Castle Aching

[CKPR]

All of this is leading up to my current thinking for my M&CR modelling, which is to take the M&CR as it was in 1976 (!) as the basis for my 1908 version as by the mid-1970s, it had been rationalised to the point that it looked like a model railway that would be feasible to build in our small barn / large shed as the 'last great project'. I obtained a old BR CCE diagram of the M&CR as it was in 1976 [being an original, it's possible to discern the previous alterations going back to the late 1960s] and it just seems eminently modelable - even the line to Mealsgate is still in situ complete with it's own TOPS location code [I think it was being used for wagon storage by then]. I would need to re-instate the original industries at Wigton (jam instead of cellophane) and the goods yard at Dalston (still used for oil deliveries to this day) but the simplified layout at Maryport would suffice and I just need to work out a 'model railway' style composite of the M&CR's bay platform at Carlisle Citadel and the adjacent Crown St. goods depot for the other end. To date, most of the the rolling stock exists for both 1908 and, ahem, 1973, and I have a large stock of EM pointwork, track, electrics, etc in store as well as  'Mealsgate' in it's bare boards format. Regarding the 1908 rolling stock, thank goodness that the FR and LNWR tended to operate the through passenger services as I have more FR engines than M&CR ones and a complete FR passenger rake in stock. Right, time to get on with the barn refurbishment... (to be continued over my "Mealsgate" thread)

 

Edited June 14, 2020 by CKPR

[Hroth]

Looks an interesting project!

 

Perhaps you could rephotograph the second sheet?  It looks like I've not got my reading glasses on.  Sorted nicely, thanks!

 

Edited June 14, 2020 by Hroth

[CKPR]

H

 

4 hours ago, Hroth said:

 

 

 

Perhaps you could rephotograph the second sheet?  It looks like I've not got my reading glasses on... 

Re-photographed and uploaded

[Northroader]

I’ve always enjoyed your Mealsgate thread, couldnt you just use the BR rationalised system to run the old stock on, and forget the BR blue? It will end up looking like a lot more layouts else, as it happening so far it’s unique.

[CKPR]

I suppose it's because to me the pre-grouping era is a fascinating and essentially lost era for all of us now, whilst the early 1970s is personal nostalgia and an era that seems like yesterday to me.

 

 

 

 

[Nearholmer]

Which is exactly the reverse of the “logic” that I apply, in that I’ve never wanted to represent in model form the railway as I can actually remember it, at least not as I have worked on. It’s as if all that familiarity would drive me down an obsessive pit of detail, where no compromise was possible, whereas foreign things, things too long ago to remember, and made-up stuff admits of all sorts of rather dodgy sketching.

[CKPR]

The funny thing is that I probably know more about the M&CR in pre-grouping days than I do about it in the 1960s and 70s when I first became aware of it as a working railway - my pre-group modelling is all about accuracy whilst the BR blue is all about atmosphere and I'll tolerate all manner of inaccuracies in my class 40s and 25s that I wouldn't tolerate in my M&CR steam engines.

[Edwardian]

2 hours ago, CKPR said:

1970s is personal nostalgia and an era that seems like yesterday to me.

 

 

 

 

 

However hard I try to forget.

 

Apologies for being a neglectful host of late.  My annual purgatory is upon me; accounts!  I hate annual accounts. I will be bloody and homicidal for the next couple of weeks.

 

Sorry 'bout that. 

[Hroth]

Quick someone!

 

Post something curious in the New Ankh Station Planning Exercise thread to amuse him!!!

 

 

[Donw]

I remember the 1970s  well lots of changes in my life, getting maried in 73 was one. However railway wise they were dead years to me. The old steam railway  had gone and the new did not inspire me. I did however discover the ex Cambrian lines which I did find inspiring but not the trains so much. I would have loved to know them in earlier days.

