Invicta

I can't bring to mind when and where, but I'm sure I've seen a WW2-period layout in 7mm which features a little scene of a downed German pilot standing in the station yard- under guard by Capt. Mainwaring and the Warmington-on-Sea platoon.

I went on Sunday, it's the third year I've been, and Derby is definitely a 'don't miss' event for me now. Another very enjoyable show- some excellent layouts, good trade support, and one of the most appropriate and atmospheric venues you could wish for. A very big vote of thanks to all who made it happen

From vague memory, at some point has a model shop somewhere done these as a commission, as I've definitely seen a similar set on a layout from one of the local clubs in Leics? In a similar vein, Copenhagen Fields features the characters from 'The Ladykillers' getting out of a taxi on the forecourt of the NLR station building, and a set of PO wagons liveried with the names of the actors in the adjacent coal yard. http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/uploads/monthly_11_2013/post-8055-0-47010100-1384886852.jpg There's also a 7mm German layout around with businesses in a row of shops along the backscene named for the German characters in 'Allo 'Allo - "Flick & von Smallhausen, Privatdetektive" etc... I have to admit, I quite enjoy that kind of thing on a layout, so long as it's not too 'in your face' or overdone

A range of PO wagons in the liveries of Kent breweries...?

If we can excuse a bit more thread-drift, the Southern did build a number (IIRC a couple of hundred at least) of their standard van for LMS use during the war - although by that date (about 1942/3 I think), new-build LMS wagons ought to have been bauxite rather than grey. Bachmann have certainly released an LMS grey version at some point. Not sure any of the LMS Southern vans were vac-fitted though?

Wasn't there a small collection of preserved Midland engines at Derby works which were scrapped on the orders of Stanier in the mid-30's to free up space in the works?. Could the 1930 replica have been cut up as part of the same exercise in tidying the works up?

According to the caption, the drawing is a 'facsimile of a sketch made by Mr W. Stenson, March 12 1832'. If that's the Stenson I think it is, then it's William Stenson, the proprietor of Whitwick Colliery, who would have been pretty intimately acquainted with the early days of the L+S- it was Stenson and his business partners who first identified the need for, and proposed the construction of the line. The March date is interesting, as it's a good two months before the first engine 'Comet' is supposed to have been delivered- so exactly what was it a sketch of...? The C.R. Clinker account of the history of the line, (linked by TheSignalEngineer earlier in the thread), although written in the 1950s, 120 years after the event, has the advantage of having been based on the original minutes of the L+S directors' meetings, and it gives a very precise outline of the line's early engines, right down to their works numbers and delivery dates: Comet- Works no. 4, delivered 5th May 1832 (the line opened on the 17th July) Phoenix- Works no. 6, delivered 28th Aug 1832 Samson- Works no. 34, delivered 1st Jan 1833 Goliath- Works no. 35, delivered 20th Mar 1833 Hercules- Works no. 36, delivered 17th Dec 1833. The Engineer article talks about 'it had been publically announced that the line would be opened with three new engines, Samson, Phoenix and Goliath, but as bad luck would have it, the boat wit the Samson ran aground near Trent. Being thus short of an engine, the Rocket was taken off ballasting and required for the opening trains. All Leicester knew the Rocket was the ballast engine, so John Ellis and Robert Stephenson said 'Call her Comet', which was no sooner said than done'. That's quite a difference from Clinker's account, researched from the company's records- he suggests that far from being intended for the opening, Phoenix, Samson and Goliath weren't even ordered until after a board meeting on 3rd August- a few weeks after the opening of the line. Incidentally, if these three were only ordered in August, then the delivery date for Phoenix at the end of the month, seems very quick compared to the other two- Looking at the works numbers, was she an engine that the Stephensons were able to supply from stock, rather than building to order? There doesn't seem to be anything in Clinker's version of events (and by implication the company's own records) that suggests the engine on the opening day was anything other than 'Comet', or accounts for the presence of an additional engine hired from the Stephensons.

