RANGERS

Since passing my test, I've had about thirty cars, mostly company cars and most came new to me. There's been a few real stars - Beetle 1302S (the first always has a special place!) Astra GTE Mk1, Astra GTE Mk2 16v, Astra Mk3 1.4 (it was indestructible, even ten years with SWMBO didn't break it!) Skoda Superb, Golf GTD 150 Mk 4 and my current Audi A6. The rest were all pretty much of a muchness, some were better than the others but none particularly memorable, except for the ones which for one reason or another gained notoriety and that usually came about as the result of leaving me at the side of the road - in some cases regularly. Three Rover 75s all fell into that category - electrical issues, fuel pump failures, leaking windows, wiper mech failure and bits of trim falling off, not to mention an extraordinary thirst (sub 30mpg for a 1.8 petrol). Thankfully they were all short term rental cars with a max mileage of 8,000 so with the mega miles I was covering at the time, the longest I had any of them was about 6 weeks. Given their place in the debacle which was the 75, it's ironic that the worst of the lot was a BMW which came immediately after the Rovers, that was a real nightmare although when it was on the road, it was a fantastic car to drive. All in all the 75 should have been a good car but in my experience, mediocre engineering, poor quality parts, indifferent assembly standards and lack of attention to detail all had a part to play in Rover's downfall, if the press had a hand in it then they were only firing the plentiful supply of bullets that successive generations of BL staff and management fed them.

There were very few ungated crossings on the Corby system and quarry movements over them in partial or total darkness were extremely rare but I can remember heading along Gretton Brook Rd, close to The BSC shed, in January 1976 when a train was crossing just after darkness had fallen. As well as the Amber beacons on the loco, there was a van parked either side of the crossing with a flashing beacon and bizarrely, the flagman standing in front of each van waving his flag!

Can anyone identify the coaching stock in the train behind the Deltic? The first two B/G ones are easy enough but it's a bit trickier from there back.

Malta now has a ten year age restriction on imported buses and coaches and restructuring of the bus routes brought an influx of new King Longs and modern Mercs so most of the "interesting" buses disappeared practically overnight. There's still a few older coaches around but they're gradually being replaced with more modern vehicles, mostly still ex UK models. New coaches are starting to find their way into some fleets but still very much a minority interest.

I fear no matter how good bad or indifferent a model is, manufacturers these days are on a hiding to nothing. I've seen this model, not bought one yet but only a matter of time I fear, at 110 quid, what's the alternative? I could spend as much cash and endless amounts of time I don't have building from an etched kit, which won't be any better. I could spend a lot more of the cash I don't have on commissioning someone to build it for me, probably wouldn't be much better and would cost circa four times as much. The answer is pretty simple to me, buy one if you want one, if not go away and do something better....

Sutterton is about the only other one which springs to mind.

Interesting that Audi aren't immune from the modern day idiom of making it damned hard graft to actually buy a car. I recently bought a used Audi A6 from a franchised dealer, for no other reason than the car was nice and fitted the bill in terms of spec and was below our budget on account of being high mileage, not something that's ever worried me after covering an average of 150,000 miles in each of my past seven company cars, all bar two of which were VW group cars. The experience was a bit tedious but not painful, others however seemed to want to make it impossible to actually buy anything! One Skoda dealer was good but lost the sale after I'd made a bid on a car, which they were considering, but didn't come back to me for over a fortnight, by which time I had the Audi. His response, "we were disappointed you didn't give us the last crack at the deal"! The rest simply didn't come back to me or were more interested in meeting monthly payment budgets than actual prices of cars, a trick which has a habit of guiding you into paying inflated finance rates.

Oxford are also virtually unique in having their own production facilities for die-cast models but I'm not sure if their capabilities will extend to working models.

surely Radcliffe is East of the Trent and Colwick to the West?

If their road vehicles are anything to go by, they've opted for some pretty obscure prototypes - BMC training unit, Weymann Fanfare, Commer Commando half-deck etc - which have limited scope for livery variants On that basis, they could be looking at something totally obscure for rail.

i can't remember seeing any with ladders but most if not all had bars welded horizontally between the vertical ribs to act as rungs and allow the quarrymen access to judge the loading of the wagons. Most of the face shovels used to load them wouldn't have allowed a view of the interior to see how much was in there.

There are numerous pics of these published in various books over the years. I think, but not certain, that there were two variants. They were used extensively on the quarry system connected directly to the Corby plant - Priors Hall, Harringworth/ Shotley/ Wakerley, Great Oakley and Cowthick in the later years but would have been around when numerous other small pits were being dug closer to the works. I dont think any of these survived after about 1983. Once quarrying had ceased in 19 were used to move scrap around the plant when it was being broken up but would eventually have succumbed to the cutters torch as the rest of the plant disappeared. I can't say how many were built but they were numerous and I guess anyone who knows of any of the build records of Charles Roberts may be able to shed some light on it.

Some interesting refuelling bowsers in background of the third shot. Three ex MOD 0854 and what looks like a couple of the Fodens used at the major airports in the 60s, pensioned off to places like Southend when fixed fuel lines became the norm at the major airports.

Be wary of taking datum points off the Lima cab fronts, I've never been convinced by these and use slightly modified DC Kits versions on mine.

Loco haulage lasted well beyond the 1980s, up until 1995 at least, there was a morning up and evening return latterly hauled by a pair of 31s. It ran up from Sheffield and returned to Derby and Stock IIRC was mk2 AC in IC colours.

This has been a fascinating piece and the finished article looks as much like a 114 as anything I've seen in 4mm, I can hardly wait to se it painted.

Orton Models started out in The Post Office at Orton Longueville, a stones throw from the NVR station, in about 1979. They moved to the Hereward Centre in about 1983. I'm not sure when they closed but I'd guess around 2000, about the same time as Fowlers in Lincoln Rd called it a day. Orton were good for Scenic items, they sold a range of ground foam scatter, similar to Woodland Scenic but at a fraction of the cost, 35p as against 1.99 for the real thing IIRC.

The memorial was still there, and well cared for, in 2011 as a photo on Flickr testifies. https://www.flickr.com/photos/lemmo2009/5616320099/ I know the area well but this is the first I'd ever heard of this. A moving tribute to a life taken so young.

These shots are a stark reminder of the appalling state BR stock was allowed to deteriorate into in those "halcyon" days. It was the era that many of us grew up in and the final throes of the steam age railway in which the infrastructure still dated back to grouping/ pre-grouping and merely the trains had changed, but evidently the habits of the latter days of steam had yet to wear off. Perhaps that's why it's such a popular period for modelling but I'd challenge any of the RTR manufacturers to replicate the weathering of the locos in some of those shots!

Nice to see they're planning the ERF LV and a DAF 2800, two 70s prototypes long overdue a decent model

I visited Mainly Trains a couple of times after he moved to Watchet, being so far off the track it wasn't somewhere you'd drop into if you were passing but handy to combine with a visit to the W Somerset

The 116 on the Kentish Town to Barking reminded me of a story a friend of mine who'd worked at Cricklewood in the 80s used to tell. A woman had approached one of his colleagues who was sat in the cab of a unit at Kentish Town and asked, "is this the Barking train?". His reply of, "no madam, it goes toot toot like all the rest" was to attract a complaint and a subsequent disciplinary!