Castle Aching

[CKPR]

Apologies for the spur of the moment camera shot rather than a proper scan but here's a classic article by David Lloyd on modding the Lesney traction and showman's engines (RM Aug. 1964).

[Metropolitan H]

1 hour ago, Edwardian said:

Briefly and temporarily departing from piers, here's another rabbit hole: Early traction engines, ploughing engines etc.

 

For my purposes I mean engines dating from c.1870s-1890s.  This is a vital question inasmuch as I hope ultimately to have an agricultural engineers on the layout and, of course, some rail-borne machinery.

 

lf you start to interrogate most of the kits that have been available over the years, they tend to be of relatively late prototypes, say Great War to 1930s.  Look at the majority of preserved engines and you find the same.

 

Based on my almost total lack of knowledge of the subject, I have persuaded myself of the theory that traction engines tended to look pretty similar over the course of their development, but probably got bigger.

 

That, anyway, was my excuse to buy a rather mucked-up Dublo Dinky for not very much.  The seller also had a steam roller, so I bagged that too.

 

I have never owned any of these, but recall the Dublo Dinky range as the mainstay of many layouts featured in my Father's old RMs.   There's a certain displaced or indirect nostalgia here as a result.  

 

It strikes me that this traction engine is not a bad model and has much character, and I wondered if, as it is not over-large, it might pass for a late Victorian example?

 

  

As you have already ascertained both the Allchin traction engine and Aveling and Porter steamroller were both part of the original series of "Matchbox - Models of Yesteryear" - and albeit they are a bit undernourished to accompany 4mm scale trains we had them on childhood layouts. There were also a big "Showmans" Road Locomotive to a similar scale and a Sentinel Steam Wagon - but the later was to a much smaller scale, more akin to 2mm scale than 00. The final steam related model was the Steam fire engine and its team of plastic horses to a similar scale as the traction engine and roller. I will have to find where our ones are hiding, before providing pictures!

 

Regards

Chris H

[Adam88]

17 minutes ago, CKPR said:

Apologies for the spur of the moment camera shot rather than a proper scan but here's a classic article by David Lloyd on modding the Lesney traction and showman's engines (RM Aug. 1964).

 

Around the same time I seem to recall another article in the Modeller describing a Lynton & Barnstaple locomotive which was also based on a Matchbox Allchin.  Whether it was worth the effort just for the boiler, smokebox and chimney is another question.

 

[phil_sutters]

Just to illustrate the Dublo Dinky list above, the Brighton Toy and Model Museum seems to have a pretty complete collection on display. They were all current models of vehicles from the 1960s.

[wagonman]

12 hours ago, Annie said:

I found your notes and photos on Withernsea interesting James, but I'm afraid I was much amused by the almost Pythonesque tale of the steadily shortening pier due to altercations with shipping. 

 

And yes that coach caught my attention too.

 

Nearer to home (Castle Aching that is) Cromer pier also had an altercation with a vessel with a chunk being taken out of the middle. This was doubly unfortunate as the lifeboat house was located at the seaward end of the pier.

 

 

Edited December 3, 2020 by wagonman

[Engineer]

An image relevant to earlier discussion of steam engines:

 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/kindredspirituk/14952721924/in/album-72157613931186050/

 

[CKPR]

1 hour ago, Adam88 said:

 

Around the same time I seem to recall another article in the Modeller describing a Lynton & Barnstaple locomotive which was also based on a Matchbox Allchin.  Whether it was worth the effort just for the boiler, smokebox and chimney is another question.

 

 I know the one you mean - I've got RM 1963-66 immediately to hand but I can't find it and think that it might be from 1961 or 1962.

[monkeysarefun]

Getting  back to pubs for a sec because I'm Australian (and was thus sleeping when they came up briefly) , the goldrush here coincided with the era of nutty Victorian architecture.

 

For a time some of our smallest remotest towns became the richest places in the world and huge buildings - commercial and  government - are still a feature of some of our regional towns and cities, some miles from anywhere like Charters Towers or Kalgoorlie.

 

My  favourite is in Bendigo  Victoria, The Shamrock hotel, a city blocks worth of ornate over the topness, with the obligatory Aussie country pub verandah attached to the front.

 

Lola Montes performed there and miners threw gold nuggets at her feet.

 

 

Now back to traction engines .

Edited December 3, 2020 by monkeysarefun

[Canal Digger]

going back a couple of posts, will CA have a (Merryweather perhaps) Fire Engine? or have I missed that conversation?

