Like Fagin, “I’m reviewing the situation”

Or, a Note about the decision to abandon the Cliff Railway model.

I had measured, drawn and made mock-ups of the various buildings at the lower end of the Cliff Railway to check that their mutual alignment was as it was expected to be. I was rather disappointed with the way the Mock-up buildings did not quite align correctly, and a couple of glaring errors were apparent.

The worst offender was the lower station alignment with the track, there is a discrepancy of a few degrees in the angle subtended between the track and the back wall of the Station / Guest house building which threw all of the lower buildings away from their expected position on the baseboard. I did say in an earlier blog that the baseboard would follow the construction of the buildings….. I should have followed that reasoning!

To correct the above discrepancy would mean totally re-building the baseboard, and re-aligning the incline together with the location of the top station building which also is misaligned to the track.

These positions were “fudged” for the model to be shown as work-in-progress at the 2014 Derby Show, in the “Aspects of Modelling” corner. However I was unhappy with the display and decided to withdraw it from the second day of the show.

I had followed the Downes / Robinson thread here on RMweb and talked to a few helpful people (visitors and exhibitors at Derby, and previously at the Stafford Show) about the way forward with constructing the buildings and also, in particular, the two carriages and came to the conclusion that I had bitten off more than I could chew.

I have had nothing but encouragement from members on RMweb…and at the Mickleover group..... Thank you all!

I am now more than two years into making a model which I had expected to complete in about 18months, so now I have the prospect of effectively starting again, and I have realised that I do not have the experience or skill in scratch modelling necessary to do justice to the prototype. The adage “old dogs, new tricks” applies I’m afraid!

In its final form, it would need to be, almost by definition, a high quality diorama with a Rail based automaton with no operating requirement other than a start / stop switch.

I have measured and studied the modern carriages, and cannot see a way to model them, and finish with identical units, although I had found sources of the control equipment required.

The finished diorama would be a single dog-legged “block” approximately 350mm wide x 1.5metres long x 1.3metres high with obvious problems of storage and transport (should it be considered worthy of space at an exhibition !).

I have, therefore, regretfully decided to abandon it.

It has been a fascinating if ultimately frustrating experience.