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Road Vehicle Challenge.

 

We had an encouraging entry for this year’s Challenge with a wide variety of road vehicles including a rock cutting and a clock………

Mike Bennett had an N gauge kit in white metal of a 38ton arctic with a skeletal trailer carrying a 20ft tanktainer.

 

Andy Butler posed a riddle. The answer was a Ro-rail vehicle kit, as yet unbuilt!

 

I brought along a 7mm Scotch cart and horse posed on a little patch of ground beside a GE open wagon. They were from an S&D whitemetal kit with added shackles and chain.

 

Chris Cox had a superb scratch-built 4mm model of an articulated horse-drawn omnibus from the 1830s which was the subject of a patent lodged by prolific inventor William Adams. It was the world’s first ‘bendy bus’.

 

Peter Cox had a range of H0 scale North American vehicles: Farmer Giles' cattle truck; Mrs Giles pick-up with the goats; a builder's lorry with load of timber, sacks, tools, wheelbarrow; two articulated road-railers with Nickel Plate Road trailers; and a completely out of the box, un-improved, just arrived, just for fun Texas Longhorn big-rig!

 

Dave Gotliffe had sourced an old plastic Davric Kit to build, from King Kit in Telford. Its original price was 80p! The model was a Thornycroft GWR lorry from the 1920s.

 

Roger Grizzell models in 0 gauge and he had a ‘Mechanical Horse’.

 

Chris Kapolka seemed to have stretched the rules a bit and showed us a section of the rock cutting at Talerddig on the Cambrian line to Aberystwyth! To be fair, he did have a steam roller kit as well. Apparently some of the rock from the cutting was used in the buildings at Aberystwyth University.

 

Michael Ling showed us some of the late Frank Lax’s N gauge models made from Langley kits. They are appropriate to Michael’s 1930s GWR model of the Severn Valley line.

 

Like Chris K, Howard Mainwaring was ‘creative’ with the Challenge and showed us a fantastic clock he had built from a laser cut plywood kit. It ticked away while he explained how he made it.

 

Phil Rowe had a splendid 7mm model of a London bus and a mobile Burger bar he had built. The prices charged on the blackboard caused some discussion!

 

An article in a magazine based on the film ‘Titfield Thunderbolt’, was the inspiration for Sam Ryan’s diorama. He had modelled a standoff between a steam roller and a 48xx GW loco with a film crew in attendance. It was commented how Sam’s modelling improves in leaps and bounds!

 

Scott Stephenson had a couple of 4mm military tanks, one of which sported three splendid aerials he had made by extruding plastic sprue over a flame. He also had a model of a Series 3 Landrover, one of which he owned in his youth. It was carefully posed with one side down, as if cornering.

 

Andrew Vaughan has been working on a ‘Crewe tractor’ for a while and showed us the nearly finished rail version as well as a completed model in road form. These magnificent models are part of his 16mm to foot scale collection of Great War railway

and road vehicles. He also had an ambulance built on a Model T Ford chassis. The detail was fantastic with the engine visible under the bonnet and intricate etched sprocket and chain.

 

Overall, it was an eclectic display so typical of the ASRM members. Here is to next year’s Challenge; of which more later………..

 

Nick Coppin