Castle Aching

[Nearholmer]

For what it's worth, which probably isn't a great deal, I think that 'driving a computer' is a qualitively very different activity from the sort of model-making we grew up with; pretty much all brain, and no hands.

 

And, I think this is why it is such a painful activity to contemplate. It isn't 'zen' enough as a relaxation/hobby, if you have a bit of craft in your nature.

 

Personally, I've worked with "tech" professionally, but have absolutely zero interest in it hobby-wise ........ I don't find it a relaxing or enjoyable tool to use in the way that I do a saw of a knife.

 

K

[nick_bastable]

I have not used  the silhouette since purchasing the laser but my memory of using it was similar to the laser in that it worked best on card which may be worth considering for coach sides.  As I recall you could scan a image into the machine to create a cutting file.   To be honest the bespoke files it uses  also put me off preferring  to draw these with CAD,

 

Nick

[Edwardian]

For what it's worth, which probably isn't a great deal, I think that 'driving a computer' is a qualitively very different activity from the sort of model-making we grew up with; pretty much all brain, and no hands.

 

And, I think this is why it is such a painful activity to contemplate. It isn't 'zen' enough as a relaxation/hobby, if you have a bit of craft in your nature.

 

Personally, I've worked with "tech" professionally, but have absolutely zero interest in it hobby-wise ........ I don't find it a relaxing or enjoyable tool to use in the way that I do a saw of a knife.

 

K

 

I think you might have something there.  Sounds better than just admitting how useless I am at 'pooter software.

 

 

I have not used  the silhouette since purchasing the laser but my memory of using it was similar to the laser in that it worked best on card which may be worth considering for coach sides.  As I recall you could scan a image into the machine to create a cutting file.   To be honest the bespoke files it uses  also put me off preferring  to draw these with CAD,

 

Nick

 

You'd think so, but I could not even mange to produce a pdf image good enough to use as the basis.

 

I find grappling with this software fruitless and soul-destroying.

 

That is a real shame, because it is the answer to a lot of what I want to do.  I can't begin to describe how much my failures in this regard depress me!

 

A natural inaptitude?

[Compound2632]

For what it's worth, which probably isn't a great deal, I think that 'driving a computer' is a qualitively very different activity from the sort of model-making we grew up with; pretty much all brain, and no hands.

 

And, I think this is why it is such a painful activity to contemplate. It isn't 'zen' enough as a relaxation/hobby, if you have a bit of craft in your nature.

 

Personally, I've worked with "tech" professionally, but have absolutely zero interest in it hobby-wise ........ I don't find it a relaxing or enjoyable tool to use in the way that I do a saw of a knife.

 

K

 

 

I think you might have something there.  Sounds better than just admitting how useless I am at 'pooter software.

 

 

 

You'd think so, but I could not even mange to produce a pdf image good enough to use as the basis.

 

I find grappling with this software fruitless and soul-destroying.

 

That is a real shame, because it is the answer to a lot of what I want to do.  I can't begin to describe how much my failures in this regard depress me!

 

A natural inaptitude?

 

See earlier post.

[Andy Hayter]

For what it's worth, which probably isn't a great deal, I think that 'driving a computer' is a qualitively very different activity from the sort of model-making we grew up with; pretty much all brain, and no hands.

 

And, I think this is why it is such a painful activity to contemplate. It isn't 'zen' enough as a relaxation/hobby, if you have a bit of craft in your nature.

 

Personally, I've worked with "tech" professionally, but have absolutely zero interest in it hobby-wise ........ I don't find it a relaxing or enjoyable tool to use in the way that I do a saw of a knife.

 

K

 

While I share Edwardian's Angst regarding computerised cutters, I have to disagree that using such devices removes the Zen.  Once the cutter has finished you still have to put all of the pieces together, and from what I have read you will also need on some occasions to aid the removal of non-wanted items (like window apertures) from the "cut" sheet.

