rjh Posted July 6, 2016 Share Posted July 6, 2016 Good evening, Courtesy of Paul Karau, I received a copy of MRJ 248 in the post today, it has the third part of Andy Avis's saga of Metropolitan Junction, covering 1965 to 2016, comprising six and a bit pages, see further below. Other articles in this issue: Grounded Body at Bristol Barrow Road (1 1/2 pp) by Robin Whittle Real Atmosphere (1/2 pp photo) by A E West A Britannia for Worseter (4 pp) John Darch transforms a Hornby 'Brit'. (tbc) Bourne End Bracket Signal (3pp) Peter Sqibb details more methods and tools during construction, 7mm/ft City of Oxford Connections (1 pp) by Stephen Williams Kingstorre, Watching the trains go by (9 pp) Robert Dudley-Cooke recounts how he condensed the composition of passenger trains on his spectacular 4mm scale EM evocation of the GWR main line in South Devon in 1947ij John Hayes 1947-2016 (4pp) GWR 'Multibar' Siphon G (3pp) Gerry Beale, 4mm/ft MRJ Portfolio (1 pp photo) Semley, LSWR 1912 by Martin Finney Etched Shorting Strips (2 1/2 pp) by Mark Humphrys Broad Gauge Tank (1/2 pp) GWR 2-4-0T No.3504 by Morgan Gilbert, 4mm/ft A Rolls-Royce Airbrush (1 pp) by Horace Bachelor [Met Jct part 3 (6 and a bit pp) by Andy Avis, as above] Letters/Diary (nearly 2 pp) Regarding the Met Jct track plan on page 194, labelled 1972 and giving area as 8 ft by 10ft 8in.... Clearly it is culled from the Oct 1986 YMR magazine (Your Model Railway, successor to Model Railway News, MRN) article, as it perpetrates the typesetting error made by Argus, arising out of their totally unnecessary resetting of all the wording that Doug had drawn by hand (in his customary perfectly legible style) into actual text type. Most unfortunately they turned Doug's [ Area: 8' 9" by 10' 8" ] into type as above and lost 9 INCHES of the width. That misled me in the early days of trying to find a location for the layout. Fortunately Doug's original artwork for the trackplan of Oct 1986 survives, so I have scanned it and incorporated the headshunt to loop conversion done at that time, which appears only in the enlarged extract diagram on the YMR page 627. This gives the track plan 1986 to 2016 and was used in the expoEM 2016 Guide entry for MJ. It is also online here: https://uk.groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/metjct/info a copy is below regards, Rodney Hills Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Horsetan Posted July 6, 2016 Share Posted July 6, 2016 Plenty of interest, then. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bulwell Hall Posted July 7, 2016 Share Posted July 7, 2016 Just for a moment there - when I saw that Horsetan had the first post on the MRJ 248 thread - I thought that for once in my life MRJ had appeared in WHS in Ealing before anywhere else! Gerry Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold 2mmMark Posted July 7, 2016 RMweb Gold Share Posted July 7, 2016 A Rolls-Royce Airbrush (1 pp) by Horace Bachelor Available from "Department One, Keynsham, spelt K-E-Y-N-S-H-A-M, Keynsham, Bristol" Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold The Fatadder Posted July 7, 2016 RMweb Gold Share Posted July 7, 2016 Glad I saw this thread on the train from Gatwick to reading this morning, after a quick stop in Smiths at Reading station I now have a copy to read on the train to Bristol. First impression is a very good issue! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Barry Ten Posted July 7, 2016 RMweb Gold Share Posted July 7, 2016 Sounds like a cracker of an issue. Always interested to see more on Kingstorre. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold The Fatadder Posted July 7, 2016 RMweb Gold Share Posted July 7, 2016 Sounds like a cracker of an issue. Always interested to see more on Kingstorre.Having now read the article, I'd like to see a lot more! Fantastic layout, has it been published before? Edit, re reading of course it has, mrj197... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Barry Ten Posted July 7, 2016 RMweb Gold Share Posted July 7, 2016 Having now read the article, I'd like to see a lot more! Fantastic layout, has it been published before? Edit, re reading of course it has, mrj197... It's also been in BRM a few years ago, and on one of their DVDs - possibly elsewhere. It's certainly my idea of a dream layout! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Dan Randall Posted July 7, 2016 RMweb Gold Share Posted July 7, 2016 I wasn't aware that John Hayes had died until I read the contents in the first post.* What a shame - R.I.P. John. *In fairness, there is mention of it in the Obituaries section. Regards Dan Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bulwell Hall Posted July 7, 2016 Share Posted July 7, 2016 It's also been in BRM a few years ago, and on one of their DVDs - possibly elsewhere. It's certainly my idea of a dream layout! An unfortunate truth is that if you want a layout like Kingstorre you should have started it forty years ago - cos that is how long it has taken! And there have been no deviations along the way - a quite remarkable achievement by Robert Dudley-Cooke and even so he had some help as he would freely admit. Gerry Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Horsetan Posted July 7, 2016 Share Posted July 7, 2016 An unfortunate truth is that if you want a layout like Kingstorre you should have started it forty years ago - cos that is how long it has taken! .... Also helps if you own and run a private school, because the school buildings strangely turn out to be big enough to contain a layout on that scale! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold The Fatadder Posted July 7, 2016 RMweb Gold Share Posted July 7, 2016 Also helps if you own and run a private school, because the school buildings strangely turn out to be big enough to contain a layout on that scale!Wish my daughters prep school had a layout to the standard of Kingstorre in one of the out buildings. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Horsetan Posted July 7, 2016 Share Posted July 7, 2016 Wish my daughters prep school had a layout to the standard of Kingstorre in one of the out buildings. IF I remember from the earlier article, Kingstorre is/was in the basement of the main building, which is always an advantage - you get pretty constant (cool) temperatures down there as well. If it was anything like the basement at my old school (UCS Senior Branch in Frognal): then it would be massive. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bulwell Hall Posted July 7, 2016 Share Posted July 7, 2016 Also helps if you own and run a private school, because the school buildings strangely turn out to be big enough to contain a layout on that scale! What's that got to do with the length of time it takes to build a layout of the complexity of Kingstorre with all the locos and stock and the single mindedness and determination of the builder? It's certainly not in the basement of a school now and hasn't been for some years. