Quote from: Bealman on March 28, 2026, 04:26:32 AMThat big rock is one of five islands - the road along there out to Port Kembla steelworks is called Five Islands Road.

Clankies as innovative as ever I see! 

A great potted history! Thanks for posting.

I like the little 009 bit tucked in the end!

Okay, the flashbacks are happening.

My early model railway experience was the obligatory 'O' tinplate. We had enough track for a oval & a siding. I can remember the builders doing our family extension winding up the loco for me & setting it off. That was 1973.

Then came my first trainset.



All the rolling stock still exists. The loco still runs like a goodun & only lost the chimney once, which was repaired. That loco got an absolute beating from a small child & still runs like a dream.

I think I was around 4/5 when I got this on a wooden baseboard stored under my sisters bed.

Our family extension was built in 1973, with my father making provision for storage all down one side with a surface over the top for a 14' model railway on it complete with hinged cover.

One of these appeared at some point.



Which was supplemented with real fine chain & occasionally got used to hoist wagons!

Of course we also had one of these at some point.



I think I found it exciting because it had a working light!

Over the following decades my 'involvement' seemed less than my fathers. There came a Hornby Princess Elizabeth, with smoke & 'chuffing' sound made by a piece of emery paper on a flexible strip. That loco survived the best efforts of an enthusiastic youngster, surviving many 'track obstructions'. On many occasions it spent hours blasting at full tilt round a dogbone layout smoking like a goodun to the point that the extension had a 12" deep smoke haze at ceiling level prompting my mother to tell me to "either stop, or open the back door." She still runs well, & chuffs, but the smoke generator has finally burnt out. I'm staggered it lasted as long as it did!

Many other locos came. We even went through a Freighliner phase, complete with BR green '47. But it was always about steam, LMS steam, obviously.

Over the course of 45 years it finally, following a number of track alterations & additions, reached the point where my father declared "I think I've finally reached the point where I can't do any more to it."









The radius 1 curves in the first photo are the original Hornby steel setrack curves. Unfortunately, as the layout hasn't been opened & used for a number of years, these have rusted badly thus rendering the layout inoperable without significant effort which my 89.5 yr old father struggles with, hence he now has a couple of smaller, table top scenarios.

That is my 'early', in very loose terms, journey in model railways.

Yeah, like that one.

So I sat down with a large cup of coffee this morning and read the rather large and developing thread on acertain other forum. Rather more "drama" than the discussion here but that's not untypical. It seems to boil down to a few simple things.

1) manufacturers need retailers but little mention that retailers need manufacturers just as much if not more

2) when they stray into each other's areas it doesn't always end as planned. Examples could be Hornby's initial direct sales only approach to TT, or the direct manufacturing  of "mainstream" models such as class 66 or Terriers by larger retailers.

3) Heljan becoming direct sale only probably isn't a "killer blow" for more than a very few retailers. But the lack of notice and the immediate availability of product at a lower price than those retailers paid puts a different complexion on it.

In isolation the n gauge picture looks a bit different.

Aside from Farish where Bachmann seem to continue doing what Bachmann do, giving us reasonably regular re-releases and new tooling

Upgrades from Dapol and a positive new approach for more niche products in their coaching ranges

Revolution's direct sales element does not seem to be impacting retailers ability to sell those same models. They also seem to acknowledge the value of their retailers in practical terms. I'm thinking of the new 66 batch being retailer only or the retailer only livery for the 128.

Similar for Rapido but seems to be stock that hangs around a bit longer with retailers  I suspect this relates to some of the prototype choices.


But the concern if there is one for us N gaugers is that any significant change in retailers being able to make profits from OO that lead to significant model shop closures has an impact on availability of N gauge too

That said, I strongly suspect that cheap online Heljan stuff will generate a short term volume of sales and things will then quickly settle down again.

Quote from: Newportnobby on March 25, 2026, 10:26:15 PMWhen I was aged about 7 or 8 I did have a small dining table top layout but it was very basic with twin ovals and a couple of sidings. My first loco was a Tri-ang Jinty as they worked Wolverton Works, followed very soon with an EM2 Co-Co electric 'Electra' which had working pantographs so Christmases and birthdays saw me collect the necessary catenary stuff. That way I could run the EM2 and the Jinty on the same track. I also had a Tri-ang Hymek along with some MK1 coaches and the GPO coach which collected the mailbag and then fired it into a lineside 'bin' (sometimes even hitting it). I dimly recall many wagons but exactly what has been lost in the mists of time.

No pictures survived the many house moves my parents made

Although my interest in real railways continued until about 1968, my interest in the models seemed to disappear quite quickly – maybe 1965. It was rekindled around 1973 when I started in N gauge.

That's a shame the photos have not survived. Those silver gelatin glass plates are tricky to store.

The Babys. This guy's been around.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nz3m5fOKV5U

Quote from: JulianO on March 28, 2026, 06:19:53 AMMy wife and sister and I had a fossick around the undergrowth there looking for any traces of the house a couple of years ago.

I got the gist of 'fossick' from your post but had to look it up to confirm as I'd never heard the term before.
Didn't cats seem big when you were that age?

That is a pleasant outlook.
Hope you are feeling better soon.
For those who live in the UK, NZ is quite a long way away, too far for us to wave at Bealman.

I hope no-one minds, but I am going to add a second set of images to this thread.
In this case it isn't my own childhood layout, but my father's.
Here are 2 pictures of the railway he and my uncle had as children.
As far as I remember, he told me it was Gauge 1, of Bassett-Lowke brand, though perhaps could have been made by Bing in Germany (?) Locos were a Precursor 4-4-0 and a Precursor Tank.
The track ran along near the edge of the cliff at Icart Point, on the South Coast of Guernsey. These photos would have been taken in the 1930s.
I believe it was a part of a larger system which my grandfather had when they lived near Burton on Trent in England. They moved to Guernsey when my father was 7, in 1929.
Their house at Icart was demolished by the Germans during the Occupation in WW2, as it was in the firing line of an artillery battery. Little trace now remains. My wife and sister and I had a fossick around the undergrowth there looking for any traces of the house a couple of years ago.
I don't know what happened to the trains.
@TrainWaiting may be interested to see another railway enthusiast cat.