Haven't opened the bag yet, but mine contains: 4x SR headcode discs 1x lamp 3x oil cans 2x coupling hooks/cosmetic screw couplings 2x steam heat pipes ...as per the instruction sheet, except I appear to have an extra disc, compared to the 3 specified on the sheet?

https://www.flickr.com/photos/110691393@N07/36768033653/in/album-72157638438054524/ Yes, I've got the same problem- Despite my main modelling interest being the LMS in the East Midlands, I couldn't resist the Pioneer II version- and so far the only plausible reason I can come up with is that I worked in Sittingbourne for a few years in the early 2000s, around the time the paper mill closed. Delivered yesterday, I ran it in a little this morning on my test track, and it's a lovely thing. At least the layout I'm currently planning does have a colliery branch, so maybe I'll invoke rule 1 and suggest that at some point between leaving BR for Bowater's, it took a bit of a left turn at the lights and arrived at Ridham Dock via a stint at a Leicestershire colliery... Looking at photos of 'Pioneer II', I noticed one tiny detail discrepancy that Hatton's have omitted (understandably as it's presumably unique to this loco during it's time at the paper mill)- the whistle is modelled in the usual position on the cab roof, but photos of the loco during it's Bowater's career show it relocated to a lower position on the cab front- I don't think I'll bother trying to move it, or adding the tarpaulin that some photos show attached to the cab roof- presumably an improvised effort to replicate the distinctive sliding shutter/window arrangement that some of the Bowaters locos had fitted to their cabs. A little Ridham Dock-themed diorama or shunting plank is starting to sound like a tempting idea as well...

Yes, had an enjoyable morning at Mountsorrel - hadn't seen it since the opening weekend a couple of years back, and was impressed by the progress with the project. Had a couple of runs with the 'J94' and Gronk combination, plus watching the little Ruston shuffling wagons around the sidings at Nunckley Hill, then nipped over to Loughborough in the afternoon for a run behind 'Cromwell'. Diesel service (when I was there, late afternoon at least) was in the hands of the 20, rather than the 37 originally billed on the GCR website, but all very good fun

It certainly isn't going to be top of the list if you want varied and intensive operation- World's End easily makes my list of favourite layouts around at the moment, but it's the architectural modelling that blows me away, the trains are almost incidental for me. I've seen it several times over the last year or so and haven't got bored with seeing it yet- I'm still seeing new things I hadn't noticed before- but even if I could achieve those standards of architectural modelling, it's a style of layout I'd never contemplate building for myself because the operational interest and variety isn't there- but for me, that's the whole thing with railway modelling, it's a broad church with a huge variety of interests and approaches and I can usually find some degree of interest in most of them, even though they might not be something I'd want to model myself On a personal level, I don't get the 'I only look at what reflects my own modelling interests' to attending exhibitions or magazine content- Although my modelling is mainly pre-nationalisation steam, I'm just as happy to spend time at a show watching a really good modern image D+E layout, There have been a few layouts mentioned (Mostyn, Tonbridge West Yard amongst others) that hit the mark for me as much as anything that fits my major 1923-48 LMS interests

....and the other factor in the 'people model what they remember' theory is that people's memories of the railway will vary- if you grew up in an area that had suffered heavily from the Beeching axe, then your childhood railway memories, and their influence on your railway modelling might be very different to someone who grew up in the Southern Region commuter belt, or close to the ECML/WCML. Growing up in a town that lost passenger services a couple of years before I was born, my railway memories probably involve as much time travelling on heritage lines as they do BR, so my modelling has been pretty steam-centred from the start. If I was ever going to go D+E, it would involve lots of 20s, coal wagons, NCB diesel shunters and queues of Oxford Diecast cars at level crossings, because that's pretty much my main memory of the 'big railway' from when I was a kid

A bit out of time and R-T-R for this thread, but Bachmann offered a Marcroft-liveried PO through their collectors club a few years back, complete with Coalville amongst the locations on the side (the livery is also in the Powsides range)- IIRC the livery is taken from a photo in one of the Bill Hudson PO books. I'd never noticed the Manton wagon on the cover of Turton vol 3 was a Stableford! N.W. Leicestershire POs are an interest of mine, and it tends to stretch to wagons from elsewhere that are known to have worked into the Coalville area, so really ought to cover locally-built ones as well - I'll have to see if it's in the Powsides catalogue According to the caption in the book, it's from the Ian Pope collection. As wagonman suggests, it seems to be a rare survivor -the caption describes it as 'one of the very few official images from that builder known to have survived' If you look at maps, the wagon works stretched to both sides of the line, so a pretty substantial operation: http://maps.nls.uk/view/101592348 There isn't a local museum as such in Coalville since the Snibston Discovery Park closed a couple of years back- I don't recall them having much, if anything, on display in relation to Stableford

