Invicta

RTR availability had an influence on my choice, in that my first two locos as a kid were a Tri-ang Jinty and Princess, and although I've had a pretty eclectic collection of locos and stock over the years, it's always had a distinctly LMS/LMR flavour overall. I guess growing up in very much Midland/LMS territory (although I'm too young to remember steam), was the other big factor which puts the LMS top of my list. I can see fairly obvious influences for 2nd and 3rd on the list as well- I put LNER second - I lived in Newcastle for a few years as a student, and much of my preserved steam mileage over the years has been on the Great Central - and Southern third- I spent a good portion of my life living and working in East Kent, before moving back to NW Leics about 10 years ago. GWR comes last simply because I've simply never really had much contact with it. I've only ever owned a couple of model GWR locos, and apart from GW locos on heritage lines, most of my recent contact with things Western has been while holidaying in North Wales, but I suspect that influence would be more likely to steer me towards modelling narrow-gauge than the GWR!

Had the notification for the LMS 4-pack and full brake today as well. Saw them at Warley on Saturday, so looking forward to receiving them, a nice pre-Christmas surprise.

I wouldn't say no to either, or both, of those in OO as well

Maybe that's the surprise to come- when you order it, you get an invite to the Coronation and your loco will be waiting for collection from your reserved seat in Westminster Abbey... OK, I'm probably being a bit ambitious , there'll probably be a voucher in the box for a discount on Hornby's yet-to-be announced extensive range of Coronation tat. Now if they'd announced a set of 1950's-era Royal Train coaches as well, I might be a bit more excited about this one!

That LMS driving trailer is the other obvious open goal here- as you suggest, there's no shortage of LMS/LMR motive power available RTR to pull (or push) one, but still no driving trailer.

I don't remember them at the indoor market, and never visited the Oadby shop- the other one was Coalville, rather than Ibstock, and I was a regular from the day it opened (1979/80-ish?). I'm trying to think when the Coalville shop closed, early 90's?- I moved away to Kent in '89 and think they were still there then? I moved back to Leicestershire about 10 years ago and I'm a regular customer at Anstey.

Four variations of Shepherd Neame van, from L-R: Palitoy Mainline (GWR van), Dapol/EKMRS 2002 (BR vent van), Dapol/EKMRS 2009 (SR van), Bachmann/Erith MRS (LNER van)

Just to fill in a bit of extra detail on the two East Kent MRS Whitstable (my old club when I lived in that neck of the woods) commissions from Dapol - the 2002 release of van No.3 was the same livery as in CB Rail's prototype photo, like the 80's Mainline and later Erith MRS/Bachmann versions. The 2009 commission of van No.1 is totally different - it represents a later Sheps van of circa 1912, which lacks the circular Shepherd Neame logos. The entry in Ramsay seems to be wrong in describing it as single vent van, it's on Dapol's Southern van tooling (the uneven-planked twin-vent variety), rather than the BR single-vent van we'd used for the earlier commission of No.3. Both versions of the Shepherd Neame van livery are illustrated in John Arkell's book on Private Owner Wagons of the South-East- the 1912 version is on the cover I've got a couple of the Mainline ones, both of the EKMRS/Dapol versions and the weathered Erith/Bachmann one, but have never seen the Burnham & District version.- I'll dig them out of my stock boxes and post a pic tomorrow to show the variations on a theme

IIRC the GCR have at least a couple- I've certainly travelled in one on the Mountsorrel branch https://www.gcrailway.co.uk/2015/10/suburban-coach-arrives/

If anyone interested in this subject has access to Keith Turton's series of PO wagon books, Vol 8 contains a section on Yeovil merchant Bradford & Sons, which provides an interesting snapshot of coal traffic for the South West- Bradford had depots in Somerset, Dorset and Devon including Yeovil, Axminster, Lyme Regis, Colyton, Bridport, Exeter, Poole, Bournemouth, Seaton, Dorchester and Weymouth amongst others. What makes Bradfords particularly interesting for this discussion is the survival (at the time of publication- 2009- it had recently been added to the HMRS archives at Swanwick) of one of their wagon ledgers, covering the period April 1927-March 1931, giving detailed information on the movements of their fleet of around 200 wagons. The book gives some extracts from these, which show Bradford wagons travelling to a remarkable variety of collieries in Leicestershire, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Yorkshire and South Wales- Turton suggests at least 40 individual collieries, owned by 25 colliery companies in eight different mining districts

There's an announcement on the Battlefield Line Facebook this morning, that after it's visit to the WSR, 419 will be spending the summer with them- should be at Shackerstone from next weekend until September.

I popped over to Shackerstone for a run behind her today - it's always good to see something a bit different from the usual fare locally.

An unusual one - The Century Theatre was built 1948-52 around 4 30-foot trailers, which link together to form a 200-seat theatre. Naturally enough at that period, the towing vehicles were ex-WD It toured 1952-74 before becoming a permanent theatre at Keswick for about 20 years, then moved to the former Snibston Discovery museum at Coalville in the 90's, where it still operates as a theatre- I saw a show there last weekend. The towing vehicles are described as ' four large ex-RAF tractors', some descriptions I've read mention Crossleys, although this photo clearly shows Matadors

Seems to be a local one for Dapol - they're saying it's from Black Park Colliery , which was apparently near Chirk and closed in 1949 - they also had a Peckett named 'Hornet', which fits with the naming theme. A bit of Googling doesn't unearth a lot other than the Black Park locos seem to have moved on to Ifton after closure. According to 'Shropshire Railways' by Geoff Cryer, 'Spider' was HL 2623 of 1905, and after Ifton closed in 1968 it seems to have ended up at Ladysmith Washery, Whitehaven, where it appears to have been scrapped in the early 70's, having probably never worked there. Can anyone shed more light on 'Spider'? Incidentally, one of Spider's shed-mates at Ifton was the Hudswell Clarke 0-6-0T 'Richboro' which stood outside the Dapol factory for a number of years when they were at Llangollen...

