Castle Aching

[Nearholmer]

Greetings Edwardian,

 

The 'vanilla' pre-grouping layout is a great idea, a sort of stage for trains of all liveries to strut upon, but it might be quite hard to make it 'vanilla enough', given that pre-grouping railways seem to have have been distinctive from one another in so many details.

 

I suppose that buildings in "two shades of buff", signalling and boxes by one of the two big contractors etc might work, along with "prefab" wooden buildings ............. But then, doesn't that all add up to the Rhymney Railway, or similar?

 

And, rather than castigate yourself for pursuing too many ideas, you should congratulate yourself on your iron-willed self control; one scale; one gauge; one ten year span; one country; sounds pretty confined to me.

 

Kevin

[JCL]

While I was joking about the GNR, I think Kevin has a good point. I was all over the place with Wainfleet. BR blue, a bit of green, some LNER. My argument being that the layout was set in September, and as things barely changed over the decades, I was going to keep the year fluid.

 

It's only by sticking to a definite timeframe; Nov 1900 when the line was doubled until 1923 that I could make sense of things. In my case variety would come from excursions to Skegness, local freight and local stopping trains.

 

It's a lot harder work than The LNER or BR, but the research side of things is fantastic.

[JCL]

I know, but still a lot less than it was before. In practice, it's going to be about 1900-1910, it's just that I want to also run a G1 0-4-4 on there as I've spent a year designing it!

[Nearholmer]

Hmmmm........ This is all about adjusting your braces until they fit comfortably, rather than being right or wrong.

 

If you are most comfortable with your braces tight, model 3:14pm on 3rd July 1908, map coordinate to ten decimal places, but beware that you will still have to make a lot of educated guesses. What colour socks was the local shepherd actually wearing that day?

 

If you are comfortable with your braces a tad slack, then model perhaps within a county, within a decade.

 

You will guess by my railway modelling inclinations that I don't own any braces, and that my trousers are held up with a piece of old baler twine.

 

K

[Edwardian]

You are both quite correct. 

 

However ...

 

Most, if not all, of my other layout ideas, fictional or factional, would result in layouts for which I would have to produce stock that fits.

 

Just this once, I want a layout that can accommodate the maximum variety of stock, giving what I have already a home and allowing my somewhat catholic tastes to continue to flourish.

 

So, I would retain the layout's original concept of a GW single-track line linking 2, probably secondary, mainlines.  These latter were originally GW and LMS and GW and SR joint lines.  I  would add that these mainlines also have GW infrastructure.  As such, they could be joint lines proper or lines with running powers.  Now this, I would say, can be accommodated.  The GW-GC joint line, for instance, was very much of GW 20th Century standard style.  

 

On the other hand a joint line might be earlier in date and have its own distinct architecture.  Increasingly I think of the Great Western as the sum of diverse parts, and not monolithic.  Each bit had its separate heritage and own character.  It's rather like thinking of London as a series of different villages, all linked together, rather than viewing The Smoke as an homogenous whole. 

 

Then, again, a GW-owned line with running powers will feature GW infrastructure.  So, it's all GW infrastructure.  That means I miss out on other companies' infrastructure, but should thereby increase flexibility.

 

Obviously I am shifting the time backwards to pre-WW1, but I think that I am also focussing it more.  The layout tolerated temporal vagueness in its day, not least because it seems to have run a variety of club members' stock. Yes, I might ultimately try to run 2 'periods', say 1905-1906 and 1912-1914, but the aim would be to ensure that there is consistency within each in terms of what is run.  In terms of the lineside, it should not be beyond the Wit of Man, or, even, of me, to 'accessorise' in a way that caters for a 10-year period pre-Great War. If I want to be exact, fashionable ladies can be swapped in and out and motor cars can appear and disappear as necessary (there won't be that many of either in the Sticks!).

