MarkSG

That's a good question, and my limited Googling so far hasn't turned up a definitive answer. But all the pages I've read which talk about fish vans suggest that they were used interchangeably, the 1/801s were simply a later variant that suplemented the existing 1/800 stock rather than having a more specific use.

This photo may answer those questions: Photo credit: Ben Brooksbank CC-BY-SA Found here: https://www.bloodandcustard.net/bluespot.html

The most visible differences, as far as I can see from product images, are different side stanchions - the 801s had four vertical stanchions, the 800s only had two. There are also differences in the door handles and the bracing. Here's a Hornby 1/800, compare that with the same coloured 1/801 from Rapido pictured upthread and it's fairly easy to tell the difference.

Comments upthread, based on the CAD render, suggest it's a Midland style match truck. The Midland Railway, unlike most other companies, did have a standard design of match truck, and there are documented examples of them being used with a Cowans Sheldon crane of the type Oxford are making. See comments on this subject in this related topic: https://www.rmweb.co.uk/forums/topic/148508-crane-match-trucks/ So it is the obvious choice if a match truck is being included, because it will be definitely right for at least some of the versions and "close enough" for many of the others. But if you're not modelling a location which would have seen a Midland crane, and you'd prefer a more accurate match truck for yours, then the included match truck isn't going to be much use for anything else.

It will make a difference to my purchasing habits, although not necessarily buying less overall. With Hattons, if there was a new announcement that I liked the look of then I could pre-order to the trunk, and then as they were released they gradually stacked up until I decided to get them sent to me in one box. It both guaranteed getting the item, with no risk of missing out if it sold out on pre-order, and minimised postage costs. If I queue up pre-orders with any other retailer, though, what will happen is that I'll get a steady stream of single item deliveries, in some cases only a few days apart, each with its own associated postage costs. So I'll end up spending a lot more money for the same number of things. To avoid that, I think I'll probably be less keen to pre-order in the first place. Only big ticket items, such as locos, that I'd be happy to get in a standalone delivery, will be pre-ordered. For wagons, I think I'll switch back to taking my chances on actual release, and hoping that I can time an order to get two or three (or more) recent releases in the same parcel. That does mean I'll be more at risk of missing out on some popular items. But I think that's less of an issue with lower cost items such as wagons - very few of them are going to be "must buy" purchases in the same way as an eagerly anticipated loco. So if I end up having to take my chances on the secondary market, I won't be too bothered, and it won't be the end of the world if nothing turns up at all.

My first was the 1978 show at the same venue. I persuaded my dad to take me! In later years, when I was a bit older, I was allowed to travel down to London on the train on my own.

Interesting. I have to confess that I'd never heard of a Palvan before. I'm not sure whether, realistically, one would have found its way into rural East Anglia very shortly after being built, but I suppose there's a viable Rule 1 scenario whereby one was attached to a regular fruit train simply to make up the numbers. 🙂

I do think that the Bachmann crane was over-engineered for the majority of its customers, yes. But I do also think that having it poseable is useful, because a lot of buyers of cranes are going to want to put them into action scenes rather than having them always in jib-down mode as would be the case in transit. Oxford did manage that with the rail gun, though, without feeling the need to replicate the real life mechanism in the way that Bachmann did with their crane. And I think most people would be satisfied with relatively limited moveability - just being able to lift and rotate the jib is probably enough. So hopefully they can find a suitable compromise between functionality and simplicity.

It's nice to see work in progress at last! I'm not entirely sure whether I really want an included match truck - I was actually looking forward to repurposing a spare three plank wagon for the job. But I suspect they'll sell more with one included, because not everybody will want to do that.

The Trunk system was absolutely brilliant, but I suspect it worked for Hattons because they had plenty of warehouse space and a custom-built online retail system. Rails are using an off-the-shelf online retail system, which is probably a lot cheaper to run but might be difficult to integrate with a Trunk system. And I have a feeling they don't have anywhere near as much storage space as Hattons used to have! So I can understand why they might not be going in that direction. I'd love to be proved wrong, though. The directory, on the other hand, is essentially just a database-driven website that can happily run as a standalone entity with no significant costs other than the staff time involved in keeping it updated. So if they have got the staff availability to run it, then it's easy enough to do.

There's an online version of the article here: https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/life/1876250/model-railways-not-running-out-of-steam It's formatted differently, but the basic content is essentially the same.

The ferry wagon is an interesting choice, and something that I hadn't previously come across. Not on my purchase radar, since it's the wrong era. But I'm still intrigued enough to want to know more. Where would these have been seen, in real life?

I have to admit that colourful PO wagons are one of the reasons I sometimes wish I'd stuck with Big Four rather than switching to early BR 🙂

As someone who asked for precisely that, this is welcome news indeed. The mockups don't really do justice to the real life appearance of a patched BR number over a very weathered and worn wagon, so it will be interesting to see the first decorated samples of these. But I'll definitely be buying a couple.

You can't always get what you want You can't always get what you want You can't always get what you want But if you try, sometimes Well, you might find You get what you need 🙂