Castle Aching

[CF MRC]

Don't forget it is a hobby chaps. I used to be much more single minded than I am now in the pursuit of railway modelling. Over the last few years I have made a (kit built) 1/3rd scale traction and showmans road locomotive. These have taken up my summers for the last ten years and are very high maintenance. A year ago, I bought a Morgan three wheeler and that takes up quite a bit of time too. I enjoy all my hobbies and, weather permitting, shift from one to the other fairly randomly - so what's to worry about?

 

Tim

[St Enodoc]

Have you seen http://www.gwr.org.uk/  ?  Originated by Mikkel of this parish

And now in the very capable hands of Miss Prism, also of this parish.

[Stubby47]

 

 

 

 

 

 

Full sized railway signals seems to be a passing distraction at the minute, but getting parts is difficult for them, so that's very stop and start too.

 

 

 

Brilliant !

Edited February 21, 2017 by Stubby47

[BlueLightning]

James,

 

I take a day off RMWeb, and come back to find you have lost your motivation for model railways!!

 

Take all the time away from trains that you need. We all need a break and playing with another hobby is a good way of getting one. I'm sure we will all look forward to seeing more of CA when it returns, in the meantime we would also enjoy seeing your military figures!!

 

Gary

[Edwardian]

Thank you all.  Some very sensible comments and a good deal of moral support.  It really does help. 

 

Perhaps a little holiday, then.  But, I shall apply the maxim that a change is as good as a rest, and, I hope that military modelling in a similar scale, with figures, buildings, terrain and equipment, will help to keep my hand in.  

 

The first figures tackled show that I am significantly below the standards set by Webcompound and Phil, but that I can achieve an acceptable table-top standard. 

 

I do not intend to stop railway modelling completely, but perhaps it will provide occasional relief from painting the Big Battalions, rather than the Main Effort for however many weeks the current mania lasts.

 

Knowing myself as I do, I predict that the itch to partake in railway modelling will build and build in the meantime until it overcomes all discouraging realities and I plunge back into it.   

[Nearholmer]

One thing you might wish to consider doing at the earliest opportunity, is to get some track down, even if is some cheap, old track, mounted on plain flat boards that can tuck behind a sofa or something when not in use, so that you can play trains (sorry, I mean "operate a miniature railway in a serious and sober spirit") occasionally.

 

There is something hugely therapeutic about "operating the timetable", especially while listening to music, or an interesting programme on the radio. I used to find it was a great way to unwind after a busy day (working for a railway company?!?!), and this morning I got all decadent, and played trains after I'd got the children up, dressed, breakfasted, and to school (which apparently simple operation I find uses as much energy and cunning as an entire day of work!).

 

K

Edited February 21, 2017 by Nearholmer

[uax6]

That's an interesting idea that I'd never thought about, I wonder if I could get away with tucking a sheet of ply down the back of the sofa with some track on, or would SWMBO find it and make life hell? Theres a socket that is surface mounted, so a 2x1" frame on three sides with a gap for the socket, so it can just be lifted out without having to move the sofa...... Or a cut out in the board!

 

I can see a plan forming here. it'll be like the old days of playing on the floor with the trains!

 

Mind now racing.

 

Andy G

[Clearwater]

To Kevin's point above, I have a 6 by 4 twin track oval with brnachline (loosely based on a plan from RM) that's kept in my son's bedroom. We use it most weekends with a variety of stock based on his choices (they can be random as he likes e.g. BR liveried Tangmere to "visit" on a GWR day...) however this is a stop gap until I have the time space and money to build something more expansive.

 

Because I'm not great at woodwork, I used one of the baseboard manufacturers up near Cambridge to make the frame and top which is robust enough to withstand the manhandling. It's not perfect but it does allow trains to be watched as they loop around and we've a small goods yard that we do inglehook shunting puzzles in. (We have an iPhone game my son likes so this is "shunting game in real life). For the cost, we've had inordinate value out of it! Meantime, I'm very slowly learning to skills of assembley for stock I require long term.