 

There are, in any case, numerous anachronisms to eradicate, even for an inter-war Grouping setting - Policeman with ties, road makings and 'modern' 1930s road signs that would hardly have reached a small provincial town in such plenitude and, of all solecisms, the liberal use of Western Region Chocolate & Cream for the structures - so, I thought that, after changing this, I would just keep going!

 

The tricky bit will be to keep the geographical setting ambiguous and this is where I predict that I may come unstuck, though geographical vagueness is also very much in the tradition of the original layout.

 

To illustrate the danger, we could end up with, say, a mainline with a distinct Berks & Hants feel, but with LSWR running powers.  At the other end of the line, we could, say, end up on the Welsh Marches with a GW-LNWR joint line.  That could be disastrous!

 

As you may have gathered, I am not particularly a fan of stripping out detail beyond the fence and turning my back on vernacular architecture.

 

One advantage I have is that I do not need to run everything at once.  It can be GW plus different things on different days.  There is, then, the possibility of swapping bits of the layout in or out, but that is much more work to produce and in practice I imagine that I could tire of swapping around bits of landscape before I can run such and such. 

 

So, I may clip my own wings before I ever start, but the idea is to be try to get away with as much as I sensibly can.

 

Jason, sorry I forgot to mention my aspirations to model ( a ) Welwyn (later Welwyn North) complete with Welwyn/Digswell viaduct and ( b ) the Offord curves.

 

I am clearly quite mad.

Edited June 14, 2016 by Edwardian

[Edwardian]

Obvious question.

Do you have the stock/time/money for all this?

Shall I halt progress on Templotting Castle Aching?

There is a certain quality of mania to your post.

 

Please don't stop work on CA!  As I mentioned a whole lot of things have to happen before Next Project (House sale, solvency, dedicated shed construction, remnants of exhibition layout retrieved from storage, but, first and foremost, the completion and enjoyment of CA).  I was merely looking ahead, and explaining why, ultimately, Cambrian Railways kits might end up being of use to someone currently modelling Norfolk!.

 

Yes, 17 years in the armchair, not all of it on our uppers by any means, has led to a surprising amount of stuff.  Next Project is actually conceived as the most efficient means of combining it all!

 

Yes, I am very manic at the moment.  The alternative is worse, however.

[Nearholmer]

It seems that baler-twine has a roughly 120 time span, from the invention of the automated knotting process in 1872, to being almost completely superseded by various forms of plastic strapping and wrapping. Synthetic twine dates from post WW2, becoming common in the 1960s, so I will opt for the more time-flexible natural product, which happily covers the whole of the "classic" railway period.

 

More to the point, trying to find 'vanilla' countryside to surround the 'vanilla' railway: B difficult, I think, but if one starts with the geology, there is some chance of success.

 

I will propose near-coastal "levels", which look almost exactly the same, wherever they are. This gives you: the S&DJR (LSWR & Midland) and GWR in mid-Somerset; Axholme Joint Railway (L&Y and NER); Pevensey Levels (LBSCR) and Romney Marsh (SECR); loads of railways that I know nothing about on the edges of The Wash; bits of MGWR in NW Ireland; bits of Denmark; bits of the western and Northern coasts of Germany, and probably bits of SW Scotland too. All for the price of a near-flat baseboard and some white-metal sheep (you might need to change the breeds to set the exact location!).

 

K

[Edwardian]

Can I have the turntable drawing, please?

Yes. Have been there.

What kept me going was friends, family and armchair modelling - although actual modelling lifts my mood, the mood has to be heading upward, if not already up, otherwise I can't focus, make mistakes, and get even more fed up as my solace has been ruined.

 

"No [one] is an island who has friends."

 

You've got plenty here!

 

Thank you, Simon.

 

Yes, turntable, I will sort that out among the hurly-burly of the day/evening.  Sorry not to be more intelligent about watch points, but in my ignorance I will happily adopt the submissions of m'learned friend, as I was once apt to say.  

