Wolseley

I already have a Southern 0-6-2T, but it's a repaint of a BR one and not a genuine one, so I put in a bid for it, but I've already been outbid and there's still five days to go. I think I'll just stick with my repaint and let it go. It will be interesting to see how far it goes though.

I just spotted a paint chip I have to touch up......

Seeing as how we're talking about repaints of old Dublo locos, here are a few of mine:

A post-war wagon retro-fitted with pre-war couplings perhaps?

Lone Star were the first thing I thought of when I saw the title of the thread. A school friend of mine had a large collection of the push-along ones. He had so many I wouldn't be surprised if he had practically all of them. The only ones I can remember though, at this distance in time, are the A4, the 3F 0-6-0T and the diesel shunter.

Oh and a bit more about the Centura. It was initially available with a choice of three engines: a four cylinder 2 litre, a 3.5 litre hemi six, and a 4 litre hemi six. The 2 litre and 3.5 litre engines were subsequently dropped from the range (it seems that hardly anyone wanted the four cylinder Centura. Industrial problems of a rather unusual sort delayed the introduction of the Centura to the Australian market - the bodies were imported from France and, in 1973, dockside unions put a ban on handling French imports, following the commencement of French nuclear testing in the Pacific, and the bans lasted for around two years.

No. We got the Hillman Hunter in various guises (none of the others like Sunbeam, Humber etc by then) but, by the time the Avenger was getting ready to hit the market, Chrysler Australia had already decided that its car in that market segment would be the slightly smaller Mitsubishi Galant (marketed as the Chrysler Galant). Chrysler assembled the Hunter CKD at the old Rootes factory in Port Melbourne and the model range was a bit different to what was offered in the UK. Initially there were two models, the Arrow (with a front bench seat but otherwise with the same interior as the UK Minx), and the Hunter. The Hunter Safari station wagon was added a year or so later (the Safari name was also used for Chrysler Valiant wagons). The Arrow name was dropped with the first facelift, although the model continued, rebranded as the base level Hunter. The Hunter became the Hunter Royal, with the trim level of the UK Singer Vogue, but with simulated wood trim. A new model, the Hunter GT, (basically the UK Humber Sceptre but with a standard Hunter grille) was introduced. UK Humber Sceptre bonnet ornaments were used on some cars. In 1970, the Hillman name was dropped, and the cars became simply Hunters (although a small badge had the wording "by Chrysler"). There was also a cut price performance version called the Hustler (a rather spartan looking version of the UK Hillman GT, with paintwork that followed that of the sports oriented Chrysler Valiant, the Valiant Pacer. By now "GT" had become a dirty word with insurance companies, and owners of the Hunter GT were being hit by higher premiums just because of the name of the car, so Chrysler Australia renamed the Hunter GT the Hunter Royal 660 (I almost bought a Hunter Royal 660 in 1975 or thereabouts, but at the last minute I decided that I didn't really need a car at that point in my life). We did have the Chrysler 180, which was renamed the Chrysler Centura. It was not very successful though, too big to be a small car, and not big enough to be a big car.

The Singer Vogue was sold as a Humber in Australia, and the Singer Gazelle was sold in 1966 and 1967 as an upmarket Hillman (earlier gazelles were sold as Singers, but they only sold in small numbers). The Hillman Gazelle had the cylinder head from the Sunbeam Rapier, giving it better performance than the Minx. There was also a version of the Humber Vogue also with, I think, a Sunbeam Rapier head, called the Humber Vogue Sports. They may have been sold here in (very) small numbers, but I have only seen one Humber Sceptre in Australia, and that car was, I believe, a private import from New Zealand. Hillman Gazelle: Humber Vogue:

I'm pretty sure that Citroen sent a batch of them in 1954 or thereabouts to Australia to gauge the market, and were to send more if they sold well, but they didn't. I'm just going on my memory here, so I might have to dig out some 1950s copies of Wheels to check.

You used to see Humbers fairly often in Sydney in years gone by (mostly Super Snipes and Vogues) but, excluding car shows and club runs, it's been about seven years since I saw a Humber "in the wild" so to speak. I remember, back in the early 1960s, there was a funeral director at Gordon, on Sydney's North Shore who had a fleet of cars, limousines and hearses, all of them Humber Super Snipes. Here are a few more:

I'm not a Citroen expert, but I don't think that many 2CVs were sold new here, and those that were sold date back to the mid 1950s. The later models would probably all be private imports from the UK (right hand drive of course). I have seen a few Charlestons out here, and they were definitely not sold new in Australia.

