Invicta

I've probably dabbled in everything short of R/C aircraft and ships in my time. Started with the usual collection of Airfix planes hanging from my bedroom ceiling as a kid, and have had various phases since then of building aircraft, military vehicles in both 1/76 and 1/35, and cars in various scales- often several of these themes at once as finances and time allowed. Most recently I've concentrated more on 1/24 cars, although at the moment my whole collection is boxed up in the loft. I also collected diecast cars for several years, mainly 1950s-80's rallycars and 80's Le Mans cars, including a bit of repainting and minor conversions a few years back. Currently though, my modelmaking activity is pretty much rail-only

He sold the Tim Harvey Labatt's car, and I think a couple of others. IIRC at one time he had Harvey's car, the other Labatt's car (Lawrence Bristow's car, which was later converted for Thundersaloon races), a white Graham Goode Listerine car and an Eggenberger/Texaco car. I won't swear to it, but I think he's still got the Bristow car The Harvey car and the Goode/Listerine car are now in Australia- coincidentally, Robert Tweedie who now owns the Labatt's car is advertising it for sale at the moment: http://www.ibcholdings.com.au/cars/sierra_1990/index.html Great cars to watch- As someone said earlier in the thread, one of the great eras of touring car racing. Good to see the 1990 Brands race video- funnily enough I was at that one- My avatar pic is Gravett at Brands that year, though it was the other Brands round a month or two earlier.

That's a big surprise- but a very welcome one!

...and as I remember, their range included quite a lot of aircraft types that Airfix didn't do, including some really obscure stuff- One I remember particularly was the Bristol 138A (a 1930's high-altitude research plane)... http://www.ipmsstock...ies_bristol.htm The one thing I always remember about Frog kits was that the decals were often awful with carrier film that fell apart at the slightest hint of water. The other kit range I remember as a kid was the one that Matchbox released in the early 70's. The newsagents just along the road from my grandparents sold Matchbox cars, and started to stock the kits when they came out. Every visit to my grandparents seemed to involve calling in there and buying one- I probably built more of them than I did Airfix, as buying Airfix kits meant a trip into town to go to Woolworths. Again, a slightly more adventurous choice of prototype than Airfix, and moulded in several colours- allegedly so you didn't have to paint them (though you ended up with some very oddly-coloured planes if you didn't) Quite a lot of them resurfaced as part of the Revell range, and I think some still available http://www.matchboxkits.org/

Named after the daughter of Emil Jellinek, who was one of the earliest dealers for the German Daimler company- Daimler adopted 'Mercedes' as a trademark in the early 1900s, and kept it when they merged with Benz in the 20's http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercedes_Jellinek

...and earlier in the film, Michael Caine as Bromhead to Stanley Baker as Chard: 'The army doesn't like more than one disaster in a day' and Chard's reply 'Looks bad in the newspapers and upsets civilians at their breakfast'

I don't have the book to hand, so am slightly winging this from memory, but an example I've read of this involved summer weekend trains to Margate and Ramsgate in the 30's- the loco from a train terminating at Margate being sent on for coaling etc at Ramsgate as the pilot of the next Ramsgate train in order to save on a light engine move. IIRC it's mentioned in the book Kent Coast Heyday (Esau & Siviour) and illustrated by a train photographed between Margate and Ramsgate, headed by the impressive combination of a T9, a Schools and a King Arthur... I definitely remember seeing a pic of the combination of a Jinty piloting a Bulleid on the Pines Express mentioned earlier in the thread, though I think the pic I've seen is without the 'Pines' headboard, suggesting that this might not have been a one-off event?

That's a great pic of Sittingbourne- and a scene that's changed quite a bit over the years! What's the grey truck in the coal yard- a Bedford of some kind? Modern-day comparisons, although from different angles http://www.flickr.com/photos/22420011@N05/4456640803/ http://s0.geograph.org.uk/geophotos/02/00/17/2001726_3a936923.jpg

Lambton was apparently the Hon George Lambton, son of the Earl of Durham. He trained horses for the Earls of Derby from the 1890's to the early 1930's, when he was replaced by Frank Butters, who is also mentioned on John's list. Lambton died in 1945, so is a 'pre-nationalisation' trainer in railway terms, though maybe his yard continued to operate after his death- his son Edward was also a trainer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Lambton http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Butters To pick up on the question AberdeenBill asked about racehorse traffic (don't have access to the GWRJ article Paul mentioned at present), I'm guessing that these could have been seen pretty much anywhere that was on a route between Newmarket and the various major racecourses around the UK?

