I’ve been building some “foreign” stock for the goods depot at Farthing. It’s a real pleasure, but also humbling to realize just how little I know about other companies, and how difficult it can be to obtain kit parts for other pre-grouping companies. We GWR modellers are a spoilt lot!
My 1900s period is before the “common user” arrangement, so most of the goods stock at Farthing would have been the GWR’s own - but there should be room for a handful of foreign vehicles, especially fr
I’m building a traverser of sorts for the fiddle yard of my little goods depot layout. From an engineering perspective it’s a bit dodgy - yet somehow it works, so I’ve dubbed it the bumblebee.
My original plan was to have a fiddle yard with points, but as space is becoming an issue I decided to go for a traverser instead. Trouble is, my engineering skills are equal to those of the common earthworm.
So I’ve been putting it off, until I came across some bits and pieces in t
I’ve slowly started work on the next layout in the Farthing series. “The sidings” are inspired by an interesting arrangement at the back of Gloucester Old Yard, where a headshunt served a series of kickback sidings that gave access to a variety of facilities: One siding served a private “biscuit” depot, another served the local waterworks, and finally there was a backroad to the loco depot’s ash sidings and coaling stage.
Above left is the overall la
Here’s another horse-drawn vehicle for my goods depot, this time a scratchbuilt light trolley in the GWR’s “Birmingham” style. The model was built from styrene and bits in my spares box, with wheels bought in from Langley.
Drawings and photos suggest that there was a bewildering amount of detail variation within this basic type. I based my model on a drawing on page 241 of P. Kelley's "Great Western Road Vehicles", which was built in several lots. Another almost identical version can
It's been a while since we have heard from the Farthing Station Weekly Discussion Club. Fortunately, the Club continues to meet on a weekly basis to discuss worldly matters.
Recent debates have included the Zulu rebellion, the eruption of Vesuvius, Einstein's theory of relativity, the California earthquakes, the invention of flight, Gandhi's philosophy, the discovery of the South Pole, and the scandalous defeat to South Africa by one wicket.
As always, proceedings are hea
There was a time when men were men and horses weren't lasagna. I’m currently building some horse-drawn vehicles for the little yard behind my goods depot. I began with Langley’s whitemetal kit for a GWR 5 ton wagon. This represents one of the standard designs often seen in photos from pre-grouping days, especially in the London division.
It should be said at once that it isn't a finescale kit - indeed it's a bit rough in places. But with a little work I thought it would be OK for a p
I’ve been reading Patrick McGill’s “Children of the dead end: The autobiography of a navvy”. McGill worked as a navvy in the 1900s and became known as the “navvy poet”.
It’s a fascinating read, and it made me realize just how much we owe to the men who built the railways, canals and towns. Talk about standing on the shoulders of giants!
So instead of the usual progress report, I’ll let the navvies do the talking this time. The lines are excerpts from McGill’s poem “Have y
I've managed to finish my early GWR one-planker, built mostly from styrene. Just to recap, the prototype is one of the 18ft types with wooden solebars, originally built in the 1870s. We don't hear much about GWR one-plankers, but there were more than 2300 in service in the early 20th century. They appear to be a bit of minefield with a variety of dimensions, so mine is based on the drawing in "GWR Goods Wagons" by Atkins et al. Details are based on no. 5141, of which a couple of photos exist.
As part of the wagon building programme for Farthing, I wanted one of the early 1-plank opens with wooden solebars. There is no 4mm kit available, but then RMwebber Wagonman pointed out that they are in fact a very straightforward design. So I thought it would be a good opportunity to gain some experience in scratchbuilding wagons, which I’ve never tried before.
I chose to build one of the 18ft types - namely no. 5141, of which there is a drawing and photo
Everyone knows how the “standard” GWR cattle vans looked, but I’ve always fancied the earlier W2 vans with outside frames. So I dug out an ABS 4mm kit and brought it with me on the family holiday. These were "medium" sized cattle vans, with the option of adding a partition and thereby making them "small" if the customer so required. I've always wondered why this was worth the trouble, as the difference in space seems minimal !
I decided to build the kit as supplied, whic
No, this is a not a post about my financial situation - though it could have been! This is about building and painting wagons for my goods depot layout , which is set in the period ca 1900-1908. For wagons this was a real transition period, with a diversity of styles, technical developments and liveries. So I’ve started a wagon building programme which tries to capture some of that variety. Here are some photos of developments so far.
First off was this 3 planker, which
I spent an enjoyable morning installing my two shed cranes in the goods depot. As previously mentioned, the cranes are copied from the ones used at Paddington Goods, although similar types seem to have been used in other large goods depots in the 1900s. I have not been able to find any technical specifications, but I doubt if they were able to handle anything heavier than light goods in vans and wagons.
