Invicta

I seem to have been a bit of a late starter with exhibitions, not helped by a couple of lengthy breaks from active modelling since my teens- I remember going to a couple of small local shows as a kid , then in my student days, Newcastle at the Guildhall in the late 80's. After that,  nothing much until I moved to Kent and started doing the rounds of the Kent shows, Canterbury, Folkestone, Ashford, Tonbridge, Chatham Dockyard etc in the early/mid 90's - the first big national show I went to was Ally Pally in the early 2000's. 

On 19/03/2024 at 18:59, adb968008 said:

so whats still unknown..

 

RHTT

Beilhack

10000/1

Class28

14xx

ICI Hopper

 

 

 

 

 Some of those were in partnership with manufacturers (10000/1 was Dapol and the ICI Hoppers were Oxford) , so would the tooling presumably be owned by them?

On 20/03/2024 at 18:25, Markwj said:

I opened my latest package from Accurascale and found these boxes as part of the packaging, I can’t help thinking they are a deliberate ploy by accurascale knowing how much the modeller values storage boxes to keep their name at the forefront of the mind!

Very clever (and useful)!

 

 

It's not just me then! I was putting the packaging from my banana vans in the recycling earlier this week and thought "those two little boxes look much too useful to throw away", so they're now on a shelf in the garage waiting for use as workbench storage.

49 minutes ago, Penrhos1920 said:

KT12/3 is a copy of a postcard of the colliery.   Although wagons are visible no numbers are visible.

KT7/157* is just a historical note, with no picture or wagon numbers mentioned. The main reference for North's Navigation is KT6/115, and has a number of pics- the wagon numbers shown are:

184 (6-plank dated March 1891)

1647 (7-plank, dated Feb 1894)

1931 (7-plank, June 1896)

2197 (7-plank, Nov 1897)

1055 (7-plank, Dec 1898)

1145 (7-plank, Sept 1899)

3000 (7-plank, Dec 1911)

These are all Gloucester works photos

3300 (7-plank RCH 1923 from a Cambrian Wagon Co. advertisement, published 1926- this last one is in a different livery just lettered 'Norths' rather than North's Navigation Collieries and lacking the 'NNC' monogram on the side door)

322

527 (both in a photo of North's wagon repair sidings, no date)

121 (photo of the screens at St John's Colliery, no date)

These last three are also in the later, simpler livery- , both photos feature a number of wagons in this livery, but only the numbers quoted are legible

262

192

928 - all in a photo of the company's coke ovens at Tondu, and could be in the simplified livery (they're heavily weathered, but the wagon numbers are at the LH end, rather than the RH end of the older livery), but the photo shows a fourth wagon in the old 'NNC' style, with an undecipherable number. All are fitted with coke rails.

24 minutes ago, Michael Hodgson said:

I can see why they would want the database and perhaps their software, but unless they are planning to trade under the Hattons name, what is the value in the name ?  I would expect Rails to consider their own name at least equally good as their former competitor and as well known in the market.

I wonder that as well, unless they have some future plans to use the Hattons name and brand- if all they wanted was the database, then that could easily be rebranded as the 'Rails database' or similar. It's completely uninformed speculation on my part, but we know Rails have taken on processing the orders for the second tranche of Hattons Genesis coaches when they arrive, but IIRC had stated they'd not bought the tooling. Might they now be looking to take on the project long-term and produce future batches as well, keeping the Hattons name?

12 minutes ago, Adrian Stevenson said:

We visited today and it was very busy. Managed to ride a good selection of trains. Sadly there was a medical emergency on one train with a passenger taken ill. This delayed all the trains by about 30 mins from mid afternoon onwards. We had intended to catch the 4 o’clock 9F hauled train, but with it being delayed we gave it a miss. Still a great day out.

Cheers, Ade.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yes, the 1:45pm (the double-headed non-stop train to Leicester North) was stopped immediately after Rothley station, and reversed back into the platform where it was held pending the arrival of a paramedic and ambulance- Hope the passenger involved is OK. We were a good half-hour down reaching Leicester Nth, and there was a further delay on the return when the train was held on the approach to Rothley because one of the railcars was in the section ahead. When I left about 4:30pm, the stock for the 4:00pm was just arriving back at Loughborough...

Apart from that, a really good day out, as you said, very busy - I managed a couple of runs behind each of the guest locos and a trip on the NER railcar, as well as a few of the 'home team' - the NER railcar seemed particularly popular (despite someone on Facebook earlier in the week complaining about the presence of diesel railcars at a steam gala!) , it always seems to be packed out whenever it visits the GCR

5 hours ago, melmerby said:

There was a lot of stock by all accounts.

I bought some stuff (4 B set coaches and a load of wagons) from a retailer in Edinburgh that were about 50% off shortly after Airfix was bought by Palitoy.

