Castle Aching

[Edwardian]

Going off at a tangent (which this thread seems to excel at) this is at least a Norfolk picture and a railway one too.

Hall qua at Great Yarmouth with a coaster tied up along side. The interesting thing I thought was the three wagons seem to be Midland railway box vans.

Perhaps worked over the M&GN to Yarmouth beach station yard then transfers by the link line that passes through the famous hole in the wall by the Swan inn to the junction infront of the bridge approch to Yarmouth Vauxhall station and brought onto the qua from there

 

What a wonderful picture with the rich and varied architectural background, which for some reason puts me in mind of some Continental place,  the very tall telegraph pole, the Midland vans, the little hut with the life buoy and flag pole (with, presumably, a shipping company flag), and that lovely steam coaster. 

 

Years of modelling in that scene!

[NeilHB]

I’m sure our host and many of our parishioners will recognise my current location!

 

[TheQ]

Going off at a tangent (which this thread seems to excel at) this is at least a Norfolk picture and a railway one too.

Hall qua at Great Yarmouth with a coaster tied up along side. The interesting thing I thought was the three wagons seem to be Midland railway box vans.

Perhaps worked over the M&GN to Yarmouth beach station yard then transfers by the link line that passes through the famous hole in the wall by the Swan inn to the junction infront of the bridge approch to Yarmouth Vauxhall station and brought onto the qua from there

 

Almost the same shot today, just slightly to the right of the first one, though that's the Lydia Eva the last steam drifter.

The big buildings you can see were the GPO, the banks and various solicitors. The banks have moved into the town centre or closed.

The Big building in the first Shot is the town hall, Lydia Eva is moored just the other side of the cream boat.

 

 

the first shot was taken from where the cyclist is the other side of the road in google street view 

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@52.606787,1.7227772,3a,75y,136.47h,107.33t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sureuX8i7VKMju1jkMeKdgQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

Edited May 24, 2018 by TheQ

[Edwardian]

I’m sure our host and many of our parishioners will recognise my current location!

 

ED1CF9DF-8D5E-42CC-AD4C-9D074BA05235.jpeg

 

Yep!

 

Take as many pictures as you like! 

 

Include those very sweet cottages you can see in the distance and anything else you feel might look good on the layout. Nice, elevation views are best!

[Guy Rixon]

Yes, this is the toplight example to which I referred.

 

I have reached a few conclusions:

 

- So far as I can tell, the poured resin available from Immaterialise is different from the better finishes available on Shapeways (FUD and FXD).  It looks different to me.  The example I have in mind is the G6 you designed in the version printed for Linny.  Looked very smooth.  I think this is worth further consideration.

 

- FUD is acceptable.  It does need some finishing, in my view.  Those Sharp tenders from Knuckles are FUD. I think that even the smoother sides would benefit from some rubbing down and, perhaps, filler spray, but inside the rivetting round the edges, it's a clear space to work on.  The only poor area is the tender rear. No joke, I tell you, having a tender rear.  

 

- FUD is relatively brittle, but glues easily.  With the care with which all models, not least RTR ones these days, must be handled, I don't think it's a significant concern.

 

- FUD is, however, quite pricey on Shapeways.  I am having to pace myself!  The effect of this is, I suggest (1) For a loco, it is no cheaper than a traditional whitemetal kit or,even, a brass one.  The 3D print requires less construction but more finishing.  Still a reasonable amount of cost, and effort involved.  Skill?  Well, wheeling, motorising, detailing, painting and lining will be no different with a 3D print.  (2) It tends to be uneconomical for coaches.

 

- FXD I haven't tried, as it's even more expensive than FUD!

 

- Mike Trice has worked out that a coach on Shapeways prints better and is cheaper if you print in as a flat pack coach - as I type, I note Northroader's comments, with which I agree.  Mike's test shots show the coach without any rubbing down.  It's not perfect, but a great improvement.  Again, like Knuckles's locomotives, it would not take much sanding and filling to get smooth. I'll need to try it, but I think it's a practical and affordable solution.  On the other hand, Diagram 3D produce laser-cut sides for similar GNR coaches.  Like Linny's, you have to laminate them.    