 

David

[Donw]

I built these two very small baseboards to fit into a cupboard in the Motorhome the layout is to be a 2mm finescale one

Here tracklaying is in progress in the motorhome the seat has to be shared with a small terrier

 

The best example though is Maurice Hopper's work. You may have seen St Juliet in the model press other layouts are even smaller designed to be transportable by public transport.

Don

[Nearholmer]

The sort of thing I was thinking of was a series of "tiles", which would eventually fit with the baseboard of CA village, to form a layout, but which could be used 'sans batiments' in the interim. With a framing design as shown by Don, they'd only need to be about 40mm thick; I have a favoured design, based on that of cheap doors, which uses 5mm ply skins on both faces of a framing of 25mm x 12mm battens, and it is as rigid as many elephantine baseboards, while being dead-easy for a cack-handed carpenter like me to make.

 

If you read Denny's book about the Buckingham Branches, it becomes clear that he had little bits of layout secreted in every nook at the first tiny flat that he and his wife shared.

Edited February 21, 2017 by Nearholmer

[webbcompound]

Perhaps a little holiday, then.  But, I shall apply the maxim that a change is as good as a rest, and, I hope that military modelling in a similar scale, with figures, buildings, terrain and equipment, will help to keep my hand in.  

 

The first figures tackled show that I am significantly below the standards set by Webcompound and Phil, but that I can achieve an acceptable table-top standard. 

 

I do not intend to stop railway modelling completely, but perhaps it will provide occasional relief from painting the Big Battalions, rather than the Main Effort for however many weeks the current mania lasts.

you are very kind to mention my soldiers, but I am by no means that good, just good at disguising it. If you are painting plastics dont forget to undercoat in dilute PVA or you will really become disillusioned when the paint flakes off the muskets. Only the odd expert can really concentrate on everything. You have built some superb buildings, whereas in the last five or so years I have produced a little shed and the front of a warehouse that has been pinned to the wall for most of that time.

 

As suggested  a couple of peco points and track lengths slapped on a plank is a good idea as a rapid hit and when you build anything it can be run up and down. Of course you could go for the Grand Crimean Railway and combine both interests... 

 

Which is what I am curently diverted into as a result of reading about the RE railway units operating in France in 1940 so I have launched into making stock for a small shunting layout depicting a section of yard under construction by 150 and 161 Railway Construction Company as part of the deployment of 1st Armoured Division south of Rouen in the first week of June 1940

Edited February 21, 2017 by webbcompound

[corneliuslundie]

"If you read Denny's book about the Buckingham Branches, it becomes clear that he had little bits of layout secreted in every nook at the first tiny flat that he and his wife shared. "

A very inspiring book. But I think his wife might have noticed when he put the boards up to run trains!

Jonathan

[Nearholmer]

I always chuckle out loud when I read that section of the book and look at the diagram ....... never, in a billion years, would I get away with that!

 

If there is a desire to decorate the tiles/planks with very-low-rise scenery, the railway that was started in connection with the Suakin-Berber campaign might provide inspiration ...... some fairly flat dessert (NO! I mean desert). In this connection it is a useful prototype, because it was a military railway, and it was never finished.

 

You can even get a kit for Kitchener's railway coach, [ edit: whether this coach was built for the Suakin Berber, in 1885, or later campaigns, I'm now very confused about! It rides on SG bogies, which suggests Suakin, because later railways were Cape Guage, and some sources say one thing, and some the opposite. I might drop a note to the museum if army transport people] which is (amazingly) still in existence ....... I got stuck in traffic in Daventry behind it one day, when it was being transferred between museums by road. http://www.steamandthings.com/page50.htm

 

Pictures of the Suakin railway are very rare, but I found this one, clearly drawn by someone upon whom the finer points of a manning wardle saddle tank locomotive were lost. Some of these locos were supposedly "sheathed", and the artist certainly represents a lightly-armoured cab on this one.

Edited February 22, 2017 by Nearholmer

[ChrisN]

I am a bit concerned about the relief of Castle Aching as it appears to be an ambush with most of the force having already been shot.

