Ian Hargrave

Best described as gentle,”feel good” relaxing watching I think and perhaps not for the purist as long as you don’t lose the will to live during the interminable commercial breaks. So best viewed in recorded form. Fortunately,I have a (now 15 yo ) HDD recorder ….just as long as I remember to set it .Now where did I put that remote? I have to accept that a sure sign of one’s advancing years is forgetting where you put or leave things…the mobile phone being the object most mislaid.To find,ring it on house phone.

I wish you the joy of that and hope that unlike me & Robin Sweet of ANTB at the product launch at Gaydon last year you are allowed unfettered access to Hornby’s TT:120 . We both declined politely to the condition of signing up to extra media material in order to gain access to SK and his newbies ……which was a bit rich as both are in any case Hornby Club members.I sincerely hope that by now Hornby will have dispensed with such nonsense.That said,enjoy the show. I’ll be in Glasgow next month but for something entirely different.

Oops. My error. Wonder just how long that lasted in blue ,given the forthcoming air raids .

Oh yes, George Street was part of the way to Aberaman Station,now long gone and easily accessible to Eynon’s chippy,run and owned by May who always add a portion of scrunchings to your order.My mother visited a number of patients there.We lived further up in Godreaman in the bizarrely named Pleasant View Street. The “view” encompassed the infamous Phurnacite plant with its noxious yellow fume clouds and Aberaman Colliery where,I recently discovered,two Kerr Stuart Victory tanks resided to work the NCB branch up the Aman Valley. I remember their almost incessant barking but little suspected their significance at the time or that some seventy years later I’d be purchasing a model of one in OO gauge ! I did a little tour around last year .Much obviously has changed.But the chippy is still there as is the house in which I grew up ….with now a BMW 4x4 parked outside rather than my father’s Morris Oxford or my uncle’s Vauxhall ( visiting the local NCB stables and for a bowl or two of my mother’s stew and slices of apple tart )

On holiday ? Hmm…an interesting observation . Yes I know all about coal houses and back lanes and tin baths hanging on nails in the backyard..and Aberaman too.Well so I should as my mother was its very first District Nurse under the newly created NHS and Dad the hon.Secretary of the local rugby club. I grew up there in the forties and fifties. Not your average holiday resort though. For a change it was Barry Island,Porthcawl or Mumbles ( via the Vale of Neath ). No cars until my early teens to widen the horizons. My cousin up yonder …Ceinewydd…tells it too.His dad my mother’s younger brother,looked after the pit ponies in the area. Tondu being a centre for them. The house and street I grew up in is little changed since I left .But the landscape has. Its ghosts still remain

With regard to the running of these sets in everyday usage,I am using Hunt Extra Close magnetic couplings to good visual and practical effect. I only wish we had more sets developed and presented as these currently are. For those seeking evidence of post 1945 use please remember that railway photography was to a great extent dormant for a variety of reasons for several years.For the S&D,Ivo Peters was and remains the go to source.

No . I think not. WW2 bright blue an instantly recognisable target for any marauding Luftwaffe bomber ? I post this as an acknowledgement of the lousy aim which missed my mother on her bicycle round as her district nurse duties went around. He didn’t make it home. She did.though her patients were hit by his bombs and didn’t survive . Fortunately I’m still around to,post this …

Yes they cause quite a dent in one’s finances BUT temptation is what it is ( no answer). I decided…..no that’s untrue,I fell for,tart that I am….a WW1 theme at Doncaster and succumbed to two gunpowder vans ,a Salvage for Victory and a GW van. Oh plus two SECR types. So to complement them ,of the same period,I sourced suitable haulage in the form of a Planet Industrials Kerr Stuart Victory in original lined IW&D lined grey. The ensemble looks good and runs quite beautifully. I can justify the loco as two of them worked from Aberaman Colliery,in sight of the house in which I grew up.

Yes…in terms of access from the motorway network and the easy free parking,it scores hugely. I’ve been before so I didn’t miss out upstairs . It’s just great to be normal once again after a pretty unpleasant three years and I much enjoyed the show,particularly as I too fell for a Planet Victory which for me is a star purchase ,particularly at a show price. Had I not gone ,I’d have missed out on a very special piece of rtr model engineering..And of course those Iron Minks….

