HymekBoy

Bollards - are the Mooring Points for ships

Trying to turn a blind eye to O Gauge here.... but that Terrier......perhaps just a display model? Hmmmm... weakening

Excellent storage, you could sell those!

I like that a lot, quite a logical shape to run a tarpaulin over too.

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 headache just to look at it. Likewise with the front ends of their Class 47, it was just wrong, no need to count the rivets. They probably both ran like sewing machines, but I could not abide the horror. And then there was the Warship, which looked like a Halloween leftover. Apologies to the legions of fans of this model but it makes me feel slightly queasy And then there was Lima with their extra tall Class 31. My boat still wasn’t floating. There was another player in the market, Graham Farish, and whilst they had produced a few horrors of their own, by around about the mid-1980’s there were a few respectable little models beginning to creep into the British N-Gauge market, as my imported Railway Modellers were regularly informing me. The steam locomotives still jarred. It was mostly the steamroller front bogies. But the diesel locomotives were showing signs of realism. It was still early days, and I’d had no hands-on experience of N-Gauge, but the accumulation of a wife and subsequent baby had evicted me from the guest bedroom, which was now full of all manner of baby paraphernalia, my OO gauge stock forlornly perched on the highest shelf. I began thinking about what I might manage in N-Gauge, no specific plans, just a need to drive trains in a smaller space, and N-Gauge was coming of age. And so I prevailed upon Hattons to send me Class 20 No. 20142 in BR Rail Blue, with a few Minitrix/Peco wagons, and a bit of track. This, on the other hand, was good enough to lure me into N-Gauge. I was a bit sceptical, after 20 years in OO gauge this was a step into the unknown, but my first running session on that carpet in Portugal, shunting some wagons back and forth with the Class 20, convinced me that N-Gauge had become a viable alternative, albeit a tiny one. The locomotive ran as quietly and smoothly as any I had known, and whilst it didn’t look perfect, it certainly ticked all my ‘looks’ boxes. Particularly if I turned a blind eye to the coupler. BR Blue was not a natural choice for me. I had grown up with it and become a bit bored with it after the 1970’s, when it was on everything in sight. And I never quite got to like the shade of blue, Pullman blue or Electric blue seemed nicer. Perhaps if everything had been Electric blue I’d have been bored with that too. I tolerated British Rail Blue because I had to. And I selected it for the N-Gauge stock because the steam engines of the green period weren’t yet up to scratch. So 1987 unfolded, and a new gauge was making an appearance amongst the bibs, nappies, Superteds (other soft toys are available) and assorted push chairs and high chairs. And just as I was contemplating boarding something down, we were advised we were on the move. Next stop the railway modelling mecca known as Bulgaria. Oh.

A superb local population!

