Dorkingian
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Posts posted by Dorkingian
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Take three girls...
...yesterday in the sunshine:
First we'll follow Bessie the Black 5:
and then Julie the Jubilee (with three types of ex-LMS coaches):
and then Stella the BR Standard 4MT, here with ground signals:
I couldn't resist another take of 'el classico':
Rounding off with another view of the girls together:
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The Dorking Garden Railway which started nine years ago (and others on the same site) does everything you seem to want:
https://www.oogardenrailway.co.uk/index.php?/topic/354-the-dorking-garden-railway/
Go for it!
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More of those Maroon Monsters
Why not?
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An exciting day (part 3)
We end with a couple of shots of Castle Class "Earl of St Germans" seen hauling a portion of a long distance express from the West:
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"Western Harrier": the video
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An exciting day (part 2)
This was starting to look like a fantasy diesel gala:
Then "Western Harrier" took to the road:
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An exciting day (part 1)
Yesterday, which was to feature the first visiting locomotives this year, began with a sort of "Escape from Suez" commemorative intermodal train with the Class 66 and the slowly lengthening rake of container flats:
And then the first of our exciting visitors appeared:
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A trainload of Brexit issues
The Financial Times had an article with that headline on 25 March. Obviously trading things across the EU border in general is more difficult now. Here's the model railway related bit:
...Nearly three months after the UK left the EU’s single market, people are finding little to give them hope that difficulties in securing parcels from shops or friends across the border are easing. Many parcels are locked in customs sitting for weeks in vast warehouses near the British border waiting for checks and delivery. Some… never arrive. Others face unexpected customs duties, VAT and handling fees, leading to widespread complaints of doorstep shocks and demands from parcel handlers.
But it is not just about costs and inconvenience, for many the new rules are creating invisible barriers between friends, family and straining long-established networks of colleagues and clients across Europe.
Adrian Bagley, a semi-retired architect who buys and sells model trains from collectors in the EU said while the additional charges levied as a result of Brexit annoyed him, it was the impact on his place in a multinational community of buyers, sellers and fellow enthusiasts that upset him.
“I feel like a semi-invisible barrier has come down between me and all those countries I had previously been on the same footing with, when we were all following the same rules. Now I feel I’ve been cut off by duties and so-called ‘handling charges’,” he said. Bagley used the Dutch-based auction website Catawiki to purchase a Roco model steam engine from a vendor in Germany for €250.49 — above the £135 threshold for paying VAT at point of sale.
Even though electric model trains are zero-tariff rated in the UK’s global tariff schedule, on collection from his local Parcelforce depot, Bagley was asked to pay a total of £53.56, comprised of £41.06 in VAT and a handling fee of £12.50 — roughly a 25 per cent surcharge.
The extra costs disadvantage Bagley in a marketplace because EU purchasers will always underbid for his products to allow for the extra costs of receiving goods from the UK, while making it harder for him to match EU bids on products from buyers based in the bloc who will not need to pay VAT and other charges.
The penalties also operate the other way, with an aggrieved Italian buyer emailing Bagley to ask why he had to pay €22.68 in duties for a model train he had purchased. “Was everything not included in the shipping costs?” Bagley emailed the site to say that his days selling model trains on Catawiki appeared to be coming to an end. The company said it is doing “everything we can” to support UK sellers and buyers through the transition.
Other parcels have required esoteric certification to pass customs such as passport numbers or, in the case of one pair of boots ordered at Christmas, a power of attorney...
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Hornby Dublo 2-6-4T video (5 minutes) from the recent running session:
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Here's the 5 minute video from that last running session:
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Eternal Youth
My elderly Hornby Dublo 2-6-4T enjoyed an outing in yesterday's sunshine:
More photos in the garden railways section here:
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Spring Greens
After a month of cold and then wet, our weather hasn't been great until very recently. So I needed to seize the moment in yesterday's sunshine and decided it felt like a day for running Southern Region branch line trains, using the N Class and the BR Standard 2-6-4 tank. Here are some of my many photos.
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Thomas and the snow
Annie and Clarabel were delighted to see the snow, but Thomas wasn't so sure. "I don't think we'll be able to get out of the carriage sidings" he said.
Even when they turned round to face the other way, the enormous depth of snow defeated them:
"If we try to move from here, we'll just get stuck!" said Thomas.
Annie and Clarabel were very sad. "Isn't there anything you can do, Thomas?" they said.
So Thomas jumped everyone across to another track, but still the snow was too deep to risk.
"It's no good" said Thomas. "There's too much snow today. We'll just have to stay at home." So he blew hot steam into Annie and Clarabel's pipes to keep them warm and cheer them up.
The Fat Controller told Thomas that the whole line was completely snowed-in, and even the girder bridge was impassable. But as he said, things like that don't happen very often in Dorking, so we hope the trains will be running again soon.