 

And, yes, the role of modelling is curious.  The best is when I am enthused and optimistic.  There is also the more compulsive escapist type of motivation.  They are both enjoyable, but the latter inevitably eventually gives way to Black Dog, as worsening reality intrudes.  if modelling persists at this point, the joy turns to ashes in the mouth.  After a bit of a lacuna, one then, of course, picks oneself up and dusts one oneself down and, in the approved manner of the song, starts all over again.  Having had a somewhat mentally febrile, creatively sterile, couple of weeks, I am regaining motivation, so, bar a further kick in the teeth by an Unkind Fate, I hope to back in production by the weekend. 

 

You are quite correct that the way is smoothed by friends (amongst whom I seem to have fallen here), family and armchair modelling, and, not to lay anything on anyone here, I have found, by the kindness of strangers. 

Edited June 14, 2016 by Edwardian

[Edwardian]

Typo for catch points!

Well, if it is strangers you want, then they don't get much stranger than an on-line forum for railway modellers...

 

Ah, you see, I know better than to call them 'trap points' and thought I was on safe ballast with 'catch points', but, then, as I hope never to be guilty of underestimating my own ignorance, I assumed that "watch points" was some especially correct pre-Grouping terminology.  If it had been 1 April, you could have got away with it entirely!

[Nearholmer]

When I was a young engineer, one of my colleagues invented a fictional electrical device called an 'interositor'.

 

Whenever a Very Senior Person toured our department, and asked (hands clasped neatly behind back, craning forward slightly) "So, what are you chaps working on at the moment?", the reply would always be "We're looking further at the possible advantages of interositors.".

 

Our immediate boss would simultaneously cringe and stifle laughter, but not once did any VSP have the wit or courage to ask anything more, except "is it going well?", to which the answer was "a little too early to tell; some promising results on the heat runs etc etc ....." plus other similar waffle. And, we never got told off for all this nonsense!

 

I expect that guys in the track department spoke of "watch points", and got the same response.

 

K

[The Stationmaster]

Ah, you see, I know better than to call them 'trap points' and thought I was on safe ballast with 'catch points', but, then, as I hope never to be guilty of underestimating my own ignorance, I assumed that "watch points" was some especially correct pre-Grouping terminology.  If it had been 1 April, you could have got away with it entirely!

 

I shall apply my pedant's hat and help you out good sir.  The most common Pre-Group appellation of such points seems to have been 'safety points' irrespective of the fact that they functioned as catch points or trap points.  It generally seems to have become the case that catch points were (on some Railways) named as such while by the early 1920s at least one Company was officially referring to both catch and trap points as catch points while others had formally adopted the precise nomenclature we (some of us) know and understand today.

 

I hope that helps and would suggest the ideal answer in respect of such points at a terminus set in the Edwardian era is to refer to such things as 'safety points' - in my view a highly suitable form of obfuscation so as far as lesser mortals might be concerned.

[Donw]

I have often thought about where I could site a model to allow a wide range of railways stuff to appear.  If you are happy to feature other railways coaches the the Highland probably followed by the Cambrian are good choices. However it is usually engines we want.

Carlisle is one on the best choices LNWR,MR, G&SWR, NER, M&CR, CR ( Caledonian) all had lines into Carlisle. I did think about something in London probably a pre-group equivalent of Crossrail. There was the widened lines and the lines up through Holborn. However such lines tended to feature trip freights to exchange goods vehicles and local passenger services and the big engines we like probably didn't use them. Also it probably wouldn't favour the rural idylls we often prefer. Apart from London the southern constituents didn't seem to feature that much in such lines apart from links with the GWR. I think SR locos did get to Oxford or Banbury over GWR metals but it was only on very limited trains. Mike (SM) may know more. 

There may well be some interesting places in the midlands if you favour the railways in those parts.

 

Thinking about this is giving me ideas again perhaps something based on London with a nice stretch of river stuff from all four groups could be an idea in 2mm.