The cranes were scratchbuilt using plastikard and various oth
Books are good, but there are some things you only notice in real railway environments. Here's a selection of detail shots from my recent quick visit to Didcot. I know that preservation isn't the same as the actual railways, but there are still things to learn from and be inspired by, I think.
Lubricated points... I don't recall seeing that modelled, but maybe I haven't looked hard enough. It would be easy to replicate, but would it look odd in model form?
Last week I was browsing a secondhand bookshop here in Copenhagen. Imagine my surprise when I suddenly came across a dog-eared copy of "A Traveller's Guide to the Great Western Railway" from 1926. What really got my attention, however, was that this was one of the rare illustrated versions, with photos by J. Peerybingle, a well-known photographer of the day.
Feigning complete indifference I managed to obtain the book for a very reasonable price. I particularly like the chapter entitl
Well I finally got around to finishing my little restoration job on these old coaches.
Got the painting done reasonably quickly, but then followed the usual issues: “Now for the glazing. Oh wait, I’m out of Testor's. Must order some more. Now where did I order it last time? Better google it. Ah there’s RMweb, well maybe just a couple
Nörreport station, Copenhagen. Every day after work, I wait here for my local train home. Today it’s late, rush hour is over. Everyone is tired, noone is talking, noone is present. We’re not really here, we’re already somewhere else.
While I wait, commuter trains roll into the platforms and leave again. Many are
Here's an idea for a potential future layout in the Farthing series. The idea is to show a small section of the yard and sidings at Farthing. The trackplan is based on a real-world prototype, namely an interesting ladder of kick-back sidings in Gloucester Old Yard, which served a variety of purposes. By focussing on one end of the track ladder, the layout can feature a variety of stock movements in a limited space, while still following the prototype.
Crown Copyright 193
Here's a little scratch-building project that I'm working on in-between the coach painting. The prototypes were used extensively at Paddington Goods in the 1900s. A similar but more austere type was used at Hockley. I couldn't find any drawings, so the dimensions are guesstimates based on photos. The build was a real pleasure, especially sourcing the parts. I'll let the pictures explain the rest - gradually!
When I was a boy I hated The Weasel with all my heart. The Weasel was our maths teacher and to me he was the prototype of the Evil Teacher. When he taught he got all worked up and saliva formed at the corners of his mouth, and he would walk down among the desks while talking and suddenly pounce on you and slap his hand into your desk and hiss “Am I RIGHT, or am I WRONG?!” It was a rhetorical question of course. We were expected to confirm that we was right, and we always did even if we understoo
A couple of the coaches I’m restoring had buckled or sagging rooves, so I’ve been rolling and detailing some new ones from Plastikard. It’s one of those pleasing tasks where you get the satisfaction of making something from scratch without things getting too stressful - although with brass rooves it can of course be a bit more tricky. Here's a brief illustration of what I've been doing.
“So tell me dear, should I be worried?“ In retrospect, I can see why my wife was slig
As mentioned in the previous blog entry, I've been restoring a small collection of secondhand scratchbuilt 4- and 6-wheelers. I should point out that I'm cutting some corners here: The premise for this project has been to see what I could do with the coaches with simple means and materials, and without breaking them down into their constituent parts and starting over.
First job was to remove the rooves and discard the glazing and droplights, which were beyond savi
Some years ago I picked up a number of secondhand GWR four and six-wheel coaches, originally scratchbuilt by Colin Edge. They were lovely models but had been worn by time.
I have since been gradually restoring the coaches - not to finescale standards but to general working order. This and the following blog entries is a lighthearted
I’ve been working on the alternative side of the goods depot recently. The sides and roof are now more or less done and I'm preparing to lay the ground and track in front of it. The roof has caused much muttering and swearing. Some time ago I dropped the whole thing on the floor, and had to rebuild much of it. Because of the accident, the roof is now slightly out of true in some places. That's not really visible, but it meant I had to give up on flush-glazing it. Certainly a compromise, but I wa
I have been thinking about an idea for a "flexible" layout. This is still very much developing, and what you see here is not an actual trackplan, but an illustration of the concept. The basic idea is a layout where selected drop-in modules can be removed and replaced with other modules. So a particular cameo, building or siding can be exchanged with another cameo, building or siding – thereby changing the look of the layout. This in turn allows for variation in rolling stock and operation.
Modellers try to recreate the real thing. But sometimes we don't know how the real thing looked. Then what? These photos show my experiments with what I think was a standard livery for larger GWR goods depots around 1907, following lots of browsing of photos in books, and a brief discussion in this thread (many thanks gentlemen!).
The trouble is of course that photos from the period don't have, er, colour - and are full of light and shadow. So it's hard to
