. I still have some Wrenn wagons, but this is not something I would pay 99.95 for.