 

- The chap with the toplights has done well.  I note, though, cautionary tales are posted in his topic about 3D Hubs.  If a guy in China rips off your design, they're ain't a lot you can do about it. With the right partner, one might do well, but guaranteeing regular and timely supply, even for cottage industry quantities might prove tricky.

 

- Finally, regarding the toplight, look at the GWR grab handles.  Not bad. They are fully rounded, with daylight behind them. Overscale, I'd say, but better than the moulded-on versions from Ratio kits and more convincing than etched brass ones, which are, of course, flat.  Only with a lost wax cast component are you likely to achieve similar.

 

Much food for thought here.

 

Having now received a Hattons P-class (shiny!), I am committed to making the 1912-era coaches to go with it. Originally I was going to scratch-build these, but I now plan to make a Trice-style, printable flat-pack. This will appear on Shapeways. I don't know when it will be ready, but with many days of absence from home and workbench (Grandson + half-term + holiday cottage) it might get started soon.

[Edwardian]

Having now received a Hattons P-class (shiny!), I am committed to making the 1912-era coaches to go with it. Originally I was going to scratch-build these, but I now plan to make a Trice-style, printable flat-pack. This will appear on Shapeways. I don't know when it will be ready, but with many days of absence from home and workbench (Grandson + half-term + holiday cottage) it might get started soon.

 

That is interesting news.

 

I take it that you will be making the 45' and 46' bogie coaches that formed the Greenwich Park sets?

 

I would be interested in these.

 

I would still welcome someone taking on the 6-wheelers.

[Compound2632]

Going off at a tangent (which this thread seems to excel at) this is at least a Norfolk picture and a railway one too.

Hall qua at Great Yarmouth with a coaster tied up along side. The interesting thing I thought was the three wagons seem to be Midland railway box vans.

Perhaps worked over the M&GN to Yarmouth beach station yard then transfers by the link line that passes through the famous hole in the wall by the Swan inn to the junction infront of the bridge approch to Yarmouth Vauxhall station and brought onto the qua from there

 

Yes, three D362 or D363 16'6" covered goods wagons. At least the further one has grease axleboxes and the nearer two have single-sided brakes, which perhaps points to them being D362 8 ton wagons from the 1890s. Any date for the photo?

Edited May 24, 2018 by Compound2632

[Guy Rixon]

That is interesting news.

 

I take it that you will be making the 45' and 46' bogie coaches that formed the Greenwich Park sets?

 

I would be interested in these.

 

I would still welcome someone taking on the 6-wheelers.

 

Yes, the sets that worked the Greenwich Park line.

 

For the 6-wheeled coaches, have you asked Simon if he would enable FUD (or SFDP or whatever they call it now) for those models? He's done it for others.

[Londontram]

Yes, three D362 or D363 16'6" covered goods wagons. At least the further one has grease axleboxes and the nearer two have single-sided brakes, which perhaps points to them being D362 8 ton wagons from the 1890s. Any date for the photo?

The picture came off a Yarmouth community site on Facebook and the only information with it said "Yarmouth qua pre ww1"

The tall telegraph pole is to carry the wires over the river but behind that is a selection of post/poles which although I can't blow the image up to well on my phone look like there connected to the tram overhead wires off which a tram track ran past this point behind the wagons up between the town hall and the GPO building. If so this would put it at after 1903

[Caley Jim]

I've got a set of etches for 15mm/ft Irish NG bogie coaches that I commissioned from Worsley in a fit of despondency after cutting out about five million windows on two other bogie coaches, and, sad and wasteful to say, the etches have gone unassembled for a decade, because I was deeply underwhelmed by the very shallow relief on the beading. It is well below scale depth, and would be all but invisible once painted.

 

Now, that isn't a criticism of Mr Doherty of Worsley, I asked him to make them! It is an observation of suitability or otherwise of technique for a particular application, and the same applies to 3D printing.

The brass they were etched in was obviously too thin.  Etching goes in half way from each side.  In 4mm you need 15 thou, so I would say that in 16mm you need 60thou to give good depth.

 

Jim

[Edwardian]

Yes, the sets that worked the Greenwich Park line.

 

For the 6-wheeled coaches, have you asked Simon if he would enable FUD (or SFDP or whatever they call it now) for those models? He's done it for others.

 

That is interesting, but I'm bound to muse, at what cost?

