Invicta

FROG Kits for me. Always seemed to be better quality than Airfix; and didn't come in strange plastic colours. I particularily remember the 1:72 P47 Thunderbolt. My first Airfix kit was a 'boil in the bag' job.... can't remember which one... was the Chinook ever in a plastic bag? If so..... All this in choice in Bude, of all places, and me not much more than 7 or 8, I think.

 

Cheers

 

Jan

...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/

Then again Mercedes was named after Karl Benz's daughter, according to legend.

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

continuing the theme

 

Colour-Sgt Bourne to a plastered Mr Witt

"Be quiet now Sir, there's a good gentleman, you're upsetting the lads"

...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'

It's a common mistake to think that most double-headers in the steam era were the result of a need for more power.

Except in areas with difficult gradients, they were more often simply a way of getting an out-of-place loco back home. Therefore unusual combinations were really quite common, although often they escaped the camera lens (especially mine!) as they were unexpected and time was lost trying to make out from a distance what was coming rather than getting the camera out and recording it!

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?

http://www.flickr.co...in/photostream/

 

And another, Nice Ford ET6 parcel van and what looks a bit like a BRS Foden 8 legger with paper rolls.

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

Major W.V. Beatty is identified as a 'trainer' in this 1934 article

http://paperspast.na...---10--1----0--

 

To use the term 'Major' he would have to have been one in the army and would have been well off in society terms. In the paper it doesn't refer to as 'Ret'd' (retired), so he could still have been serving at the time and may have had 'trainers' working for his stables, rather than him being the trainer as such. He is mentioned regarding races in Kentucky in 1939, so he had some standing in the industry.

 

Whitaker and Lambton also appear on ciggarette card descriptions, but not clear of their status as either owners/trainers or both.

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?

In my research, very few fire tenders have been found. Apart from the 2 above, all those I have records of are at the Works and one superb Fordson at Holyhead port. Many of the works had Land Rovers in later years. Swindon had this superb pre-war Dennis which replaced their first appliance which is preserved at the NRM. The Dennis was also replaced by a Land Rover.

During the 50s and 60s many railway depots held firefighting competitions in which competitors are often shown in photos using wartime trailer pumps.

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...

Many industrial premises had there own fire engines especially of course where there was hazardous processes and materials. It was often the case were the site was only accessible by the smallest and most maneuverable of vehicles. There are several such vehicles in preservation today based on small cars (Standard 9, Morris Minor.) I recall one even based on a Reliant 3 wheel van. The Scammel was a wartime development when there was a greater need for such appliances.

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?

New from the Oxford stable.

 

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 wonder if you could consider the new trackwork and rebuilt formation on the WHR like a new or re-built road - the analagy being that a new road is a bit of an eyesore in the beginning, but when it starts to weather down and 'bed in' with the surrounding landscape, it begins to look more like 'it belongs there?'...

 

Perhaps we'll have slightly dodgier track, a few more weeds and a bit more 'careworn' atmosphere on the WHR in 20 years, which I would assume would actually add to the atmosphere?

 

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

There are, at the back of RCTS 'Locomotives of the LNER' Part 2B, diagrams of a rebuilt B7 with 100A boiler and 2 B1-type cylinders; the original B1 diagram, and a B1 rebuilt with a standard BR3 boiler, from 1953. In the same publication part 5, there is a diagram of a proposed J21 rebuild for the darlington - Tebay services. This had 2-off 19"x 26" inside cylinders with 8" piston valves, J39 - type frames, a boiler at 200psi and an enclosed 2-window cab.

 

Also, I remember an article of might-have-beens in 'Backtrack' which included a diagram for a Great Eastern 4-4-0 mixed traffic loco dated 1915. It looked similar to a 'Belpaire Claud', but had 5' 7" drivers.

 

There's few for the LNER types to be going on with! Where would the GE 4-4-0s have been numbered in the Thompson renumering scheme? 2621-2649?

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?

I'd like to see 34073 kept as it is, purely as a reminder of what a pre-restored Barry wreck looked like. Surely one day every preserved steam loco would have been restored and run, and the sidings and sheds will only be full of out of ticket locos awaiting their turn in the overhaul queue. If it was considered a piece of art then it would command a megabucks price and have critics singing it's praises, along with that Southern S15 tender with paint faded so much you could make out three different insignia.

 

 

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.

To raise the profile of scot railways, whats needed is a couple of top-notch layouts at exhibitions down south. Annan Road and maybe something up my end of the world. Dava is to appear at London and I worry as it was in a sorry when I saw it last summer.

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

We've made an acknowledged start; we all now need to build on that. The easy bit is making sure the favourites (up to 92 pollsters now) appear on every wish list going; not forgetting Hornby's very own one. What we've also got to do is raise the profile of Scottish layouts and make them seen as sexy.