I'm from Coalville, and remember there being a lot of Airfix stock coming out of the Palitoy factory shop very cheaply- I've still got a couple of Royal Scots.

There's a local urban myth that when the Palitoy factory closed, a lot of surplus product was buried near the factory, and I'm sure I've heard suggestions that this included a quantity of Airfix Mk2s!

There could be a grain of truth to this story, as ex-Palitoy chief designer Bob Brechin said in a Leicester Mercury article a couple of years back that after the closure, some unsold stock did end up in a landfill site at Lount near Ashby

On 23/01/2024 at 15:26, Tallpaul69 said:

I am looking for some expertise that can tell me the periods (e.g.:- pre WW2, or 1950s or 1960s) in which the following rail tankers were used, in the livery the models carry, and their routes used:-

 

3) Bachmann  14T (type 5) in blue-green-   Lee and Green (water)    37-670X

 

The Lee & Green tanker was a commission by British Railway Modelling magazine in the early 2000's- The prototype is listed in the Keith Turton PO wagon books (Vol 13, p.78- it's also the front cover picture). According to the photo caption, the wagon dates from c.1911, and the photo shows a board along the side listing "Factories at Sleaford, Spalding, Bourne, Boston & Skegness" which is missing from the model.

Keith Turton suggests they would have been seen in a fairly localised area working between Bourne and these factories, some of which had been closed by about 1934

There's a piece about Lee & Green here which includes the wagon photo.

That was a surprising and shocking piece of news- in fact, when first I saw an announcement from Hattons in my Facebook feed last night, I was half expecting news on the second round of Genesis coaches, or a new Hattons Exclusive, not the end of an era!

I think I placed my first order with Hattons in about 1984 as a teenager, although I pretty much stopped railway modelling a few years after that until the early 2000s, and probably didn't place another order with them until about 5/6 years ago. Over the last few years though, I've been a fairly regular customer though, and have always had prompt and excellent service from them.

Having been through a couple of redundancies myself, I really feel for the Hattons staff who must be going through so much uncertainty at the moment, and I hope that they're able to find new employment quickly and without too much stress.

The other thought that comes to mind is that I hope a deal can be done for someone else to take on the rights and tooling for the Hattons Exclusives- it would be a fitting legacy to the work done by the Hattons team, if such excellent products were to continue in some other guise.

1 hour ago, Buckfire said:

Are there still any any pictures of what it would’ve looked like if the LMS bought Castles from the GWR? Just curious. 

I'm sure there's been a 4mm LMS layout on the exhibition circuit in recent years that featured an 'LMS Castle'- From memory I saw it at the Loughborough exhibition a few years back, and had a brief "Is that what I think it is?" conversation about it with one of the layout operators. Can anyone recall which layout this might be?

On 05/12/2023 at 12:58, Edwardian said:

 

OO Works seem to have gone for the graceful lines of the original build, not the rather clumpier belpaire rebuilds, which were presumably done to only some of the classs from 1911.  

 

 

I wonder whether the Belpaire rebuild might be in their future plans?- When they did the Midland 2F some years back, they did the Belpaire version, then followed up with the round-top firebox version as their next release.

4 hours ago, Fat Controller said:

I believe it was to reduce the strength of rum (Lemon Hart?? ) before bottling

...also whisky blending- the LMS built a couple of demountable Loch Katrine tankers, the twin-tank Lemon Hart one (delivered after nationalisation)  and a single-tank one before the war for Portal Dingwall & Norris- Amusingly, the tank component of this was finished in GWR chocolate and cream, allegedly at the request of W.S. Norris, a director of PD&N, who was a GWR enthusiast and IIRC owned a notable O-gauge layout of the period.

26 minutes ago, Steamport Southport said:

 

Bachmann have never made a motor fitted Jinty though.

 

However weren't the coaches they used ex MR ones and only used in South Wales?

 

 

Jason

I think they have done both the Ivatt and also the Midland 0-4-4T (the LMS unlined black version) in motor-fitted form though -  the lack of an LMS push-pull driving trailer (whether of Midland, LNWR or LMS standard origin) has always struck me as a really obvious open goal that Bachmann keep missing!

IIRC both the LNWR Coal Tank and L&Y 2-4-2T were sometimes motor-fitted as well, though I don't think Bachmann included this option in the tooling for either model?

On 07/12/2023 at 11:47, PhilJ W said:

Some of the Matchbox bases are useful, I have several road sections, I'm not certain of which kit they are from but they feature details such as drains and camber, they also have a shell hole. I will be straightening up the ends to join them together and filling the 'shell holes'. 

IIRC every Matchbox military vehicle kit came with a different base, complete with shell-holes, sections of shell-damaged buildings etc., plus at least one appropriate soldier figure to add to the base.

