Invicta

Just checked mine (SR brown from the second run) and so far no sign of cracking. I remember the similar problem that Corgi had. As I recall, it was more widespread than just buses- I was a fairly serious diecast car collector from the early 90's to the early 2000's, and have several Corgis from that period with cracked white paint on the roof.

Given the total obscurity of the prototype, Ratio must have sold a fair few over the years, bearing in mind how long it's been in their catalogue. I built my first one in my teens, nearly 40 years ago, and I'm sure I'm not the only modeller to end up with multiples of them- I think I've got either 6 or 8, in states ranging from 'unbuilt kit still in the box', through 'unfinished project' to 'running', including a particularly implausible 1936-style LMS bauxite-liveried version

I had a brief flirtation with N gauge in the early 80's, after my younger brother got a Farish N gauge set as a birthday present, and remember having one of the Sulphate wagons, but don't think we ever had the NER van. Certainly a quirky couple of choices by RTR standards of the time - even in the present-day world, with the trade releasing things the 80's modeller would never have dreamed of seeing in RTR, an announcement of the NER bogie van might be seen as a bit left-field. I'm tempted to wonder if someone in the GF design team of the period was a bit of an LNER wagon enthusiast!

Yes, it was converted to be a restaurant and farmers' market , Ithink in the early 2000's

There certainly doesn't seem to be much in that lineup that dates much after the mid-60's- BMC 1100/1300, Mk1 & Mk2 Cortinas (Mk2 introduced late '66), BMC 1100/1300 estate?, Renault Dauphine, couple of Ford Anglias...

I was just thinking of those as well- about a dozen ROD 2-8-0s sold to Australian mining company J&A Brown in the 1920's? I can't think of anything bigger sold from UK main line* to industrial use (*Is one an actual ex-GCR example?, and were any of them amongst the batches leased to various UK main line railways immediately post-WW1?)

One location where 4/6 wheelers just scraped into the 30's on the mainland was the Canterbury & Whitstable line, owing to the tight confines of Tyler Hill tunnel. According to Brian Hart's book on the line "Shortly before the grouping, the SE&CR had managed to find sixteen LC&DR-pattern four-wheelers, most of which had been built at Longhedge around 1901...On entering service they were finished in SR green with yellow lining and company lettering. However the livery didn't stay bright for very long since the filthy environs of Tyler Hill tunnel soon dulled and dirtied the smart exteriors" and these would have remained on the line until the end of passenger services on 1st January 1931 Apparently they were modified with smaller wheels, reduced roof overhangs and removal of duckets on brake coaches to cope with the tunnel, and replaced a number of ex-SER coaches, described as being "of a type which had generally disappeared around 1907"

There's a piece on S-E Tar Distillers in the John Arkell "Private Owner Wagons of the South-East" book, which is illustrated with pics of two rectangular tanks, and one of a cylindrical tank, photographed at Tonbeidge and Tunbridge Wells West in the 1950's. The livery on Dapol's wagon appears to be a fair match for one of the photos, other than a slight lettering variation (the use of 'Ltd' and 'Ld' as an abbreviation for 'Limited'), which is similar to another wagon partially shown in the same pic.

That's handy- I'd not planned this one very well and hadn't pre-ordered, but managed to pick up 6 (I'm probably not going to be able to make sensible use of a full 9-car set on the layout I'm currently building, so was aiming at one of each coach type) from Signal Box in Anstey last week, but was still short of an RFO- now have one winging it's way to me from Hattons. Initial impression of the ones I have is very positive- Haven't run them yet on my test track, but seem to have similar experience to others that one or two axles aren't very free-running, but we'll see when I get to actually run them.

Yes, the site has now been reopened after the museum building site was demolished and cleared, as a combination of country park and playground, with a heritage trail around the colliery buildings, plus the Century Theatre and a new cafe- the signal box is still there (you can see it in the background of the photo in the article linked below), although I did notice in recent photos I've seen, that the locking room windows have been boarded over, presumably as a precaution now that access to the site is much more open. Snibston Colliery Park opens following £3m regeneration scheme - News - North West Leicestershire District Council (nwleics.gov.uk) When I get a chance, I plan to wander over and take some new photos- I also should have, buried somewhere in a box of old photo albums in the loft, a set of photos showing the box being removed from Coalville Crossing to Snibston in the late 80's, which I'll post if I ever find them.

Coalville Crossing, preserved on a relocated site at Snibston Discovery Park, 12/09/2009. The height allowed sightline over the adjacent station footbridge on it's original site.

I'm pretty sure "Cockburn & Foster" is Superquick- I think mine is long gone (unless it's lurking in a box in the loft) but I'm sure I remember having it as part of the street scene on one of my early teenage layouts- (this would have been early 80's). Is it an earlier incarnation of the " Country Town Shops" kit in the current range? as I recall, it came as a pair.- the rest of my street consisted of another shop, the Elizabethan cottages (looking at the Superquick website, another kit that's changed over the years?), "Swan Inn", and an Airfix detached bungalow.

