Big Bus : Snall Bus (2)

 How It Is Now!

With model buses now retailing, pre discount, at over £70, building up a collection is becoming the prerogative of wealthy old men. The men may not be older than fbb, but they will need to have much more disposable income. 

fbb would spend £75 on a model of the Fearnley commemorative decker ...

... because of his 60 year friendship with young Giles - but not for a transient route 20. Nevertheless, Rails expects that the 500 models commissioned will sell out quickly.

Back in the day, the iconic model bus was this ...

... manufactured by Hornby, at Binns Road Liverpool, from 1938 to 1966! The version illustrated above may have been repainted and given a new box. Most of them will look like this.

Modern models do not aspire to such longevity, AND, they are made to look at, not be bashed in the garden or dropped in to a concrete floor!

There are worse bus models, as here with "pull back" power train and an awful attempt at a London Routemaster.

No London bus has ever shown the destination "London"! And no London bus has ever looked like this!

So it happens that the display at Rails is by a company that fbb had never heard of ...

... which gives itself an address in Bolton. 

So fbb decided to go to that address c/o Streetview and suss out their factory.

Here is Institute Street Bolton ...

... full of no factory, but flats and offices, one of which might be in the newer block on the right. That is where this company lives.

So fbb reckons that the "Head Office" of Model Buses Collection Limited is a box file on a shelf in their accountants' offices! Such are the ways of modern business.

Thus the company is like most model railway "manufacturers". Iwan Jones and his chums do not "manufacture" any model buses - they pay someone else to make the buses for them.

Iwan gives the game away in the above video extract when he reports that MBC has "taken over the tooling (for a London bus) from Northcord".

The main thrust of the recent Rails YouTube video is that MBC has "commissioned" models to their own specification and more are on the way.

One is a London Buses single decker. 

Iwan claims that detail includes patterned moquette and, as you see, an engine under the hood. The model is delivered in a transparent. display case accompanied by a chunk of pavement, bus stop pole and 'flag'.

The timetable frame looks like a good representation ...

... likewise the 'flag'.

It is a real bus on a real bus route as confirmed by Ian Armstrong's London Bus Routes web site ...

... and a timetable c/o Robert Munster.

The other MBC "exclusive" is from the Bee Network in Manchester,

Again, it has its pavement chunk and stop pole.

Once again the 635 is very real.

Unlike in London, Bee Network does provide timetables ...

... c/w a service roite map.

Note that, in Manchester, you get a full timetable and a proper detailed route map. In London, you get neither from TfL!

But the models ain't cheap!

£65 for a diddy single decker; definitely OUCH!

Tomorrow's  blog will include a brief review of yesterday's journey from Axminster to Ryde PLUS, hopefully, the details of the Southern Vectis bus trips that are " en marche" today.

 Next Island Break blog : Weds 14th Oct