Don 

[Edwardian]

I have often thought about where I could site a model to allow a wide range of railways stuff to appear.  If you are happy to feature other railways coaches the the Highland probably followed by the Cambrian are good choices. However it is usually engines we want.

Carlisle is one on the best choices LNWR,MR, G&SWR, NER, M&CR, CR ( Caledonian) all had lines into Carlisle. I did think about something in London probably a pre-group equivalent of Crossrail. There was the widened lines and the lines up through Holborn. However such lines tended to feature trip freights to exchange goods vehicles and local passenger services and the big engines we like probably didn't use them. Also it probably wouldn't favour the rural idylls we often prefer. Apart from London the southern constituents didn't seem to feature that much in such lines apart from links with the GWR. I think SR locos did get to Oxford or Banbury over GWR metals but it was only on very limited trains. Mike (SM) may know more. 

There may well be some interesting places in the midlands if you favour the railways in those parts.

 

Thinking about this is giving me ideas again perhaps something based on London with a nice stretch of river stuff from all four groups could be an idea in 2mm.

Don 

 

I agree,and  have long since concluded that the two best places to model for maximum variety were Carlisle and Addison Road!

 

Neither noted rural idylls, however.  And if you think I'm hand-building the point work for a major city station ............ [snorting noises ensue]!!!!!!

 

Ox & Berks is interesting - LNWR to Oxford, GC & GW Joint, LSWR to Windsor and SECR with LSWR to Reading.  I have no notion of the geography in these parts, which are quite foreign to me as a 50% Midland-50% Northern  chap, but I imagine that there are all sorts of reasons against extending the GW Henley on Thames branch north, via Watlington, now a junction and also linked to Wallingford, while we're about it, and up to join a line to Oxford, or for LNWR, SECR, LSWR and GCR to use it as well!  Perhaps the Midland and the GNR would like to find a way to work through from Luton and the GER from Hertford whilst we're about it!

 

There is a limit to our ability to render the implausible plausible!

Edited June 14, 2016 by Edwardian

[Nearholmer]

DonW - discussion of SR locos to Oxford in this thread http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/111703-southern-railway-ambulance-train-loco-headcodes/

 

K

[uax6]

I have often thought about where I could site a model to allow a wide range of railways stuff to appear.  If you are happy to feature other railways coaches the the Highland probably followed by the Cambrian are good choices. However it is usually engines we want.

 

Thats exactly why I am a Highland modeller in the post grouping 20's. A mix of carriages on the LMS trains from:

HR

CR

G&SWR

MR

L&Y

LNWR

WCJS

LMS

 

and

NER

ECJS

NBR

LNER

on the east coast through trains.

 

On the loco front you can have the HR local engines, CR locos, LMS locos. In green or black or red or blue!

 

And then you can have the full royal train too if you want!

 

I rather like the coaches, I find the locos a bit boring to be honest!

 

Andy G

 

[Edwardian]

 

I rather like the coaches, I find the locos a bit boring to be honest!

 

 

 

Then you should model Churchward-Collett era GWR!  

 

That is a splendid range of companies you have there!

 

Not sure where my LSWR Jubilee or my Bachmann C Class (no, not the Full Wainwright version [sigh]) would do in Scotland, but still...

[uax6]

Well the c class could masquerade as a highland barney..... And if you modelled in the Great War you could have Adams radials pottering about.... Along with things like a gwr steam railmotor, and some terriers....

 

Andy g

[Donw]

Thats exactly why I am a Highland modeller in the post grouping 20's. A mix of carriages on the LMS trains from:

HR

CR

G&SWR

MR

L&Y

LNWR

WCJS

LMS

 

and

NER

ECJS

NBR

LNER

on the east coast through trains.

 

On the loco front you can have the HR local engines, CR locos, LMS locos. In green or black or red or blue!

 

And then you can have the full royal train too if you want!

 

I rather like the coaches, I find the locos a bit boring to be honest!

