A is for Alphagraphics, Brumtrams, Howard Scenics, MA Arts, Nimbus, S&D, Streetscape and others, and errr . . . Follow-up!

We had a couple of items from this stable (MA Arts) in one of the card bus posts over the Christmas season, and another (Nimbus) in Brian Berke's follow-up submission, then I found I'd missed the Alphagraphics folder, only to notice that the multi-brand 'thing' I had pointed-out in the blurb, went further, and it seems Aphagraphics were the print-arm, and sort of central HQ for a whole-bunch of after-market and 'garage' producers through the 1980/90's.

 

I really can't be arsed to go back and add what would be both complicated and duplicate notes to those two posts, so I'll just add all the brands to this post as Tags, add Alphagraphics to the existing Nimbus post and then both the other posts will appear with these in future searches, as relevant!

1:43rd scale (Märklin's standard O-Gauge is 1:43.5) stuff, as well as HO-OO, resin and whitemetal products, as well as card/paper, it's your one-stop shop for scene-enhancing, limited production or esoteric subject-matter, civilian/model railway stuff!

 

Omen . . . geddit? O-gauge men! And the second time that particular play on words has been used in the hobby I think, or am I confusing it with Keymen?

 

Alternate packaging, remember we've already seen the larger sheets and the post-cards, decent model railway shops used to have this stuff hung, stacked or stuffed into every corner of the shop, and we'll never be able to list them all, as some were produced by the guy down the lane, who only came in with new stock a couple of times, before he "...sort of disappeared from the hobby"!

 

Another catalogue.

Single-deckers and smaller minibuses.

Modern double-deckers

More historical models or liveries.

It's very hard for me to produce much blurb on things I know so little about, beyond getting it up here so it's not lost to the Internet generation, but if anyone does know more, perhaps they can enlighten the rest of us in the comments, not because I'm begging for comments, that's other-people's shtick, but because if it isn't passed-on, it's lost.

T is for Transatlantic Transport

Further to the card/paper bus and tram posts before Christmas, or over Christmas, I think a couple were posted after the big day, Brian Berke sent the bulk of this post, and I found one more when I checked the letter-N and O folders, has I said I would.

 

I don't know if the bad-luck accrued from singing carols out of season applies to card bus models in the same way, nor if it will be Brian or me, who accrues it, but I'm guessing - with the editors hat on - and given he sent them in plenty of time, it will be me! I'm also guessing that MTA is Metropolitan Transit Authority, not much of a guess; it's in plenty of movies! "The perp's taken the Metro downtown, Danno' lost him at 5th and something!"

Brian suspects the black & white aspect has more to do with them getting the Christmas cards out before the colour schemes had been decided upon, for these - then - new, Hybrid fuel/power buses. Brian thinks they might have been free, often these museum (or library) things are?

This is a simple slot together model of a New York subway car, from the Transit Museum, it would make a useful container for hiding stuff from inquisitive siblings, I think? I bet this was free as well, for school-parties and the like?

 

While this is the No. 74 London omnibus, by Best Impressions, one of the best known routes through the heart of London, and known to tourists, from its sliding past Harrods! Brian reports he used to ride it when he was a Londoner! I may have been on it once or twice, but my big one was the 77, riding-up from Clapham to the South Bank, or back again!

 

Close to his heart, so I'll let Brian tell this one . . .

 

" . . . back when Northern Heights, my OO layout was in my head for future building, it was always planned to be the layout I wanted when 10 years old. Back then in the 50's scenic stuff was paper wrapped, cardboard or balsa wood. Plastic kits were a new innovation and since it was always going to be London Transport, I wanted my favourite bus, the Q4 Leyland six wheeled trolleybus. No suitable diecasts back then, but there was a card model by NIMBUS that continued in production into the 90's."

 

These are nice, and also from the Old Country, two craft-museum/group type models, but in a similar style and by the same artist, one Bernard King, and both subjects are trams/trolleybuses, it may be one of these I think we've seen on the Blog in the past made up, there's certainly a few somewhere, and I think I posted them, but we'll look at them again one day, I'm sure!