I know of at least one more - coal for the Firestone Tyres factory at Brentford supplied by Milner Thomas & Co of London, who had wagons painted in Firestone colours to serve the contract. I'd be surprised if there weren't other similar arrangements between some of the bigger coal merchants/factors and their large-scale industrial clients What seems to have been more a case of blatant advertising, rather than a coal supplier dedicating wagons painted in the client's livery to a specific contract, is a wagon owned by Chesterfield journalist and coal merchant Edmund Hind (Turton, vol. 13, p60-1), but carrying the name of "Eyre & Sons, House Furnishers", with his own name confined to the bottom-left corner of the wagon side. Apparently Hind had a similar wagon carrying the slogan "Let Wolf and Sons, Chesterfield be your tailors" -

According to the Keith Turton PO Wagon books (it's Vol 1, p103 if anyone wants to look up the actual photos), the "Kodak" PO coal wagons weren't owned and operated by Kodak themselves, but by London coal merchants Wallace Spiers. It seems Wallace Spiers had wagons painted in advertising liveries for some of their customers, with 'Coal Suppliers, Wallace Spiers & Co, St. Pancras Road, London' painted on the end door - they also had wagons liveried for "Crystalate Billiard Balls" in the same manner. As for the lack of PO vans in the Powsides catalogue, I've had a quick skim through several of the Turton PO wagon books, and they're equally conspicuous by their absence there. Cement, gunpowder and brewery vans aside, they definitely seem to have been rare birds.

John Arkell's book on PO Wagons of the South-East credits Sheps with half-a-dozen vans, 3 supplied by the Midland Wagon Co. in 1869, a pair from the Gloucester Wagon Co. in 1872 and one from R.Y Pickering in 1912, this last one carrying No.1, suggesting it may have been a replacement for one of the earlier vehicles. To me, that spread of van purchases seems to imply a similar pattern to the one you describe for the Burton breweries, running their own fleets in the 19th century, but getting out of the wagon-owning game in favour of using railway company vehicles in the early 20th century (John Arkell notes that Shepherd Neame joined the RCH Commuted Charge Scheme in 1926, so were presumably using rail traffic into the '20s). Certainly, the couple of other Kent brewery PO vans illustrated in the Arkell book seem to fit the idea of them being a late 19th/early 20th century thing- one for Fremlins of Maidstone dated 1878/9, and Budden & Biggs of Strood and Rochester dated 1900. I seem to remember some discussion of brewery vans in another thread on PO wagons a while back?. Flicking through the book for examples, suggests the cement and gunpowder trades as sources of PO vans, and there's the inevitable oddity, such as Henry John Gasson, "Government Contractor" of Rye, Sussex, who around 1905, had a van liveried to advertise his services in the sale or hire of square, circular and bell tents and cricket marquees.

One that comes to mind is the "Shepherd Neame" brewery van in the 1980's Palitoy Mainline catalogue - An authentic livery, albeit on a van (Mainline's GWR vent van) that bore little resemblance to the prototype, which IIRC dated back to the 1880's

As you say, part of the whole Titfield malarkey, but otherwise one of the most pointless pieces of duplication ever- still it's not often you get a choice of opportunities to buy the entire fleet of a wagon in one go....!

IIRC they were approximately based on early 1900's CR 'Grampian' express stock, but made to fit Triang's BR Mk 1 chassis and ends- I don't know a lot about Caledonian coaches, but if memory serves, one of the most obvious discrepancies is that the actual 'Grampian' coaches had 6-wheel bogies

I don't know whether they're currently available, but Oxford did a 4-plank end-door mineral wagon which IIRC was a particularly Scottish variety- they released it in both NBR and Scottish Private Owner guises

Incidentally, for those who like to know the origins of their ready-to-plonk buildings, Bachmann's low-relief bog is an absolute ringer for the derelict set on Wolsey Road in Coalville , near the entrance to the former BR Mantle Lane Depot. Not much relief there either....

It's the original shape, rather than the squarer 'Type 3' version I didn't spot that on their artwork at first, and I'm a former Maestro owner! I might be overthinking this a bit, but maybe if they can do the bumpers as a separate moulding, or as part of the base plate, they can offer both versions?

Some new announcements for Sept '21-Jan '22 on the Oxford Facebook group- New toolings are 1/76: Austin Maestro, Land Rover Discovery 1 and 2, VW Karmann Ghia, Duple Britannia coach, Volvo FL fire tender 1/148: Ford Transit Connect, VW T1 Samba, Fowler ploughing engine and living van 1/43: Land Rover Discovery 1

With Hornby having just done the Coronation Scot, then there certainly seems to be a market niche for those slightly specialist sets of coaching stock- although I do wonder if given the A4s in Hornby's range, anyone planning on doing a Silver Jubilee set might find themselves going head-on up against Hornby next year -it strikes me as almost inevitable that Margate will be at least thinking about following the LMS set with one for their LNER streamliners... On a loosely similar left-field theme. how about Royal train stock?