Manchester

I don't know about model railway shops as such but the Ian Allan bookshop on the Piccadilly station approach does, if I remember rightly, have quite a good range of Hornby and Bachmann locos.

Andy

Thanks Andy, Ill check it out!! Rob

There's one in the Trafford Centre, I can't remember its name.

There is also Norman Wisenden in Greenfield. It's close to Greenfield station but not many trains stop there. It's a bus ride from central Manchester via Oldham. I don't know if they are still in business, it was up for sale but it is worth checking out - they're not cheap but they have almost everything you could want in the way of kits and bits.

Well it's not strictly Manchester, but there is a very good one in Altrincham called Waltons which is only a minute's walk from the Metrolink station.

Fred X

Ian Allan upstairs on Piccadilly Approach Modelzone on the corner of Deansgate and Bootle Street - get off tram at St Peters Square and ask for directions. Waltons Altrincham - again, use the tram. Behind Rackhams/House of Fraser dept store. If you go into shopping precinct opposite station, where it goes left, duck though gap on outside of bend, go right down road and it is

100 metres or so.

Those are the only ones accessible without a car.

"Alastair" wrote in news:456ca207$1 snipped-for-privacy@mk-nntp-2.news.uk.tiscali.com:

Very good selection of books, much better than the one round the corner from Waterloo - popped in last year when I had to pop up North.

Is that the old Beaties? If so I have many very fond memories of that as a child ... I think from possibly before it was Beaties - used to go there every Saturday when my Dad used to work in Trafford Park - mum used to go shopping around Kendals etc and the model shop was my reward for being dragged round with her - just up the road from 'Blacks' the outdoor pursuits shop IIRC

That'll be the Trafford Model Centre - on the same level as the car park, I think

David Costigan

If I remember correctly Beatties was originally not too far from the Cathedral and Victoria and Exchange Stations - they then moved to Spring Gardens (or near there), The one off Deansgate was the Manchester Model Shop; if you ordered a kit-built locomotive from them it was Robbo Ormiston-Chant who did the work. (I know, he built me a Jamieson Jubilee back in 1967). David Costigan

It had to move when they build the Arndale centre - it was located somwehere near the current location of W H Smith's. And wasn't it a Bassett Lowke branch until Beatties took over, possibly in the 1960's ?

If you are in the area for the weekend of 9/10 December, I think it is the Wigan Model Rail Show, which usually has several traders. It is held near the rugby league ground, about 15 minutes walk from the two Wigan stations.

Bevan

"David Costigan" wrote in news:36SdnedcU snipped-for-privacy@brightview.co.uk:

...

That's the place! A real goldmine they used to have everything - or at least they appeared to to my juvinile eyes.

That's the one. I haven't been there since a trip back home in the late 1990s.

It's off topic but I used to like the Bradford Model Railway Centre opposite the side entrance to Lewis's. But they stopped trading even before I emigrated.

I think you are correct. I remember the Bassett-Lowke shop in Holborn in London becoming a Beatties shop sometime in the early 60s.

Jim.

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Bev...

Indeed it was.

Whenever my dad took me to Manchester during WW2, Basset Lowke's in Corporation Street was a mandatory stop, but for window gazing only!

All the pre-war locos where there in the window, including the live steam 2-6-0 in quasi-Stanier guise.

Every one had a printed label attached which said: "Not for sale, but orders will be taken for when the present hostilities cease and peace returns".

Sorry Folks --- I've relapsed into Auld Pharte mode again!

The message from "Eddie Bellass" contains these words:

I once saw the Basset-Lowke catalogue advertised in Meccano Magazine, so we sent off for a copy. Some wonderful locos, clockwork and electic, but for some strange reason whenever you picked up the catalogue it always opened at the page with that 2-6-0 on it - the page with all the grubby fingermarks...

Pity my Dad wasn't a millionaire.

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Dave...

Pity mine wasn't either.

During that wartime window-gazing my Dad promised me several times that he would buy me a Bassett Lowke live steam 0 Gauge 2-6-0 when they were once more available .

When that time came, the retail price including the infamous purchase tax came to 3.5 times his weekly wage as an LMS signalman!

Needless to say, I never got one. Instead, I got a wind-up Timpo 'Royal Scot' 0-4-0!

The message from "Eddie Bellass" contains these words:

I had one of those! Until it had a head-on crash with the Hornby 0-4-0 tank loco*...

[* Also wind-up, but a much more powerful beast]

That was all O-gauge. Later came a small excursion into Hornby-Dublo

3-rail, then Triang TT for 16-ish years, and now N-gauge (since 1979, but two different layouts).