 

I would suggest that the village could double as a wargaming venue but for two points, 1) it is a whole connected structure and is unable to be used for anything but close hand to hand fighting, and 2) the roofs do not come off so they cannot be used as 'firing platforms'.  My youngest (adult) son tells me I have to make all my buildings as 'firing platforms' for when he wants to come and play war games with me.  I am not sure if this means the glazing must be removable as well.

[nick_bastable]

I am a bit concerned about the relief of Castle Aching as it appears to be an ambush with most of the force having already been shot.

 

I would suggest that the village could double as a wargaming venue but for two points, 1) it is a whole connected structure and is unable to be used for anything but close hand to hand fighting, and 2) the roofs do not come off so they cannot be used as 'firing platforms'.  My youngest (adult) son tells me I have to make all my buildings as 'firing platforms' for when he wants to come and play war games with me.  I am not sure if this means the glazing must be removable as well.

more worrying they appear to be French      

 

Nick

[Edwardian]

I am a bit concerned about the relief of Castle Aching as it appears to be an ambush with most of the force having already been shot.

 

I would suggest that the village could double as a wargaming venue but for two points, 1) it is a whole connected structure and is unable to be used for anything but close hand to hand fighting, and 2) the roofs do not come off so they cannot be used as 'firing platforms'.  My youngest (adult) son tells me I have to make all my buildings as 'firing platforms' for when he wants to come and play war games with me.  I am not sure if this means the glazing must be removable as well.

 

That and the fact that the village is in perspective, so the troops would need to become smaller as they headed up Bailey Street for a pint at The Dodo.

 

Railway Modellers frequently trade on "what ifs", a concept not unknown among Wargamers,I believe.

 

Well, the Eagle could Land, given it's a Norfolk village.  The French (in red trousers) could invade during the Line's early history.

 

My favourite scenario is that Davies and Carruthers are captured and, so, fail to reveal the Dastardly Plans of the Hun (as Ripping Yarns once put it, trying to start World War One early, before we are ready for it), and instead the Kaiser invades the Wash and the North Norfolk Coast in flat bottomed barges.  One Teutonic strike force would dash ahead in an attempt to seize the King at Sandringham. 

 

Anyway ...

 

It is sensible advice to think about getting some tracks down, if only so as to have a test-track facility.

 

I do like the idea of building on different boards secreted about the place.  I wonder what the foot-print would be of the two front boards that are intended to carry the tracks for CA.

[corneliuslundie]

I assume that the Edwardian era is too early for the re-enactors to have got going. There is a layout going the rounds at the moment, World's End but quite clearly Knaresborough, with a re-enactment taking place on the castle grounds (Peter Goss).

And back to your scenario, I assume that the rest of the invaders were dealt with with great ease by the local fen dwellers who would know every twist and turn of the waterways.

But your comment raises a question. Do wargamers build scenarios with perspective? At the Stafford exhibition there was a marvellous wartime "layout" with forced perpective giving the appearance of seeing to a distance of half a mile. It was set in Iraq and there were numerous animations including a man in the foreground pumping up a tyre on his bicycle and several trains and road vehicles running across the scene. If I remember rightly the scale varied from about 1:32 at the from to 1:450 at the back. I think some of the planes were actually perspective models. And it was viewed as if looking out through the aperture in a sandbagged dugout.

It is based on the battle of Habbaniya.

Found it: https://www.facebook.com/308140952659301/photos/a.779518648854860.1073741831.308140952659301/916892181784172/?type=3

Jonathan

Edited to remove an unnecessary slur on Peter Goss.

Edited February 22, 2017 by corneliuslundie

[jwealleans]

World's End but quite clearly Knaresborough, with a re-enactment taking place on the castle grounds, but that is a rather unsubtle advert for the layout builder's figure business (Peter Goss).

