Invicta

Never had an L1, but the Jinty and Princess were the first two I ever owned, and still have tucked away in a drawer, even though they've probably not been run in 30 years

I suspect this year was never going to see a 'balanced' range, and with the anniversary we were always going to get a lot of 'glamour' items like Rocket, 'Hush-Hush', APT etc. at the expense of more 'bread and butter' new releases. This year is maybe more about hitting the collectors market with some fairly big-ticket showstoppers, some of which probably won't be reappearing in the range for a while, and more normal service will be resumed for the 2021 catalogue.

That one surprised me as well- the two items I'd have expected to be a complete no-brainer given their history in the Hornby and Triang ranges were a Princess Elizabeth and a BR lined-black Jinty as 47606.

Definitely- I reckon this is a particularly smart bit of work by Hornby- I'd be frankly amazed if we don't see the Coronation Scot releases followed up with the more 'workaday' LMS & BR livery variations for the same basic vehicles in next years catalogue and beyond. Even if you don't particularly want or need a 9-car named WCML express in a fancy livery, this is a useful boost to Hornby's core LMS/LMR coach range

Certainly an ambitious announcement- Highlight for me has to be the Coronation Scot coaches- it's quite a step from putting Coronation Scot livery on the old 70's toy 'Stanier' composite and brake to offering a full 9-car 1937 set. Standard 78xxx has been an open goal for someone for years, and it's nice to see one of the gaps in the BR Standard lineup filled at last. I really don't need a Stephenson's Rocket,- I've had the late 70's re-release of the old Triang one stashed away since I was a kid, and hardly ever ran it, but the new release (is this a full re-tool, rather than just blowing the dust off the old one?) looks mighty tempting.

Airfix did a 31, and Mainline a Peak, Warship and 03- I don't recall whether they planned anything else

IIRC (and I don't remember where I read this) Airfix had originally planned to do a fairly balanced range with an express passenger loco, freight loco and a large and small tank engine for each of the 'big four' - Looking at that list of planned releases in addition to what they actually did put out, there seems to be some sign of that logic, although they clearly planned to go a lot further than that- Looking at that list of Airfix's planned releases through LMR glasses, then Compound, Crab, Black 5 and 8F in addition to the Scot and 4F they did release, gives a pretty useful cross-section of LMS standards- (no tank loco though) Was the 2P planned by Airfix as well as the Compound?- looking at the tender-drive one that eventually surfaced in the Mainline range, and passed via Dapol to Hornby, it always struck me as having a very 'Airfix' feel to it's design and construction

Although, it's notable that very often, although the web gives the immediacy of a question being answered within a few minutes, the answer can still turn out to be 'it's in this book or magazine article' The other thing I find is that information on the web is still not always permanent. A case in point- I was recently looking for a bit of early-70's motor racing trivia and so far can only find an incomplete version of the information I'm looking for- frustratingly, I know exactly where I found it previously, in a thread on a motorsport forum, but sadly the scan someone posted of the original document seems to be no longer online, and the transcribed versions I can find elsewhere are less-than-complete I certainly buy less mags these days, and reduced my archive during a house move a few years back, but at the moment I'm still buying the 4 main UK railway modelling titles every month, and still prefer them in paper rather than electronic form

Picked an LMS grey version up from Signal Box at Anstey yesterday and agree with you about the plastic handrails which for me are one of the weaker elements of the model- the material used is OK for the shorter handrails, but less so for the long lower rail on the bodyside- On mine, one side is fairly nice and straight, the other has a distinct bow upwards. Apart from that (and maybe the moulded veranda safety rails which aren't a massive step forward from the old ex-Airfix tooling), it'll do for me- a nice job and I'm sure I'll be adding some more to my wagon fleet.

That is a lovely thing- I lived in Whitstable for a number of years and walked parts of the C&W route many times- it always struck me as being very modellable. For anyone looking for a good history of the line, I'd recommend Brian Hart's book published by Wild Swan in the early 90's

Pretty sure the MAJ ones were L&Y- as Dunsignalling said, two or three variations of van, on both 10' 6" and 12' wheelbase underframes, plus various 12' wb opens- Loco Coal, 5-plank, 1-plank etc. featuring quite a bit of common tooling. I think they were available briefly in ABS guise (IIRC I've still got a spare underframe kit somewhere in ABS rather than MAJ packaging) but IIRC the last time I recall seeing them available is Mainly Trains still having some in stock at the end of the 90's/ very early 2000s, until I picked up a secondhand MAJ-packaged 12' wb van at the GCR show back in the summer.

I'd be very surprised not to see some kind of follow-up to the successful release of the Rails 3D printed SECR van, particularly as they have some loco releases which are just crying out for some suitable stock to pull- LBSC coaches for the Terrier, and further on in time some nice Caledonian wagons and/or a brake van to go with the '812' etc... From vague memory, somewhere back in the mists of RMWeb have I read that the Dapol/Airfix Lowmac kit is something like a BR build of an LNER wagon which was an update of a GER design?