Thanks Merf- Oxford's forthcoming Coventry Climax trailer pump comes to mind: http://www.cheltenhammodelcentre.co.uk/shopexd.asp?id=8423 In BR use, would these have carried any kind of BR livery, or just be used as they came from wartime service in NFS grey or whatever? I'm basically trying to get a feel for how some of this firefighting kit might be used in a little cameo scene on a layout...

Yes, the BMC/British Leyland car factories had at least one Morris Minor-based fire tender.. http://www.flickr.co...nut/4362863050/ ...and straying off-topic a bit further, it wasn't just industrial users who had small fire tenders for use in confined and inacessible sites- in the 60's, Newcastle apparently experimented with a couple of small Leyland 'precinct tenders' intended for use in shopping precincts etc http://www.fireambulance.f9.co.uk/kvk694d.jpg http://www.fireambul...9.co.uk/p16.htm Going back to the 'scheduled' topic, bearing in mind the number of large goods depots, major stations etc, I'm assuming that BR must have had a reasonable number of fire tenders, similar to the Landie and Scammell examples mentioned so far. Were these fairly standard designs used right across BR, or were there a variety of them on different chassis, regional variations etc?

Talking of new (or forthcoming) Oxfords, there are a couple of BR Fire tenders on the way, one based on a Land Rover, the other a Scammell (MH rather than Scarab I think) http://www.modelenium.co.uk/models/BRITISH-RAIL-LAND-ROVER-88-FIRE-TENDER--76LAN188015.aspx Assuming that they're based on actual vehicles used by BR, what's the story behind these?

I think there's a lot in that argument- I've travelled on the WHR 4 times now, to Rhyd Ddu in 2006 & 2007, to Beddgelert on the first day of full public opening in 2009 and to Hafod-y-Llyn early this year, and a part of the overall impression I have is that, yes, compared to some of the other Welsh NG lines it lacks a little something in atmosphere because it does look and feel very new and almost sterile- the ballast is clean, the lineside fencing, structures and much of the civil engineering look very new etc, as you'd expect given that a lot of it has been in place for such a short time. I think this pic of Beddgelert station during construction shows some of what we're talking about; Look at the contrast between the new platforms and the original concrete WHR water tower supports on the left... http://www.whrsoc.or...dd-120208-5.jpg To use a modelling comparison, it kind of feels like your new exhibition layout when you take it to the first show, and you maybe haven't quite finished all of the detailing and weathering to the extent you'd like. Give it a few years to weather into the surroundings a bit more, acquire a bit of wear and tear, a few weeds etc, and I expect it'll feel much more like part of the landscape than it does now

In a similar vein, as I recall, E.S. Cox's Locomotive Panorama includes details of various schemes that emerged from the various LMS drawing offices but were never built- IIRC these included a modernised take on the L&Y 2-4-2T and a 4F 0-6-0 replacement amongst others

Interesting comment on MREMag this morning from Brian McDermott, thanking 'all those who supported the proposal that John Baxter (Chairman, S&DRHT) and I put together back in 2008'- which suggests that the S&D Trust must have done some work to drum up support for the 2-8-0. Might it be worth talking to them to get some insight on what they did, and trying to get the SRPS on-side in a similar manner?

There's a lot to be said for that, I've thought for a while that someone- probably the NRM- really ought to be keeping an unrestored Barry wreck in 'as found' condition- Barry is a hugely important part of the railway preservation story, and although the best illustration of that has to be the number of ex-Barry locos steaming again, they do only tell a part of the story.... As to scrapping unrestored locos, there are no shortage of locos currently steaming that were written off as lost causes and hopeless cases in the past.

