Invicta

One of the escorting destroyers on both PQ17 and Pedestal was HMS Ledbury, skippered by Lt-Cdr Roger Hill DSO, DSC. Hill, a man once described by a colleague as 'a natural rebel, in another age he would have made an excellent, if humane. pirate' was haunted by the outcome of PQ17, and before sailing on Pedestal, his briefing to his crew was simple "You remember what happened on PQ17. This time, as long as there's a merchant ship afloat, we'll stay alongside it and to hell with any signal we get from anybody" He was as good as his word- when the SS Waimarama, carrying fuel in drums as deck cargo, was sunk by a direct bomb hit, spilling burning oil into the sea, Hill steered Ledbury into the heart of the flames to pick up survivors, and along with HMS Penn and HMS Bramham, Ledbury was one of the three destroyers that shepherded the Ohio into Valetta harbour. Returning from Naval to railway matters, tunnel-blocking/tank traps weren't the only wartime re-purposing of mineral wagons. In order to compensate for a shortage of double bolster wagons, a quantity of mineral wagons were converted into improvised bolster wagons by the simple expedient of removing one end, coupling them in pairs with the now-open ends facing, and adding some internal timbers to strengthen them and support a bolster. According to the Bob Essery LMS Wagons books, the LMS take on this was Diagram 2050, and apparently about 2000 pairs were converted, with the LMS, LNER, GWR and SR all chipping in with varying quantities. Some were later re-converted, but about 1000 were still in traffic after 1945. There is a drawing in the book (Vol 1, p.119). but it states no photos are known. I did see one modelled on a 7mm layout at a show last year, and from very vague memory, there was an article on them in the Modeller back in the early 70's- I recall coming across it in a pile of old mags at my former club some years back. Does anyone know any more about these?- or does the vaguely-remembered RM article ring any bells? It's been on my 'I must model that sometime' list for several years!

The whole 'Sealion' scenario was wargamed at Sandhurst in the 70's by a group of military historians and senior officers from both sides, and I think the outcome was that the Germans would have successfully achieved a beach-head in Kent and Sussex, but the Royal Navy then arrive in the Channel just in time to slaughter the second wave of the landing , leaving the advancing German forces short of heavy weapons, ammunition and fuel and unable to resupply, forcing them to evacuate or surrender after about a week.

With Rails having the CR '812' commission in the pipeline from Bachmann, then one pretty obvious open goal would be something Caledonian to tie in with that- I have to admit my knowledge of Scottish freight stock is pretty much non-existent, but a CR brake van might be a useful thing to have. As for the SECR van, having missed out on the original batch, I'm just pleased I managed to get an order in this time!

The underframes were definitely available separately- From memory, didn't the MAJ range end up with Adrian Swain? I'm sure I remember ordering a couple of the underframe kits from Mainly Trains about 20 years ago and they came in ABS rather than MAJ-branded packaging. That doesn't make them any more currently available (IIRC did some of the tooling go missing?), but it might be an alternative search term if you're scouring EBay

The L&Y had some fairly ungainly big tank locos as well- You'd never describe the Class 32 0-8-2T or Class 26 2-6-2T as being pretty.... On the diesel front, I'm surprised there's been no mention of Lt-Col. Fell's efforts...

Having managed to miss out on one so far, I'd definitely be tempted by a further batch- then I just need to get my act together and actually order one before they sell out!

That does look nice- I'd really been trying to focus my interests more on the pre-48 period, but I'll definitely be finding a home for one of these

I'm not familiar with the prototype, but out of pure curiosity, how have the achieved the compression of the livery- have they changed the proportions of the actual graphics to fit the full 18-car layout onto 6 cars. or have they just left a few cars out? As you say, it's not one for the serious modeller- it's an interpretation of a very short-lived advertising scheme (3 months if I read the Hornby website correctly?), aimed at the trainset market, tourists and collectors of Beatles memorabilia- and if it sells, there's nothing wrong in that

also done RTR from Bachmann a few years ago, including the variety of the MR design (I forget the diagram number without looking it up) with duckets

Yes, looking at the drawing you posted, I was wondering if a bit of Slaters butchery might achieve something a bit more convincing than just using a bog-standard 3 or 5 plank. Certainly my first thought of repurposing a Slaters Midland D305 or one of my collection of assorted Mainline/Dapol/Parkside/Ratio LMS D1927 3-planks isn't really going to cut the mustard

I'd really been hoping for an LMS van of some kind, but I've got plenty of kits to go at, so no complaints from me- If they do a decent job, I'll be in the market for a couple of these- you really can't have enough pre-grouping wagons...

Invacar and scooters (although some rider figures- in parkas naturally, -would have been nice for the scooters!) will be useful, but if you want modern-era cars, it's very heavy on modern Jags and Land Rovers and other upmarket stuff.

As you say, an LMS van would be pretty much an open goal in RTR form with both the Dapol and Bachmann offerings being dated, and nothing of London Midland origin so far in Oxford's catalogue. As for the 2F, after I managed to spend quite a lot on a couple of the OO Works examples last year, I've been anticipating that someone is bound to bring one out this year!