I don't want to start a fight, but i think that may be a little unfair. I spent quite a while talking to Pete at Pontefract and he used to participate in Civil War re-enactment. It was fascinating listening to him explaining what was happening in each part of the diorama, especially where he pointed out his own family in the model.

 

I accept that he does sell his figures on the end of the stand - he must have permission from the show - but does he sell the Civil War figures as part of that? I only recall railway figures and civilians.

 

What caught my attention especially was that the figures in light blue in one of the melees are 'Pennyman's Regiment', the Pennymans being the family who owned Ormesby Hall from before the Civil War until they bequeathed it to the National Trust in the 1960s.

[Edwardian]

 

 

My youngest (adult) son tells me I have to make all my buildings as 'firing platforms' for when he wants to come and play war games with me.  I am not sure if this means the glazing must be removable as well.

 

Your windows will be smashed and soldiers will chip through the masonry with their bayonets to form loop holes.  Your accessories will be piled across the street to form barricades.  Your model crops will be trampled. Precious railway equipment will be damaged or destroyed and the railway and the telegraph wires will be cut. Pretty soon shells will start to knock large holes in your buildings and your platform shelter will burn down.

 

If I were you, I'd produce a dedicated FIBUA village for him to play with when he visits!

 

 

I assume that the Edwardian era is too early for the re-enactors to have got going. There is a layout going the rounds at the moment, World's End but quite clearly Knaresborough, with a re-enactment taking place on the castle grounds, but that is a rather unsubtle advert for the layout builder's figure business (Peter Goss).

And back to your scenario, I assume that the rest of the invaders were dealt with with great ease by the local fen dwellers who would know every twist and turn of the waterways.

But your comment raises a question. Do wargamers build scenarios with perspective? At the Stafford exhibition there was a marvellous wartime "layout" with forced perpective giving the appearance of seeing to a distance of half a mile. It was set in Iraq and there were numerous animations including a man in the foreground pumping up a tyre on his bicycle and several trains and road vehicles running across the scene. If I remember rightly the scale varied from about 1:32 at the from to 1:450 at the back. I think some of the planes were actually perspective models. And it was viewed as if looking out through the aperture in a sandbagged dugout.

It is based on the battle of Habbaniya.

Found it: https://www.facebook.com/308140952659301/photos/a.779518648854860.1073741831.308140952659301/916892181784172/?type=3

Jonathan

 

Looks good, from what I can see of it.  I think there is quite a tradition of using perspective in military modelling dioramas, which probably pre-dates the use of forced perspective by Railway Modellers.

 

For wargames, however, things tend to be rather more stylised than we are used to.  Figures might be exquisitely painted, but 12 figures mounted on a base might represent a battalion of 600, so it is not accurate in the way model railways or military dioramas might be.  Further, just as a figure might represent 20, 50 or 100 men, the scale of the figures is out of all proportion to the area of landscape portrayed.  Some wargamers will try to square this circle by using buildings that are several scales smaller than the figure scale.  Personally, I find this looks odd.  Most often there is selective compression of buildings and the use of a handful of structures to represent a town or village.

 

So, the models are merely a suggestion of a body of men or a suggestion of a settlement. Some landscape is quite peremptory.  This is partly to do with the difficulty of modelling landscape in a natural or flowing way where figures need to be moved around it, and part of this is because the next time you play, you want a different landscape, so everything has to be capable of re-arrangement.

 

 

I don't want to start a fight, but i think that may be a little unfair. I spent quite a while talking to Pete at Pontefract and he used to participate in Civil War re-enactment. It was fascinating listening to him explaining what was happening in each part of the diorama, especially where he pointed out his own family in the model.

 

I accept that he does sell his figures on the end of the stand - he must have permission from the show - but does he sell the Civil War figures as part of that? I only recall railway figures and civilians.

 

What caught my attention especially was that the figures in light blue in one of the melees are 'Pennyman's Regiment', the Pennymans being the family who owned Ormesby Hall from before the Civil War until they bequeathed it to the National Trust in the 1960s.

