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Showing results for tags '1950s railbus'.
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I'm making this up as I go along, but looking at other threads for this build that seems to be the norm at this stage I'm a frustrated railway modeller suffering from the usual lack of space so a vignette is an excellent solution. I'm also unashamedly East Anglian with an interest in the branch and cross-country routes that literally collapsed from exhaustion at the end of WW2. One of these was the Stour Valley through Essex, Suffolk and Cambs. On this route Clare station is a gem of Victorian nuttiness - who else would build a railway station in the middle of an ancient castle? http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/c/clare/index51.shtml Too big for this build so onto this bit of 1960s of nuttiness- the railcar, will be the inspiration instead. http://www.railcar.co.uk/images/uploads/105/800/class-105-dmu-1448820941-800.jpg With joyous disregard for non-existent health and safety Shell wanted to promote their new fuel additive and improved economy (does this sound familiar?). The full story is at http://www.railcar.co.uk/topic/shell-mex-advert/ Put simply put they hired the line for a couple of Sundays to test it all out and sent a car fitted with rail wheels for filming. In the real version this was radio controlled but for the tests a railway inspector and shell representative were also in the car with the extravagant safety equipment of a bone dome. It is that scenario that I want to reproduce. In this photo you can see one of the two-man crew with crash helmet and the prominent radio control aerial. Despite the comment to staff that, 'It must be noted that the Railways Board are deriving a very good financial benefit for this exercise and, therefore, co-operation of all staff will be appreciated.' the cost of repairing the line was too much and it closed about a month after filming. And to explain the title of this build to non-railway minded; its a pun. Little diesel trains of 1 or two coaches are sometimes called railbuses or railcars and clearly there is also a railcar involved. That's the background now onto the theory....
