papagolfjuliet

7 minutes ago, 34theletterbetweenB&D said:

Not really a mystery.

Warship is a range addition to compete with the opposition. Kaching!

Western is in production: 'The Name' makes it good enough, and the competitor has rolled over and died. Kaching!

 

 

Thing is, they haven't made their own Western in ages either, while Heljan and Dapol have both produced OO models which given Hornby's usual piratical business practices would have seemed obvious targets for sabotaging with a cheapo Limby product.

Speaking of the Hong Kong pirate copy of the Lima clockwork train set, here it is. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/375053045733?hash=item5752e74fe5:g:iuoAAOSwkhllUcRf

On 15/11/2023 at 07:15, Moxy said:

 

Because Lima were in competition with Palitoy/Mainline.  Hornby still produce it because they have the moulds and they are in competition with Bachmann.  It's good old capitalism, that's all.

Although why they've produced the Lima Warship, which was inferior to the Mainline one, but not the Lima Western, which was superior to their own one, is a mystery.

16 hours ago, Northroader said:

Belonging to the Latter Day Enthusiasts and Adventist Brethren, I can say the LMS did have a nice line in steam shunters as well.

Narrow Minded Railworks produces a model of that, albeit in OO9. https://narrowmindedrailworks.com/collections/009-locos/products/oo9-009-doble-sentinel-steam-7192-locomotive-fits-the-kato-chassis-11-109_304828119424_

16 hours ago, phil-b259 said:

 

Put it this way - if you are a train builder headquartered in France (and thus pay most of your tax to the French Government) then getting rid of French workers is going to cause a mighty stink - not least because those workers you get rid of can, through elections and thus changes in Government policy, make the business environment very difficult for the CEOs and top management of the organisation.

 

Also, the French have an approach to dealing with people who sack large numbers of workers which goes some way beyond lighting up the braziers.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/november/17/newsid_2540000/2540123.stm

If you've ever wanted an excuse to run third rail stock without the fuss of modelling the actual third rail, look no further than the Eden Valley Railway: two MLVs, one containing a gen set and both stuffed with batteries, providing the motive power for a 4-CEP.

On 09/11/2023 at 15:43, TheSignalEngineer said:

 

(Spanish 'NOVA' = Engish 'Not Going', that's why Vauxhall renamed their small car 'Corsa' 😉)

Not the biggest louse up ever made by a motoring manufacturer in Spanish speaking countries. The reason why the Mitsubishi Pajero is named the Shogun in the European and Latin American markets is that 'Pajero' is Spanish for 'W****r.' 

One last batch. The Caley 670 0-4-2 in the last photo is an especial delight, if anybody from Rapido is reading this? ;)

16 minutes ago, phil_sutters said:

There's some really good stuff there. Have you tried looking on the backs to see if there is any information there? If they were mine I would want to see if they would come out from under the tacky film without removing any of the photographs' surfaces. When I inherited my Dad's photo collection, there was an album with similar film on it. It did not seem to have affected the prints, but the discolouration of the film did detract from their appearance, so I took them out and scanned them individually. You can see the result at http://www.ipernity.com/doc/philsutters/album/494007

Most of them are securely gummed on, alas, and the very few loose ones have no writing on the back. Anyway, here's another lot.

Here's a first batch of pre-nationalisation stuff. Help with some of the IDs would be welcome. For example, which is that (evidently industrial) Sentinel?

Years ago, and I can't even remember when or where, I bought an album of railway photos. All the contents appear to have been taken by the same person over a period of about sixty years. Here's an initial selection, starting from the back of the album so with the (mostly) BR shots first. The majority of this first selection are Scottish. I hope they're of interest.

This episode of The Saint features an extensive chase/gunfight sequence shot on the ECML at Hitchin, with lots of lovely departmental stock on view.

There are others. The Tri-ang BIg Big Hymek was copied by a firm in Hong Kong, as was the Lima clockwork 0-4-0T and HO ferry van and lwb open wagon. Speaking of Lima, the reason why its N gauge BR 16t mineral wagon and  brake van were so overscale was that the Lima toolmakers were given the (already too tall) Tri-ang OO models and told to copy them, assumed that they were HO, and scaled them down accordingly. Really true. 

The cheap mine tubs incidentally are here. I have no connection with the seller.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/235272162721

Another one which I don't think has been mentioned here. About fifteen years ago a Chinese firm produced two sets featuring this, and it is exactly what it looks like: a direct pirate copy of the Hornby Holden tank (even down to the way the bunker is mounted), scaled up to American O Gauge and battery operated. You start and stop it by depressing the chimney cap, and the batteries sit under the tank top. Unfortunately while dimensionally it is 1:48 scale the track gauge is about 3mm under O. It has no reverse gear. I've just dug mine out and have started undercoating it, which is a long job as the plastic is very shiny and virtually translucent.

The two sets were named 'Farm' and 'Construction.' I have never been able to find them since.

Speaking of things which are widely and cheaply available at this time of year, I happened to pick up one of those Penguin Race sets and it struck me that it might make a basis for one of those mine tub rides one sees in theme parks or for a mine-based microlayout, so I found some cheap 3D printed static OO9 tub wagons on ebay and started to, ahem, mutilate the penguins...