 

[Edwardian]

3 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

Getting  back to pubs for a sec because I'm Australian (and was thus sleeping when they came up briefly) , the goldrush here coincided with the era of nutty Victorian architecture.

 

For a time some of our smallest remotest towns became the richest places in the world and huge buildings - commercial and  government - are still a feature of some of our regional towns and cities, some miles from anywhere like Charters Towers or Kalgoorlie.

 

My  favourite is in Bendigo  Victoria, The Shamrock hotel, a city blocks worth of ornate over the topness, with the obligatory Aussie country pub verandah attached to the front.

 

Lola Montes performed there and miners threw gold nuggets at her feet.

 

 

Now back to traction engines .

 

Dancing the tarantella, no doubt.

 

There's a wonderful take on Lola's tarantella in the film adaptation of George MacDonald Fraser's Royal Flash when the enamoured Ludwig I of Bavaria declares 'I don't believe they're real!'

 

In response, Miss Montez rips her bodice open to reveal that they were, very much, real, to which the King weakly replies 'no, I meant the spiders'

[monkeysarefun]

17 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

Dancing the tarantella, no doubt.

 

 

From wiki....

"In June 1855, Lola departed the U.S. to tour Australia and resume her career by entertaining miners at the gold diggings during the gold-rush of the 1850s. She arrived in Sydney on 16 August 1855.

 

Historian Michael Cannon claims that "in September 1855 she performed her erotic Spider Dance at the Theatre Royal in Melbourne, raising her skirts so high that the audience could see she wore no underclothing at all. Next day, the Argus thundered that her performance was 'utterly subversive to all ideas of public morality'. Respectable families ceased to attend the theatre, which began to show heavy losses."

 

She earned further notoriety in Ballarat when, after reading a bad review of her performance in The Ballarat Times, she attacked the editor, Henry Seekamp, with a whip  Although the "Lola Montes Polka" (composed by Albert Denning) is rumoured to have been inspired by this event, the song was published in 1855 and the incident with Seekamp occurred months later in February 1856.

 

At Castlemaine in April 1856, she was "rapturously encored" after her Spider Dance in front of 400 diggers (including members of the Municipal Council who had adjourned their meeting early to attend the performance), but drew the wrath of the audience after insulting them following some mild heckling"

 

And this from the "Hobart Courier" of  the time..

 

LOLA MONTEZ.

THE following remarks appear in the Argus of

Thursday last, and we subjoin Lola Montez reply : -

 

" Why the stage of the theatre Royal should have

been selected for a public exhibition of the kind which

look place last evening, we cannot imagine. Although

far from admiring the entertainments with which the

public of this city have for the last week been nightly

treated, at what we once hoped to call our national

theatre, we have hitherto abstained from commenting

upon them ; but after the exhibition of last evening, it

would be criminal on our part to continue to be silent,

when such a course of conduct might be construed into

a merely negative objection to such scenes as that

presented by Madame Lola Montez. We feel called

upon to denounce, in terms of unmeasured reprobation,

the performances in which, that lady last evening

figured. We do not intend to enter into details. The

crowded attendance at the theatre will understand our

motive for not doing so. One conclusion, however, at

which we arrive is this - If the management of the

Theatre Royal aim at securing public patronage by such

performances, they have no right to insult respectable

ladies by inviting their attendance; and if scenes of

the kind are ever to be repealed, we consider that the

interference of the authorities is imperatively called for

to put them down as a nuisance, and us utterly subversive

of all ideas of public morality."

 

LOLA MONTEZ AND THE SPIDER DANCE.

 

To the Editor of the Herald.

Sir,-A notice of my performance of the "Spider

Dance," at the Theatre Royal last evening, appeared

in this morning's edition of the Argus, couched in such

language as to render it imperative on me to reply

to it.

The piety and ultra-puritanism of the Argus might

possibly operate to prevent the insertion of a letter in

their columns bearing my signature, and therefore I

address myself to you, relying on your sense of justice

to publish this communication, in fairness to myself and

the public.

The Dance in question is essentially a national one,

and is witnessed with delight in Spain by all classes and

both sexes, from the Queen to the pensioner.

I am not the inventor or the originator of the dance

in question, but simply the delineator of a great national

spectacle.

