Class: Austerity 8F 2-8-0 Use: Heavy Goods Region: Various BR regions – War Department and LNER post-nationalisation & Europe and Hong Kong Era: 1943-1967 Preserved examples: 90733 Remembrance (ex-Swedish locomotive) Manufacturer: Bachmann Motor: 3 pole Loco-drive Power: Heavyweight DCC options: none on previous versions, 21 pin dcc ready versions announced 2012 Reviewed Model – Bachmann 32-250 400 Sir Guy Williams (click here to…
A trip to see family allowed for a quick whistle-stop visit at the Kent and East Sussex Railway. I grew up with this railway on my doorstep and it was great to go back and see how the line is doing. Self-branded as “England’s finest rural light railway”, the K&ESR is a delightful railway running…
Todays post is a reflection on the names given by Southern Railways to their top-link express locomotives. As the names are so evocative and well-thought out, I wanted to discuss some of the reasons why they work so well. I’ve illustrated the piece with locoyard fleet locomotives; both past and present. King Arthur Class Although…
Just a very quick post to mark the 100th Anniversary of Titanic’s departure. I set-up an LSWR T9/M7 double-header, pulling a 12 wheel Pullman carriage and Maunsell brake Van C. The LSWR was very much a part of the Titanic story. To read more please go to David Turner’s excellent Turniprail blog, it really makes…
Todays post is a piece my favourite model (in terms of looks) in my collection. Making a decent model of such an elegant prototype was always going to equal a nice model, but the lengths that Hornby went to, to made this look absolutely fantastic are incredible. It’s difficult to know where to start in…
Just a quick post to say congratulations to Kernow Model Rail Centre and Dapol in winning the coveted 00 scale Model of the Year Award for their Beattie Well-Tank. The award is thoroughly deserved and goes to show that even quirky and less-mainstream prototypes can be made into excellent models these days.
By now I’m sure that most of the readers of this blog are well aware of Bachmann’s 2012/13 new models. The announcements can be found on Bachmann’s website. Graham Muz has detailed the southern items expertly. Looking at the forthcoming Hornby/Bachmann/Dapol (Kernow Model Centre) there are some items of interest for the 00 scale Southern…
Apologies to regular readers for the delay of this post, it has been a busy week and as a result have had very little train time. But fortunately the weekend is here now! Gradually moving away from my western theme and back to Southern, one of my DCC fitted terriers took charge of the GWR Clerestory…
For today, my only two DCC fitted Great Western locomotives “visited” the layout. Usually confined to the display cabinet, I give them a rare (ish) run to keep their motors healthy. Also visiting the layout were my two GWR Clerestory carriages. Although my layout and model collection has a strong Southern focus, I’m often tempted…
Carrying on from yesterday’s post, the M7 was switched for a terrier. Certainly one of my favourite classes of locomotive, my childhood visits to the Kent and East Sussex Railway and occasional special visits to the Bluebell Railway meant I’ve seen many terriers! This 00 scale model was manufactured by Dapol, before the tooling was sold to…
Loco Yard 