Stableford went into liquidation in the late 1920's- a caption in a book of old photos of Coalville gives a date of 1928, and states that they did a lot of export business in India, Africa and the Middle East- the photo shows a bogie oil tanker for export circa 1920. A decline in this export trade was apparently one of the reasons for the liquidation of a business which at the turn of the century had over a thousand employees. They also had interests in brickmaking and sawmilling. I'm pretty sure there are mentions of Stableford in the Keith Turton PO wagon books but without digging through them can't recall if any actual Stableford-built POs are illustrated. The works was located alongside the railway on Mantle Lane Coalville- the buildings still exist and since the 1980's have been used as managed small business units, known as the Springboard Centre - I've read somewhere that the adjoining terrace of houses were built as workers' housing by Stablefords

Another car dealer's ad on a bridge- Oscroft's on a bridge over Arkwright Street in Nottingham (down the page) http://www.gcrleicester.info/html/nottingham.html and another Nottingham one- Crocus Street Nottingham with an ad for H.H. Cooke, Sheet metal workers, http://www.picturethepast.org.uk/frontend.php?keywords=Ref_No_increment;EQUALS;NTGM000394&pos=19&action=zoom&id=51839

I don't know whether I remember a Ferodo, but I woudn't definitely say no - I don't remember some of the Leicester selection I posted, but have vague memories that suggest there were more than these... Leicester certainly wasn't short of railway bridges, especially along the GC route, so there was plenty of scope! Another one- 'India Tyres' over West Bridge Street http://www.gcrleicester.info/html/west_bridge.html The 'Hamshaws' one over Blackbird Road lasted to 1979 according to the demolition pics on this link http://www.gcrleicester.info/html/leicester_demolition_1.html

'Motor Macs' on Polsloe Bridge Halt bridge near Exeter https://www.flickr.com/photos/vitessesteve/34005325341 and 'Tyresoles' on Lochee High Street bridge, Dundee https://www.flickr.com/photos/118069284@N05/14356590163 'Brains' and 'Handcocks Beer' in Cardiff https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Clare_Street_railway_bridge_-_Cardiff_-_geograph.org.uk_-_1605152.jpg http://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-railway-bridge-with-old-advert-for-handcocks-beer-canton-cardiff-south-87759475.html http://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-railway-bridge-advertising-brains-beers-in-cardiff-wales-uk-73206448.html There seem to be some fairly common themes coming out here- the motor trade and automotive products, engineering and breweries...

IIRC at one time there were a number of 'Brains' bridges in South Wales? A selection from Leicester- Bridge 368 on Blackbird Road with an ad for local car dealers H.A. Hamshaw- that one survived at least into the late 70s/early 80s, I definitely remember seeing it when I was a kid, but advert and bridge are now both long gone http://www.railwayarchive.org.uk/Lpages/html/L2070.html http://www.railwayarchive.org.uk/map/getobjectmap.php?rnum=L2069&mapid=455303.jpg&mlsref=1036&cmn=Leicester..&pn=7&mp=14&all=yes https://www.flickr.com/photos/108977492@N02/26809563779/in/album-72157690013472605/ Car dealers advertising on bridges seems to have been a reasonably common theme in Leicester, here's another- H.A. Browett & Co on a bridge in Humberstone Lane... http://vitessesteve.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/browetts-of-leicester-triumph-car_29.html https://www.flickr.com/photos/108977492@N02/36701131091 ... another 'Browett' on Saffron Lane http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/5471904 ...Bowles & Co. on Narborough Road... https://www.pinterest.com/pin/519532506989815315/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/13462353@N05/4266849364 ...and Castles on Fosse Road North https://i.pinimg.com/originals/29/20/97/292097fbb8d64bccec56a25844e141ac.jpg

Yes, the LMS black one is right on the money for me period-wise, but a bit less so geographically, so looks like I'll be doing some serious application of Rule 1 to justify one on the NW Leicestershire-based layout I'm planning. What do you reckon, drafted south of the border in response to a sudden and inexplicable shortage of Midland 0-6-0s? The microlayout/shunting plank I'm looking at as a side project might take a bit of a leap northwards though- Somewhere in the Carlisle area might do the trick...? That Caley blue version looks awfully tempting.... Without digging through the bookshelves (and the LMS in Scotland is a weak area in my collection), I'm guessing these would have made it down to Carlisle, but did they get any further south at any point?