I do not perform the dance to minister to any morbid

taste for immoral representations. I have always

looked upon it us a work of high art, and on artistic

grounds alone I appear before the Melbourne public,

as I have appeared in the same character before the

most distinguished audiences in the world ; and I throw

back with scorn the insinuation of the Argus that I in

this dance come forward to pander to a morbid taste for

indelicate representations. Theirs is the indelicacy

who look at any work of art with an arriere pensee in

their minds; let them remember that the symbol of

innocence is the statue of Eve, and that since the days

when Eve surveyed herself in the fountain, works of

art, however portrayed, have by their very character

been saved from the ribaldry of the licentious or un-

initiated; par example, the Venus de Medici, and

Power's Greek slave.

I shall be at my post tomorrow night, and shall

there take a course which will test the values of the

opinion advanced in the paragraph of the Argus above

alluded to.

LOLA MONTEZ.

 

 

 

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/2491040?searchTerm=lola montez theatre royal

Edited December 3, 2020 by monkeysarefun

[St Enodoc]

7 hours ago, wagonman said:

the lifeboat house was located at the seaward end of the pier

What a good idea!

[Edwardian]

13 hours ago, CKPR said:

Apologies for the spur of the moment camera shot rather than a proper scan but here's a classic article by David Lloyd on modding the Lesney traction and showman's engines (RM Aug. 1964).

 

Matchbox Addendum.

 

Thanks again to Kevin for correcting my misattribution and to all for further and better particulars.  Last night I read that article with interest and enjoyment. I was particularly struck at the reference to the dry-brushing technique, the earliest I recall seeing.  1964!  And such engaging prose, the like of which we do not read these days.

 

I will resume a search for plans when I have a moment, but found for sale, for an unobjectionable £6, a revised edition of the publication mentioned. 

 

In the meantime, one mystery at least is solved.  It was the manufacturer who claimed the scale as "80:1", with what accuracy I cannot tell.

 

 

 

11 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

Getting  back to pubs for a sec because I'm Australian (and was thus sleeping when they came up briefly) , the goldrush here coincided with the era of nutty Victorian architecture.

 

For a time some of our smallest remotest towns became the richest places in the world and huge buildings - commercial and  government - are still a feature of some of our regional towns and cities, some miles from anywhere like Charters Towers or Kalgoorlie.

 

My  favourite is in Bendigo  Victoria, The Shamrock hotel, a city blocks worth of ornate over the topness, with the obligatory Aussie country pub verandah attached to the front.

 

Lola Montes performed there and miners threw gold nuggets at her feet.

 

 

Now back to traction engines .

 

Thank you for that.  Fascinating.  I well recall seeing Ludwig's famous gallery of contemporary beauties, included amongst whom is a portrait of La Montez.  

 

I love the brazenness of her riposte, justifying her lewdness as art and defending her national tradition (she was, or course Irish, not Spanish at all). Having been mistress of Ludwig I and de facto queen of Bavaria, one cannot help but feel that resuming the stage and performing before heckling miners represented something of a falling off. Judging from the press reactions, however, she evidently still had it.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 4, 2020 by Edwardian

[Edwardian]

3 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

 

 

 

Edited December 4, 2020 by Edwardian
Inadvertence

[jcredfer]

Oxford do a really good line in steam engines, including some Drag Plough ones, which would make a delightful agricultural scene.  There's a very good selection, too.

 

 

Difficult to resist.....    

Julian

 

 

[Nearholmer]

Ms Montez's relationship with King Ludwig is supposed to have inspired the plot for "A Scandal in Bohemia", but then so are several other similar relationships.

 

Given recent content, can we look forward to seeing a cameo-scene on the platform at CA, featuring an actress and a bishop?

[Edwardian]

59 minutes ago, jcredfer said:

Oxford do a really good line in steam engines, including some Drag Plough ones, which would make a delightful agricultural scene.  There's a very good selection, too.

 

 

Difficult to resist.....    

Julian

 

 

 

Alas, I fear that that Fowler ploughing engine, and the Kiel Kraft plastic kit version, and a brace of really nice whitemetal ones I have somewhere, are all too modern for CA, yet steam ploughing had been going for sometime by 1905. 

 

I did buy one of those ploughs, though, at the last Shildon show I attended, IIRC, as I can park it in the yard of the CA agricultural engineers, who, I fancy, will also be contractors.

 

 

50 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

Ms Montez's relationship with King Ludwig is supposed to have inspired the plot for "A Scandal in Bohemia", but then so are several other similar relationships.

 

Given recent content, can we look forward to seeing a cameo-scene on the platform at CA, featuring an actress and a bishop?

 

!

