No.96 Hornby Hobbies online and 7036 Taunton Castle – and the rear sandbox.
There has been some correspondence of late about Hornby Hobbies online shop on eBay. Certainly their prices can be enticing and in some cases the longer you wait the lower the asking price. Never mind I would investigate further and I bought R2986 “A Date with the Duchy”. It was cheap because 'the packaging was damaged’ and the whole set was on offer for less than you might expect to pay just for the engine. “A Date with the Duchy” set number two. The set arrived very well packed. However whilst the coaches looked untouched, the tissue paper around the engine was ripped where the locomotive had been taken out and run, confirmed by the black marks beneath the driving wheels. The metal packing pieces to hold the engine in place were missing (discovered later beneath one of the coaches), as were the two fixing screws used to hold the keeper plate in place. Without the fixing screws the engine did not want to run properly and without the packing pieces the engine had been...