Scouse underground

A Merseyrail train arrives at Hamilton Square, next it will pass under the Mersey.

Bekonscot

Yesterday I went to Beaconsfield in Buckinghamshire to visit the Bekonscot model village. What a lovely place this is too, the model village has been open for nearly ninety years. Originally it was a hobby in someone's garden and is now a tourist attraction with thousands of visitors a year! The model village has a great variety of models ranging from castles and churches to an extensive railway, the docks, even a cable car. You can see my photos here.

British Airliners (4) : BAC One-Eleven

The short-haul BAC One-Eleven is one of the most successful British airliners. Unlike most types covered in this series it sold a healthy amount and not just to the British state owned airlines and air force. Although no longer in passenger service two are known to remain in service with Northrop-Grumman as test beds.

Information
First flight:	1963
Withdrawn:	Early 2000s (except for testbeds)
Number built:	244

Development of the One-Eleven began in 1956 with a thirty-two seat turbojet powered design known as the Hunting H.107. The design was later amended to use turbofans and the passenger capacity was increased to fifty nine. However the project, by then under the umbrella of the British Aircraft Corporation, was still considered not ready for market. Finally a stretched version with eighty seats gained favour and became the BAC 111 (later One-Eleven).

The aircraft first flew in 1963 a year before it's major rival the Douglas DC-9. Despite the crash of the prototype customers were keen on the One-Eleven with a healthy order book when it entered service in 1965. Nearly two hundred and fifty One-Elevens were built, about half sold to US airlines. As the One-Eleven was not designed to the tight criteria of the state airlines like the VC10 and Trident it had a much wider appeal with customers. Production continued into the 1980s with the final aircraft being built under licence in Romania.

The One-Eleven remained in widespread service until the 1990s but began to fall foul to more stringent noise regulations and the last were withdrawn from airline service in the early 2000s.

In British Airways livery

Two views of a preserved One-Eleven at Brooklands

This aircraft ended it's days as a research test bed

Adverts of the 70s/80s... an occasional series

A new irregular series delving into the mysterious world of 1970s and 1980s print advertising.

Mersey rails

Back to Merseyside just a week after my last trip, though this time on my own so i could get some decent rail thrash in. My principle objective was to go to Maghull North, currently the newest railway station in the land. Objective two was the Wirral Transport Museum which unfortunately didn't open until too late so I just went to four more new (for me) stations instead. You can see all the railway photos from the two trips here.