 

 

This is actually a part of a set, with sides and ends of railway coachs, designed to be made-up over a balsa or boxwood frame, and placed on more substantial 'off-the-shelf' chassis, printed for Hambling's, but probably by a third party as already discussed in the recent railway figure posts.

 

When we were kids (1960's), and we'd occasionally get a train from Winchfield Station, they were usually the new BR blue, but sometimes you'd get a replacement/temporary spare from the Brighton or Guildford-Sussex services which came up from Portsmouth via Basingrad, in this 'old' green, and they were so posh! You sank into the seats, or could trampoline yourself up and down the compartment, shuffle-bum fashion, while all the details were heavy wood, and the compartment doors opened rather than slid, it was a step back in time, for us 'Central South-East' service kids to get proper Southern stock!

 

This shot also reminds me I have a coach-interior card kit somewhere, but it's not Hambling's, I just looked, I'd gone past it looking for the buses, so we'll have that another day whoever it was!

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

 

Finally, from the folders, is this Birmingham Corporation tramcar from Novus in a nice blue and cream.

 

I went and found it! It was Peco! And specifically for/to fit the old Kitmaster model kit range, which were bought by Airfix and sold-on to Dapol, I haven't looked to check if they (the kits) or these card interiors are still in production, but they'll be on the secondary market!

B is for Buses - Part II

Not that there was a Part I, but we looked at A-C last time, these are D-M and there will be one or two more in the fullness of time!

 

Funny old day, this morning through to the early afternoon was all a bit of a rush, with banks and technology, technology and banks, bleuh! Then this afternoon/early-evening was very laid-back and lazy, I almost started several different posts, but thought better of it [couldn't be arsed] and did some scanning, not these, these were done with the railway stuff the other day.

 

Then out to dinner, which finds me at half-eleven pleasantly relaxed by good food, good beer and good company, but hopefully alert enough to get this up without too many typos!

 

Like the previous ones, this is a novelty bar of something which doesn't appear to have been chocolate at all? It came in a job-lot, so I'm here to tell you I didn't have to try it, and it's not as much of a playable thing as those Cadbury's ones we saw last time either!

Being as how it's rather two-dimensional, with the interesting artwork on one side only, but it's definitely a bus and a novelty box, so in the tag-list Earthlore goes! Do you think it's all been about tags, or the Lik Be being LB thing? I guess half-a-dozen-odd know? Common-sense and humanity are never strong bedfellows!

 

A lot of Bus companies issue card models of their buses, and the rest of these are of that type of thing, with these being from just before the Bus Wars in Greater Manchester, following the mostly unwanted, and over time, pretty disastrous Tory privatisations of said buses!

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GM_Buses

While these are a private enterprise, I think, from the diversity of Buses/Companies depicted. Published by MA Arts, they are all 4mm scale or designed for OO-gauge model railways, where card models have an honourable history!

 

Dressed-up as postcards, you can see from the stamp-outline and address area, they are extra-large postcards, but wouldn't it have been cool to get one of these from Granny & Granddad in the post?

Marked-up to a City of Oxford Motor Services Ltd., this has the secondary trope of being a timetable aid-memoir, but scale is unknown, probably toward 1:64th if it is specific, it's also quite flimsy, sort of book-cover paper? It's pre-slotted and no cutting or glue is required.

Not that sure if this is MBF by Nimbus, or Nimus for MBF, but I suspect the former, and another scaled to 4mm/OO-gauge. We had these round here for a while as Busy Bee, or Beeline, I can't remember! But they ran a Fleet-Hartley Wintney-Hook-Basingrad route, I think, and used to dive off the roundabout at Fleet Station like Agostini was driving, and late for his tea!

You have to colour these yourself! I've credited them to Merseybus, given the paucity of details, and the fact that three are badged to Merseybus? And I think they are probably also all model-railway scale, I've rather unscaled them rendering them unreproducible, as they are all still in copyright, even if the publishers have all gone?