On 07/12/2023 at 16:05, modelldoc said:

The" tank base" is from the Diamond tank transporter, here is another, with a intersting scene from the Korean war, a captured russian truck was used by the US forces as a railway car.

 

 

Ah yes, I've got a couple of Diamond T kits stashed in the loft somewhere, and I remember them having that base- the Matchbox T-34 came with one depicting the tank driving through a wooden fence, plus an accompanying Russian soldier figure. Your railway base originally came with the Matchbox M-16 half-track

4 hours ago, MarkSG said:

I'll second the motion for some GER opens. But, also, a GER brake van would, as I've already said, be a good choice. They'd be perfect to go with the J70 in any era, but they were built in fairly large numbers, were widely dispersed across the network in LNER days, and many lasted into BR service, so they'd be appropriate for any Eastern region layout and even further afield. 

 

Also, they haven't been done yet by any other RTR manufacturer, as far as I'm aware. Everybody seems to love a GWR Toad, and there are plenty of models of other Big 4 and BR designs. But pre-grouping brake vans are a rarity, despite their length of service in many cases taking them all the way through to the end of steam. So a GER van would be a great way to redress that balance.

For me, possibly the most useful thing Rapido could do would be to run through providing a matching pre-grouping brake van for each of their forthcoming steam loco releases, we've already got an SECR one for the O1, and you've mentioned GER for the J70, but GNR, NER, LBSC (Didn't Hornby do one years back?) and Highland varieties to hang behind the J13, Y7, E1 and Jones Goods respectively.

1 hour ago, adb968008 said:

 

 

 

but do think a crane tank may be better.

 

Now I like the sound of that.....a nice Barclay crane tank

9 hours ago, pH said:

A further off-topic diversion … 

 

Interesting that Hornby modelled that one. They have also modelled 45458, which was the engine in the fatal Wormit derailment in 1955. Given the number of “bog standard” engines in the class, I wonder why those two have been chosen.

Bearing in mind that both locos were repaired and remained in service after the accidents,  and Hornby have modelled both in late crest livery (so later than the 1955 accidents),  then I suspect it's no more than Hornby's researcher turned up photos of both locos in late crest condition, and no-one thought to look back into their earlier history

On 01/12/2023 at 12:22, BillB said:

3 Am I right that the Hornby Skaledale R8798 East Station (maroon paint) and R9836 Granite Station Building (green paint) are both Dent (Settle & Carlisle)?

 

Not sure about the others, but the Hornby buildings are definitely S&C, as at Dent

On 30/11/2023 at 19:03, Steamport Southport said:

 

Railway company staff unless running on military depots. You might be able to train soldiers to drive/fire them, but they wouldn't know things like the routes and signalling.

 

They were just put into the pool of engines. This is at Nuneaton where it would just be treated like an LMS 8F or LNWR G2.

 

https://www.warwickshirerailways.com/lms/lnwrns3813.htm

 

 

 

Jason

Some comments on LMS drivers working S160s from J.M. Dunn, Nuneaton shedmaster  (the chap in the hat in that picture). Interesting how even in 1943 he refers to "LNWR drivers"!

"It is remarkable how most L.N.W.R. drivers will tackle any strange engine that comes along and a very good example of this occurred on 18th May 1943 when one of the new American 2-8-0 engines arrived at Nuneaton Station on its way to Woodford and Hinton on the G.C.R. I went to have a look at it and accompanied the set of Nuneaton men who were going to re-man it for the next stage of its journey. As soon as we reached the engine the signal came "off", the Crewe men said "There you are. That's the regulator and that's the brake" and got off! The Nuneaton men started away as unconcerned as could be and slowed down opposite the shed for me to get off after which they went off in fine style. Admittedly they had a mechanical inspector riding with them on this occasion and he would have been able to show them a few things about the footplate fittings which differed a good deal from the British fashion, but that did not alter the fact that they had to find out how to work the engine as they went along. This versatility on the part of enginemen is by no means always the rule as, for example, few Holyhead men are "at home" on any engine smaller than a "Royal Scot".

There are several nice shots of 2153 during it's visit to Nuneaton- Another one. Note the LMS shedcode plate (6B- Mold Junction) on the smokebox

On 26/11/2023 at 22:13, ikcdab said:

All this new innovation, lamps, synchronised smoke, wheel squeel etc....

 

Yet still no locomotive crews!  Such a simple and cheap thing to fit, yet the overwhelming majority of RTR engines run around with ghost drivers....

On 27/11/2023 at 04:30, Johan DC said:

Hornby put them in their latest loco's. 9F, P2, Dunlop A1 all Came with crew.

 

 

That ought to be the most obvious extra feature they could add, and they were capable of doing it 30-odd years ago; My original tender-drive Black 5 from the early 80's (OK, so 40 years ago, I'm older than I care to admit!) came with them, as did one or two other Hornby tender locos I bought back in my teens- Remember the unpainted driver and fireman figures, the ones with the seated driver who looked like he was sitting on a tea chest?- Were they of Triang origin? When did they stop including them?