 

Mention has been made above of Bachmann's announcements anent the S&DJR. Neither of the locos are going to be much good to us, but, this is a railway which on the face of it has a pretty rotten business case for investment; its small, localised and had hardly any locos of its own; yet whether or not its tremendously popular right now its certainly got a pretty high profile, thanks to the efforts of the likes of Tim Maddocks. The point is that we have the potential to do the same, if not better. I and a lot of others who've contributed to this poll model Scottish railways because we are Scottish, but its not an exclusive club. How many S&DJR modellers actually live on or near to the original line; not that many I suspect but it certainly hasn't cramped their style.

 

We need to do the same with Scottish layouts. "West Highland" ones have always been popular with D&E modellers, but steam offers just as much potential if not more; A3s on the Waverley route, A4s on the four hour Glasgow to Aberdeen; the Killin puggies and the "lost" CR lines in Angus. There's a huge, exciting potential out there to attract non-Scottish modellers if we can raise the profile and ultimately create even more demand for Scottish outline locos.

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.

 

On reflection, I considered it much more worthwhile to wait on the formal response from Dennis/ Graham before doing this, because it may well be that Bachmann has suggestions or ideas that it wishes to share with us. Therefore there was little point exploring the demographics before being aware of Bachmann's position. Likewise, as others have said, unless we have a marketeer from the Big Two as a member here, we are unaware what factoring the majors do when evaluating a new model's demand potential, or what other variables are taken into account.

 

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?

Thanks Tim

Something else for me to look out for. I remember seeing these wagons regularly when up to visit my relatives in Wembley but they were always so filthy (the wagons not my relatives!). As you say most of the images available today show them in this state. Although I shall be weathering mine I would like to get the graphics correct.

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'm not sure that "enthusiasts" is the right word; if its just a question of something pretty Hornby already have their 123 and seemingly no incentive to go to the trouble of replacing it.

 

The point of the poll and the discussion that preceded it was to establish the best choice of Scottish locomotives for a working layout and that, like it or not means locomotives which ran in British Railways black. A Jones Goods would be nice; I might even buy a decent one, but what I really want are working locomotives rather than preserved exotics.

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)

The brown / cream livery of the Great Western did not dissapear overnight in Jan. 1948 on the road vehicles just the same as on the coaching stock. For a while until the repaints got in their stride the old liverys just got B R branding. There was a bit of experimenting with new liveries in 1948 before the familiar crimson / cream was adopted. Some road vehicles had an interim livery of maroon it is commonly thought, but no colour photos have come to light and it is not known what shade it was.

The Thornycroft Nippy mechanical horses were in production for a few years, being built for GWR and BR, the cabs being produced at Swindon works.

Merfyn.

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

On the first bit well out of the classes you mention I thing the Jinties were much more a 'maid of all work' there is certainly pictorial evidence of them operating branch/suburban passenger and freight in the ex L&Y areas I've looked into this in some depth as research for an unbuilt 7mm project. J94's were also used on the Allenheads branch (NER) definitely as more than shunting engines, they were on branch freight though tehres nothing to suggest passenger operation (indeed the line closed early to passengers) and a J71(very similar to J72) was trialled on the North Sunderland Railway but found to be too bigso the passenger service was put in the hands of much smaller 0-4-0 shunting engines!

 

so largely theres a prototype for everything whether you are a modeller or preserved railway!

 

The idea about 'own livery/railway' for the austerities etc is quite interesting - US and narrow guage modellers do it - if its good enough for them etc.....

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

agree that looks really nice,

 

btw Invicta, I like your avatar, looks like Robb Gravetts 1990 rs500?

 

Mike

Yes, Gravett at Brands in 1990

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2440/4093179724_32c0589885_o.jpg

I'm very fond of Austerity tanks. They sound terrific when hard at work, have kept a number of preserved lines going when no other steam locomotives were available ('Antwerp' on the NYMR in the early 80s being a case in point), and are especially admirable given that they were originally designed to last for about five minutes. It's just a shame that so many have been disguised as J94s, which fools nobody and seems almost disrespectful.

I agree with you about disguising them as ex-BR J94s- I've never been a great fan of dressing industrial locos up in fictitious mainline liveries, I'd much rather see them honestly displayed as what they are. My family history is very heavily involved with coal mining, so I'm quite partial to an NCB-liveried Austerity- Even though they're not particularly relevant to my main modelling activity, I still seem to have collected most of the NCB ones Hornby have released...

Anyway, doesn't this look so much better than BR unlined black...

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2560/3874927102_1359e9a8ac.jpg

http://www.nemodelling.me.uk/NCB%2049-2.JPG