A few carpark finds:

I took this picture of a Bentley early last year, but I didn't notice until now what someone did to the name on the Land rover behind it:

After a long delay, I finally got around to three railing my Scotsman. After looking at it for some time, wondering what would best fit where, it turned out to be a pretty straightforward job. I used a Marklin skate, #7164, under the loco, in place of the pick-up on the driving wheels. It has just spent the last 45 minutes or so going around the layout, with an HD Mallard for company: I still have to retouch the red lining and straighten out (or replace) the handrails, but it's running very nicely.

And my Silver King, which had been repainted before I got my hands on it, but needed repairs and some tidying up before it looked like this - and the photo has just highlighted one spot that needs retouching.....

It would be much cheaper to buy a Gaiety Pannier, change the safety valve cover and repaint the loco. Some of the wagons, while not cheap, are not ridiculously highly priced (I rather like some of the tank wagons) although he does seem to have a bit of trouble putting transfers on straight.

Any ideas what this is? I was walking down a street in Goulburn and it went past. Unfortunately I didn't notice it early enough to see the front, which would make identification a bit easier....

A couple of photos taken in a local shopping centre car park:

Now the original Dublo Castle looks more realistic than the Ringfield version, as the Ringfield motor is rather bulky and visible, taking up virtually all the space in the cab, but I've always wanted a Ringfield Castle (don't ask me why - I'm not really a Great Western person). As I was running three rail Dublo this meant, if I was concerned with originality, I would have to search for a rare Ludlow castle and, when I found one, pay between five and ten times what I have paid for most of my other locomotives. So, when a rather playworn two rail Cardiff Castle popped up on eBay sans tender, for £27, I bought it and then had to find a tender top (I had a tender chassis complete with plunger pickups in my box of spares) and found one for £5. It's a pretty straightforward job to convert it to three rail. Now it would be irresponsible to restore it as Ludlow Castle, and the Cardiff Castle nameplates were damaged, so I decided to finish it as something else, and it ended up as Isambard Kingdom Brunel. The lining was in a bad way and had to be replaced but the paintwork (except for the cab roof) isn't too bad, but the whole thing needed to be repainted rather than retouched if I were to get a good finish. The paint that was left was adhering well, so I didn't strip it back to bare metal. I then ordered transfers and nameplates from Fox Transfers..... I needed to replace the magnet, and one of the motor's bearings was missing, which is probably why it initially made some strange noises at full power (or at least the fullest power I could achieve with the magnet it had). After I reassembled it, it went perfectly in reverse, but stopped and started when going forwards. I have no idea why that was, but running it at near full speed in reverse for half an hour freed everything up, and it now performs well in both directions. I ended up adding a few details as well as refinishing the loco. Here's the result:

City of Bradford - a repainted and three-railed Dublo City of London (apologies for the bundles of wire in the background - I took this photo a while ago when I was in the throes of wiring my layout):

The rear fixing of the chassis to the body and the positioning of the bolt at the front are different on the Wrenn Cities/Princess Coronations compared to the Dublo version. I have no idea why they did this, as the rest of the chassis looks the same.

Spotted in Montague Street, Goulburn. An old car enthusiast who obviously does not believe in angle parking:

Canberra copped the worst of that hailstorm. One of our daughters and her husband live in Canberra, near Belconnen, and where they are was hit by that hailstorm. A monster hailstone put a hole the size of a cricket ball in one of the front windows (which subsequently cracked from corner to corner), the canvas awnings were shredded, their car is now full of dents (although, unlike a lot of other cars nearby, at least it still has all its windows, so it is drivable), roof tiles got cracked, water got into one room, and the garden looked like it was under a blanket of snow. The insurance company got someone to put a patch over the missing glass in the window but, after a couple of days it cracked from corner to corner and began to come poose, so they arranged for someone to replace the glass. Anything that isn't urgent or necessary for safety reasons looks like it's going to have to wait, as all the tradies in Canberra are so busy now......

I was sorting through the various photos I've taken over the last few years and came across these, taken at a very upmarket second-hand car showroom at Star City, the complex that is the home of Sydney's casino (no, I wasn't going to the casino, we were going to see a show at the Lyric Theatre, which is in the same complex). The car yard (if that be the right name) was closed, so I had to take the photos through plate glass windows, hence the reflections although, if it was open, I don't think that I would have wanted to go inside:

Speaking of the Gaiety N2, here's one that's on eBay at the moment. It does look slightly different from your average N2...... https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/RARE-GAIETY-JVM-CAST-B-R-BLACK-N2-CLASS-0-6-2-RN-46917-5-POLE-MOTOR-UNBOXED/283064900956?hash=item41e7fb9d5c:g:ffEAAOSw8fVbUb0p