Beatties track and rolling stock

 

The Beatties collection continues to grow, more by accident than design. A couple more vans joined the pile from eBay, where it seemed no one else wanted them. Odd that the yellow Tri-ang open wagons still go for proper(ish) money, but the OO gauge Graham Farish vans don't attract the same attention. I've enough for a modest train now. 

They are sitting on genuine Beatties track. 

This arrived in a box of other stuff from work, with a note "To Phil from Nick Smith for the Beatties Collection" - thanks Nick, it's much appreciated. Mind you, the people I work with don't quite understand!

From Railex, a proper find, more Grafar wagons, with Beatties price tags on them. 

This pack cost a miserable 75p! I'm guessing this was in the 1970s, so inflation has taken hold, I paid £9.

As well as being a valuable addition to the collection, these wagons mean something to me. My first electric trainset was a Tri-ang 3F and a mixed bag of wagons, one of which was a SC Pritchard Grafar vehicle.

An odd find at a finescale show. All the wagons have been relieved of their couplings with a saw. Why? Unless there is a wagon diagram I'm not familiar with (feel free to educate me), they aren't particularly accurate. Something from the Airfix range would have been a better starting point, even if you didn't want to have a go at a kit. 

I've been pondering how to make best use of the collection. An online museum seems like a good idea, and I've been playing around with an AI-based website design tool from Ionos, my ISP. I have a pretty good idea how I'd like it set up. A database with an entry for each "exhibit", and a searchable front end. It's well over 20 years since I've done any development work, but in the old days I wouldn't have found it too much of a streatch. 

Sadly, AI turned out to be rubbish. Or at least the early results are. I'm using this as a learning exercise, and maybe it will continue to be rubbish, and I'll have to relearn some proper developer skills, or persuade a mate to have a go for me. Another "one day" project.