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Sunday Variety

August 20, 2023 0Comments 0Likes

Polyglot Word for Loriot Wagon?

The old GWR had some weird names for its wagons. They weren’t named for fun or to entertain railway enthusiasts (?); they were named to allow telegraph messages to be transmitted in an unambiguous way. So instead if specifying a low sided wagon to carry ballast to a track relaying site, the consist could include a couple of turbots. 
Or you might specify …
… a short rake of Pilchards. At the back, you would need a single verandah brake van but easier to call for …

… a toad! Some of the codes lack any original thought whatsoever. So a ventilated van to carry fruit was called …

a fruit! Suffix letters were added to delineate differed varieties of the basic ventilated wagon idea. The above (with long wheelbase) was a Fruit D, for example. 

So here is a bird called, in French …

… l’oriole (from the French l’or – gold). Somehow and somewhere this was corrupted to l’oriot and further corrupted in English to loriot. No one seems to know why (or Y)! So this wagon …

… acquired the GWR telegraph code as Loriot Y.

Just recently TWO different OO gauge models of the Loriot Y have appeared on the model railway market. One is made by Rapido …

… and the other by Hornby.

On the real railway, the Loriot Y was a very rare wagon. Only TWO with the Y classification were ever built. So, if you buy two of these wagons, you will have an accurate representation of the whole full size fleet!

Just for the record somebody on-line has used an etched kit to make a Loriot M.

It is O gauge.

The loriot type was used for carrying heavy and bulk machinery with the low slung body assisting with loading and ensuring bulky stuff so loaded did not foul the loading gauge.

See!

But beware. For a fiddling little nothing of a wagon, both are ludicrously expensive with the OUCH factor being through the roof for the Hornby Model. The RRP is £47, thankfully well discounted all over the place.

It all started when Rapido Trains announced a range of models to commemorate the 70th Anniversary of an iconic and joyous film …

… which originally screened in 1953.

The first attempt at running the fictitious branch was using an 0-4-2 GWR tank and an ex Wisbech and Upwell carriage.

Rapido have made the carriage …

… but they all sold out before a single wheel was moulded! The film train was crashed and destroyed as a result of malfeasance by the competing bus company, Pearce and Crump.  

The scene was recreated with a correctly liveried Bedford OB (but without the crashes) …
… on a number of heritage railways in 2012. The carriage was not the right colour but it was a splendid effort.

Thus it was that the village “borrowed” the Thunderbolt (a k a Lion) from their museum …

… and cobbled together a replacement train …
… which is the subject of the main Rapido set of models. Rapido have made a video which cleverly incorporates bits of the film.

So that’s one loriot from Rapido.

And Hornby? Well, this was a rather bad-taste attempt to spook Rapido by bringing out exactly the same model in the Hornby range. But the owners of the film (French company Studio Canal) refused to grant Hornby a licence to use the Titfield names.
The loco was resurrected with changes as another from the same era, Tiger …

… the coach body could be dumped, leaving the loriot manufactured (in large quantities?) with nothing to go with it. Hence Hornby’s “competing” model!

Filming took place on the Cammerton Branch in Somerset …

… with Monkton Combe station …

… as Titfield …

… and a quiet corner of Bristol Temple Meads as the city terminus of the Titfield branch.

Peco will sell you a laser-cut model kit of Monkton Combe station …

… whilst the “basic” (ha ha!) Titfield train pack will cost you …

… around £250.

fbb would like a set because he LOVES the film; but the price is too high.

Sparks Fly At First York?

Yes, it is a tease about a forthcoming “fleet” of electric buses.
fbb will refrain from comment about all the extra pollution from the power stations!

Yesterday Was Imberbus 2023

It was a day on which normally sane grown men drove their preserved London buses …
… to Wiltshire and ran services to Imber (where nobody lives!) …
… part of an army training area and firing range.
Visitors are assured that no trigger-happy Dads’ Army types would be firing any of their big pop guns!

This curiously British annual event is gloriously eccentric.

fbb has never been but can recommend it from afar. Sadly, by the time you read this blog you will have missed this year’s farrago. It only happens oce a year! 

Here is Imber on a map!

It’s just above that large letter “S”.

For full details …
It’s All On Line!
The original Imber looked like this:-

And the army types are not allowed to take pot shots at he church!

The Gorn Haven’t Gorn – They’ve Pre-Appeared

A cosmos transport blog?

Blog readers will remember the life and death battle between Captain James Tiberius Kirk and “The Gorn” ...

… as here with an entirely unconvincing “clinch” that looked more like love than enmity. The Gorn itself was not entirely convincing either.

Seems like quite a nice chap.


However, the Gorn has re-appeared (pre-appeared) in Star Trek Strange New Worlds which, again as all our readers know, is set before Kirk and features the previous captain of the Enterprise, one Christopher Pike. In the finale to Series 2 who (what?) should pop out of the inter-galactic slime but …

… a somewhat more convincing Gorn.


One must assume that, in the years between Pike and Kirk, these slimy lizards have (a) learned to walk upright, (b) got rid of the slime and (c) learned how to make their own attractive tabard c/w leather belt. 

Such is the dramatic progress of inter-stellar evolution.

It all doesn’t end well for Pike as revealed at the very start of the Kirk series …

… and Spock’s eyebrows are seriously out of control.

The episode to watch on-line is called “The Cage”. “Classic” Pike

 is played by Jeffrey Hunter; the new Pike (i.e the old Pike – don’t ask!) by Anson Mount, who appears to be named after a block of trendy apartments in Islington.

Tomorrow’s blog will answer the Summer Quiz collection of London locations.

Did you get all 15?

 Next Terminal Quiz blog : Monday 21st August 
Categories: CamCab

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