Blast from the past...

Last weekend I visited my parents.  They are a handy place to stay for a weekend at the Warley Show and it's good to catch up with how they are getting on.

As I was leaving, my father thrust a couple of boxes of railway stuff in hands, with words that he was clearing clutter out of the loft :-)

Much of it is pretty ancient Tri-ang and Hornby, and will be heading straight to Ebay as a job lot just as soon as I've photographed it and typed up the listing.  However two items caught my eye, and I'll be hanging on to:

On the left is the very first whitemetal kit that I built.  I think that I was about ten or eleven years old at the time, and had received it for Christmas from my cousin Robert Chester-Lamb, who was (and still is) running Bearwood Models.  In those days he actually had a physical shop in Bearwood, which was quite distinctive as it had a full-size GWR signal outside the shop on the pavement!  Sadly I can't find a picture of it online :-(

I recall that the wagon was an ABS kit.  It was a standard GWR five-plank wagon.  I clearly had pre-Grouping pretensions then, as I lettered it using the 1900s style of livery.  Actually, I recall that the livery was chosen because it was not hidden by the tarpaulin.  And the reason for the tarpaulin?  This being the first whitemetal kit that I'd ever put together, I had put the soldering iron bit straight through the side of the wagon whilst soldering the corners together, and needed something to hide the hole!

I clearly had as much grasp of engineering principles then as I do now, as the (supplied) pinpoint axles were running in the holes in the backs of the axleboxes, with no brass bearings.  It's a good job that it was in OO, as the axles won't stay square for long!

The wagon on the right is a Mainline hopper wagon.  I remember what a step forward these models (and Airfix/GMR) were in detail compared to the rest of the Hornby models that I had on my layout.  So what do you do with the best wagon that you own?  You weather it, of course...

Actually considering that I had no idea, apart from the fact that it must be rusty, it's not too bad with splodges of Humbrol "Rust" splodged on and worked in.

I'm not getting rid of either of these models.  They're going to be safely tucked away in a box.   I don't think that they will find a place running in P4 in a GER setting in 1911, but some things you just don't want to see go... 

Cheers
Flymo