 

I only seem to be able to get Shapeways to display prices in USD, but converting it to sterling, one of Simon Dawson's SE&CR 6-wheelers in WSF is £40 odd pounds.

 

Simon's include axlebox and springs and buffers.  With Mike's flat packs (priced £31 odd to £34 odd), you'd have to buy his coach accessory pack, too.

 

Now, assuming that we take 3 of Mike's 6-wheel coaches (we are talking about a set of 3 SE&CR 6-wheel coaches after all), we can get a set of 3 GN coach accessories, adding £7 odd to the cost of each coach.

 

So, Mike Trice's are approximately £38-£41 each, so around the same price as the £40 odd SE&CR coaches, but the latter are WSF, whereas Mike uses the much, much smoother SFDP. 

 

Given the usual differential between WSF and FUD, this suggests that Simon's coaches would be very much more expensive in the better finish. Experience of products available in both WSF and FUD suggests that the former is only about 60% of the latter.  I don't want to spend £70 per coach!   

[Nearholmer]

Correct, to get things like door mouldings a scale inch deep, one would need about 80thou, and I think they are no more than 30 or 40 thou.

 

Whether, there were technical or cost reasons for not etching on thicker material, to greater depth, I can’t recall now.

 

My lesson was ‘stick to ply’ for that job.

[NeilHB]

Yep!

 

Take as many pictures as you like!

 

Include those very sweet cottages you can see in the distance and anything else you feel might look good on the layout. Nice, elevation views are best!

No more photos of Castle Rising or it’s lovely village unfortunately Edwardian, I must apologise most humbly. We only stopped in to let the doodles have a leg stretch on our way to Brancaster to celebrate OH’s birthday (he’s only ever been to Norfolk once before, so I’m endeavouring to introduce him to my childhood home from home).

 

I can offer a photo of Brancaster beach instead if that’s any consolation?

Edited May 24, 2018 by NeilHB

[Londontram]

Yes, three D362 or D363 16'6" covered goods wagons. At least the further one has grease axleboxes and the nearer two have single-sided brakes, which perhaps points to them being D362 8 ton wagons from the 1890s. Any date for the photo?

Thanks Compound its a nice period picture and although views of this area are fairly commen there not usually that old. I just found it interesting to find some trucks all the way from the Midland right over on the east coast.

[Hroth]

No more photos of Castle Rising or it’s lovely village unfortunately Edwardian, I must apologise most humbly. We only stopped in to let the doodles have a leg stretch on our way to Brancaster to celebrate OH’s birthday (he’s only ever been to Norfolk once before, so I’m endeavouring to introduce him to my childhood home from home).

 

I can offer a photo of Brancaster beach instead if that’s any consolation?

1502BEA6-AEE6-4CC7-AC5D-AACFF45C2C07.jpeg

There's too much Horizon!

 

(Won't the sea run out of the l/h side of the picture?)

 

[uax6]

The picture came off a Yarmouth community site on Facebook and the only information with it said "Yarmouth qua pre ww1"

The tall telegraph pole is to carry the wires over the river but behind that is a selection of post/poles which although I can't blow the image up to well on my phone look like there connected to the tram overhead wires off which a tram track ran past this point behind the wagons up between the town hall and the GPO building. If so this would put it at after 1903

 

There are what look like two poles at the back centre left that look like telegraph/phone poles. Now the interesting thing would be to discover if these were roof mounted poles or not, as that would help to date the image. Roof mounted poles went out of favour very quickly as they were incredibly expensive to maintain, and putting ducts in the ground worked out cheaper in the long run. If they are roof mounted, I would put the image as no later than about 1910-14.

 

Andy G

[Donw]

The brass they were etched in was obviously too thin.  Etching goes in half way from each side.  In 4mm you need 15 thou, so I would say that in 16mm you need 60thou to give good depth.

 

Jim

 

 

Correct, to get things like door mouldings a scale inch deep, one would need about 80thou, and I think they are no more than 30 or 40 thou.

 

Whether, there were technical or cost reasons for not etching on thicker material, to greater depth, I can’t recall now.

 

My lesson was ‘stick to ply’ for that job.