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 Mainline mechanisms were soon on their last legs. I recorded the running hours of all the locomotives for some arcane reason, and some had put in a few months effort. Fresh locomotives were brought in to keep services going, not necessarily in order to fill gaps in the roster, but because I liked stuff. i) Mainline Warship D823 Hermes BR Maroon – Hydraulic power arrives ii) Mainline Warship D824 Highflyer BR Green – the 2 Warships took over the main expresses adding a touch of Devon to the geographical equation. Good looking in their day, they were let down by the Christmas cracker mechanisms. iii) Airfix 14XX No. 1466 BR Green – ideal for that long windy branch line. It came with self-dissolving Alka-Seltzer nylon gears which sadly gave up after a couple of years, but it looked the part. iv) Dapol Castle No. 4090 Dorchester Castle BR Green – with a late pattern tender. Plenty of express engines being drafted in. v) Airfix 4F No. 44454 BR Black – the freight engine scene of the 1980's was a little lacking compared with now, hence the need to bring in some Midland power, though to my eye it looked slightly overscale. vi) Airfix Large Prairie No. 6167 BR Black – Airfix Railways had left the model railway business in 1981, but by this stage, 1985, there was still quite a lot of stock available, often with a little discount. They had some niche models, and I had some niches. vii) Replica B1 N0. 61026 Ourebi BR Black – some serious regional straying going on here, yet another endorsement and 3 penalty points on my modeller’s licence. If I had to find a justification it would perhaps have been a failed engine on the ‘Ports to Ports Express’ (did they ever pull it?). Replica have always been around, and produce(d) some quality models. Who could resist this occasional interloper? My lack of location discipline means that there will always be interlopers on dubious pretexts Hmm, as an aside, the ‘Ports to Ports Express’ – now that would be a thing to model:- “It links Newcastle and Hull by through coaches, and Sunderland. West Hartlepool, and Middlesbrough by connexions, with Newport, Cardiff, Barry, and Swansea. Intermediately the train serves Sheffield, Nottingham, Leicester, Banbury, and Cheltenham. Between Newcastle and Swansea it is a complete restaurant car train, composed on alternate days of L.N.E.R. and Great Western stock” I’m getting distracted. A future project, perhaps. The Ports to Ports Express must have been a lively train in its day There were a few other locomotives, but these were the locomotives putting in the shifts of the day. Passenger stock – a nice long rake of the expensive Mainline Colletts, a variety of Mk 1’s from Lima, Mainline and Replica, a B-set, Autocoach, and a Farish (Grafar as they called themselves) OO Pullman Car that came from I know not where. Not excessive but enough to fill the carriage sidings. Freight stock – a wide variety of BR grey and bauxite, and far too many private owner wagons for a nationalised railway, but 7 plank private owner wagons are a particular weakness of mine, particularly Welsh ones. They were almost all out of era, but I cunningly hid them from the Portuguese branch of Rivet Counters International. And then, in the charming and romantic setting of Heathrow Terminal 1, I blurted out some vague sketchy notions of marriage to the girlfriend, who took it all too literally. Within a year the deed was done, Child Mk. 1 was on its way, and the railway, after its long, busy moment in the sun, was back in its boxes on the shelf. Some have remained in those boxes to this day.

Nice track, though there's some truth in the old proverb 'Never drive a camper van into a Mk 1 coach'.

As to gauge, had you considered the futuristic 7 feet 0¼ inches gauge? Atmospheric propulsion? Will be watching this one from Earth

I was going to say Blimey too

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 tiny print full page adverts. It was either (1) drink myself into a stupor every night or (2) embark upon a small railway project. As you might have guessed I chose mainly (2) with the odd excursion into (1). The Small Prairie staring at me so balefully every time I arrived back home needed proper company, the Class 21/29 didn’t quite cut the mustard. And soon the parcels began to arrive. I always felt sorry for the postman, as almost every week he would lug a box of goodies up to the 6th floor to find I was once again at work. Under these circumstances, the following arrived in Portugal:- i) Mainline 43XX No. 5328 BR Black – the first to arrive, I was in business. This locomotive survives to this day, having replaced the chassis. ii) Mainline 66XX No. 6652 BR Black – hard worked but terribly noisy! iii) Airfix Castle No. 4079 Pendennis Castle BR Green – I always loved the Castles, and this was an excellent performer, despite the ghastly tender drive and traction tyres. I would prefer a locomotive to haul 3 coaches and slip, than to haul 10 coaches without slippage. Once it starts to slip turn down the power and coax the train up to speed, as on the prototypes. iv) Mainline Dean Goods No. 2538 BR Black – a poor performer but I had to have one. As you might discern, a theme is developing. BR era for sure. Western for sure. South Wales in all likelihood with that 66XX. And that was the philosophy, until I happened upon W&H Models in London during a holiday. A great model shop sadly gone, and this was in the window: v) Dapol Pug No. 51241 BR Black – well that doesn’t fit in, but I found myself unable to resist it. The story of my life…. I commend Dapol for having the courage to produce it, and it was a great little performer, probably still is, though not tested for over a decade. It’s beginning to look like a little known outcrop of the L&YR somewhere near Newport. vi) Mainline Manor No. 7827 Lydham Manor – make that the little known Newport on the Cambrian. This locomotive, though gorgeous, became the donor locomotive to keep the 43XX on the rails. vii) Hornby Pug No. 56025 Smokey Joe – this is what happens when a Korean girlfriend goes into a model shop without supervision! The Caledonian Cambrian. The fastest locomotive since Princess Victoria. I shall return with more, but you can begin to see my problem. I have no discipline when it comes to location, or era or even gauge, as we shall see. The day job The evening job. This grainy old photograph on the Portuguese Western Region is all I have uncovered so far - there must be more Trackwise I had accumulated a largish stack of Peco, enough to cover an entire guest bedroom floor, say 15' x 12', with a double track main line, 4 platform station (platforms of local wood), a long branch line to terminus and an extensive shed and sidings area. No board. Straight on the carpet. From a distance of several miles it looked just like the Cambrian. But anyway, I had a shed full of motive power, and it wasn’t long before the Cambrian Coast Express took to the rails, for the first time in Portugal. Or had somebody else already reached that milestone?