 

I once went to a show just to see Rowland's Castle, which was exquisite.  Pete, and, I think, Mrs Pete, were very friendly, interesting, and generous with their time.  A real gentleman, I thought.

 

Haven't seen World's End as yet.

 

As for Castle Aching, I cannot envisage the Edwardian populace suddenly deciding to recreate key episodes from Spain's war of national liberation against the Tyrant Bonaparte, or, Buonparte, as I should say!

 

What they might do, at a suitable village festival, is stage historic tableaux in costume.  The Death of Nelson being an obvious one for a Norfolk village.  All very Mapp & Lucia, of course. 

[Clearwater]

I'd second the plaudits for World's End. An absolute visual feast - one of the best scenic railway models around. As with a lot of models, pictures don't quite do it justice

 

David

[Edwardian]

Some wargames terrain is purpose built for particular scenarios, and, in these cases, it is possible to create something more realistic.

 

Let this modeller take you to the Phoenician city of Tyre in 333-332 BC. Alexander the Great laid siege to the city in 332 BC during his campaigns against the Persians, but, I believe, was unable to take it.  

 

This Chap's techniques are as impressive as his results.  The architecture is stunning.  Then he hits you with the ships ... 

 

This is someone who really deserves the laudatory epithet "modeller".

 

There are 14 pages of this jaw-droppingly exquisite stuff, but here is a taste:

 

http://bennosfiguresforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=18962

 

http://bennosfiguresforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=18962&start=60

 

http://bennosfiguresforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=18962&start=80

 

http://bennosfiguresforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=18962&start=220

 

http://bennosfiguresforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=18962&start=180

[Nearholmer]

Bloomin' marvellous!

 

What is the material that he is using for structures? It looks like a very dense foam, carved, but I struggle to think of a foam that is dense enough to carry the level of detail, and not be unfeasibly fragile.

 

This all brings up the possibility of dual-function landscapes ......... The Battle of the Vale, staged at Pendon, perhaps.

[Edwardian]

Bloomin' marvellous!

 

What is the material that he is using for structures? It looks like a very dense foam, carved, but I struggle to think of a foam that is dense enough to carry the level of detail, and not be unfeasibly fragile.

 

This all brings up the possibility of dual-function landscapes ......... The Battle of the Vale, staged at Pendon, perhaps.

 

Blue Styrofoam.  I have some, somewhere.  Will dig it out and take piccies.

[webbcompound]

According to Howard Giles's Brief History of Re-enactment The Duke of Buckingham staged naval battles from the Napoleonic War on the large lake on his estate in 1821, and a reenactment of the Battle of Waterloo was put on for a public viewing at Astley's Amphitheatre in 1824. and In 1895, members of the Gloucestershire Engineer Volunteers reenacted their famous stand at Rorke's Drift, 18 years earlier. Also in (no date here) 25 British soldiers beat back the attack of 75 Zulus at the Grand Military Fete at the Cheltenham Winter Gardens.

 

Wargamers are little devils for compression and scaling mismatch, but railway modellers are not innocent on this score. Selective Compression is almost universal when it comes to track layout (the very few fully to scale layouts look quite empty), and most main line traffic is drastically truncated. How many 0-8-0s are seen pulling 80 or 90 wagons? How many A4s with a dozen or more carriages.

 

Railways do occasionally feature in wargames, most recently I was looking at rules for incorporating railways in WW2 skirmish level games using the excellent Chain of Command rules from The Too Fat Lardies. Unfortunately as a result of their quirky sense of humour too much exploration of their (excellent wargame) output is liable to leave me exposed to a raid by the moderators. Given wargamers total inability to understand the difference between scale and measurement the actual railways suffer massive distortion, and are often little more than caricatures.

Edited February 22, 2017 by webbcompound

[corneliuslundie]

My apologies if I appeared to be unfair to Peter Goss. I was merely repeating, without enough thought, the comment of another visitor who was at the show with me. That was his reaction on seeing the layout and the stand. I shall amend my post to show that I meant no ill will. And i don't think there were military figures on his sales stand.

Jonathan