Oh, Mr Porter! Models to help fund Austerity overhaul
LIMITED edition model wagons, recalling the classic comedy film Oh, Mr Porter!, are on sale to help fund the overhaul of Austerity 0-6-0ST Works No. 2746 The Duke.
The Bagnall Locomotive Group, which owns the Ecclesbourne Valley Railway-based locomotive, has commissioned a five-plank coal wagon in OO-scale from Dapol, lettered ‘SRNI' for Southern Railway of Northern Ireland – based on a scene in the 1937 film where Will Hay inadvertently shunts three such wagons off a cliff into a quarry.
Filmed at Cliddesden on the Basingstoke & Alton Light Railway (which joined the now-preserved Mid-Hants line at Butts Junction just outside Alton), Oh, Mr Porter! stars
Will Hay as William Porter, a bumbling wheeltapper who is banished to the remote Buggleskelly station in Northern Ireland.
The coal wagon is the fifth Buggleskelly-themed model commissioned by the Bagnall group; the previous model was a van lettered ‘Joseph Miller & Sons', a reference to the film's gun-running villain. A few of the vans are still available, and the next model, which could be available in July, will be a ridge-roofed wagon lettered ‘Buggleskelly Lime Works'.
The group has also produced a five-plank wagon in the livery of George Lovegrove & Co. Limestone & Tarmacadam of Longcliffe, near the EVR's Wirksworth headquarters.
The wagons are £15.00 each, with postage for up to four costing £4.00. Cheques payable to T.J. Oaks can be sent to 13 Trenchard Drive, Buxton, SK17 9JY, or to pay by Paypal, email sleepermonster@yahoo.com
The boiler of The Duke is under overhaul at Locomotive Maintenance
Services of Loughborough. Tim Oaks, of the Bagnall Locomotive Group, said: “The boiler repairs suffered a slight setback when the smokebox door was found to be thin and holed when it was shotblasted. Fortunately, LMS had one in stock, and this is now being fitted.”