PhilJ W

A class 47 was at one time hitched up to Tilbury power station to provide back up whilst the power station was being upgraded.

I might have seen one from a continental manufacturer, but it looked like a smaller version of the OO one.

About 6.00 put me in mind of the Wisbeach and Upwell.

At swap meets I find that some dealers have some of the new releases and other dealers have other new releases. It seems very rare for a dealer to have all the new releases. It appears that distribution is very patchy. This might not be OD's fault it may be that they don't know exactly whats in the container until it is opened.

Here's a short video of the Oxford display at the toy fair.

The OO scale tanker (With a Scania unit) is out in Eddie Stobart livery. This is in the Atlas Editions ES series. Next due out from Atlas is the Reach Stacker. Atlas apparently are funding the tooling for a lot of the new Oxford commercials for their ES (and fire?) models.

At the Brentwood swap meet a couple of weeks ago.

I've seen the 1/148 2CV on sale.

There was also the Utilicon. That might be what it is rather than a Dormobile. If a vehicle had windows and fewer than 12 seats it was regarded as a car and attracted purchase tax. That was the situation in the 1960's. EDIT Merf just pipped me to the post.

Actually I think it is a Dormobile. Looking at the inside it appears to have forward facing upholstered seats.

Another figure in the Subutteo range is a streaker! You have a choice of male or female and it comes with two shirt sleeved policemen in hot pursuit. Actually the two policemen are quite good models in their own right and clip on to a separate base.

Thank you Bernard

Any idea when the next 'open day' will be.

I've checked the Subbuteo accessories and I found out they appear to be still producing and bringing out new items. There are several figures that would be useful for model railways such as police officers including a mounted officer. The only drawback is the thick bases but they can be removed..

They also shot out to sea. The area to the east was/is a no go area for shipping. Back in the 70's I had a friend who was master of a gravel dredger. He once strayed into the area and within about 15 minutes he found his vessel being boarded by the Royal Navy!

The anglers is a new one on me. The photographers might be useful if you ran a steam special.

All Woolwich guns were tested at Shoeburyness. They were carried on special wagons that were run onto one of two barges (named Gog and Magog) and taken downriver to a special landing stage at Shoeburyness. IIRC This ceased in the 1950's

They are OO scale, all are seated and were available in a box of 50 unpainted. I have also seen them painted in smaller quantities. The down side is that there is only 5 basic figures, the one female and four males and with one (male) exception they have one or both arms raised in the air (the lady in question has one arm raised). I purchased them with the idea of using them as passengers. The accessory range includes quite a few different items including cricket ground maintainance staff and press photographers and TV crew/cameras but they mostly have thick bases. There is even old men sitting in deckchairs (cue the old Morcambe and Wise joke).

A lot is American but there might be something here >> http://www.retronaut.com/retro/decades/1970s/

For the ciggies there is always Senior Service, the ads didn't change much between the 60's and the 80's.

What effect was there of another Midland rival on the policy? That rival being the GCR which was in a similar position without any really big industrial heartland to serve and a similar situation with regard to commuter traffic. The fact that the GCR was now in the rival LNER camp must have had some influence.

Yes indeed it is. You will note it is attached to the 12 wheel (2 X 6 wheel bogies) ammunition van and the 0-6-0 diesel electric shunter. EDIT although in the photo above it is obscured by the chap standing to attention on the side at the breach end there is a slight drop in the side of about 6 inches.

I suspect Stu's hand in there somewhere.

During WW2 some rail mounted guns were placed in East Kent and were used to fire across the Channel. They used the larger diesel-electric locomotives commandeered from the LMS together with special 12 wheel ammunition wagons. The crews were accommodated in some French railway vans that were on this side of the Channel when France fell

Just another thought, I seem to remember that many had a serial number, usually on the bottom rail opposite the name on the top rail.