Update 12 December 2022
The Guildford Show - Saturday 26 November
This is a short expression of thanks to all of you who managed to attend the Guildford Show. It was good to see you on our stand at the show which turned out to be a very good venue. I know a number of you were unable to come due to the rail strike on the day and obviously competition from the Warley Model Club Show event at the National Exhibition Centre. The news grapevine tells me that the NEC event was well attended despite the rail strike.
Our next planned show will be at the Swindon Railway Museum (Steam) on Saturday 4 February 2023.
Delivery of Existing Orders
Industrial action on the railways, the Post Office and elsewhere in the UK has mushroomed to such an extent that the programme of deliveries that I had planned for the next two weeks has had to be deferred. These days, especially in winter, I rely on using the UK rail system to transport me and the models to customers more than 100 miles from the London area. This week there are 4 days of rail strikes and next week more industrial action is promised by the Trade Unions. This last weekend additionally reduced train services to and from Reading and London included replacement bus services for part of the journeys. This combined disruption has completely destroyed my plan of deliveries. Today I am off the Glasgow to deliver a Western. Unfortunately, this will have to be my last long-distance delivery before Christmas 2022. As soon as the industrial disputes are resolved I will re-arrange deliveries. I apologise for this situation, but I hope you will understand that this is completely beyond my control.
Rebuilt Royal Scot Locomotives Programme
Over the last 6 months we have been working quietly with the builders on the Royal Scot Programme. The objective has been to provide as wide a choice of models as possible within a reasonable programme total volume.
Taking into account our existing reservations and expressions of interest, we plan to limit the total volume of BR/LMS Rebuilt 7P/6P 4-6-0 express passenger locomotives to only 80 Models. Until the production programme is frozen, the final choice of livery and detail fittings will depend on your choice of reservation.
The objective is to offer as wide a variety of models as possible so that you individually have the opportunity to acquire a unique or rare model that you would otherwise never be able to have in top quality ready-to-run museum quality form. However, the variations especially on the Royal Scots were so large that we will not be able to cater for every modification and change over the life of every individual locomotive.
The programme comprises 4 basic locomotives in historic batting order:
| Rebuilt high pressure prototype locomotive 6170/46170 British Legion | 10 locomotives |
| Rebuilt Jubilee (Comet and Phoenix) | 10 locomotives |
| Rebuilt Royal Scot | 45 locomotives |
| Rebuilt Patriot | 15 locomotives |
We do not plan to make the original large parallel boiler Royal Scot at this stage, but if enough of you are willing to reserve these locomotives, we could possibly add it to the programme. As an indication we would need at least 30 reservations to consider this option.
We do have a bonus announcement to make on the Rebuilt Royal Scot Programme, this a plan to build 30 models of the last two Ivatt modified Princess Coronation (Duchess) 4-6-2 Pacific locomotives at the same time as the other locomotives. Currently the Duchess programme is planned around:
| 6256/46256 Sir William A Stanier FRS | 25 locomotives |
| 46257 City of Salford | 5 locomotives |
All models (4-6-0s and 4-6-2s) will be available in either Scale 7 or O gauge Finescale as customer choice.
To assist you in making a choice we will provide a more detailed update on the web pages shortly under each locomotive type.
John Borkowski
12 December 2022