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold queensquare Posted July 7, 2016 RMweb Gold Share Posted July 7, 2016 What's that got to do with the length of time it takes to build a layout of the complexity of Kingstorre with all the locos and stock and the single mindedness and determination of the builder? It's certainly not in the basement of a school now and hasn't been for some years. ...and even if it was, advertising where a valuable layout lives on a public forum is a pretty stupid thing to do. Jerry Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kempenfelt Posted July 7, 2016 Share Posted July 7, 2016 It was described in the original article. Imagine what it must be like to have so much space! It's fantastic! The layout's been enlarged since it was moved. Don't assume that just because the layout was in a school that the room it was in was massive! As Gerry has already pointed out, this layout exists purely due to the mindset, dedication and determination of the builder, not because of the size of the room he had to home it. Acquiring the room is by far the easier bit of the achievement! Paul Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Barry Ten Posted July 7, 2016 RMweb Gold Share Posted July 7, 2016 The other thing to keep in mind with Kingstorre is that it was exposed to a very bad fire in the same building, with - if I remember from the original articles - quite a lot of the coaching stock being lost to smoke damage. So the fact that the layout exists at all, and looks so magnificent, is a real tribute to dedication and perseverance. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glover Posted July 8, 2016 Share Posted July 8, 2016 Bought it in Easons in Dublin this morning. Just wondering: is the article by John Darch (Killybegs John of this parish) the first to appear in MRJ from a man living in Donegal? Cheers, Glover Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adrian Posted July 8, 2016 Share Posted July 8, 2016 It is not so much that the layout is uninteresting just that saga is an appropriate description of the presentation in 3 parts and too many pages. No layout whatever its historical significance can be justified in MRJ. Look on the bright side - they included a track plan! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
brightspark Posted July 8, 2016 Share Posted July 8, 2016 and even got that wrong - if I read the OP correctly. MRJ is definitely losing it. That would be me then. The original artwork turned up after I had submitted the article. I remember Rodney telling me about the missing dimension some time ago when he found that his room was slightly too small for the layout but it had slipped my mind. However, at least there was a track plan and a colour picture. Just shows that you can't please everyone. (sigh) Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Not Jeremy Posted July 8, 2016 RMweb Gold Share Posted July 8, 2016 That would be me then. The original artwork turned up after I had submitted the article. I remember Rodney telling me about the missing dimension some time ago when he found that his room was slightly too small for the layout but it had slipped my mind. However, at least there was a track plan and a colour picture. Just shows that you can't please everyone. (sigh) Andy Your article gave me a great deal of pleasure, thank you very much for taking the trouble to research the subject so thoroughly and for writing it up so well. It is one of my favourite pieces from MRJ and gives a fascinating insight into one man's modelling and the way the hobby has developed since the war. Both the quality of the modelling and the way in which the subject is depicted are as fascinating and relevant to the hobby today as they ever were and in my opinion it fully deserves all of its column inches in MRJ. I also think it shows a kind of realism which the current near obsession with "dead scale" very rarely, if ever, delivers. I also greatly enjoyed meeting and talking to both Rodney Hills and Pat Williams at Expo EM in addition to seeing the model itself, which was absolutely brilliant, even in its partially running state. So thank you again for your article and also to Rodney, Pat and all the modellers who worked so hard to bring the work of a past master back to life. Simon Castens Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium PMP Posted July 8, 2016 RMweb Premium Share Posted July 8, 2016 Not yet got a copy, (don't live in Ealing), but John Hayes got on with modelling and helping others out very quietly. I know he did pattern making for a number of cottage industry manufacturers as well as his better known locomotive and stock building of which there are several examples at Pendon, as well as his commission work for customers. I did know him quite well but had unfortunately lost regular contact over the past few years since a house move. He was a disarmingly modest and kind natured man with a supreme talent. Anyone who saw his restored vintage motorcycles will know just how good his engineering ability was at full scale let alone the model side of the hobby. Obviously I've not read the obituary or the associated memories/tributes. I think MRJ actually does those pieces really well, and for me they add to the 'esscence' of what is 'MRJ'. I feel they allow the recognition of commendable efforts various people have played in the hobby, which perhaps they may not receive elsewhere. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Zero Gravitas Posted July 9, 2016 RMweb Gold Share Posted July 9, 2016 Just to bring this thread back to something approaching MRJ thread normality: 1. It's appeared in the shops exactly according to schedule. 2. My subs copy hasn't arrived yet. :-) (That's a smiley face, in case anyone experiences any potential levity-related issues)... Edit: I'm going to leave this post here, but it makes significantly less sense now that Andy Y has removed the more argumentative posts from beforehand. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andy Y Posted July 9, 2016 Share Posted July 9, 2016 Several posts which were part of an argument have been removed. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jwealleans Posted July 9, 2016 Share Posted July 9, 2016 I haven't had my sub copy yet either - noted that I'm not the only one. Is there a local strike somewhere which might be delaying them? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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