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Half a century of not producing a model railway

A blog by HymekBoy in RMweb Blogs

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In which the author explains why he's never quite managed it

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In which I gauge the change of a change of gauge

I had long been curious about N Gauge, ever since seeing a long rake of Peco ‘Wonderful Wagons’ in a model/toy shop (Hubble & Freeman) in Maidstone, Kent, in what must have been about 1974. They looked rather good at the time. Less good looking were the locomotives. It is all about ‘looking right’ and whilst I can overlook a lot, I cannot abide something that just ‘looks wrong’! (Hornby) Minitrix were particular culprits. I could not have run their Class 27. It would have given me a

October 16, 2016

1

Back in their boxes once again

Throughout 1984, ‘85 and ‘86 the Portuguese Caledonian Cambrian Taff Vale Railway was worked heavily. Being a long roundy-roundy layout the locomotives worked in real time, hence a journey from Cardiff to Swindon (around the guest bedroom) would take over an hour – although all the intervening stations looked remarkably similar. The locomotives accumulated a lot of running hours pulling heavy trains (I liked to load my wagons where possible, running up to 25 wagons on a train) and those puny

October 4, 2016

0

Ducks in a row...

There comes a time when conditions are such that railways begin to boom, and so it was in the mid-1980’s with my own railway. a) I had the space, a decent apartm… flat to myself with an appealing but very empty guest room. b) I had some so-called ‘disposable income’ jingling in my pocket, and I disposed of it. c) My girlfriend was in Britain studying. I had few to distract me. d) I had a supply of much pored-over Railway Modellers from the Tabacaria Britannica, with their seductive

October 1, 2016

0

The rise of the Cascais Model Railway Club, members - 2

So was this Portuguese interlude to be the death of all pretence at being a modeller? I had few hopes, it seemed like a modelling desert for one weaned on diesel hydraulics. The Small Prairie and I arrived in Lisbon in 1984, in a world without internet or video, where we listened to the BBC World Service through the crackles if we wanted to catch up on events. The Prairie went on the shelf and stayed there. The Portuguese Railway scene was reasonably interesting. I would daily take the Casca

September 12, 2016

2

The modelling lean years, when girls and exams take over from shunters

I will draw a discreet veil over the next 8-10 years of this modeller’s life. They are those years in which trains are customarily shelved while we get our teeth into other matters, such as exams, education, girlfriends, parties and assorted beverages. Perhaps I should re-phrase that. My long-serving, bruised and battered train set, which had still never seen a board to call its own, was boxed up (for those few items that still had boxes). It had put in a momentous innings over 10 years

September 10, 2016

6

Occasional Escapades - escaping the Southern Region

So there I was, on the cusp of teen age, with about as mixed up a train set as a boy could have. The only commonality was gauge (OO of course, in those days). As to location, it was doubtless set on an island somewhere north of France, but that was as far as it went, with a possible leaning towards the west of that particular island. As to era, that was clearly 1st January 1923 to 1st January 1970, the well-known Big Four Rail Blue Epoch. The lads from school and I had finally succumbed to t

September 1, 2016

0

Unification and diversification, with System 6 and Trix

I settled into life and school life in Kent with relative ease, adjusting my Glasgow accent accordingly upon seeing the utter incomprehension of my contemporaries. The train set was still a ramshackle affair, but it still worked, and still gradually grew, not wildly as funds didn’t permit, but steadily, still not boarded down, just a pile of stuff on the carpet. I had always had a hankering for a Class 37. These to me epitomise the diesel era on British Railways, they were everything a diese

August 28, 2016

2

The land of the hapless HAP

I was distinctly underwhelmed, when as an 11 year old, I first encountered British Rail Southern Region, sitting in what must have been an EPB or HAP unit at Victoria. These were not the exciting railways I had come to expect after a childhood on the Western and Scottish Regions, and they were a far cry from the ‘Royal Scot’, that had just brought the family all the way from Glasgow to Euston. Not the steam engines, the named train. I found myself staring at a sea of rail blue multiple un