[Northroader]

Dunno, I used to think it was a generational gap thing, but technology keeps evolving, and it's how far you can be bothered to keep up. When I retired, our office still used fax for communication, and I never have grasped email. Every so many years, my mobile phone needed changing, and it takes ages for me to grasp the new programme enough to make a simple call.

Look on the bright side, there's plenty of useful models and bits out there for you to adapt to what you want, you're doing this quite successfully and enjoying doing it, so why give yourself grief worrying about what you might not be able to achieve on the latest expensive bit of kit?

[wagonman]

Back to post #4739 - that's the first coach I've seen in Great Yarmouth & Stalham Railway livery! But the panelling style was fairly typical of carriages built in the early 1880s, particularly by the Met C&W Co who supplied some to the Swindon Marlborough & Andover Railway. The MS&LR also had some to that style, and doubtless many other lines.

[Edwardian]

Thinking of Kevin, Andy (Hayter)'s posts, and Stephen's Morris post, which I had meant to comment upon, clearly the tactile element is missing in Silhouette drawing and, indeed, CAD, and that is probably a factor for me.  Then again, the same is true of my primitive image manipulation in Word and my brief foray into Photoshop. These involve colour images that I will print and use, and there is an immediacy to them.

 

There is also a creative element in adapting photographs to kit components.  In my heart I fear I do not see Silhouette for my purposes as creative.  Generally I already have a scale drawing and I simply (!) want the computer to cut it out in plastic in several layers.  I think in my heart of hearts I cannot warm to this as a creative, as opposed to mechanistic, process; I feel like saying to the 'pooter "well, here's a scale drawing, now get on with it", and there is a terrible sense of wasted effort and frustration is laboriously and manually trying to recreate a plan on screen that I already have!

 

I do not mean to think like this, but I suspect that, deep down, something of that attitude persists to the cost of the necessary degree of patience.

 

Of course, if I can ever break through this Silhouette pain barrier, the tactile joy of assembly and painting awaits!  But, while I understand this on a rational level .....    

 

I must persist!

 

 

Dunno, I used to think it was a generational gap thing, but technology keeps evolving, and it's how far you can be bothered to keep up. When I retired, our office still used fax for communication, and I never have grasped email. Every so many years, my mobile phone needed changing, and it takes ages for me to grasp the new programme enough to make a simple call.
Look on the bright side, there's plenty of useful models and bits out there for you to adapt to what you want, you're doing this quite successfully and enjoying doing it, so why give yourself grief worrying about what you might not be able to achieve on the latest expensive bit of kit?

 

 

True, true, but that limits so much of what I want to do!

 

 

Back to post #4739 - that's the first coach I've seen in Great Yarmouth & Stalham Railway livery! But the panelling style was fairly typical of carriages built in the early 1880s, particularly by the Met C&W Co who supplied some to the Swindon Marlborough & Andover Railway. The MS&LR also had some to that style, and doubtless many other lines.

 

Generally I find that raised, square, beading on the waist is a common feature of coaches of the 1860s and 1870s.  Lights and blind panels with square lower corners and large radius upper corners is  a feature of the 1860s-1880s. With the GE the latter feature seems to have persisted until c.1893.

 

I agree with the comment on the Met C&W - these features were certainly part of there house style.  I have been looking at early 1870s coaches built by them for the LSWR in the early 1870s.  Weddell notes the similarity between these and coaches built for other companies and concludes that they followed a Met, rather than a LSWR design.  later batches, built in-house by LSWR, show subtle differences to the panel styling.   

 

The Felixstowe coach, mentioned earlier and built by Gloucester, is of the period (1877),and shows a close resemblance to contemporary GE stock:

 

 

 

[Donw]

Well this should be a hobby done for pleasure. The trouble comes when the result i.e a working model of an imaginary railway set in Edwardian times is more important than the process of getting there. Now if one is blessed with great wealth you can practice a bit of re-balancing by paying others to make the bits one doesn't enjoy. For most of us there are task which we greatly enjoy  down to tasks which we find a bore or very difficult.  It is up to you but the net result needs to please you sufficiently to justify the time spent on the less pleasant tasks.