 

The Millport and Shellfield Bill Tate's railway I have always found inspiring I would have loved to be involved in such operating sessions. I have thought about building a railway like that for myself but the modellers I know seem to not have that real interest in operating  and I dont think it would get used properly.  I think I am better off choosing something which I could operate alone with perhaps occassional sessions with others. Either a  branch with several stations or a light railway which could hopefully be the whole line. Howeve my current plan is based on Dolgelly in Edwardian days when the station was basically the front halves of two terminii joined together each using the other as the rest of it. So there are two signal boxes about half a mile apart at the most. The block section between them was the width of a signal post. A simple run round would have to be belled between the boxes. There was also a trailing crossover which joined the Down Platform in the Cambrian section to the up line in the GW section I have no idea whether there was a block instrument for the crossover. 

This could be run by just me. Some things might seem a bit odd such as having to pull a lever in both boxes where there are slotted signals. Whether I would bother using block instruments is doubtfull but they would be used should a friend who likes operating join in a session. More friends and driver and singleman jobs could be separated, with a driver and a signalman for both companies when I feel the real flavour of what it would have been like would be revealed.

 

Lastly my sympathies to James undertaking the terrifying Ordeal by Accounts. 

 

Don

[Nearholmer]

Many thanks for highlighting the Millport and Selfield ......... a truly decent toy train-set that.

 

Did anyone else spot that he'd used a 1:24 gradient, and baseboards a good 3ft wide? Things that we have all been taught are bad ideas, but look how those things, plus I venture coarse-scale standards and the tight curves they permit, allowed him to ram the core of the layout into a space not much bigger than a single car garage, in 0 scale.

[Annie]

9 hours ago, CKPR said:

...................the early 1970s is personal nostalgia and an era that seems like yesterday to me.

I look back on the 1970s as a time of horror that I do not want to be reminded about.  As far as I am concerned all record of the 1970s should be buried deep and sealed under ten feet of concrete.

[Annie]

3 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Many thanks for highlighting the Millport and Selfield ......... a truly decent toy train-set that.

 

Did anyone else spot that he'd used a 1:24 gradient, and baseboards a good 3ft wide? Things that we have all been taught are bad ideas, but look how those things, plus I venture coarse-scale standards and the tight curves they permit, allowed him to ram the core of the layout into a space not much bigger than a single car garage, in 0 scale.

The Millport & Selfield is exactly the kind of thing I would have loved to do when I was still working in coarse scale 'O' gauge.  In every sense it was a real working railway that for me is far more vibrant and alive than many finescale layout I've seen.  Unfortunately life happened with extreme prejudice and such a dream will have to remain a dream (le sigh).

[Edwardian]

23 hours ago, CKPR said:

Regarding bitsa stations and layout planning,  I've always had a hankering for an actual model railway, rather than just building a single station right down the correct species of weeds growing under the buffer stops (and for the record, I have always regarded Pendon as a model landscape rather than a model railway - by way, did I ever mention that my dad knew Roye England back in the early 1950s ?).  I took up railway modelling in the mid-1970s with a gift of old RMs going back to the 1950s and to this day, my favourite model railways are just that, actual systems such as Buckingham, Craig & Mertonford, Castle Rackrent , Broad Aston and my all time favourite, the Millport & Selfield. Hang on, CKPR, you're an rivet counting scratchbuilder in EM, a dabbler in S and an aficionado of 'old time' US logging lines, what's with the coarse scale semi-freelance Millport & Selfield ?! Well, it was a proper 'closed' system that could be run by the book, the rolling stock was built for a purpose , engines had to be properly rostered and it just looks so railway-like in a way that 95% of most model railways don't. In my idle moments, I've had thoughts of recreating the M&S with my collection of 1950s Tri-ang. To be continued in next post...

 

 

 

I very much like this, a new one on me. What a great example, as you say, of a closed system layout. I am glad I am not the only one who sees the virtue of a model railway that can be run like a railway, with a sense of traffic to and from places providing a sense of real purpose.

