Model Railway - What's your latest acquisition?

Don't know what happened there!  Most of my post has disappeared - oh blow

Blimey, it's happened again, have we become a Twitter account, I ask?  I'll give up on my ruminations on R3339

Just had this nice Black 5 delivered:

 The new Hornby Railroad 'Deltic'  on two tone green arrived yesterday, and for its price I think it is excellent.

I have carried out a few little 'improvements' to it. I have painted in red where the cut out for the buffer beam would be, and the shanks of the buffer guides too. Also I have painted the four triangular windows on the cab side black. Ideally these should be cut out, but a bit of black paint actually looks, from  normal viewing distance, like they are glazed.

My only 'complaint' was the packaging. Why does there have to be so much of it!?  The outer cardboard box  it came in was about ten times bigger than the actual locomotive box, and was chock full of those giant plastic 'Wotsits' . The actual  locomotive box was wrapped round in a double layer of bubble wrap. The insert which contains the model in the locomotive box is expanded polystyrene and is a snug fit. I do appreciate the effort to ensure the model arrives at me in good condition, but surely this can be achieved using slightly fewer resources? On the same day Morgan Computers sent me a new Tablet and a Forward Facing Camera for the car, and these too arrived in boxes at least ten times bigger that the object they enclosed so Hornby is not alone in this. (They used air bags not Wotsits, but the result was the same!), so I couldn't move in my entrance hall for boxes!

 Just a few more words about the Railroad Deltic.

The model retains many of the Lima features including the moulded warning horns on the bonnet and the HO scale bogies. The story goes that Lima originally wanted to make the Deltic in HO scale because they already had a Class 33, a King and a LMS 4F in HO scale but changed their policy while the Deltic was under development and decided to make everything in OO in future.  They had already tooled up the bogies for the Deltic and so rather than scrap them they moulded the body in OO but kept the bogies as they were. Unless you compare them to a scale drawing they are hardly noticable.

Sadly, my beautiful 'Duchess' , received yesterday, has to be returned, as one of the metal tyres on the fixed Cartazzi truck is loose - thought I'd got 3 wheels instead of 2!  Customer services were great, fixed up collection for replacement,   Shame really, as I had mistakenly ordered 2 on different dates during December without realising the fact (pre joining the club) and they went straight back yesterday.    This model was ordered to allow me to take advantage of the 10% club discount.

 A couple of 'Lionheart' gauge O wagons arrived in the afternoon post. A 'Berry Wiggins' tank wagon and a BR 1/109 mineral wagon. Returning to the theme of packaging, the wagons are in a similar box to those used by Hornby, with a cardboard outer and a moulded clear plastic inner. This inner grips the model tightly  The two boxes were contained in a single corrugated cardboard box which simply enclosed the wagon packaging, with no bubble wrap, 'Wotsits' or any other padding. They both arrived safe and sound by Royal Mail, despite some minor damage to the cardboard outer packaging.

A Hornby R4633 BR Mk 3 coach with lights, the last one that was in stock, you could tell too because the box was covered in black dust from the warehouse. Purchased with my 10% discount online, but actually would have been £1.24 cheaper if I had purchased from Fenwick of Canterbury with the concession doscount. That said it gave me a box full of wotsits I can re-use when selling one of my duplicates !

Today 1 x R6709 Rudd wagon in load haul colours, picked it up at the Hornby Visitor Centre when I stopped in to have a coffee.. Great place to have a cuppa 

Last Saturday, an Oxford Radial Tank. Excellent model with all earlier nigglesmentioned in the model press, fixed.I also got a bottle of Micro Kristal Klear to attempt to make windows for a couple of locos. We will se how that goes.