I guess seeing more articles on Scottish modelling in the magazines wouldn't do any harm either- RM seems to be doing pretty well in that respect at present, (albeit rather diesel-focused) with Brian Sunman's Peffermill Road as ROTM for March, and Ian Futers' Ullapool featured in the April issue (plus a Futers piece on the Cathcart Circle last month). Anyone got a steam-era Scottish layout they fancy writing up for one of the mags? If people are going to be encouraged to model Scottish railways, and generate a market for specifically Scottish locos and stock, then what might help tip the balance is providing them with inspiration- whether it's seeing a top-notch layout at an exhibition or in the latest mag, or reading an article on an interesting Scottish location that's just asking to be modelled

I think that makes a lot of sense- as you say, there seems to be a very visible interest in, and awareness of the S&DJR amongst both modellers and enthusiasts in general- and they can't all have been born and bred within a 50 mile radius of Evercreech Junction. Equally, not every potential modeller of Scottish layouts, or buyer of a future Bachmann/Hornby '439' is going to be North of the Border, any more than Hornby's Arthurs, M7s and T9s are selling exclusively in SR territory, so any effort to raise the profile of Scottish modelling in general ought to help.

I think there's a lot to be said for this approach. Bearing in mind that Bachmann have revealed this morning that they can make a business case for releasing a pre-grouping 2-8-0 from a class of 11 locos, used on a single route, (albeit a high-profile and much-modelled line, and a class of loco which enjoys a high profile amongst enthusiasts) then I reckon they ought to be open-minded enough to take a realistic look at the prospects for something Scottish in future. Once there's a formal response from Bachmann, then we'll know exactly where we are, and can start to look at how to progress a campaign

Thanks Merfyn- I know what you mean about the manufacturers' 'speculative' artwork, as I think I've seen examples before- it was the lack of signwriting on what looked very much like an interpretation of BR livery that made me wonder. A quick Google hadn't turned up any photographic evidence of BR Trojans, hence the question. Wouldn't be too surprised to see one released though....!

Just Googling for pics of 50's Trojan vans, prompted by the appearance of one in Pocketbond's 2010 releases, and tripped over this piece of factory publicity artwork- though unlettered, that paintjob looks familiar.... http://www.trojanmuseumtrust.org/whitehall.jpg Did BR make any use of these?

A pic in Essery's Illustrated History of LMS Wagons vol1 shows M189327 in 1964, displaying what the caption describes as 'the final livery style carried by these wagons. Unfortunately the wagon is fairly dirty and the livery details aren't clear apart from the weight and number on the left of the LH door, directly above the wagon plate and label clip: There may well be some lettering at the RH end (tare etc?) but can't make it out. If there's any other lettering ,it's buried under a layer of grime. They're impressive-looking beasts though- a rake of those would look good on a layout Incidentally, the pic shows a single wagon coupled between a 16-tonner and what looks like a bogie bolster, and according to the caption was taken at Coalville- slightly off their usual Toton-Stonebridge Park route, so I'm wondering if it was taken while the wagon was visiting the Marcroft works for repair-the buildings in the background suggest that location?

I think I'd agree with that as well- it's the 'working' locos that ought to be the priority here, rather than 'exotica' (although personally I can use the disclaimer that as a non-Scottish pre-48 modeller, the Jones Goods and 123 aren't quite as 'off-topic' for me as they would be for a BR modeller- I could more or less justify them as working locos in terms of period, even if location would be more of a stretch- I'd certainly snap up a 'state-of-the'art' version of either if they were available)

So predominantly only seen on or close to the Western Region, or did they spread more widely in BR ownership? Incidentally, a new arrival in the Base Toys range is a Foden DG, as an artic tractor in Pickfords colours with a low-loader trailer, or as a GWR-liveried ballast tractor with a drawbar low-loader. Is the GWR version prototypical, and is there potential for this in other railway liveries? http://www.ayrey.co.uk/dbimages/models/BTO%20D73.jpg

Re Jinties on passenger servies, some were push-pull fitted (7477-81,7655 & 7681 according to a caption in Fowler Locomotives by Brian Haresnape- the caption accompanies a pic of 47478 at Swansea- apparently used on Swansea-Brynamman services). The same book also suggests they replaced North London Railway 4-4-0Ts on Broad Street-Potters Bar workings in the late 20s- illustrated by a shot of 16582 with what looks a 6-coach train near Potters Bar