Bassettblowke

It’s a handsome beast put an electric motor in it

You will find some avid ‘’steamers’’ on the Classic O forum, from the little I’ve picked up over the years about the cheaper B/Lowke steam powered models luck has more than a little to do with it. If you have a good one you are likely a very happy man, conversely if you are stuck with a poor performer be prepared for some frustrations. As for Mamod unless you are happy to spend a significant amount on upgrades I wouldn’t even bother. As regards your purchases unless you are prepared to pay for shipping across the pond you are stuck with what is available in North America, Myself I have a tendency towards the LMS and BR but I don’t let that get in the way of buying a bargain or whatever I fancy. Darstaed coaches are excellent as are ACE with little to choose between the two, the advans by Darstaed maybe a flight of fancy but the livery is based on old Bassett Lowke tinplate signs and the art work is sublime, buy them if the price is right. If you buy one see if you can find the snail, every van has one somewhere ! Afterthought ! if steam is you thing I would suggest having a look at Bowman Models apparently ( I have no personal experience) some of these are quite powerful haulers

I would also add that with regard to Leeds LMC products there is a thriving spares back up from the Leeds Stedman trust and two independent enthusiasts Bruce Palmer and John Davies who can supply most parts required to renovate Leeds products. The trust which is run by David Peacock a very helpful and informative guy also has a sales page on its website.

We share a similar problem, I have an interest in post war Lionel and Marx and once upon a very happy time sourced the majority of my purchases from the USA and Canada. This all came to a grinding halt when transatlantic shipping charges went through the roof, not forgetting the punitive customs and handling charges that were also imposed when the goods reached the UK. A decade or so ago Royal Mail ruled the roost and we had an efficient and cost effective postal service, now we have an open market and loads of competition in the marketplace. The result, prices have gone through the roof as all these new carriers seek to get their snouts in the booming profits trough. Not much use to us but a sure fire winner for the shareholders. i would recommend stopthedropauction.com which I use, the three items above all came from this seller, its run by John Neale. I am not sure if he ships abroad but his UK shipping charges are very fair.

Bassett Lowke can be affordable especially the post war stuff, it just takes time and patience to track them down. The majority of traders see the Bassett Lowke label and think they have won the lottery but the reality is there isn’t a great deal of demand for the more common all garden items, things get even better if you don’t mind unboxed bent, battered and scratched. I’ve also noticed of late dealers upping the price of Leeds items to eye watering levels when only a few years back they were considered to be almost worthless. Below are a few pictures of what I class as reasonable pricing, two tinplate B/Lowke wagons in poor condition @£4 each and a Wooden Leeds Coach with lithograph paper overlays@£20 all of them will need varying degrees of work but that’s all part of the fun. At least I think it is or does the asylum beckon.

Thanks for posting that picture and the links, it makes visualising what was once there a lot easier, I frequently drive down Regent Road to escape the heavier traffic and the lights on Derby Road. Much has changed and it’s often difficult to place what was once there also with the exception of listed buildings much of what is left from the past is disappearing fast.

I didn’t know about the dip, the location Of this photograph is just before the Sandon and Canada docks you can see the line takes a dog leg to the left. Not much left in the area, the old Midland/LMS goods shed has gone as have all the sheds on the dock side of the line now replaced by the Sandon dock water treatment works. The only remaining constant being the old dock estate boundary wall and Regent Road commonly referred to as the dock road. The Dock estate is up for major redevelopment by Peel Holdings with Everton FC relocating to the dock estate, as part of this future development the dock road has been upgraded with resurfacing work, cycle paths etc naturally this has entailed the covering up or removal of some of the old railway lines and cobbled road surfaces. Whether the wholesale redevelopment of this long neglected area actually pans out following the effects of the current pandemic on the economy remains to be seen. As a teenager fresh from school I worked opposite the Clarence dock power station on Cotton street, sadly in those days I took little interest in the surrounding area. The company I worked for was called Link Line more familiar by its former name the Liverpool Cartage Company. Link Line was the antithesis of It’s former business, cartage and warehousing, the company in its new form was all about shipping containers and point to point collection and delivery for the Irish Sea trade. Just around the corner from Sandon out of site lay The Huskisson branch docks No’s 1 to 3 the centre one No2 was the berth of the SS Malakand a Cargo Liner in the process of being loaded with a cargo of bombs for the RAF in the Middle East, She was destroyed by a massive explosion having caught fire during a raid. Desperate attempts were made to scuttle her at her berth but to no avail. Subsequently after the wreckage had been cleared of unexploded bombs what remained of Malakand was left in situ and the whole dock filled in the area becoming known as the Malakand area. heres a picture which shows the aftermath if you look to the left background you will see the Overhead line still miraculously standing.

