Express Delivery

It's been a while since I bored everyone with talk of model railways, so I thought I'd bring you an update on something I recently bought at the local Toy and Model Train Fair: 

This is an ex-LMS General Utility Van (GUV).  Although built by and for the LMS.after nationalisation these could be found all over the British Railways network, often in parcels trains, or attached to the back of passenger trains.  This is the original Lima version, which was also later made by Hornby.  Interestingly, Lima, when they first appeared in the UK with their 00 range, were pretty cheap to buy new, but nowadays, some of their items are pretty expensive secondhand.  Particularly on eBay, where sellers ask some, frankly, ridiculous prices for items like this, the BR CCT and BR GUV.  Luckily, more reasonable prices are to be found at toy fairs and the like, where I've obtained examples of all of these for very reasonable prices.  All were well detailed and reasonably accurate for the era they were produced in, this particular LMS GUV looks as if it has had some of its paintwork retouched but, for a fiver, I'm noty complaining - I'd have paid at least twice that online.

While the real LMS GUV was, more or less, an equivalent to the GUVs built by other railways, it is much shorter than any of them.  Indeed, length-wise, it is closer to the four wheeled Southern CCT:

This is a Wrenn example, another recent acquisition, this time from eBay - at the moment prices for Wrenn goods wagons seem to be quite reasonable.  Again, it's a bit battered, but for the price I paid, perfectly acceptable.  So, there you are, some new goods stock for the model railway.  Actually, the reason I'm posting about this stuff today is that I'm still feeling a bit rough - I woke up yesterday feeling like I had a throat full of grit.  As the day went on, the sore throat got worse and I started to run a raging temperature.  Today was better - the temperature has receded and my throat is almost back to normal, but I'm still tired and easily fatigued.  I've narrowed down the origin of this outbreak of ill health to two potential culprits: that nutter we were forced to share a table with in the pub on Monday, or that guy who stood next to me at a trader's stall at the train fair on Tuesday and coughed continuously.  Every time he moved, he virtually collapsed into fits of wheezy hacking.  Anyway, it seems to be receding now and hopefully I'll be fully recovered tomorrow.