HonestTom

I was leafing through a book on the PLA railways recently and discovered that they'd actually hired a few Austerities from the Ministry of Defence, including at least two in Longmoor Military Railway livery. So there's a possibility if you wanted another engine without repainting - although the LMR engines in the docks got a lot grubbier than the Army would ever have allowed. (I have a Hornby Austerity in LMR livery which is going to be used on my plan for a similar layout)

I've seen a photo of a rather unusual working in the West London area that consisted of two GWR railcars with two milk tankers in tow. Also one from BR days of a GWR parcels railcar with a Southern PMV leaving Paddington.

The situation is a little complicated. As noted above by wagonman, the dock railways were taken over the the PLA. However, there were a number of private owner lines serving specific industries, some of which had their own locomotives. Beckton gasworks, for instance, had a quite remarkable internal railway. Thomas W. Ward's scrapyard had its own locomotives. There were others, but I don't have access to m'library at the moment. Dave Marden's London's Dock Railways (vol 1 & 2) and Beckton's Railways and Locomotives are extremely comprehensive books on the subject. C R L Coles' Railways Through London is also worth a look, although it's a basic overview. The map on this page gives you some idea of how complex the railways could get - and that's just one half-mile branch.

That would be pretty neat. I've always been rather fond of the L&BR's Blackwall station, which would make a good micro in itself and also served a ferry, but to Woolwich rather than Greenwich.

It would - especially if they produced it in H&BR livery. Hornby did a couple of variants with the later chassis - the Van Houtens Cocoa and Thomas vans are worth looking out for.

I've been playing with an idea lately, inspired by a London might-have-been, which combines my love of London railways with the wish to invent a pre-grouping company for freelance japery. In reality, as I mentioned on another thread, the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway quite seriously looked into the possibility of building a link with the London and Blackwall Railway - this is why they had Terriers with names like Stepney, Fenchurch, Blackwall etc, which were named for places the LBSC never actually served. In my imaginary version of history, this might-have-been not only happened, but went rather further than the original plan. The East London Railway amalgamated with the London and Blackwall Railway to create the London and Docklands Railway. The move was backed by several companies whose interests were well served by the improved links across London, including the LBSC, the MDR, the Metropolitan, the GER, the LTSR, the LCDR, the Midland, the NLR and a number of the dock companies. Even the GWR took an interest, thanks to its depot at Poplar. The rail map of London differs in this reality. The Whitechapel and Bow Railway was not constructed, because the LTSR now had a link to the MDR. The Millwall Extension Railway was now built under the LDR, and went all the way to Greenwich. Many of the lines that in our world were run by the various dock companies also came under the London and Docklands. For a relatively small company, traffic was heavy, and Shadwell Junction would have been a Mecca for rail enthusiasts of the late 19th century. As well as the LDR's own trains, several other companies enjoyed running rights, and the LDR in turn operated services over the Inner Circle and LTSR. To be honest, this is mostly background for a couple of freelance locomotive conversions I wanted to do, but I hope it's fairly plausible.

Make sure the couplings are compatible with your other stock, I heard that can be a problem.

The level of detail is one of the things that makes it such an eyecatching layout - one of the advantages of larger scale modelling.

I recall reading that there was at one point a scheme to link the L&B with the LBSC via the East London Railway, hence the fact that the latter named some Terriers Stepney, Fenchurch, Millwall, Poplar, Blackwall and Minories. I forget where the lines would have connected, but I guess somewhere around Shadwell would be the most logical place. A great book on the subject of the L&B is J. E. Connor's Stepney's Own Railway, which was how I first learned of its existence. When I saw the title on the shelf, I assumed it was about the Bluebell Railway.

That's the one, many thanks. Yeah, it's a great example of a realistic urban micro-layout.

Very neat. It looks good even at this early stage. I look forward to seeing where you go with it. Out of curiosity, is the low-relief building on the platform scratchbuilt?

Re the parcels depot, you might consider Paddington. While it's not completely separate from the rest of the station, it is fairly removed from the main part of it. You could recreate something similar in low relief. I understand York also had a separate, small goods/parcels station, and in fact I think someone did a layout a couple of years ago that was in Railway Modeller. I looked into a similar concept myself, but for various reasons I never did anything with it. The basic idea was that, like Paddington, it would be on the outskirts of a larger urban terminus. The idea was that while the focus would be on shunting parcels and goods traffic, I could also have carriage stock or larger locomotives being stored awaiting their turn at the main station, located "offstage." Premium land prices would be my justification for a small, cramped setup.

I personally think that the ex-Airfix figures now in the Dapol range are some of the best model railway figures out there in terms of the sculpting.

The way I see it, we live in a world where you can buy rolling stock for the Nocton Estates Light Railway and there are two manufacturers doing a 1361, so why not a Ford Model T railcar set? (Hey Hornby, if you want something really exciting to announce...)