That Ratio 'Caledonian Iron Ore Wagon' kit may be about as close to imaginary as it's possible to get, without actually being a figment of someone's imagination- There were a couple of threads about it on here a few years back, which IIRC came to the conclusion that Ratio's kit was of a one-off prototype wagon, and which probably never saw so much as a lump of iron ore, as any use it saw might have been for general merchandise traffic. (As I recall, the Caley did have bogie iron ore and loco coal wagons, but they were steel-bodied, rather than the wooden-body of the Ratio kit) This was a particularly reassuring discovery for me, as I was part-way through building half-a-dozen of them, so am now the proud owner of a completely fictional LMS iron ore train...Still, 'it's my trainset' and all that.... I do like the look of the LMS bogie van, coke hopper and brake van in the OP- and every time I look in the Bob Essery LMS wagons book, that Copley Hill branch brake van catches my eye, and I find myself thinking it's just the thing for my iron ore train- Seeing Corbs' model has me pondering butchering a couple of Parkside Midland brake van bodies onto a longer chassis and a pair of bogies... The big LMS bogie 'Stonebridge Park' coal hoppers were impressive beasts, weren't they- there's something quite continental about the appearance of them- Lima used to offer some kind of continental bogie hopper wagon in 'NCB' livery when I was a kid, and the first time I saw a pic of the LMS hopper, it always struck me back then that they were vaguely similar in shape to that Lima toy At the risk of diving off into wishlisting territory, if Hatton's fancy a little project to follow on from the ICI hoppers... I'm not sure if there's even a kit available for these?

I'm pretty sure the 'H' van was never offered by Citroen for the UK market, even during the period they had a factory in the UK- although Slough-built 2CV vans and pickups were available. As Bernard says, it's very much a modern image item for the UK modeller, and Oxford have probably gone for the most appropriate version for the UK market- I'm pretty sure the only ones I've ever seen 'in the wild' over here (outside classic car shows etc) have been catering vans- there's usually one at the Great Central's model railway event in the summer. I don't think I'd ever seen one for real until the first time I went to France as a kid in the early 80's

The 'Mountsorrel' livery, ironically would probably have been far more appropriate on the new 5-plank moulding, than on the NBR 4-plank... As you say, if you're going to have fictitious PO's, they need to look convincing and reflect the look of the real thing Doesn't 'Copenhagen Fields' feature a number of wagons liveried with the names of the actors in 'The Ladykillers'? IIRC, I've also seen a layout at a show fairly recently with a rake of wagons parked in a siding bearing the liveries of a number of well-known 'local coal merchants'- Pugh, Pugh, Barney McGrew, Cuthbert, Dibble and Grubb...

Equally, I recall a conversation a few years back with a local archaeologist who said that for all Time Team's failings, the made-for-TV over-simplification and over-dramatisation etc, the thing it did very well was to raise public awareness of archaeology.

I guess it comes down to them originally being aimed squarely at the diecast collector market- I'm largely out of the collecting game now, but as I remember anything with a high percentage of injection-moulded plastic in the bodyshell didn't always go down well with the collectors

Routinely I'd take the railway of today to travel on , but I've never felt any great urge to model it...Like you, I grew up with BR Blue, in a town which had lost all passenger services before I was born, so my main childhood railway memory is coal trains rumbling across the level crossings in town- and although the idea of modelling a bit of banger blue East Midlands industrial grot (20s, 37s, 56s and lots of HAAs) sometimes appeals, I've found myself looking back to the 30's instead (2/3/4Fs, Crabs, G2s and lots of PO wagons). Why? I reckon it came down to two things- with no passenger services in town, actually travelling on a train was a rare treat, and as likely to be behind preserved steam (GCR & Battlefield Line) as it was on the 'big' railway, and my first trainset aged about 5- I started out with a Triang Jinty and Princess (nice bit of joined-up LMS/LMR thinking there from my parents!), and my modelling has taken a distinctly Crimson Lake look ever since They might be wrong, but at least they're beautifully-finished wrong.... Returning to Hornby's programme for 2018, I can see why the modern image people are a bit down on it, but for the rest of us there's plenty of good in there. The streamlined Coronation isn't a great surprise, I suspect that one was always going to happen after last year's retool of the 'non-bathtub' version, and they've finally got round to doing an LMS black version of the rebuilt Patriot- that's one for my growing collection of wartime-to-nationalisation stock The Nelson probably isn't a great surprise, especially after all the fuss about the catalogue cover, but for me the J36 is star of the show- I don't need one personally, but I hope it sells by the shedload and encourages some more Scottish-flavoured releases- Come on Hornby, you know we all want a Caledonian '439'...