Several were sold out of service to industrial users, IIRC as early as the 1930's, but pretty sure none for army/WD use- Apparently one of those sold off to industry was requisitioned by the Ministry of Supply in 1940 for use at an Ordnance depot, but that is about as close as you'll get to a military Pug .If it's of interest, there was an article on L&Y Pugs in Steam Days mag in 2004 which listed those sold off to industry- I posted the list in a thread about Pugs a few years back: https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/21740-ly-pugs/

At risk of dragging the thread further into 'Hattons packaging and the history of Airfix & Mainline', I see what you mean- I had a look through my box of LMS coaches last night and compared the Replica TO I picked up secondhand last year with examples of Airfix Stanier and Mainline P1- As you say that underframe is 100% pure Mainline, and although it features Airfix-style soft plastic corridor connections and separately-fitted shell vents, the construction, with a one-piece bodyshell moulding, and recessed glazing rather than Airfix's moulded glazing strips that attempt but don't quite achieve flush glazing, it's much more Palitoy in style.

As you say, it really was complicated- especially when you bear in mind that some of the ex-Airfix, ex-Dapol stuff has ended up in Margate, and that's before you go into the travel of the ex-Mainline tooling to the Bachmann range via Replica and the odd court case... The Airfix catalogue images are 1980, and can be found here: http://www.airfixrailways.co.uk/ARScoachInd.htm

The complication starts with the demise of Airfix, and the sale of the range to Palitoy who incorporated part of it into the Mainline range, before General Mills pulled the plug on their involvement in the toy market a few years later, at which point the Airfix tooling and Mainline stock (but not the tooling) went to Dapol.

As Southport says, the Dapol Staniers (and the 'Inter-District' non-corridors) originated in the Airfix range, as did the 12-wheel dining car, although I don't think it ever materialised in Airfix guise- Despite being in the Airfix catalogue for a couple of years, it didn't eventually reach the shops until the range had passed (via Palitoy) to Dapol. The P1 brake and composite, plus the 50' full brake, all originated with Mainline, and went on to the Bachmann range. Thinking back it's quite impressive that the two manufacturers managed to avoid duplicating the same LMS coach designs, even if we did get the inevitable combination of Composite and Brake 3rd for each. Throw in Lima's GUV, and the LMS modeller wasn't all that badly served for RTR coaching stock back then. On top of that, Replica Railways went on to offer the Stanier open 3rd- Was that another product that had it's origins at either Airfix/Mainline but never reached the market under their branding? OK, they're not to modern standards, but compared with Hornby's 'toy' Staniers of the period (IIRC, a 60' composite compressed onto a standard 57' chassis with BR Mk1 bogies!), they were a massive step forward. (catalogue image from airfixrailways.co.uk)

Agreed- although Hornby could take the easy way out and just offer postwar LMS, and BR-liveried versions of the ex-Coronation Scot coaches in future years, bearing in mind that the '37 Scot coaches were adaptations of stock originally introduced around 1933/4, it seems too much of an open goal not to tool these in a way that they can be produced without the pressure ventilation ducting on the roof, and add them to their range of general service LMS coaches in future years.

Yes, these are the 1937 blue Coronation Scot set. The red and gold ones are the 1939 sets, (which toured America, but IIRC never saw service in the UK before the war intervened)- they'd probably be a more complex proposition for Hornby as the coach designs were unique to the Coronation Scot, and consisted largely of articulated pairs

A very welcome arrival for me- I'd been focussing more on pre-nationalisation these days and already have a Bachmann Ivatt, but this one will be too much to resist- not only because I've done a fair bit of mileage behind the GCR's pair, but also it's pretty much an essential for a long-held ambition to model a bit of the Leicester West Bridge branch, where 78013 & 78028 (with slightly cut-down cabs to fit through Glenfield Tunnel) replaced the veteran Midland 2Fs for the last couple of years before closure

IRRC someone has posted/linked to pics of it either back in this thread or in the new Hornby APT thread

...although I guess that might depend on exactly what Hornby's definition of 'looking at' amounts to- It could just mean it was discussed in few meetings and one of Hornby's researchers had done a bit of work and downloaded a few 91 pics from the net- On the other hand, it could mean that considerable staff time and money had already been invested, drawings sourced, CAD work was in progress etc, and Hornby were at a point where the decision was a question of 'do we stop now and accept we've wasted a chunk of time and money, or do we push on and hope to get our model out first?'. I've got a couple of layout ideas I've been 'looking at'- One of them I've done a fair bit of research over a period of years, but at very little cost (I've bought quite a few books, but they're all titles I'd have bought anyway), and done very little in practical terms beyond drawing out a trackplan based on the actual location -it's a long-term aim towards building something I could maybe exhibit. The other, I've done far less research and planning for so far during the last 6 months or so, but have already spent a couple of hundred quid at least on kits and bits towards it. For me, if I had to make a choice, it would be a lot easier to give up on the first than the second.

I hope I'm right, but it would seem pretty short-sighted for Hornby to tool these up without building in the ability to produce the 'standard' versions without the pressure ventilation fairings in the future- The Coronation Scot set is the star of this year's announcements for me, but the prospect of 'non-Coronation Scot' versions in future is every bit as appealing.

..or are they trying to capture a different market- collectors who want every single livery variation ever seen on a 56? It's certainly a brave one, and I wouldn't be surprised to see it in the bargain bins in months to come. Equally, I won't be that surprised to see them popping up fairly regularly on UK TMD layouts under 'Rule 1'...