jetmorgan

Blimey!!! a long way from home then

On the subject of the cross arm pantographs. There is an article in Railway Modeller Feb 85 about detailing the Lima 87 which does have a side drawing of the cross arm panto, sadly no front or rear view. Again I have a PDF copy of this article if anyone is interested.

Also find Model Railway Constructor April & May 1981 for drawings of classes 81 to 84. I have copies of these and can email you PDF scans if you PM me

Just caught the end bit on the BBC south east news apparently Hornby have been thrown a lifeline...I think by the money people...so it's looking a bit better now, we can all breath a sigh of relief!!!

Just to add to the collection. A shot of 08 441 shunting at Alexandra Palace. Taken today 19/3/2016 after attending the London Model Railway Festival up at Ally Pally

Live updates of the journey on the BBC news website http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-england-35649676 Whilst very exciting that the old girl is back on the track, hitched up her skirt and showing us her legs...not sure it needs live updates of the trip!!!

Enjoyed Much Murkle at the Tonbridge show...now toying with adding a western terminus to all my other planned but unbuilt layouts...I'm going to need a bigger house!!!

I've alway sconsidered that Hornby should have been producing both a railroad and top totty versions of all thier models. The Railroad version with basic all moulded detail parts and much less of the various pipes of the super detailed version and riding on a coarse scale, probably older design chassis. But with the ability to be upgraded with a sold seperately detail pack to replace the moulded stuff and add the missing bits. So the youngster who is given a train set can move futher on and have a model like grandad has, if the youngster decided that they have an interest with doing more than just playing trains. The designers working in the drawing offices are very clever people and I'm sure can break the model down to leave off most of the small fiddly parts. It also means that you only have one body to produce that is that same on both production lines. The Railroad production line fits on the basic & coarse scale parts and the Chinese production fits on the super detail fiddly bits. But either production line can also manufacture the seperate super detail pack so that if anyone wants to they can upgrade their railroad model. One other advantage is that if production is ever moved away from China and back to the UK or anywhere else you only need move part of the production line so your supply isn't interrupted to a great extent. From some of the reports I read and hear in the news a lot of companies are having supply problems from China now...well except the steel industry...I presume from the slow down in the Chinese economy and with Chinese workers demanding higher wages for higher living costs the time when , companies start leaving China is going to come and maybe sooner rather than further into the future and get to the stage where it would be more cost effective to have production back in this country and just ship in the raw material from the far east.

All the merchandise to do with the 2012 Olympics was exorbitant and then heavily discounted. I bought a dozen Olympics T-shirts after the games, they were going for £25.99 before the games and after...£1.99

Or Gerald Ratner................Oh lawd!!!....actually NOOOOOOOO!!!

Apologies for jumping on this thread late in the day and regarding the Mountsorrel branch. Does this make the GCR the first preserved railway with a full blown working junction??? as opposed to a junction station to sidings. My local-ish preserved line is the Bluebell Railway and while Horsted Keynes is a junction station with the Ardingly branch, at the moment it's just storage sidings. So after the East Grinstead extension now done I'm hoping they might concentrate on the Ardingly branch next and have Horsted goes back to being a fully working junction station.

Buying at 83 minutes past 6pm??? what an odd time of the day to buy them!!!

It would be interesting to hear what the sales are like for the company that own the Bachmann, Farish etc etc range . If they are similar then the hobby is in a worrying state. My own fear is that the whole hobby is now in the hands of the collector, who are expecting more & more accurate detail and is pricing only those with a large disposable income out of the market so the market is getting smaller & smaller, especially as this group does seem to be the much older generation. Going through the Bachmann & Hornby websites there are fewer locomotives...even tank engines that are under the £100 level. Very few coaches under £25 and few wagons under £10. Granted Hornby do have their Railroad range but this I believe is only a limited range and Hornby don't produce a Railroad & a full cream version of each of their models and looking at some of the Railroad stuff that too is nearing the £100 level. So it seems to be pricing those that are happy to just play trains...no matter how old they are...away from the hobby. When I was going from playing trains to more modelling railwways we had the likes of Hornby who were making more toy like models than todays range and the likes of Airfix & Mainline and while Airfix & Mainline were more detailed they were still reasonably affordable and then you had the kit manufacturers like Wills, Southeastern Finecast, DJH, Nucast & K's & Ian Kirk that were more expensive and more detailed for the more experienced modeller. Added to that you had companies like Crownline that di a whole range of conversion and detailing kits for the likes of Hornby, Lima, Airfix/Mainline to build something different or a more detailed model. So everyone was catered for from those who were just happy to play to those who wanted to model...and everyone in between. My own situation now is that I'm modelling on an extremely tight budget...if I have a budget at all!!! so everything I buy has to come through either Ebay or through the bargain bucket boxes on trade stands at shows tends to be old 1980's/90's models and even that is starting to get a bit pricey, I witnessed an old Replica Railways )) gauge pannier tank being sold for £59 and sitting right next to it there was a Farish N gauge pannier tank going for exactly the same amount.