Agreed. I happened to be on the paddle steamer Waverley today (another of my old flames) and bought a few items at the gift shop. No electronics there, they took a carbon paper print of my bank card, old style. Not quite a brass rubbing, but the same high tech. Very charming but it did take about 5 minutes to pay

That's a lot more effective than my own method when a model takes a dive - dance up and down on the spot while reaching into the naughty corner of my vocabulary

Suspect the Black 5 tender may be derailed Got to love a shunter, and that one looks fabulous

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 Cascais Line EMU with its Budd stainless coaches, a gorgeous little route along the sea. At Lisbon, once a week, I would take the ‘Rapido’ to Oporto, and transfer there to an English Electric Class 1400 with 3 coaches for the rambling journey to Viana do Castelo. This was all very pleasant, but not the sort of stuff to be modelled by me. A CP (Comboios de Portugal) Class 1400, from English Electric and based upon the Class 20 Not far from the office, however, was a tiny little cigarette shop called the ‘Tabacaria Britannica’. It sold Embassy Regals and the like, but down there on a tiny magazine rack in the corner was to be found ‘Railway Modeller’, and occasionally ‘Continental Modeller’! Progress! I would grab the former and often grab the latter too, and with plenty of down time on trains I would devour them from cover to cover. I remember one LNWR layout had me truly salivating. You would never have imagined that this unassuming little tobacco shop harboured a stash of Railway Modellers It was from these pages that I also discovered ‘Hatton’s’ and ‘The Engine Shed’ and eventually their mail ordering skills. More was to come in a small shop around the corner, where I discovered Lima Mk 1 Coaches in Chocolate/Cream and Green, and with a sudden rush of blood I bought all four in the shop. I am not sure what sort of Portuguese people had an interest in BR Mk 1 coaches but I was glad that they did, my Small Prairie had a train, but sadly no track. It was then that I realised colleague Ken (real name Ken, no relation to Barbie) had an interest in model railways, and had constructed a double track oval in his garage, on the pretence that his kids would enjoy it. Ken liked Spanish trains for some obscure reason, and had a selection of very varied Spanish stock from Electrotren and Ibertren. It wasn’t quite my scene, but he would let me drive his trains! And so we formed the Cascais Model Railway Club, membership two. There may well have been other Cascais Model Railway Clubs, but I only joined this one. Ken also happened to have a Tri-ang Hornby Class 21/29 No. D6103 in BR Green with small yellow panels which was purchased for a couple of beers. The Class 21/29 was about as far from the Prairie as one could get but frankly I didn’t care. I had the makings of a train set model railway. And a childhood which included Bristol Temple Meads and Glasgow Queen Street could get away with such things. Well worth a couple of beers. It had a lop-sided look and couldn't handle the check rail on points, but it served me well My sad lack of permanent way was soon remedied with a trial order to Hatton’s. It was not the click-click ordering of today, more the pen to paper/envelope/stamp and wait a couple of weeks, but in due course my first consignment arrived. Both Hatton’s and The Engine Shed were to be commended for a superb service, no order ever failed. My orders mushroomed. Being a bachelor with a bit of disposable income I made my own order form and photocopied it, and would often have 2 or 3 orders in hand at any one time. At this time Airfix and GMR had mostly come and gone and Mainline were at their peak. The models were fabulous in comparison with my older stock lurking in mum and dad’s roof, but the mechanisms were about as weedy as you could get, tiny little pancake motors that would disgrace a Christmas Cracker. These poor motors were subjected to the heaviest freights until one by one, they died. Portugal was indeed a place of modelling renaissance.