I'm not a box keeper. In fact, I'm all for throwing the boxes model railway arrive in, away as fast as possible. Use the stuff. Run your trains. Then if they must be put away, a proper stock box is a much more efficient use of space. And don't give me that stuff about the boxes making them easier to re-sell, if that's the plan, you can't weather them, or add a crew to the footplate.
Something appealed about this though. Maybe it's the way the box is designed to display the contents, presumably when in the model shop. The crane is pretty complete, just missing a hook, and it works.
Made of metal, I wonder what sort of factory Wardie ran. I imagine lines of men in overalls putting these things together on long benches. I doubt there was much in the way of mechanisation, or production line working - but I could be wrong.
I'll admit, I know little of Wardie's history, but there is an excellent page of catalogue scans in the Binns Road Website. It certainly looks like an interesting range to collect - far harder then old Dublo or Tri-ang, but providing that satisfaction of finding more obscure items in good condition. Start with ebay, and then resort to digging around second-hand stalls and old model shops.
Bonus. With the crane came a buffer stop and fog hut.
3 comments:
I would have bought it for the box, too!
It strikes me that there's a whole raft of what might be termed "vintage" 00, much of which had pretty much dropped off the radar when I started modelling nearly 50 years ago, let alone now.
The other day, I came across a box of bits at the excellent Brighton Toy and Model Museum; it contained several pairs of Romford 3-link couplings as well as some S&B Models sprung axleguards and what looks to be a forerunner of the excellent Sprat & Winkle autocoupling...all these things were in their original packets, all were 50p each, so I bought the lot. Over the past few years, I've obtained a lot of stuff form the 1950s and 60s, mostly for similarly risible amounts of money. There's a bit of a Pandora's Box (well, envelope in this case) thing with a lot of these items, they've lain undisturbed for over half a century after all, but yes, some if not all of these things will see the light of day and actually get played with! One of the packs of axleguards had already been opened and it seems all is good with the castings which was something I thought might have failed after all this time. It would be lovely to build a sort of "state of the art 60 years ago" layout, though I might forego the Wrenn fibre-based track and points!
All good stuff,
Simon.
Like Simon above I've often thought that a 'retro' layout would be an interesting exercise, to be built using the tools techniques and parts available at a particular period in time, perhaps the 50s when pretty much anything needed had to be made. There are of course plenty of old books from that period to give guidance, which are interesting in their own right.
A state of the art 50 years ago layout would be fascinating. I've certainly got a few bits tucked away for one.
Another idea would be a historic model shop display for shows. I seem to remember Warley put one on once, and it was fascinating.
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