Weren't Hornby or Bachmann talking about releasing some porthole stock???

It could be...alas I don't have that tome so couldn't confirm or deny. Once you've moved house make sure that is the first thing you look for... the kettle, tea things and food...you have to have priorities

I've posted this image on the thread that Phil had given a link for but I've repeated it here to. A page from the March 1967 Model Railway Constructor - A new livery for British Rail showing an LMS Stanier porthole brake that survived to get BR blue/grey livery

Just to add a bit extra to this thread. I know this thread is more about Southern & Western coaches but I came across this page in the March 1967 copy of Model Railway Constructor. Showing a LMS porthole Brake in blue/grey in an article A new livery for British Rail giving details of the new BR corporate image. Sadly no number is recorded or readable.

Thanks for that info Phil & Clive. I did do a search on here for the subject but I obviously didn't ask the question in the right way as the link that Phil has mentioned didn't come up but now I've found that I'll follow that one. And I'll have a look at that yahoo group as well although I have noticed that on the thread there are links to what I presume is Robert Carol's Flickr pages. I'll have to get the pic scanned that I have of the stanier porthole coach which was published in the March 1967 copy of Model Railway Constructor - A new livery for British Rail

Not 100% sure if this is the best place for this but here goes:- I've been looking for some ideas to model some oddities and after seeing a few photos of pre-nationalisation coaching stock in BR blue & grey it looks like I might have some ideas. I'm fully aware of the Gresley buffets that survived into the blue/grey era and also some GWR sleeping cars that also gained blue/grey. I also have a phot of an LMS porthole corridor brake 2nd in blue/grey. Does anyone have a list of what other big four coaches that managed to survive to gain blue/grey???

If you're still using film or like me going back to using film...make sure there is a film in the camera in the first place!!! Oh so many years back now I went to the Wimbledon depot open day and was merrily snapping away in the full knowledge that the 36 exposure slide film was capturing everything. Started rewinding the film...Hmmm something feels a bit odd...carry on winding for ages...open the back of the camera up and 36 pictures have magically vanished into thin air!!!

News release on the BBC website http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-35241788

Hello there Valentine....right I've been through my scans, the ones I have so far and I don't have anything on Hudswell Clarke locos. At the moment all I have are plans for Manning Wardles. I do still have 60 copies of Railway Modeller to go through so I might find something in there and I'm still looking for job lots of Model Railway Constructor magazines so I might still come up with something but that may well be a while.

I have a number of plans scanned as PDF's at home from Railway Modeller and Model Railway Constructor magazines...I can't recall if there are definatley any Hudswell Clarke's among them but I will have a look at what I have so far. I'm away at a friends at the moment so won't be able to look for a few days though.

Hello Farren No I'm not just scanning Industrial stuff I have mainline locos, coaches and wagons as well, Diesel & Electric as well as steam. Even articles about stations, station buildings...all sorts of stuff. I'm still busy with scanning at the moment but I do hope to post a list of the stuff I have at the moment. I'm still buying up copies of Railway Modeller & Model Railway Constructor so will still have lots to do. And if anyone has just ordered their Hornby P2 2-8-2 I have plans for that and it's sister P1 2-8-2. So if you are after anything in particular message me directly and I'll see what I've got.

Just for the info of everyone here and following this topic, I'm currently buying up copies of old Model Railway Constructor and Railway Modeller magazines from the 1960's, 70's, 80's & 90's and scanning articles pages and plans and I do have some of these already scanned as PDF's...I've already got the Manning Wardle M class so if anyone is interested then let me know and I'll see if I have those plans and I can email them to you. The magazines then go off to my brother for sale on the sales stand for the either the Southern electric Group or the EPB preservation group...I can never remember which