August 24, 2016

2

The joys of a fully comprehensive modeller's licence

Meanwhile, back on the late 1960’s model ra….. train set there had been a few developments. I had steadily accumulated Super 4 track to the extent I could lay out a decent double track oval on the floor, with several sidings, a couple of makeshift stations, one on each side of the oval, buffers, semaphore signals and a signal box. Two trains could be run simultaneously, thanks to the Duette, and despite dad’s warnings, double headers were not unknown. Rolling stock remained very random, but

August 21, 2016

2

Knowing your station in life

And so we found ourselves on the Blue Train into Glasgow Queen Street, parents relaxing in the knowledge we were playing football not too far away. The focus of our attention was the gathering of British Rail leaflets, which had become a short-lived craze. Mum surreptitiously threw them all out months later, but it was good while it lasted. Rail Blue was now gaining a foothold on the locomotives, the Class 21/29, 26 and 27 locomotives commonplace at Queen Street were down to about 50% green

August 15, 2016

0

A duet with a Duette, and a quest for leaflets

The model railway… no, let’s be honest…. the train set gained momentum upon the great move north to Glasgow. Being a boy of my age, diesels had become top of the agenda, as they were on British Railways. My dock shunter, admirable as it may have been, was no longer used on the crack expresses of the day, and had been relegated to …um… dock shunting. But first there was time for another steam engine, and one that I saved up for with my 6d, and later 9d… and later 1/- pocket money (wish I had

August 9, 2016

2

Exciting times and blue trains

And suddenly the trains were blue, this was getting very confusing. Not as you might imagine because of the transition to Rail Blue, which wasn’t so sudden and had barely kicked off, but because a small boy had moved to Glasgow. It wasn’t long after disembarking from the Cambrian Airways DC-3 at Glasgow Airport (my first ever flight, so exciting that my baby brother threw up over my lunch), that it became apparent this was not Bath. It wasn’t the accent, 7 year olds pick that up in a matter

August 7, 2016

2

In which we discover the 0-4-0 Shinkansen

Back on the Tri-ang, Midland and Scottish, No. 46205 ‘Princess Victoria’ was still rostered for the crack expresses of the carpet, and indeed the freights too, while No. 46201 ‘Princess Elizabeth’ generally posed on a siding. ‘Princess Victoria’, being a versatile Pacific, also handled all the shunting. All changed, however, with the arrival one birthday or Christmas of R253 Dock Authority No. 3, the red Tri-ang 0-4-0 Diesel Dock Shunter, with its realistic scale 140mph top speed, ideal for

August 3, 2016

2

I don't want to get all nostalgic, but...

While ‘Princess Victoria’ hurtled along, making the exploits of ‘Mallard’ look decidedly sluggish and fully justifying the ample toilet facilities on the Tri-ang station, the real railway was once again in a period of transition. This was evident from my much-thumbed 'Locospotters Annual 1964' and 'Trains Annual 1965'. They are still within arms reach now... not sure if that's a good thing after 50 years. This was evident from the Infants’ School that I attended, from which could be seen,

August 1, 2016

0

A job lot from Father Christmas

The notion that Father Christmas had clearly bought a job lot of OO gauge odds and ends from a local jumble sale at the North Pole never really occurred to a small boy that Christmas in 1965. I was far too agog at the contents on Christmas morning, sometime around 4am. My campaign for an ‘electric train set’ had borne fruit; the box was packed with random semi-boxed stuff. I was officially the world’s most excited boy Starting with the locomotives, these were:- · One Tri-ang ‘Princess V

July 30, 2016

3

The collectibles take a battering

I suppose we’re all a lot more conscious of the notion of ‘collectibles’ these days, or at least the notion of not ruining the packaging just in case we have to sell it on at some stage. This notion hadn’t yet surfaced in the mind of a 5 year old boy in 1964, sitting in the middle of a circle of Hornby O Gauge track. Trains are for playing with, and scale speed wasn’t on the agenda. I still believe in this philosophy, and no matter how I represent the hobby to my wife in terms of model eng

July 29, 2016

0

Early days and influences - the early 1960's

Having browsed through some magnificent railways on this site I thought it was time to explore why, after half a century, I don't have one. Well, certainly not a magnificent one, there have been many attempts over the decades. My formative years in the early 1960's were spent in Bath, and in order to get me out of the way while Mum did the cooking, Dad would put me in his old Citroen (Light 15) and take me down to Bathampton Station. I do recall the car had seat belts, though I don't recall

July 27, 2016

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