The same photo of No.4 appears in the Keith Montague OPC "PO Wagons from the Gloucester Railway Carriage & Wagon Co." book (plate 190)

My SR-liveried one arrived a couple of days ago, and I'm impressed, it's a nice piece of work. Yes, the print lines are visible at close-up distance, but not so much at normal layout viewing distance, it's got a decent weight to it compared to normal RTR wagons, and seems to run pretty freely. I'm looking forward to seeing what else Rails might have in the pipeline I raided my stock boxes for a couple of other vans as a comparison- it's quite a dinky little thing compared to later period vans (Bachmann LNER, and Dapol LMS as a comparison- both in commissioned liveries that would probably look more prototypical on something like the SECR van!), and definitely adds something different to a goods train

Another abandoned level crossing- Belvoir Road Coalville, on the NCB branch to Snibston Colliery which hasn't seen a train in about 35 years. The line to the left was used as part of the Snibston Discovery museum until that closed about 5 years ago (the rails terminated at a platform built a short distance beyond the crossing) and has recently been lifted to convert that stretch into a footpath. The little lean-to building on the end of the shops on the left was the crossing-keeper's hut. The line to the right has been used as a footpath for years, but has recently been upgraded, with the crossing gates now fixed in an open position. https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@52.7242949,-1.3743912,3a,75y,9.21h,67.01t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sWZ3GMWXGrAtR-YXy8GKuBQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656 Both level crossings on the branch survive- this is the other one, on the service roads of the public car park- the line to the right (between the hedges) leads to the first crossing. https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@52.7234217,-1.3712533,3a,75y,242.48h,74.63t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1ss1S1-EUh5kW9yXJdmlvVTw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

There's still a remnant of the 3'6" gauge Burton & Ashby Light Railway tram track in the car park of the former Ashby-de-la-Zouch railway station- the tramway closed in 1927 https://goo.gl/maps/EthvxY7B7x7LSFh99

IIRC there was an article in one of the mags in the early 2000s (Model Rail I think) on detailing the Hornby toy version, although as I recall the work involved in the RMWeb thread, to produce an accurate model, rather than one dimensionally tweaked to fit the Hornby 0-4-0 chassis, was a lot more involved. I think it was a L/E of 5000, and came out fairly late in the year- I've still got mine, bought as a Christmas present when I was 14, from the model shop in Charles Street, Leicester (Apex Craft or something like that?) From memory, Hornby did the "Lord of the Isles" pack, a Stephenson's Rocket pack and the (catlalogued) LMS red Caley single as mentioned a few posts back in consecutive years, 1981-83. My teenage powers of persuasion must have been pretty strong, as I somehow managed to persuade my parents (they were always pretty enlightened about railway purchases!) to stump up for all 3 over consecutive Christmases, even though they were fairly pricey at the time- £75 or thereabouts comes to mind for the LOTI pack

Just had a delve through my unbuilt kits and if it's helpful for anyone wanting to detail the old Triang van and add the roof doors, the instructions for the David Geen Dia. 3 kit gives the following dimensions for them: "Roof sweeps at 8' apart, end 6" past centre of roof. Roof door canvas 6' wide, slats under are 5'2" long, fastened by bar through canvas loops and pinned to sides. Bar 2"x1/2" x 5'8" sewn into canvas is trapped down by locking bar" Both the David Geen kit and the old MAJ Diagram 62 instructions suggest using microstrip for the battens and either tissue paper, fine cotton fabric or thin plasticard for the actual door canvas, similar to the method Stephen outlined a few posts back.

I was just thinking the same thing- I've probably not bought more than a handful of Dapol wagons in the last 10 years, and most of my stock has been boxed up for several years following a house move and sorting out the garage ready to build a new layout, but I've got quite a lot of older Dapol wagons from the same 2000-2010 period you mention, and back when they were being run fairly regularly, I don't recall them being unusually prone to derailment- Sounds like there's been a decline in quality, so what's changed?

I don't know about the Hornby releases as I've never owned them, but Bachmann's 49395 (and presumably the Crab?) was certainly described as a 'National Collection' model and had a small 'NRM Heritage Range' logo on the box end- I'm trying to recall the timescale of the release, did it pre-date the NRM prototype Deltic and subsequent NRM exclusives?

From vague memory back in the 90's or thereabouts, one of the European diecast manufacturers released what was advertised as a generic 'Modern F1 car',- the model in the box was very obviously an actual car from a recent season, either McLaren or Ferrari IIRC, right down to the livery . They'd had to describe it as a 'generic' model because for wahtever reason they'd not been able to get a licence for the branding and name.

I've got the David Geen Diagram 3 kit in my box of unbuilt kits, and thought I recalled mention in the instructions of the roof doors being removed in later life- I could well be thinking of the larger vans though, as I've also got one of the old MAJ kits for the bigger (Diagram 62 or something like that?) vans in the same box

IIRC, depending on the period you're modelling, you might be able to get away without the roof door- I think they were often removed in later LMS ownership?

When I'm not working from home, I work from an office backing onto the line in Coalville- we usually get a train of stone hoppers, bound for Bardon quarry, come through from the Ashby direction a couple of times a week. I think it usually passes through Coalville between 1-2pm?

Oddly enough, I'm just browsing through my latest book purchase, "The Melbourne Military Railway and the Derby to Ashby branch. Part 2" (Mike Christensen) and a pair of Jubilees, Nos. 614 and the aforementioned 618, spent part of the Second World War in Derbyshire, having been amongst four hired by the WD in April/May 1942- the others being 625 and 638. 618 was apparently first sent to Longmoor, then transferred to Melbourne at the end of '42. They appear to have left Melbourne by the autumn of 1943, as they're not included in a list of locos noted on the line by a visitor in October '43.