In some ways the less prescriptive you are about the result the more you can avoid certain tasks. I bought some coaches from Chris Bolton (now retired) all built to proper GWR diagrams rtr and painted for a very reasonable price (for a 0 gauge coach) because it would be a long time before I got round to building coaches. However not all you want will be available. So I have some kits to build of Cambrian coaches including some kits for S&D coaches which are very similar to the Cambrian ones and will look the part painted in Cambrian colours ( I could replace them if I run out of other things to build but I have yet to find the time to build the kits).

 

I can see that if I had stuck to WR days in 00 I could have spent more time doing the scenic work which I find very pleasurable and can be delightfully 'hands on'

 

Don

[Nearholmer]

"Sounds better than just admitting how useless I am at 'pooter software."

 

Don't knock yourself; much 'consumer' software has pathetically poor person-interfacing. It is anything but intuitive.

 

iPhones and iPads sell like hot cakes because they have well-designed interfaces (although a lot of the apps to use on them are really poor), and software for critical applications costs a lot partly because so much effort goes into making it as easy as possible to use.

 

I've touched on this stuff in my work, and my good lady just completed a degree in computing and psychology, which was heavily focused on it.

 

Blame the tools! There is a stack of academic literature illustrating how poor they are.

 

K

Edited July 21, 2017 by Nearholmer

[Edwardian]

OK, so here's the plan!

 

In due course I would quite like to model Wolferton station - as a straight prototype layout.  What makes this barely, as opposed to completely un, feasible is that more or less anything from a real railway company that is suitable for Castle Aching will be suitable for use on a GE Lynn-Hunstanton line layout. And  I'd plump for the same c.1905 period.

 

So, the No.1 Class, T26 and Y14s that could visit CA could equally happily serve a 'real' station close by.  The GE mainline coaches I am considering for a GE through service to CA/the Birchoverhams are very much what might have run from London through to Hunstanton.

 

The GE goods stock and visiting company wagons, and even my legitimate PO, Dennick, can run there.  Older GE 4 and 6 wheel coaches would do for the (GE) West Norfolk Extension services.  Even the Yeomanry and the Royal Train with its Royal Claud are possible at CA, as we have discussed.

 

If I ever build 'Wolferton', it will be because I already have the stock.

 

Which brings me back to GE services for CA.

 

My current plan is to do no more than build a single train - 6 late '90s 6-wheelers (Brake Third, Third, Compo x2).  These I believe I can derive from Ratio sides and information to hand.

 

The potential expansion would be 4 1880s 6-wheelers (Brake Third, Third, Compo, Full Brake), 6-wheel Clerestory Third, Bogie Clerestory Composite.  The 1880s coaches at least would need to use Silhouette generated sides.

 

I would then form these into 2 trains, splitting my 6 late '90s; 3 to run with the 1880s Brake Third, Third and Compo, and the other 3 to run with the 1880s Full Brake and the 2 Clerestories. 

 

Will I ever get this far?  Who knows, but I have, I think, a realisable plan with a means of later expansion.  

[Northroader]

Good, now that's settled, here's a Nigel Digby painting of the coach we were looking at yesterday, only done in the proper finish.

My French mate says " Ze first sing sat you must do is sat you 'ave proper nourishment before you acheeve your great task. Always conseeder your stomac."

[Edwardian]

Good, now that's settled, here's a Nigel Digby painting of the coach we were looking at yesterday, only done in the proper finish.

IMG_1177.JPG

My French mate says " Ze first sing sat you must do is sat you 'ave proper nourishment before you acheeve your great task. Always conseeder your stomac."

IMG_1175.JPG

 

Does Mr Digby give a date for this livery, with the large class numerals?

[Northroader]

Quote: "The standard lettering until 1902 was "GER" and number on waist panels of mainline stock, and eaves panels of suburban stock. Class marking was "1st" etc on waist panels of doors. Lettering sans serif in gold shaded red and white, shadowed black. Armorial device on lower body panels of firsts and compos. From 1902 large 12" numerals on lower panels of doors for main line stock, and initials abbreviated to "GE". Suburban stock had 8" class numerals"

The large initials on goods stock also happened in 1902.