 

From an etchers point of view deep etching is a costly process the amount of material to be removed is excessive. If you were etching 60thou to produce a panelled beaded side over 50% of the material needs to be removed. The increase in scale would suggest a different approach etching a separate panel of the beading only to be fixed on a plain side. With an etch of beading only  the etching only needs to be a thin line each side of the beading allowing the scrap in the panels to either drop out of if held by tabs be easily removed by the modeller. This may mean that the artwork for a smaller scale would not be suitable to be blown up. 

I agree that a laser cut ply kit makes more sense in 16mm. There is also the question of weight with brass coaches in a large scale.

 

Don

[Edwardian]

Puts me in mind, in a number of respects, of Bexhill West.

 

About the right period (1902), and something of an extravagant folly ....

 

Failure to produce the expected return for its investment in its smart new facilities at Shepherd's Port might explain the number of second-hand locos that are found in the WNR roster around the turn of the century.  before that, they generally bought new.

 

It took until 1905 for the line to be back on its feet.

 

Thinking on this further, I had previously decided that 1898 was the probable year in which the West Norfolk completed relaying its main lines to bullhead.  If the company had also invested heavily in the Shepherd's Port scheme around this time, which failed to make the expected return, by the close of the century we may expect to see a period of relative austerity. There are really no new WN coaches that need date after the mid-1890s, given what I had planned, and the locomotive roster shows new locomotives purchased in the '70s and '80s, but a clutch of second-hand purchases around the close of the century, as the WN strained to invest in upgrading the permanent way, investing in some smart new stock and funding ample facilities at Shepherd's Port and then failed to reap the expected benefits of the latter. 

 

I am glad to say, however, that since then there has been a growth of tourism in the district in which the WNR operates, fuelled in part, no doubt, by great growth in bicycle tours, and by the great popularity of the book, now in its third edition, In The Shadow of the Keep, a Poetic Adventure, set in Castle Aching and its environs, by G. G. Grigsby. 

 

Furthermore, Birchoverham Next The Sea, has become an extremely popular, yet steadfastly genteel, resort, and the desire of other companies to convey their patrons thence accounts for the considerable through traffic currently enjoyed by the WNR.

 

In short, after some difficult times, the Directors are pleased to report a steady growth in passenger receipts and something of a renaissance for the line.

Edited May 25, 2018 by Edwardian

[Regularity]

I can offer a photo of Brancaster beach instead if that’s any consolation?

 

Whilst you were in the area, did you find any remnants of the Trowland Branch?

 

There's too much Horizon!

 

This is one of the few occasions when it is not pejorative to say that this is “normal for Norfolk”!

[RedGemAlchemist]

Haven't been to Castle Rising in years. I'll need to go back again at some point.
More to the point I haven't been up to the North Norfolk Coast in quite some time either.

[Donw]

Potted history of the WNR grows and does I believe assist in making good choices of stock. I did wonder with the recent focus on those Ps from down sarf  whether the WNR   was in decline glad to see it's fortunes are on the up.

 

Don

[Nearholmer]

Re: 9962

 

What a relief. I had a horrible feeling that things might be on a steady downward path financially.

 

I think, BTW, that the hotel was promoted and built by a nominally separate company, with newly subscribed capital, so it’s failure will have hurt shareholders, but not, directly, the WNR.

Edited May 25, 2018 by Nearholmer

[wagonman]

Haven't been to Castle Rising in years. I'll need to go back again at some point.

More to the point I haven't been up to the North Norfolk Coast in quite some time either.

 

 

Come soon – while there's still some coast left.

[Compound2632]

I am glad to say, however, that since then there has been a growth of tourism in the district in which the WNR operates, fuelled in part, no doubt, by great growth in bicycle tours, and by the great popularity of the book, now in its third edition, In The Shadow of the Keep, a Poetic Adventure, set in Castle Aching and its environs, by G. G. Grigsby. 

 

Having introduced a fictional work of fiction into the narrative you will find yourself eventually obliged, à la J.K. Rowling, to write the book to meet the demands of your fan base.

[Donw]

Judging by the number of people who claim at exhibitions to have caught a train at a fictitious station someone has modelled there should be quite a few willing to claim they have a fictitious book on their shelf. We could also have earnest discussion about which locos were used on which services. Instead of having virtual reality we can have virtual unreality.

 

Don