 

Andy G

 

I think for the Glorious 4th there could be through coaches from almost anywhere (well not the Isle of Wight though).

Don

[Caley Jim]

I think for the Glorious 4th there could be through coaches from almost anywhere (well not the Isle of Wight though).

Don

It's actually the Glorious 12th! :-)

Jim

[The Stationmaster]

I agree,and  have long since concluded that the two best places to model for maximum variety were Carlisle and Addison Road!

 

Neither noted rural idylls, however.  And if you think I'm hand-building the point work for a major city station ............ [snorting noises ensue]!!!!!!

 

Ox & Berks is interesting - LNWR to Oxford, GC & GW Joint, LSWR to Windsor and SECR with LSWR to Reading.  I have no notion of the geography in these parts, which are quite foreign to me as a 50% Midland-50% Northern  chap, but I imagine that there are all sorts of reasons against extending the GW Henley on Thames branch north, via Watlington, now a junction and also linked to Wallingford, while we're about it, and up to join a line to Oxford, or for LNWR, SECR, LSWR and GCR to use it as well!  Perhaps the Midland and the GNR would like to find a way to work through from Luton and the GER from Hertford whilst we're about it!

 

There is a limit to our ability to render the implausible plausible!

 

You know more than you're letting on There was indeed a proposal to extend the Henley branch (to Marlow) in the late 1890s but it was killed by local objections.  Of far greater use to you would have been the putative London, High Wycombe, Great Marlow, Henley, and Reading Railway which would have left the Midland railway's mainline near Hendon.  On could perhaps imagine it having a joint station with the SECR/LSWR at Reading in order to avoid close association with the GWR establishment next door.  It would also hare had a branch to meet the LNWR at Rickmansworth plus an extension from High Wycombe to Cheltenham and then on to Newtown to connect with the Cambrian.  It got no further than a mention in the local 'papers in 1894 - and no plans were ever deposited.

 

In the meanwhile I am surprised you seem to have missed out the Tiddly Dyke which, with a little bit of 'adjustment', would perhaps meet your ambitions connecting, as it did, the L&SWR with its partner in ownership the Midland and crossing the GWR in several places enroute - including Swindon.  And what could be more fun for motive power than Galloping Gertie (nee Galloping Alice) - pure colonial style motive power puffing through the lush English countryside?

[Edwardian]

I think for the Glorious 4th there could be through coaches from almost anywhere (well not the Isle of Wight though).

Don

 

Big fan of through coaches.  Great example was that pre-Grouping layout by a chap who liked building coaches.  I am sorry that I cannot remember either the name of the gentleman or of his layout.  It was a small town terminus with the station building based upon the L&Y Wigan Walgate, though that is not a terminus but was on an over-bridge, so can be presented as a terminus. Anyway, I seem to recall he took full advantage of through coaches to add variety.

 

You know more than you're letting on There was indeed a proposal to extend the Henley branch (to Marlow) in the late 1890s but it was killed by local objections.  Of far greater use to you would have been the putative London, High Wycombe, Great Marlow, Henley, and Reading Railway which would have left the Midland railway's mainline near Hendon.  On could perhaps imagine it having a joint station with the SECR/LSWR at Reading in order to avoid close association with the GWR establishment next door.  It would also hare had a branch to meet the LNWR at Rickmansworth plus an extension from High Wycombe to Cheltenham and then on to Newtown to connect with the Cambrian.  It got no further than a mention in the local 'papers in 1894 - and no plans were ever deposited.

 

In the meanwhile I am surprised you seem to have missed out the Tiddly Dyke which, with a little bit of 'adjustment', would perhaps meet your ambitions connecting, as it did, the L&SWR with its partner in ownership the Midland and crossing the GWR in several places enroute - including Swindon.  And what could be more fun for motive power than Galloping Gertie (nee Galloping Alice) - pure colonial style motive power puffing through the lush English countryside?

