I was wandering aimlessly into work the other morning and saw the interior design team were in with all their tools in the lobby by the lifts. Sitting on some trestles was a long plank of varnished wood. Didint really think much more of it, until I left for lunch and was greeted by this:
Gobsmacked I was! As a student of fine locomotive design, I knew that is from Sir Nigel Gresleys A4 locomotive built in the 1930's.
I've always had a soft spot for the A4's....they looked much nicer than the LMS "Coronation" streamliners, and Sir Nigel's influence lasted even after his death....apart from Thompson ballsing about, the Peppercorn A1's are still the best looking 4-6-2 locomotives to come out of the British Isles.
And for those who love all things steam, that sounds like an open invitation for an argument....Begin!
10 comments:
hmmm. That brings back a childhood memory.. when a friend placed his same model locomotive onto my Marklin tracks and it steamed! Very realistic although smelly, not like smelly Greymouth with its wonderful aroma of coal smoke and hops smell, but it did look impressive.
Unfortunately it was Hornby 3 rail. tsk. I just know that millions of butterflies died...
Ah, the awesomeness that is LNER's Gill Sans. Alas, I've had to give up using it on my powerpoints: since 1 and I are rendered the same in it, it makes teaching science a bit tricky...
what i want to know is what is the plaque doing at your work??? do you know anything more at this stage. do you have someone in a senior position who is a foamer.very puzzling. maybe they took the American model railroader theme ,"Bring a train to work", just a bit too far.
Apologies, this blog post was bought to you by Steinlager so some of the important information was lost.
The nameplate is on display in the Wellington Railway Station. To find it, head to the Eastern entrance behind the bus shelters with the "RAILWAYS OFFICES" above the doors. then wander through to the lift lobby and you will find it there, as well as a Royal Coat of arms from a tour back when the royals actually meant something to this country (1902??) must take another look).
KiwiRail have a few items like this stashed away, this nameplate did used to hide in the engineering department where no one could see it. I was tempted at one stage to break in and get a crayon rubbing of it on old printer paper to prove that it existed.
See the imposter wearing falsies ;-)
Very pretty.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mwxEV1uI6g&feature=related
SteveF
She was in the Engineering dept. but since they are moving office, the plaque is moving too.
It is a shame that it hasn't moved to a more public place (security, I know ra ra ra...).
There was a framed photo exactly of the one in the post which was below the plaque when in engineering, not it is missing - the photo takes away the context, and makes the plaque look more like a relic of the monarchy.
Thats funny Tim, I always picked you as a monarchist...
Even better than that for those dreams; per latest UK model rail magazines (December issues), Dapol has advised that they will be producing UK N scale rtr models of not only your beloved LNER A4,an the "Flying Scotsman" A3 class, but also an SR Battle of Britain class - all 4-6-2s - maybe with loco-based rt tender-based drives.
Just a small update - those LNER A3 & A4 models were expected to be in the UK model shops by UK Xmas 2011, with the SR spamcam following mid year, at about 120 pounds each - also, its Bachmann (Graham Farish) who are upgrading to loco based drives - Dapol still goes with tender drives for these 3 classes of 4-6-2s.
Question - wonder how these new UK 2mm scale chasses match up to an NZ120 NZR 4-6-2 class Pacific?
The word would be 'badly' the A3 and A4 had 6'8" wheels, which scale to 13mm vs 11.25mm that we would want. The Bulleid pacifics are closer at 6'2" drivers (12mm ish) but the wheels are solid disc instead of spoked.
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