 

Don't forget, despite the GER Royal Station at Wolferton, and despite the WNR having a station to serve Wolfringham St Felix,  there is also a small station only a short distance further east of that place at Black Cat.  It does not appear in the public timetables, it lies hard by the southern boundary of the Sandringham Estate.

 

Black Cat has no booking office or goods facilities. It boasts a small, but surprisingly well-appointed private waiting room and a forecourt sufficient to turn a carriage. 

 

Parishioners may draw their own conclusions. 

[Nearholmer]

There are a couple of buildings in/around Babingley that might make good inspiration for a waiting room: a community/club hall on the main road at what used to be called Cat’s Bottom (I wonder why they quietly dropped than name?) which IIRC is one of those strange huts that is covered in tree-branches sawn in half lengthways, as used for some stations by the Manx Electric Railway, Derby Castle for instance, and the ‘modern’ church, which is corrugated iron with a thatched roof. Both the right period for the early days of the Sandringham Estate, which I guess is how they originated.

 

 

Edited December 4, 2020 by Nearholmer

[Edwardian]

10 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

There are a couple of buildings in/around Babingley that might make good inspiration for a waiting room: a community/club hall on the main road at what used to be called Cat’s Bottom (I wonder why they quietly dropped than name?) which is one of this strange huts that is covered in tree-branches sawn in half lengthways, as used for some stations by the Manx Electric Railway, Derby Castle for instance, and the ‘modern’ church, which is corrugated iron with a thatched roof. Both the right period for the early days of the Sandringham Estate, which I guess is how they originated.

 

These?

 

 

[Nearholmer]

That's them, although the first one isn't clad exactly as I recall it, maybe false-memory, or maybe re-clad.

 

Either, cut-down to modest proportions, would serve as a change from the "baronial lodge" look of earlier years, and the pyramidic.

 

A wills tin-hut church or a Peco cricket pavilion?

 

 

Edited December 4, 2020 by Nearholmer

[wagonman]

14 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

What a good idea!

 

As the alternative would be dragging it out with a tractor and trailer – taking about ten times as long – it was a good idea...until some idiot cut the pier in half.

 

 

[jcredfer]

Quote

Alas, I fear that that Fowler ploughing engine, and the Kiel Kraft plastic kit version, and a brace of really nice whitemetal ones I have somewhere, are all too modern for CA, yet steam ploughing had been going for sometime by 1905. 

 

I did buy one of those ploughs, though, at the last Shildon show I attended, IIRC, as I can park it in the yard of the CA agricultural engineers, who, I fancy, will also be contractors.

 

That prompted me to go looking, which was rather interesting, as I had not really considered the vintage of Steam Engines, that I had seen.  The most direct summary of information I found was this website, which contains a list of Fowler Engines [amongst much other information].    Lots of pictures, too.  Perhaps you may know of it already.

https://tractors.fandom.com/wiki/Fowler#Fowler_Steam_Engines 

 

It also prompted me to buy a further Engine to go at the other end of the plough.  Strangely, Oxford don't seem to have a Left winch, to match a right winch, so I will just have to put up with moving one along the hedge, forwards and moving the other in reverse.  I'm not too worried about that, as I'm well aware that practical solutions of that nature weren't exactly rare, back then. 

 

Julian

 

[petethemole]

Some 1870s Fowler ploughing engines at the Great Dorset Steam Fair.  Note the smokebox doors on the pair.  I wonder if the engines of that vintage that have more conventional doors have had them refitted at some stage in their working lives?

[Compound2632]

6 minutes ago, petethemole said:

Some 1870s Fowler ploughing engines at the Great Dorset Steam Fair.  Note the smokebox doors on the pair.  I wonder if the engines of that vintage that have more conventional doors have had them refitted at some stage in their working lives?

 

Certainly happened with railway locomotives! But the implication is that these are the original boilers, which wouldn't be the case for any railway locomotive, certainly not any built after steel became the usual material. Iron boilers are much more resistant to corrosion than steel. So the early locomotive engineers were able to get away with using the boiler as a structural element, since it was expected to last as long as the rest of the engine. Is that how these traction engines are built? (I see no sign of any frames.)

Edited December 4, 2020 by Compound2632

[petethemole]

Post #7 here is interesting.  https://www.smokstak.com/forum/threads/salvage-squad-sentinel-steam-lorry-steam-roller-ploughing-engine.114555/  It suggests that Margaret was reboilered and that this was a common occurence in the contractors' fleets.  She was the subject of an episode of Salvage Squad in 2003.

Edited December 4, 2020 by petethemole