The problem obviously is that the penguins' arms/wings engage with the escalator section, so the options are 1. mount the tub quite high on the body and hide the sides of the track with railings of some sort (possibly Scalextric crash barriers), or 2. mount the tub lower, drill through the body, and insert a length of rod. I'm leaning towards the latter option.

As to loads, it turns out that you can buy fool's gold granules quite cheaply online, so a gold mine scene beckons.

On 10/11/2023 at 02:11, MrWolf said:

I mentioned earlier the very poor impression that Joe Average has of railway enthusiasts, I found this from Viz comic via Flickr:

 

Worth noting that Viz founder and main writer Chris Donald, who probably wrote that, is himself a railway enthusiast who owns Akeld station on the old Coldstream branch and used to own the Hawksworth BG which is now a camping coach at Goathland. So he knows whereof he speaks.

On 07/05/2023 at 00:29, Pacific231G said:

I've seen grounded wagon bodies used as agricultural sheds in both North America and France- rather as old ISO containers are often used now. There have been a few restaurants based on Wagon Lits restaurant car bodies- there are or were a couple on top of one of the retaining walls of the Batignolles cutting maybe half a mile outside the Gare St, Lazare. I did once stay in a motel in Pennsylvania  whose restaurant was a former Pennsy dining car but, though static,  that was still on its wheels on a length of track. So too were the motel's cabins that were all ex Pennsy Cabooses. Its name "The Red Caboose Motel" (look it up) should have been a clue!

 

A few American diners probably were grounded bodies but the vast majority were built for the purpose by a number of specialist companies, particularly in te 1920s and 30s. Some of these came over here but I don't  think there are many left. The long narrow shape enabled them to be prefabricated and shipped by rail or truck to their site. The archetypical stainless steel design was inspired by "streamliner" trains like the Burlington Zephyr and thousands were built. I've eaten in the diner car of the polar Bear Express in northern Ontario and it had more or less the same layout as a typical roadside diner. I suspect though that its layout was inspired more by roadside diners than the railway version.  I think traditonal American dining cars followed the same basic design as European ones with a separate kitchen at one end and seating  on both sides of an open saloon. The typical; prefabricated diner layout of a long counter with stools on one side with cooking facilities behind it and table seating on the other side is often too wide for even American RR loading gauge so would have had to be shipped as a wide load by road. 

Their decline in America seems to have come with the expansion of branded fast food joints like McD, Burger King, Taco Bell etc.

 

There used to be a typical American Diner on the A40. Fortunately, it's closed down now and a block of flats built on the site. I say fortunately having been there a couple of times but this link explains why

http://www.cheeseburgerboy.com/2014/02/starvin-marvins-greenford.html 

In the Prototype For Everything Department, the New York Subway car now at Quainton was originally imported to the UK for use as an American diner on Teesside.

https://www.brc-stockbook.co.uk/nycar.htm

On 25/10/2023 at 13:34, Johnson044 said:

Here are some extracts from The Chronicles of Boulton's Siding, with some known history, a drawing of the loco after IW Boulton had rebuilt her and a photo - Ophir is the loco on the right.

What wonderfully simple, almost toylike engines to model. Hornby Caley Pug less cab, a bit of plasticard, and a cut down Tri-ang Nellie chassis and or even a Tri-ang clockwork chassis for something marvellously old-fashioned...

11 hours ago, Not Jeremy said:

 

Then rebuild them with simpler control gear, use batteries, put solar panels on the roof, or whatever.

 

There must be zillions of interesting possibilities for what is, basically, a delightfully simple machine. And there probably wouldn't be the howls of anguish you might get for "improving" more heritage gear. Battery powered "Flying Scotsman" anyone?

 

Think positive, it is still possible🙂

I offer you the Ffestiniog's solar powered ex-LNER Wickham trolley. 

<deleted by author>

Parenthetically back in the very early days of RMWeb I recall somebody shring some images of a model of D0226 they'd made using a Hornby inside frame 08 body and a Bachmann/Mainline J72 chassis as a basis. Must give that a go some time. 

4 hours ago, Ben B said:

 

By contrast, it's the diesels that are now the bastions of interesting liveries, mainly being 90's schemes. Though the 'workaday' diesel, Vulcan, still carries fictional BR green.

Although of course for many years 'Vulcan' carried much more interesting liveries: first two tone red, then DP1 blue, and very nice it looked too in both. Funnily enough the one livery it hasn't carried since arrival is the correct English Electric black and orange livery.

Presumably the '1849 Fitzwilliam locomotive' is the Isaac Dodds 0-4-2 of that name?

6 hours ago, AMJ said:

Looks like Barnsley council have had consultants come up with a £25M idea involving rebuilding the site and a new 1849 steam loco.

 

No mention of where they will attempt to get the funds from nor how or who would operate the railway.  

 

For more info see

https://www.elsecar-heritage.com/forging-ahead

 

Oh goody. An outdoor performance area. That's always a sure sign of something awful.