I think I’ve identified the crane jib as belonging to a floating German crane type nicknamed by the Americans as Herman the German apparently there were several of these and one certainly still exists, seized by the US and dismantled and shipped to America. Further research is needed. Also a distinctive looking car touring the streets of Hamburg. To show how easy it is to be misled I came across this picture whilst scanning through pictures of war damaged Bremen, this looks suspiciously like the the Liverpool Overhead line adjacent to the LMS goods depot

Looking again at the crane I think you are right it’s very distinctive and the jib is all wrong for mammoth its closer in appearance to Samson but still to many differences in particular the continuation of the jib beyond the cranked area at the end of the jib. I shall have to do some research into cranes. Another example of surviving warehousing and an adjacent engine works which I guess would have had something to do with the Harland and Wolff ship repair facility and the Nearby Gladstone graving dock. The large bricked up arch way Bearing the painted sign ENGINE WORKS had until recently railway lines running up to it so presumably back in the day access was available to the inner parts by rail. Recent resurfacing work on Regent Road has obscured the cobbled roadway and the inset rails. The other warehouse is another oddity which reflects the mismatch of architecture in the area with cast columns at the front and still having a street name sign attached most having been nicked by the metal thieves. Bouncing back to the on street air raid shelters, what a simple subject for modelling, being a simple oblong box, with if you want the immediate post war look a bricked up door way to keep miscreants out pending demolition and removal.

Well it would be ironic if it actually turned out to be Hamburg which was also on the receiving end of some dreadful air raids. What I know of this picture is it’s been published several times in the local press along with some of the other black and white images I’ve posted, purportedly taken at the time but never published. Some taken by Liverpool city authorities some by the Police. Obviously with the passage of time there is no certainty about anything especially in the current era where things can be altered. I have no idea in reality if this a genuine image. The things that strike a chord with me are the width of The road which I presume to be Derby Road which even prior to recent widening was always a wide road for the time and the three chimneys on the horizon which appear to be in the right place. The signpost is a bit of a curiosity as to why in this field of desolation you would require something such as a give way say. Traffic doesn’t really appear to be an issue. A bit of a puzzle. I know little about Mammoth or any of the other floating cranes and if that isn’t Mammoth that would indeed cast doubt on the picture as no dockside cranes of that size were in Liverpool in that era all of the heavy lift work being done by the likes of Mammoth and it’s associates.

Not forgetting the human aspect to this here is a picture of the shelter at Blackstock Gardens, shelter provision was poor and in many cases improvised in basements of unsuitable buildings. The appalling disaster when Durning Road Technical College was hit and collapsed into the improvised shelter beneath led to a heavy loss of life. The Blackstock Gardens shelter was a brick structure with a flat roof situated in the open courtyard in the middle of the tenements. Liverpool City council had the curious habit of calling many of its tenements gardens although there wasn’t a garden for miles. Over a hundred people were killed in this shelter alone the nature of these shelters only provided protection from shrapnel, blast could impart significant damage and the use of large parachute mines designed to inflict blast damage over a large area Wrought havoc. the second pictures shows a street shelter following a raid and how poorly they withstood damage. Much publicity was afforded to Anderson shelters which were very effective but a lot less was said about these death traps. The third shot shows a street shelter with some improvised sandbag protection on the roof fortunately this one was a far enough away from the bomb to escape damage. Understandably this led to a loss of faith in these shelters and many opted to get the train out into the surrounding countryside and sleep in fields. Others stayed put in their houses and many suffered the consequences, sadly what many thought would provide shelter proved to be their undoing. The collapse during a raid of the Bentinck street railway arches underneath which many local families had sought shelter took 42 lives the youngest a 2 month old baby. A young lad who had nipped back home to get a pot of tea survived while his family perished.

The picture has the land marks on the horizon in the right order so I don’t think it’s been reversed but obviously I can’t be 100% certain as for the triangular sign I thought that odd too but unfortunately as to what it’s for is guess work. Given the lack of surviving structures in the foreground it is difficult to identify the exact location of that sign, my best guess is the road into the city is Derby Road a continuation of Rimrose Road and I can only guess that the junction is Millers Bridge A road bisecting Derby Road. The picture of the motorcycle shop fronts Derby Road and the side of Raleigh Road that shop is one of a hand full of surviving structures from that era. heres another shot of repaired warehousing on millers bridge

Understandably at the time these pictures weren’t for publication, the Luftwaffe came within an ace of denying the use of the port not so much by the vast amount of damage to the port and its infrastructure but by the use of magnetic mines which had blocked all but one of the lock entrances to the Dock system. Even the one usable one was hard to negotiate due to a wreck close to the entrance. A huge amount of effort was expended keeping the port in a functioning state much of the repair work was of a temporary nature done in haste as the need to get things moving was imperative. Here’s a picture of damage to the Overhead Passenger line that ran the length of the dock system with Goods lines running underneath. And for context a picture which could easily be confused with one in an American city, the shot clearly shows the goods lines running beneath the overhead and also trams in shot as well.