[Edwardian]

Quote: "The standard lettering until 1902 was "GER" and number on waist panels of mainline stock, and eaves panels of suburban stock. Class marking was "1st" etc on waist panels of doors. Lettering sans serif in gold shaded red and white, shadowed black. Armorial device on lower body panels of firsts and compos. From 1902 large 12" numerals on lower panels of doors for main line stock, and initials abbreviated to "GE". Suburban stock had 8" class numerals"

The large initials on goods stock also happened in 1902.

 

The 1902 wagon scheme was short-lived, using rather square letters (as pictured below), the more familiar style of large G E was applied from early 1903. I was planning on the small, pre-1902/3 "G E R", with, perhaps, a single new wagon with the large "G E", because I wasn't reckoning on many repaints to large initials by 1905.

 

Further, I think the small initials phase is distinctive and more characteristically early-mid-Edwardian.  Otherwise, only the Midland is likely to feature large initials.  The GN's initials will be small, and the LNWR's will be non-existent!

 

I have to think about the likely livery for 1897-8 vintage coaches in 1905.  They are mainline coaches.  I believe they will be young enough to receive fresh varnish. Older coaches may be in paint.  I had assumed class designations in the waist band, rather than large numerals, not having realised the latter were introduced as early as 1902.  On the whole I think it likely that coaches built c.1897 might have had a re-varnish by 1905, but might they still feature the pre-1902 lettering scheme?

 

The consensus amongst modellers seems to be in favour of the large lower body numerals.

 

Views, as ever, most welcome.

Edited July 21, 2017 by Edwardian

[corneliuslundie]

I agree with your approach - not very much repainted recently. Other wise it will seem more recent then 1905 even if it is technically possible.

Jonathan

[Edwardian]

Good, now that's settled, here's a Nigel Digby painting of the coach we were looking at yesterday, only done in the proper finish.

IMG_1177.JPG

My French mate says " Ze first sing sat you must do is sat you 'ave proper nourishment before you acheeve your great task. Always conseeder your stomac."

IMG_1175.JPG

 

I agree, Digby's drawing seems to be of the same diagram Luggage Brake Third as the example preserved in crimson livery on the K&ESR (No.197).  The K&ESR coach dates from 1887, which fits with my understanding of the evolution of GE body styles.

[Caley Jim]

.........  In my heart I fear I do not see Silhouette for my purposes as creative.  Generally I already have a scale drawing and I simply (!) want the computer to cut it out in plastic in several layers.  I think in my heart of hearts I cannot warm to this as a creative, as opposed to mechanistic, process;.......

I have no experience of the Silhouette, but from experience of designing my own artwork for etching, what you are essentially doing is creating your own kit/scratch-aid for the model.  This in itself can prove to be a creative experience, requiring thought as to how the components will fit together and making allowances for material thickness etc.  Once you've built it you have the satisfaction of knowing that it is unique and with far more accurate and neater detail than you could produce 'by hand'.  You also have the benefit that you can produce as many 'kits' as you want/need in the knowledge that they will all have the same degree of accuracy and detail (provided you assemble them properly!).

 

Jim

[PeterR]

Designed when the Wolverton drawing office staff were only half asleep.

 

 

Hi, I have taken the liberty of 'tickling the photo' scan to show more detail - here is the result.

 

 

These were built for the lightly used 'through carriage' services - one of these was the London to Oban, another was to Inverness..

 

The service still runs with the service now from Euston only with several destinations - The Caledonian Sleeper - leaves with 16 coaches, and is split into sections and gains a few more (non sleeper) coaches en route.

 

When the service started the 3 northbound (and southbound naturally) railways (ECJS/Midland?WCJS) all parcipitated. I have a photo of a sleeper from each at Mallaig, and another of the Highland Railway North Express with all 3 as well. They in that from did not last long - lack of trade I suspect, and the frequency was reduced.