 

It also says something about the importance of a layout's setting.  Rather than the sanitised environments we often must create out of garages and roof space, here is a domestic space of idiosyncratic charm that defines and enchances the character of the layout.  I look at this and think 'wouldn't I love to live in that old house and ascend to such an attic to find such a railway?"

[CKPR]

The Millport & Selfield feature is actually a two parter, with the second part in April 1966 edition and I'll post some more pictures from both articles.

[webbcompound]

13 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Many thanks for highlighting the Millport and Selfield ......... a truly decent toy train-set that.

 

and that is the point. whilst enjoyable to trundle about on, and good fun,  this bears no relation to a real-world railway, (unless on Sodor) because it is a closed system. All the railways I know have traffic coming and going from distant parts, and without that it isn't the same. That is why, whatever the size of the layout, there has to be a fiddle yard or equivalent to represent the "rest of the world".  Of course the problem arises when you want to exhibit, as fiddle yards are not part of the carefully constructed fantasy world (although exhibitionists must make up a minority of railway model/toy train enthusiasts), but at home the fiddle yard is just storage.

[St Enodoc]

9 minutes ago, webbcompound said:

That is why, whatever the size of the layout, there has to be a fiddle yard or equivalent to represent the "rest of the world". 

In the words of Ira Gershwin, "It ain't necessarily so".

[CKPR]

The Millport & Selfield seems to have aroused the interest of the parish council so here is  the first  part of the first part of the 1966 article:

Edited June 15, 2020 by CKPR

[CKPR]

The second part of the first part

[CKPR]

And the third part of the first part

[CKPR]

Sorry about the quality of the above but I've come against the 10Mb restriction for uploads and had to lower the quality of these to get them to upload. Part the second to follow at the end of the working day.

Edited June 15, 2020 by CKPR

[ianathompson]

 

30 minutes ago, webbcompound said:

All the railways I know have traffic coming and going from distant parts, and without that it isn't the same.

 

What about narrow gauge lines?

I model narrow gauge following the ideas of those presented in the sixties magazines, such as the Aire Valley.

They managed very well without fiddle yards (although mine does have a "dressed" one).

 

Ian T

Edited June 15, 2020 by ianathompson
typo

[Regularity]

11 hours ago, Annie said:

As far as I am concerned all record of the 1970s should be buried deep and sealed under ten feet of concrete.

Preferably in one of nuclear bunkers that no one would ever be able to get to in time...

[Regularity]

1 hour ago, webbcompound said:

this bears no relation to a real-world railway, (unless on Sodor) because it is a closed system. All the railways I know have traffic coming and going from distant parts,

It has already been pointed out that, in the words of Cyril Freezer, “all narrow gauge systems are self-contained”.
 

But to me, Seahouses is nothing like the original, which had all of 4 turnouts, with the engine shed at the end of the line, a run round loop, and two sidings. It doesn’t need extra sidings to become “more interesting to operate”, in fact just the opposite, and that is indicative of the era: “Ooh look, a spare corner. Let’s add another rail served industry.” 

[Edwardian]

There is, of course, something inherently difficult about a standard gauge 'closed system'. I take the point about narrow gauge lines being inherently closed systems, but even they will often have shared a station or have an adjacent station where they link to the SG national network. Where traffic is transhipped from an adjacent railway, the NG system might be technically closed, but one still has 'the other railway' present and having to disappear offstage to a representation of the rest of the system.  At one end of most NG systems will be a colon, not a full-stop.

 

Closed SG systems were increasingly rare from the 1840s!  Even Sodor is not a closed system, but linked to the 'other railway' by a bridge at Barrow.

 

The WNR is not, and was never, intended to be, a closed system. It is too extensive to represent in its entirety, but even were I to do so, through traffic would enter and exit from a number of points beyond which offstage areas would represent the rest of the network.

 

The only truly closed SG system I have devised is the Isle of Eldernell & Mereport Railway.  The clue is in the name; the conceit is that it is an island system, albeit, as a twist, an inland island, surrounded by meres, rivers and fens.