Often when building a kit such as the ones mentioned in this thread I have to struggle to resist the urge to make “the perfect model” in reality perfection isn’t often found in the real world. Slipped slates, leaning chimney stacks, peeling paint and general decay are often more the norm especially in industrialised areas. how bad can you build a model is often a thought when I look around the North Liverpool Dock area that was virtually reduced to rubble by the Luftwaffe. Here’s an example of a badly damaged building, partially repaired and still in use today. once upon a time a three story building now two and a half. To give some context, this is the state of the local area once the main road into the city had been cleared. To the left of centre are the three sisters, the local name for the three chimneys at Clarence dock power station and the enormous crane further to the left is Mammoth a floating crane self propelled and capable of lifting 200 tons

Another piece of history this humble bollard which has miraculously survived the plague of metal thieves that descended on the local area about 10 years ago. Sadly the cast street name fell victim to them so here it is, a thing of beauty in my eyes, it’s sat in the back alley for the last 105 years at least and still looks good for another centuary. Also included is another rare survivor the gas lamp standard half way down the alley now employed as a line post by the adjacent property.

Another survivor from a bygone age when Coal was King and Wigan possessed a heavy Industrial base. This is a simple Coal order office a short distance from Waterloo station on the old LYR line from Liverpool to Southport. Over the years it’s had many incarnations but recently the signage was removed to reveal its original sign board, Aged and faded it still proudly proclaims WIGAN COAL & IRON COMPANY.

A similar style of building Situated on Mount Pleasant in central Liverpool dating from the early 1800’s, given the nature of schooling back then the name board might be a bit of a misnomer. The factory kit marketed by fair price models would lend itself to both subjects be it a toffee factory or a School.

Nice to see this more elaborate version of the sign and the differences in the building, primarily the windows on the ground floor which have been subsequently bricked up. Also on the pavement is a concrete lamp post now replaced with a tall skinny steel one no doubt the original lighting would have been gas on a cast iron post. The one constant being the product itself.

They are available in several scales not just 7mm, the guy trades on eBay as fair-price-models and he also has his own website the name of which eludes me at the moment. It’s cheaper buying direct and for repeat purchases he offers a 10% discount. I will see if I can rustle up his website name and get back to you. and the answer is...... Modelrailwaystation.com Which when I checked didn’t seem to be working, now that’s not very helpful.

What personally, him and Camilla toiling away over the Aga, well I never.

Chaz just nipped in for a bag of freebies ?

I agree about the taste it makes you wonder why so much of today’s confectionery contains a list of ingredients as long as your arm when something as simple as a mint ball can taste so good. Whilst diabetes is a constant worry for us sugar fiends hopefully consuming these won’t lead to us sprouting a second head any time soon. Don’t mention Smarties. looking back at the Victorian era and the following decades many shops and commercial premises were plastered in signage, be it the vitreous enamelled style copied by Bassett Lowke and others or in some cases ceramic panels let into brickwork but my favourite has to be the painted signs. Mainly because they were mainly one offs tailored to a particular building. Here’s one a couple of miles from me, sadly adulterated in no doubt a well meaning attempt to preserve it, however it would have been better left alone. It was hidden for many years by an adjacent building, when that was demolished the gable end was exposed and the old mural was there to be seen. When it first surfaced the colours were far more vibrant the blue in particular. Sadly as mentioned before it was over painted in modern masonry paint which if you look carefully is starting to peel showing the deeper more vivid blue it conceals. The surrounding masonry was originally bare brickwork but during the so called renovation it was given a coat of terracotta masonry paint which didn’t do it any favours. Hopefully given time it will all peel off and the original will be viewable in all its faded glory.

Quite an attractive tin if tins are your thing and whilst wanton destruction isn’t normally my thing with this example it’s modern and still freely available. It’s also from a local manufacturer close to my neck of the woods and still situated in the Lowry type industrial landscape that is fast disappearing from the North West. As you can see from the picture the tin is very glossy tin plate However once photo copied on the printer it came out as a Matt finish which was more suitable for the gable end of a building, if your a dab hand at weathering it could be easily finished with a suitable industrial soot and grime effect. here’s the Cut up tin and an intact example, the contents are nice to.

Some time past I posted a few pictures of a row of terraced houses made from a kit purchased off of eBay, despite a search I can’t seem to find that thread. Unfortunately a recurring theme these days. Anyway Sebastopol Terrace as it’s now known has had some recent additions and subject to planning approval will be further extended. Also from the same seller a three story house and a warehouse have recently joined the development. I have always liked the Uncle Joe’s Mintball Tin and thought it would nice to incorporate the Victorian stylised logo on the back or side of one of the buildings So having a spare tin to hand and a pair of tin snips the can was opened up and with the aid of a rolling pin the curved tin was flattened and then placed on the copier/printer and a copy printed off. This was then glued to the rear of the Warehouse in the hope that it would resemble one of the painted wall signs that can still be found around Liverpool. These kits are affordable and simplicity itself to build and to my mind compliment 1930’s tinplate perfectly. Under development is Inkerman Street and Alma View and the gas works off Balaclava Road.