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Lucky find... saved from the dump: this one will be for Harry


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I'm staying with my uncle while working away from home, and when I arrived this week, he told me that his next door neighbours had been clearing out their garage, and found a few boxes of model railway stuff that had ended up in THEIR garage 20 years ago when the wife's dad died. My uncle's a model railway buff, so they thought he might make use of it. Well it was the wrong scale, so he kept a few of the nicer vintage Hornby wagons, still cast in metal, but the rest wasn't much good. However... among the boxes was just one kit, which he thought I might be interested in. And I was...

box-top.jpg

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All the bags are still sealed, apart from the yellow tree (if it had a bag in the first place), but all the yellow parts are present and correct. Everything looks crisp and without flash, and even the decals look good. There's an "issue number" on the instructions, which is "1/77", so I think it's one of the first releases of the kit in this country. I've always like the look of this kit, and the models built from it, but it's a bit of a "wild card" for me, and I've never seen an affordable one. But now I have one, and it's going to get built. I managed to get the December 1978 issue of Scale Models, which features the kit on the cover and a full build article/review, for the princely sum of £3 on eBay, so I think I'm good to go.

Not sure whether Harry ever built one of these, but it definitely would have been one of his kind of thing, so when I build it, it'll be for Harry...

best,
M.

Edited by Matt Bacon
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I have the Entex version and Harry did build one. Together with Skip Jordan he helped me find kit instructions for mine.

If you are interested to see his build along with another one do a search for "1919 Garrett". Both are great builds -

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Thanks, all... I found Harry's full build thread, thanks to someone on another forum... it'll be a tough act to follow, but then I knew that ;-P. My copy of "Scale Models" magazine from Dec 1978 arrived this week, with a full build article in. Lo and behold, it was written by Ted Taylor, a doyen of British modelling (very involved with Matchbox kits, back in the day, and a good friend of our "Classic British Kits" IPMS SIG), who passed a few years ago, so this is now for both Harry AND Ted...

best,

M.

Edited by Matt Bacon
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3 minutes ago, alexis said:

This magazine also had a build of one many years ago.  The Awesome Bill Borgen built it, and it had the usual superb story to back up the build.

Thanks, that's interesting to know... if anyone felt like scanning me a copy, I'd be very grateful!

All the best,

M.

 

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  • 3 months later...

I've been fascinated with these beasts since growing up with the old Lesney toy.

There is a similar one in Corgi's fairly-recent diecast collectible line in 1:50 scale.

I'd like to point out the Showmans engines hauled small circuses around the UK, and then once set up, powered the various attractions:  http://www.antons-show.co.uk/heritage.htm

To see British steam road locomotives of various types in action, be sure to search YouTube for Dorset Steam Fair.

These engines are popular with enthusiasts in the UK who build large-scale working models that actually run on steam (often fired by coal) and the larger ones can haul people around.

For what it's worth, ERTL produced a diecast collectible CASE steam traction engine of the American agricultural type.

 

Now you need to build a low-bed trailer to display the completed Showmans engine, hauled by Monogram's Kenworth truck.  :-)

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Back in the 70's 80's EMA (Engineering Model Associates) issued a kit (if you could call it that) of a steam traction engine that had to be built up from Plastruct.

Skip mentioned Harry Pristovnik's book that went to print shortly before he sadly passed away. I have a copy and it is a very nice publication. Harry's Pendle Princess model was really good within.

Shortly afterwards I think the magazine began to extract and use the content chapters from within the book to make up a series of articles in the magazine.

Edited by Bugatti Fan
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