 

Aha, well one of the prototype projects I'd love to tackle is Savernake, both the M&SWJ and GW stations, and before grouping, so none of this High Level and Low Level nonsense; genuine confusion as to which station your going to or from should remain the order of the day!

 

I particularly like the madness of maintaining both stations at Marlborough for a decade after Grouping!

 

I love both the Brunel 'chalet' style of the original 1840s Berks & Hants, and the distinctive architecture of the 1860s Berks & Hants extension.   The classic surviving example of the former is in fact a branch station on the way to Basingstoke, which is a good example to adopt for joining the South Western.

[wagonman]

Big fan of through coaches.  Great example was that pre-Grouping layout by a chap who liked building coaches.  I am sorry that I cannot remember either the name of the gentleman or of his layout.  It was a small town terminus with the station building based upon the L&Y Wigan Walgate, though that is not a terminus but was on an over-bridge, so can be presented as a terminus. Anyway, I seem to recall he took full advantage of through coaches to add variety.

 

 

Aha, well one of the prototype projects I'd love to tackle is Savernake, both the M&SWJ and GW stations, and before grouping, so none of this High Level and Low Level nonsense; genuine confusion as to which station your going to or from should remain the order of the day!

 

I particularly like the madness of maintaining both stations at Marlborough for a decade after Grouping!

 

I love both the Brunel 'chalet' style of the original 1840s Berks & Hants, and the distinctive architecture of the 1860s Berks & Hants extension.   The classic surviving example of the former is in fact a branch station on the way to Basingstoke, which is a good example to adopt for joining the South Western.

 

 

And don't forget the MSWJR carried through coaches from both the Midland and the LNWR... Who could ask for more?

[Donw]

I agree,and  have long since concluded that the two best places to model for maximum variety were Carlisle and Addison Road!

 

Neither noted rural idylls, however.  And if you think I'm hand-building the point work for a major city station ............ [snorting noises ensue]!!!!!!

 

Ox & Berks is interesting - LNWR to Oxford, GC & GW Joint, LSWR to Windsor and SECR with LSWR to Reading.  I have no notion of the geography in these parts, which are quite foreign to me as a 50% Midland-50% Northern  chap, but I imagine that there are all sorts of reasons against extending the GW Henley on Thames branch north, via Watlington, now a junction and also linked to Wallingford, while we're about it, and up to join a line to Oxford, or for LNWR, SECR, LSWR and GCR to use it as well!  Perhaps the Midland and the GNR would like to find a way to work through from Luton and the GER from Hertford whilst we're about it!

 

There is a limit to our ability to render the implausible plausible!

 

There is the Line of Hills called the Chilterns the railways had to find gaps through or tunnel The GWR went through Goring gap thoughtfully carved by the river Thames it also went through again at High Wycombe on the direct line to Banbury. There was a link through from Marlow to High Wycombe. Going on up from Henley would have been between the two and not really warranted. If you went up through Stokenchurch you would face a steep hill coming back as anyone on the A40 knows. Isn't HS2 going through that way?

I used to have a 350 Norton pulling a sidecar returning from a course at Bletchley to Reading with two colleagues all with suitcases. There is a steep hill up to Christmas Common. The load was a bit too much for 350cc so my passengers had to walk up.

What you really need is to imagine that the LWSR had the DNS line and running powers from Didcott to Banbury over the GWR where it could meet with the LNWR and GCR

 

 

Don 

[Donw]

It's actually the Glorious 12th! :-)

Jim

 

Being a vegetarian and not into shooting defenceless creatures I cannot be expected to remember the date!

Don

[CKPR]

"When I was a young engineer, one of my colleagues invented a fictional electrical device called an 'interositor'.

Whenever a Very Senior Person toured our department, and asked (hands clasped neatly behind back, craning forward slightly) "So, what are you chaps working on at the moment?", the reply would always be "We're looking further at the possible advantages of interositors.".

Wasn't the "interositer" from the 1950s SF film "This Island Earth" ?!