Of course there is. To name a few….Bulldog,Saint,Metro Tank,County ( not Hawksworth but I’ll be happy if one such comes along) Aberdare ..yes I did see them before their eventual demise and the multitude of pre grouping types inherited and ( maybe ) subsequently modified/ improved by the GWR …e.g. TVR ,Rhymney Railway 0-6-2 ‘s .Lord ere I divest this mortal coil.bring me an A class ..they all had 3 digit numbers…there’s a thing now…and actually in the case of Rhymney Railway locos only 2 .I well remember 39 as a fixture at Radyr Yard in her final years. Yes we could do with a few I think

New to me until yesterday at the Doncaster show. A company specialising in the industrial railways scene run by two knowledgeable and enthusiastic modellers. I am now the proud and appreciative owner of a Kerr ,Stuart Victory in OO. Why appreciative ? Well apart from the fact that it’s immaculately finished ,obviously what is needed is good slow speed control,particularly over point work and the odd problem with deceased frogs which sometimes besets 4 or 6 coupled tank locomotives models ( Much discussion on this matter elsewhere on this forum with regard to industrial models. ) Suffice it to say ,at least on DC Analogue, it’s controllable both in starting and coming to a halt to a degree that I find astounding.Pointwork in no way troubles its crawling progress. For £130 I had an unlocked for buy of the day.Underneath the box btw is a small green sticker that reads “QC Approval “ …a nice touch . Jointed coupling rods too ! On a personal level and something unbeknown to me until reading the literature ( excellent ) that comes in the box,is that two of these went to Aberaman Colliery after wartime use ( WW1 ) under firstly PD and subsequently NCB ownership .As I boy growing up in the 1940’s and 50’s these then …though I didn’t realise it at the time…. were the locos I saw and heard continuously on a day to day basis. I lived on the hillside just above that pit.There we’re two of them shedded there.

Snap ……see Pi. 😇

So where have you been all these years ? I’m afraid congestion goes with the territory,like it or not.And without the big hitters ? Well maybe all the better for smaller outfits to show their products. I had a productive conversation with the two gents marketing the rather refined Kerr Stuart industrial 0-6-0 so no problem there. It occupied me happily from 10:30 until 14:30.

It has taken me an age to get anywhere on this forum to be where I’m in a position to post on the Kerr,Stuart.. That being as it may,I am now in the happy position of running one recently purchased from the two nice gentlemen at Doncaster ( ooo…where’s that ,you ask ? ). Two of these locos were,if you like,childhood accomplices,in that their barking punctuated my waking hours just down the road from home at Aberaman Colliery,initially a PD owned but later NCB post 1948. My late father was a PD employee all his working life which was next to the pit.A totally wonderful model which delivers in terms of both performance and appearance. .

Try running them in a darkened room……😎. Sorry to be facetious…. Hope they have some at Doncaster on Saturday.

I have just leafed through my copy of the excellent 2021 published S&D Railway ( Derek Philips,Irwell Press ) . There are a few photographs of these sets on the S&D prior to 1939 but none that is evident from this source post 1948. That doesn’t necessarily mean that they weren’t in use then .It has to be remembered that post 1945 there were chronic shortages of many commodities,among them being film for an enthusiast’s camera.

Adding to the mix…more confusion,sorry…with the question of the dreaded coreless motor and a running in period.I recently acquired an OO Works Adams Jubilee. In conversation with Roderick Bruce who designed and built the model,he specifically told me that I should not attempt it ,that it was unnecessary and he wouldn’t recommend it but run it with stock ( 5x Hattons Genesis) straight out of the box.Yes the model has a coreless motor. It’s beautifully presented and runs nicely,if noisily ( a metal gear train ). Apart from the Stirling Single which is a beautifully engineered loco IMHO,the only Rapido model I have is a WR 16XX Pannier. I realise Ivan has had difficulties with his,so I’ve just given it a run on my tabletop roundy ( DC /Gaugemaster Combi) through point work in both forwards & reverse. And it performs smoothly & silently down to position 2. I’ve been following this thread with much interest and thought I’d share my experience,if it helps or otherwise

And Kernow’s name is on the box. As Andy as posted elsewhere,time to let this one go maybe…

Hopefully expected mid February. New video available on Rails website now.

My own experience with Bachmann’s newly revised version says buy this and in the SFX version too.It says on the tin you can run on dc with sound. This punter does and has a lot of play fun with it too.It works. As is famously declaimed…”Yes you can “. D 6829 recently delivered spotted at Severn Tunnel Junction by this not so young reader 4/06/1963.

Your sentiments are not unique. I believe the French feel the same about Paris.

This is surely low hanging fruit,it being in the keep of the NRM ?

I recall them from their introduction in 1960 at Temple Meads .They were in everyday use on WR West of England trains and this included prestige expresses ,”The Bristolian “ being one. IIRC problems arose in a big way when they took charge of Waterloo - Exeter services a few years later.Before that,I cannot remember their condition causing obvious embarrassment ,although this is just my own observation.

And yes,the programme did highlight that serious consideration is being given to a working design. That aside,I found it an enjoyable watch

So on which items have they been supplied to date ?