 

These were two sets modified - the others used the (semi) elliptical roof, being built later when the LNW/WCJS used that roof section, and were to other way round!

 

Yours Peter.

Edited July 21, 2017 by PeterR

[Compound2632]

Hi, I have taken the liberty of 'tickling the photo' scan to show more detail - here is the result.

 

composleeper.jpg

 

These were built for the lightly used 'through carriage' services - one of these was the London to Oban, another was to Inverness..

 

The service still runs with the service now from Euston only with several destinations - The Caledonian Sleeper - leaves with 16 coaches, and is split into sections and gains a few more (non sleeper) coaches en route.

 

When the service started the 3 northbound (and southbound naturally) railways (ECJS/Midland?WCJS) all parcipitated. I have a photo of a sleeper from each at Mallaig, and another of the Highland Railway North Express with all 3 as well. They in that from did not last long - lack of trade I suspect, and the frequency was reduced.

 

These were two sets modified - the others used the (semi) elliptical roof, being built later when the LNW/WCJS used that roof section, and were to other way round!

 

Yours Peter.

 

I'd be interested if you have photographic evidence of a Midland/Midland & North British Joint Stock sleeping carriage at Mallaig. The Midland certainly had through carriages to Mallaig in the summer season in certain years before the Great War, but not as far as I'm aware sleeping carriages. I'm not so sure about Inverness either.

[uax6]

I found that learning the software (I used studio  that comes with the cutter, as I can't get my head around inkscape!) was teadious, but after the first couple of uses I got used to it and found that the end results far outweighed the tedium to produce it. For one of my coaches I would say that it takes about 10 to 12 hours to draw it in studio (I tend to use exisiting artwork and modify it for each different company stock, and then use that as building blocks) and then about 40-50 hours to put the vehicle together. The sides produced are just basic scratch aids, I still have to remove the windows with a blade even though the cutter has more or less cut through them.

 

I find modern computing very confusing (I'm 39 BTW!) and the modern touchy feely apple style that every one wants is completely alien to me, as is the requirement for you to have an internet connection to do any computing at all. Having just bought a win 10 machine I fear that if I can't get it to behave like a real computer (ie run local programs and not send all my info to Microsoft) then it will be wiped and win 7 put on instead, and then I will run it like a real computer......

 

I think that once you have taken the jump you will find it the same sort of tool as you use to make your stunning buildings, with only a little more of a learning curve.

 

Andy G

[BG John]

Surely designing your own "kits" and then building them, is more satisfying than just building someone else's kits. For those who are unable to build a kit according to the instructions, I'm sure there will be plenty of opportunities to kit-bash your own kits when you find errors in your design, or opportunities for improvement!

 

 

I find modern computing very confusing (I'm 39 BTW!) and the modern touchy feely apple style that every one wants is completely alien to me, as is the requirement for you to have an internet connection to do any computing at all. Having just bought a win 10 machine I fear that if I can't get it to behave like a real computer (ie run local programs and not send all my info to Microsoft) then it will be wiped and win 7 put on instead, and then I will run it like a real computer......

Or change to Linux, which is much more like proper computing, and just as user friendly as Windows used to be in the good old days. I'm finding I still need to use Windows for some applications programs, which is a bit of a pain, but hopefully I'll be able to stick with Windows 7 until I don't need it any more.

[uax6]

Which Linux do you use?

 

Andy G

[BG John]

Which Linux do you use?

 

Andy G

Mint.

[Bill_J]

Dunno, I used to think it was a generational gap thing, but technology keeps evolving, and it's how far you can be bothered to keep up. When I retired, our office still used fax for communication, and I never have grasped email. Every so many years, my mobile phone needed changing, and it takes ages for me to grasp the new programme enough to make a simple call.

Look on the bright side, there's plenty of useful models and bits out there for you to adapt to what you want, you're doing this quite successfully and enjoying doing it, so why give yourself grief worrying about what you might not be able to achieve on the latest expensive bit of kit?

 

Isn't that why we have children and grandchildren? To guide us whenever we upgrade our phones?