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"Class 66 Heaven"
The real-life version of that GBRF 66701 shot on the DGR makes a couple of appearances in Josh Barker's other new video which is well worth a look, here: -
New Video
My favourite Christmas present is a video just released by Josh Barker, dating from his visit to the DGR in August 2018. It features British steam and modern image and German modern image trains and was well worth the wait.
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A rogue steampunk crane on a garden railway? Irresistible. Yes, some more details (and pictures) please. And the ace of spades?
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Remembering what garden railways are all about
Fun in the summer sunshine:
Happy Christmas to all.
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Autumn Interlude
Having waited a while for some decent weather, yesterday I decided to go for a running session despite it being overcast in order to get some autumn leaves photos. Polishing up the track seemed to take a bit longer than normal, as it hadn't been used for such a long time.
The new Class 66 was keen to stretch her legs again, and there was a new intermodal wagon set to add to the rake. I hope the pictures convey that autumn feeling (and yes, it was a bit cold standing by the lineside).
A video may be along later.
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Today on the Dorking Garden Railway
and yes, it was a bit cold waiting by the lineside.
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The Cyril and Daisy videos
In any discussion of coarse scale gauge 1 it's hard not to think of these mini-epics. For me they are the ultimate in garden railway videos, not because of their great detail but because a) each one has a convincing narrative, and b) somehow they convey atmosphere very successfully, not least perhaps because of the sound effects and smoke effects.
It's sad that the railway's owner, Peter Strange, died earlier this year (2020). So that is the end of Duck End Pictures, his wonderful video collaborations with Paul Rhodes.
and so on...
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Early French models
Looking at the photos earlier in this thread prompted me to dig out my father's first toy train, which is a PLM Pacific loco number 44 with very damaged tender. The box is unlabelled but has the inscription "To George, from Grace" (probably his aunt).
Under the footplate is the following message:
Fred has kindly pointed out that this makes it a Simon & Rivollet item. They seem to have produced a wide range of small metal toys, mostly not railway related.
The question then arises about a date. My father was born in 1909 so was only five at the outbreak of the First World War, whereas after 1918 S&R probably weren't able to manufacture and export to the UK straight away. So I'm wondering whether this model is up to 110 years old (it looks rather delicate to be given to an under-five child) or merely around a century old. The latter seems more likely to me.
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DGR does globalisation: first run of the intermodal train
Class 66 waiting for work
Bringing home a train of containers - literally all the way from China
Then it was time to form up another rake at Northdown container terminal:
Before heading off again
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New kid on the block
The 1st October celebrations in Dorking and Beijing mark an important milestone for the Fat Controller and the People's Republic of China. The date is also the anniversary of the opening of the DGR in 2012, and for all these reasons it frequently results in new stock arriving in Dorking. This year was no exception, seeing the DGR finally escape from the steam age with the acquisition of our first diesel (about time too, I hear some say) and what should be a decent train of intermodal wagons to complement it.
Getting the too-bright and shiny intermodals coupled up and running proved to be too fiddly and time-consuming for the limited time available, so the Class 66 made its proud debut towing just a modest pair of containers. The loco is nicely weathered, so the pristine wagons will have to get theirs in due course.
A longer train should be along soon.
And here are a couple of the real things, also in Dorking:
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Not the Night Mail
Some old negatives recently came my way, courtesy of Julian, which look like photos from sixty years ago of the overnight mail trains that ran in both directions between Paddington and Penzance. Presumably these are summer photos, taken when the train could be seen in daylight.
The trains had originally been known as the Great Western Up and Down TPOs and that continued after nationalisation. The Travelling Post Office vehicles are in the striking Post Office red livery used for the new Mk 1 mail train stock (1959 onwards) until their repainting into blue and grey livery from 1970.
It's not clear whether these photos are of the Up or the Down train. Several vehicles are fitted with mailbag exchange apparatus which would be on the nearside of the train, but they are marshalled with apparatus on both sides so that the stock would not need to be turned at final destination.
As well as the TPO coaches, there are several ex-GWR Siphon G vehicles coupled at the rear which by this time were in parcels use and would be dropped off at various points on the Down service and reattached on the Up.
Peter Johnson's book Mail by Rail gives a general introduction to this traffic.
A computer generated colour rendition(!) to show the Post Office red livery, with a view of the mailbag exchange apparatus:
And the same treatment for the first photo above:
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Dorking Garden Railway - videos in 00 scale
in My Garden Railway Topics
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Southern Visitors
Several Southern visitors arrived one day last week with David, but we couldn't persuade all of them to run well or pose for the camera. But here are some that did both of those things.
First it's King Arthur Class "Sir Meliagrance". He was a rather disreputable knight who had a crush on King Arthur's queen Guinevere and kidnapped her, before meeting a very sticky end from the sword of Sir Launcelot. But the loco runs well.
Here showing the Drummond tender with which the Eastleigh Arthurs began their careers:
Merchant Navy Class "Holland-Afrika Line":
This member of the home team seems to get in everywhere: