Tuesday, 23 August 2011

Two more from Victory

For today's post, 23rd August 2011,  I am using two photographs of small jigsaw puzzles from the famous G. J. Hayter stable, more famously known as Victory. Both puzzles are small and probably aimed at children, but for serious collectors of steam train jigsaw puzzles, they are a must have.

The first picture features the famous experimental 4-6-4 locomotive of (Sir) Nigel Gresley as a 45-piece Victory jigsaw puzzle. The locomotive was placed in class 'W1' and numbered 10000. Because of the secrecy surrounding her ground-breaking design and development, she became known as the 'Hush Hush' locomotive. After entering service in 1929 from Darlington Works, the locomotive suffered many problems and, as a result, was completely rebuilt in 1936. She re-entered service on the LNER a year later as a class 'A4' look-alike, but retained the 4-6-4 wheel configuration. In BR days she was renumbered 60700 and finally withdrawn from service in 1959. The jigsaw shows the rebuilt locomotive in a works environment but is untitled; the artwork was by T. E. North.

The second picture features a 'Royal Scot' class 4-6-0 locomotive as a 45-piece Victory jigsaw titled Merseyside Express. The parallel boilered class was designed by Henry Fowler and entered service in 1927. The locomotive in the picture is LMS No. 6117 Welsh Guardsman; she is shown heading LMS maroon coaches. The artist is from the 'F. Moore' range of the Locomotive Publishing Company. The class of 70 was rebuilt with tapered boilers by (Sir) William Stanier/George Ivatt from 1943; smoke deflectors were added later.