I've often thought that the Bachmann 'Gordon' from their Thomas range would be a good basis for an RH&DR-style Pacific. A lot of the detail is way over-scale for 00 or the H0 it purports to be.

That comment really took the biscuit. Anyway, it's good to know that the wagons aren't as crumby as they might first appear, and that there's a wafer the serious modeller to justify them. This hobnobbing has provided me with some useful information to digestive. Nice.

How does this differ from any other form of advertising? I mean, I'm sure as heck not going to pay Hornby to tell me about the stuff they want me to spend my money on.

There was a similar issue with the Talyllyn Railway running their engines as their Skarloey Railway equivalents. Which I find particularly rich, given that the Skarloey Railway is entirely based on the Talyllyn. I believe they did eventually strike a deal, but I don't think that's what the good Rev had in mind when he wrote a book about a narrow gauge railway on Sodor. (Interestingly, Christopher Awdry wrote Sir Handel, Peter Sam and Duncan's "visits" into Railway Series canon, which means that from an in-universe perspective, the producers were trying to deny the characters their own identity... how meta)

For me, I find social media pretty integral to my interest in model and real railways these days. In order to find out what, say, Hornby are doing, I can either go to their website and navigate my way through to their news section, or I can go on Facebook (which I was doing anyway) and any announcements they make will pop up. Ditto the various retailers, other manufacturers, heritage railways, modelling magazines, museums and fellow enthusiasts I follow. If there's something of interest announced by someone I don't follow, the chances are that someone I do follow will share it. Thus, I can get all my news in one place for free.

Exactly this. Hornby brought the range out in 1985, the TV series came out in 1984. That is to say, the rights were probably being negotiated before the TV series was even out. At the time, Thomas the Tank Engine was only known from this series of books that hadn't had a new entry to the series since 1972. There was no real reason to expect that it would be the success it was. Britt Allcroft did have a strong commitment to the integrity of the brand, which may in fact be one of the major keys to its success. But at the same time, Thomas wasn't a merchandising juggernaut at that point. It wasn't like there were dozens of companies mobbing them for the rights to produce Thomas toys. As it turned out, of course, the series was a smash, and thereafter the producers were in more of a position of power. So they had more power of veto over things that they felt were potentially damaging to the brand.

For most people, the wagons won't be the main event, just a happy bonus. It's quite cunning if not a little underhanded. Hornby have presumably seen how much the H&P Peckett goes for on eBay and they know that even if people don't want the wagons, there's still a good chance it'll work out cheaper than scouring the second-hand market.

A cake box tank?

Plenty. In my experience, many of them are surprised to hear that there are other manufacturers - to them, from an outside perspective, Hornby is synonymous with the product. I view train simulators and model railways as having the same relationship as taking photos on your phone and painting a picture, or playing Call of Duty and going paintballing. Model railways are tactile. They're in "the real world." The real competition isn't from train simulators and iPhones. The real competition comes from Games Workshop. While Modelzone can't keep going and high street model shops are an endangered species, there are Games Workshop stores in most major towns, and they're always busy. A friend of mine who used to manage one of those shops told me something that took me by surprise - the majority of people who buy miniatures don't play the games. They just like building, customising and painting the models. GW sells a full range of tools, paints, glues, manuals and scenic accessories, and there's an appealing mythology behind the models. The staff are knowledgeable and friendly. If modelmaking is what appeals, then Games Workshop have a great business model to reel young people in. By comparison, speaking as someone who's been into model railways since I was a kid (I'm now in my 30s), I've often found the attitude towards young people in the hobby to be patronising, suspicious and even contemptuous. I'm not saying that experience is universal or even the majority attitude, but I've seen and experienced it enough to be able to say that it's way more common than it should be. All it takes is for a newcomer to have one bad experience and they won't come back. So let's say you're an introverted teenager with a creative streak who wants to try modelling. What do you go for - a hobby where people your age are in the minority, where no one's really interested in engaging with your age group except to ensure the continuity of the hobby, or one that's aimed directly at your age group?

I feel like I'm the only one who was quite pleased with the announcement - as a modeller of the East London area, the PLA Peckett is right up my street. Re the plastic accessories, I don't think this is a stupid move. They're more child-friendly than Skaledale, they can easily be improved with a simple coat of paint and they probably cost pennies to produce - I suspect the idea is that these, like the Railroad 0-4-0s, are intended to shore up the rest of the range.

I'm going to be picking up the PLA-liveried version - I have the PLA version of the Janus on order, so it'll be a nice little shedmate. Oh no, I'm going to have to build a Docklands micro-layout, aren't I? A couple of days ago, a friend who models the Reading area and I were discussing the Peckett and he said that he'd love to pick up the Huntley & Palmers version if he found one at a reasonable price, so I guess his prayers have also been answered.