4 hours ago, phil-b259 said:

Because a large and growing sector of the hobby (with a bias towards them being new entrants to the hobby and thus a group worthy of nurturing from a financial perspective) want lots of bells and whistles! With diesel locos today featuring extensive lighting packages (many of which feature over bright lights) it is a natural progression in a lot of people’s eyes for steam to do the same.

I've got no problem with them including the bells and whistles to attract that part of the market, I just want the bells and whistles to be done properly. I'm all in favour of working lighting on steam locos, if we can have it of reasonably prototypical dimness, rather than full beam, and the lamps are moveable and not horribly overscale.

I'd just rather wait until they can get it right before they bring it to market, rather than paying out £200+ for the rather half-baked version we were offered on Turbomotive and look to be getting on the Black 5.

7 minutes ago, adb968008 said:

So the conversation I had…

 

revealed apparently theres an LED under each lamp iron position.

Although the frame is 1mm thick, taking this into account it only leaves 0.1mm for the lamp to fit.

The factory wants to glue them, to stop them falling off in transit.

But not fitting them risks user fitting damage.

so catch 22.

 

my suggestion is 1 LED in the body somewhere, run a light track to the lamp iron positions. Then use lamps with a light track spike into the lampframe as it would give a full 1mm push fit.

It reduces leds from 4 to 1 led, as if theres a lamp it will be lit, theres no combination of lit / unlit lamps.

You could then also have a 1mm deep spike push fit lamp iron too, though i’d suggest having the lampiron metal than plastic.

I understand this batch is near ready, its the next loco tooling inline to arrive.

I didnt ask if there was a lampiron in the box, but there wasnt in the Turbomotive, and gluing them in sounds terminal.

 

 

 

 

If I'm reading that right, then it seems to imply that what we're seeing at Warley is what we'll get.

Maybe one of Hornby's 2024 announcements will be Royal Train coaches....

18 hours ago, Covkid said:

 

 

The point surely is (AIUI) that models sold in the UK have to meet certain safety standards.  Is it realistic to sell models in the UK with movable therefore detachable "lamps" which are say 5mm high by 2mm wide by 2mm deep ?

 

That interview video with Hornby suggested they were still trying to work out how to make the lighting work on the Black five - suggesting they weren't following an established  design. Smacks tome of HM7000 bluetooth control where the marketers were selling something the engineers hadn't signed off. 

  

Yes, I've just watched the video back, and saw the bit about them working out how to do the lighting.

Comparing the Black 5 samples with the Turbomotive, one thing that strikes me is that the lamps stand out less because they're black/Crimson lake, compared to the white ones on the Black 5- although presumably they'll still be as excessively bright, unless Hornby have put some kind of dimmer into the circuit.

I can't shake off the thought that maybe Hornby would be better served by having figured out an optimum solution to the question of steam loco lighting before bringing it to market- I've got very mixed feelings about paying out £200+ for a loco to almost become part of Hornby's development programme!

6 minutes ago, cctransuk said:

 

Too many model producers seem to have mountaineer syndrome - we do it because it's there / we can!

 

CJI.

...and just because you can do it, doesn't always mean you should. The one feature of the Turbomotive that really disappointed me was the lighting, and the Black 5, with it's Royal train headcode, presumably of similar excessive brightness to those on 'Turbo', seems to be a step further in the wrong direction.

For me, until Hornby can figure out how to fit lighting to steam locos that looks accurately-scaled, can be moved around/removed to reflect correct headcodes, and shows up like an oil lantern, rather than an array of 150 watt rally car spotlamps, then it really is a feature too far, and just feels like a gimmick for the collectors market.

I think this is my favourite of today's announcements- I really don't need one, it's miles outside my modelling interests- but as I've somehow acquired an East Kent Adams Radial, and a Kerr Stuart Victory, it really would be rude not to have that EKR version to go with them...

20 hours ago, Obsidian Quarry said:

I will not say the quote, no matter how much my Titfield fan brain is telling me to! 😄

 

I have managed to procure a correct type CooperCraft GWR cattle wagon kit off eBay. Just need to get that built/painted, the 14xx repainted, and get some weathering on them 👍

My buffet car arrived a couple of days ago- it's a lovely thing, and I'm looking forward to the train pack arriving. Thinking about it, I've got one of those Coopercraft cattle wagons in a box of unbuilt kits somewhere, and suddenly, for the first time in my life, I realise I need to buy a 14xx. 

As someone who's never felt tempted to model the GWR, Is this just a one-off thing, or am I on a slippery slope towards Swindon that will end in collecting pannier tanks and Castles? 😁