From Miniature to BIG

It's been a while since I last posted, but I've still been busy.  I do have a bunch of the Hornby Dublo collectibles, another Beatles set and various TT:120 things I've acquired.  But for now I will share something truly a bit different for me.

I bring you the locomotive train pack "Lion", hear it roar!  (BTW - @Super (aka Rivet boy) this is one for you I'm sure)

[Super]

Hi Mr Nigels...glad to see you back. Hope you had a wonderful Holiday Season.

Rivets and Wood...love it. Not many controls in the cab area are there? Is this HO, N maybe?

Question: when clicking on the images I don't get a larger picture where I can really get into the details. Is that something you do when you upload to the Postimage site?

Glad to see you back! I was thinking about picking up Tiger now that he's on his own for £140 from the retailers, but i've found something else.(currently waiting for TMC to finish redesign their payment and ordering system... Hopefully today)

The Lion pack is definitely a much better purchase than the Tiger one due to the proper coaches included!
I hope the wood effect is just as nice as on the teak coaches, it sure does look like that in the photos from their website.

Hi Mr Nigels...glad to see you back. Hope you had a wonderful Holiday Season.

Rivets and Wood...love it. Not many controls in the cab area are there? Is this HO, N maybe?

Question: when clicking on the images I don't get a larger picture where I can really get into the details. Is that something you do when you upload to the Postimage site?

Indeed the wood does look very realistic bearing in mind it is printed/painted onto just a normal model (plastic I suspect).  The reason you can't drill down to the detail is I cheated a little this time and just clipped the images from the Hornby site rather than get mine out of the pack to take pictures of.  Maybe I'll do that in the near future    As for scale it is traditional UK OO gauge as you'd expect from Hornby if it is not the new TT:120 scale.  This was the second release in this era of models and followed on from the 'Stephensons Rocket' train pack (which I missed first time round, although a new run is available on pre-order).  The third one is going to be 'Tiger' which is the sister train to 'Lion' and later in the year they are looking to produce 'Locomotion' (if I recall the name correctly).  A very different direction from them for sure...

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Glad to see you back! I was thinking about picking up Tiger now that he's on his own for £140 from the retailers, but i've found something else.(currently waiting for TMC to finish redesign their payment and ordering system... Hopefully today)

The Lion pack is definitely a much better purchase than the Tiger one due to the proper coaches included!
I hope the wood effect is just as nice as on the teak coaches, it sure does look like that in the photos from their website.

I have to admit I hadn't really gone out looking to buy this train pack, although I like the oldie-worldy design I thought the price was a bit on the high side at £239.99. However when it turned up in the Hornby January sale reduced to £129.98 it was just way too tempting, especially as I had £120 credit in the form of loyalty points, it meant after the club discount as well I only ended up paying £6 or thereabouts for it including the shipping charge lol!

Of course having got that I now will just have to get Stephenson's Rocket train pack at some point, after all no point having just one of that era of train and besides the Rocket is a masterpiece of miniaturisation, even in OO gauge everyone said they couldn't do it.  Of course there was the original Triang version from years ago, but the detail/scale was way out on that because the motors were just too big back then.  The current incarnation is true to scale and features incredibly fine detail, yet is even capable of being converted to DCC control having an 8 pin socket included on the model!  (It's in the barrel on the back as I recall.

I take your point about 'Tiger', although if you wanted the traditional rolling stock to go with it you could always get one of the coach packs that they make separately.  There are passenger and goods cars available in sets, again not so cheap, but very nice and detailed.  I don't know if you're aware but this era of models doesn't have your traditional friction lock type connectors on the loco's/coaches, instead they use miniature chain link connections - which can be fiddly I've read lol!

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For those interested here's a link to the entire range of loco's and rolling stock, train packs etc... for the 'pioneering' era models;

https://uk.hornby.com/catalogue/era/era-...y=8&page=1

Is this (no. 448) the loco you're referring to as Tiger? Seems to be the right one going by the time period and similarities to Lion. That class sure had an amusing naming convention from what I've read.

Yes, the similarities are to be expected as the two engines were ordered and built side by side at a single manufacturer.  Apparently from what I've read at that time they were naming locomotives after animals so it was to be expected I suppose.

Mind you that sort of tradition carried on throughout pretty much the entire steam era in the UK, well at least until British (Boring) Rail came along and just numbered all the new locomotives.  Examples of this are;

A1/A3 locomotives (aka Flying Scotsman type) were typically named after race horses

A4 locomotives (aka Mallard) were generally named after birds, so you had 'Seagull' etc...  Just a small number were named either after famous individuals (eg. Sir NIgel Gresley - the designer) or various commonwealth locations such as Union of South Africa and Dominion of Canada.

Southern Region 'Schools' class were named after famous British schools/colleges such as 'Eton' etc...

Southern Region 'Battle of Britain' class after various RAF squadrons, airfields or famous Pilots/Commanders.

Southern Region 'West Country' class (which look almost identical to the BoB class) after famous towns in the west country such as Exeter or Bodmin

Southern Region 'Merchant Navy' class were named after shipping lines such as 'Clan Line', 'United States Lines' etc...

Princess Class - Named after Royalty typically

Coronation Class Named after UK Cities

The list goes on and on...

But an interesting subject for sure

It's been a while, but a couple of days ago this little (well big) beauty came up on Rails of Sheffield for half price!  It is an 0 gauge (that's 7mm or 1/43rd scale) of an A1/A1XX often called a Terrier and is basically the model class of Stepney.  This particular one is in black (aka BR colours) and unnamed/unnumbered, so I will need to source some transfers or preferably etched plates to finish it off.  Being in BR colours it typically won't be named, instead it should carry the BR logo on the tank and just a number on the side of the cab.  But I've never necessarily been 100% boring, sorry I mean accurate, so if I can find them may get name plates etc... for Stepney anyway and have a unique model!

Anyway here's a few pics to show the detail, its pretty good, especially the cab interior...

[Super]

There is just something about its plain-ness that looks good to me. Love the glazed windows and the yellow interior of the Cab make everything pop. Do you know if the real Terrier has a totally yellow interior?

Something like this perhaps?

[Super]

That is a pretty model D9D