Just to continue the zoological thread drift, were Giraffes, stuffed, mounted and wrapped in canvas really regular enough traffic on the Great Eastern to justify a standard diagram and instruction for loading them- and, if that's diagram no.5, what delights did nos. 1-4 cover? ...and am I the only person who's looked at that drawing and found themselves pondering the type of wagon, whether there's a kit available and the idea of including that in a mixed freight on their layout?

I almost missed it- I didn't see it until I was on my way out. As several people have commented, a really nice imaginative bit of modelling I went on Saturday, and had a pretty good day- I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with Warley, I've been to the last four, and I reckon every year since my first I find myself thinking I might not bother this year because of the general hassle factor that comes with the NEC- expensive parking and catering, crowds and queues - and so far, every year I end up going. Got a bit fed up with the crowds at one point, but overall enjoyed it and saw some good layouts (Norwich, and Blackfriars Bridge impressed in particular) Didn't spend a fortune, but was particularly pleased to find some some discontinued wagon kits I wanted- I'd been looking for a Colin Ashby Midland sleeper wagon for a very long time- and picked three of them up on Saturday!

I do like those- I saw the BR version at Warley on Saturday and was impressed. It's the LMS version I'm waiting for, but that Midland one is very pretty, and I can see myself buying a pair and invoking Rule 1...

There's a piece on the Fell on a Paxman history website, which includes some recollection by John Cove, a senior Paxman exec who earlier in his career had been briefly involved with the Fell- this is his description of how it sounded: Finally there was the problem of the AEC auxiliary engines and the Rootes blowers they drove to supercharge the main engines. In the station, with maximum boost required for starting the train from rest the noise from these was hideous, especially as it was added to the noise caused by the radiator fans and six engines also running. At that time a number of competitors were running various other prototypes on British Rail and when the Fell locomotive passed them their service engineers always made a point of ostentatiously blocking their ears! After watching the YouTube clip slilley posted (I think that's the first time I've ever seen film of it actually moving!), I don't think John Cove's description is too wide of the mark!

It's out and about fairly regularly, I've seen it at one or two exhibitions where the W&L have a presence- IIRC didn't they acquire it after it was pretty much rescued from imminent demise in a skip?

From very vague memory, have I read somewhere (Cox?) that Bertha was actually trialled on the Midland Main Line coal workings at some point? -or am I invoking 'Rule 1' excessively, based on the S&DJR 2-8-0s being trialled on the Midland at one stage of the thought process that eventually led to the LMS Garratts?

The thought occurs that for the number of vehicles involved, the LMS response to the Palethorpes traffic of providing no less than four different designs of van, all of them in penny-packet numbers, could be seen as being a touch extravagant- Presumably there was a good reason for this?

I don't think we're talking about large numbers - Other than the early passenger-rated vans with Palethorpes signage that Nearholmer mentioned, the purpose-built LMS 'Palethorpes' fleet was no more than a dozen vehicles. They did come in no less than four different designs- 4 of the 6-wheelers, as modelled by Hornby, a pair of smaller 4-wheel vans, and a pair of 50' bogie vans, all of similar styling, plus 4 (I think) of a distinctive 50' bogie corridor van which had coach windows and double doors on the corridor side, and just double doors on the other. The GWR also had a number of 6-wheelers (no idea how many) similar to the LMS version- John Isherwood did a thread on modelling the various Palethorpes vans a couple of years back

Looks like one of the wagons from a 1970's Hornby clockwork set? I remember my younger brother having one of these

It looks like it's the old Airfix/Dapol Conflat tooling, with the chassis doctored to mount the pickups

Haven't tried it with mine yet, but seems to be just a case of unplugging the power lead from the buffer beam and pulling out the rigid drawbar from the NEM socket to replace with a conventional coupling- it comes with a bag containing a pair of tension-locks for the loco, a spare for the wagon (which has the old Airfix/Dapol-style of clip rather than a NEM pocket) and a blanking plate for the loco buffer beam. It's a lovely little thing- I'm very impressed!

I've been waiting for this one since the Sherwood and Blue Circle versions arrived- Picked mine up from Signal Box at Anstey this afternoon, along with a Ruston- very impressed by both

As I recall, the Coalville shop (corner of Breach and Forest Road) would have opened around the end of the 70's/beginning of the 80's ('79/80 comes to mind?) For a 12/13-year-old modeller it was everything I could wish for- a model railway shop that I passed twice a day on my walk to school! Pretty much all of my teenage loco and stock purchases came from there, supplemented by occasional Hornby from Geoff's Toys in Coalville (now gone as well, Coalville and Loughborough shops both closed a couple of years ago) I'm fairly sure Signal Box in Coalville was still going when I moved away (I went off to Uni in 85, came back briefly after graduation then moved away in '89) but closed sometime in the early/mid 90's from memory? I don't think I ever visited the Oadby shop, but now use the Anstey one fairly regularly since I moved back to Leics a few years ago- I've had quite a few secondhand loco bargains from them.