Little Muddle

[KNP]

Pannier shunting in the yard sneaks into view.

 

 

 

Though I do think I might have been within 35mm of the it....

 

Edited March 23 by KNP

[KNP]

By removing the platform signal box I was able to stand the camera in its place and get this unusual angle.

 

 

 

Must sort out the 'short' leg on the platform trolley, looks particularly bad from this angle! 

Edited March 23 by KNP

[KNP]

An area not often concentrated on but seen numerous times in the background.

PW area at the end of Little Muddle platform.

Large shed houses a track inspection vehicle that is carried out on the walkway and lined up with the track.

 

 

Edited March 23 by KNP

[KNP]

And the sheds from the track when entering the station area

 

 

Edited March 23 by KNP

[gismorail]

Very impressed with your new lighting Kevin think I will try some on Chester Northgate Shed as photography is not easy it is at the moment will try with just one strip first to see the effect .

[KNP]

11 minutes ago, gismorail said:

Very impressed with your new lighting Kevin think I will try some on Chester Northgate Shed as photography is not easy it is at the moment will try with just one strip first to see the effect .

Thanks, I have to say that these came out of a requirement to replace the original lights as the tube size was no longer available but what I’ve ended up with is such a major noticeable improvement.

My advice is to over specify and include dimmers as its simple to turn but not to increase.

Double check what code the led’s are as the newer spec the better.

Look forward to seeing the results.

[gismorail]

2 hours ago, KNP said:

Thanks, I have to say that these came out of a requirement to replace the original lights as the tube size was no longer available but what I’ve ended up with is such a major noticeable improvement.

My advice is to over specify and include dimmers as its simple to turn but not to increase.

Double check what code the led’s are as the newer spec the better.

Look forward to seeing the results.

Strange fact about tube size not being available as I wasted an hour in screwfix and B&Q today trying to replace the tube for the new fiddle yard which I only purchased two years ago and guess what 'Sorry Sir we have discontinued this size' ..... there is a real rip off going on in the lighting industry at the moment with all this 'energy saving' marketing. They just don't get the resources that are being wasted in the movement to better efficiency. Thanks for the advice though I will choose carefully as the units are not cheap 

 

[Tony Teague]

8 hours ago, gismorail said:

Strange fact about tube size not being available as I wasted an hour in screwfix and B&Q today trying to replace the tube for the new fiddle yard which I only purchased two years ago and guess what 'Sorry Sir we have discontinued this size' ..... there is a real rip off going on in the lighting industry at the moment with all this 'energy saving' marketing. They just don't get the resources that are being wasted in the movement to better efficiency. Thanks for the advice though I will choose carefully as the units are not cheap 

 

 

Try:

https://www.ledhut.co.uk/

 

No connection, just a satisfied customer - but they seem to have LED replacements for almost any standard fitting.

Tony

[SteveTheSteam]

Got an account just so I could express my appreciation of this work of art. Thank you Kevin

 

However the strange goings on with the platform trolleys is but just one supernatural event I've witnessed - Where have the stacks of logs gone and what was holding them up?!!!

[KNP]

1 hour ago, SteveTheSteam said:

Got an account just so I could express my appreciation of this work of art. Thank you Kevin

 

However the strange goings on with the platform trolleys is but just one supernatural event I've witnessed - Where have the stacks of logs gone and what was holding them up?!!!

Thanks. Glad you like my little offering and hope it provides ideas for your own layout.

Regarding the logs. This is quite common occurrence on this layout!!! In this instance I had moved them for some previous shoots, moved the camera to do these ones and halfway through noticed I hadn’t put the logs back. Did so, thereby ruining the continuity for you....

 

[gismorail]

8 hours ago, Tony Teague said:

 

Try:

https://www.ledhut.co.uk/

 

No connection, just a satisfied customer - but they seem to have LED replacements for almost any standard fitting.

Tony

Many thanks for that I will have a good search through the web site . 

[Martin S-C]

On 14/06/2019 at 18:56, KNP said:

Back gardens underway

 

 

 

Back gardens with LAWNS in the 1930s. That's bold, sir!

[Neal Ball]

22 hours ago, KNP said:

Thanks, I have to say that these came out of a requirement to replace the original lights as the tube size was no longer available but what I’ve ended up with is such a major noticeable improvement.

My advice is to over specify and include dimmers as its simple to turn but not to increase.

Double check what code the led’s are as the newer spec the better.

Look forward to seeing the results.

 

I've now taken the first step with lighting Henley on Thames - €3 per metre for warm white.

 

Bright white is the next addition to the lighting rig.

 

Thanks for all the tips Kevin.

 

 

 

[KNP]

Peek - a - boo

 

 

 

Ahh.... there you are

 

 

 

Must fix that broken piece of point rodding, only noticed it with these picture.

 

Edited March 23 by KNP

[KNP]

13 hours ago, Martin S-C said:

Back gardens with LAWNS in the 1930s. That's bold, sir!

 

Most of my basic ideas for the layout come from a site called Britain from Above which is home to a huge collection of aerial pictures taken between 1919 to 2006 by a company called Aerofilms.

They covered most of Britain, obviously there are areas of omission but there is an interactive map that shows where pictures where taken

I was surprised at the number of vegetable patches in gardens but also the number with what we would call a standard garden of lawns, flower beds and trees.

 

Not sure if I should do this but here is a grainy picture of an area in Aylesbury in 1934

 

 

Apologies if I shouldn't have done that I thought it would be OK as it was my picture of a picture on my computer.

Here is the link for those of you interested, I found it great looking at Bicester in the 30's and seeing how things have changed.

 

https://www.britainfromabove.org.uk/en

 

In a funny way back gardens don't seem to have changed much other that now we have decking, patios, bar-b-ques and conservatories.

EDIT - forgot rotary lines...….!

Edited June 18, 2019 by KNP

[The Johnster]

I think it was, and to an extent still is, a class thing.  The airphoto of Aylesbury sort of shows this, middle class or at least aspiring middle class development in Metroland.  These people can afford to buy their vegetables in shops, and want to use their gardens as places for the kids to play safely and to sit and relax on nice days in; flowers and shrubs bound the lawns and there is a potting shed (or perhaps it's an outside loo) in most of them.  Eating outside is a relatively modern development; nobody would have thought of barbies or garden furniture beyond a plain green canvas deck chair or two back then, and it was the same when I was brought up in the 50s and 60s in a not dissimilar sort of house.  Yer landed gentry took tea on the terrace, but there was no plastic outdoor crockery in the 30s, and the china stuff was kept inside!  Poorer homes would have smaller gardens and these would most likely be put to growing the family's vegetables, possibly with a chuck or two for the eggs, but the aspiration was to upgrade from that sort of life.  Evidence of this is on the left of the photo, one of that nice Mr Balfour's schools to ejumacate the great unwashed.

 

Nowadays the middle classes are reclaiming it, in gardens and allotments.  Nobody, not even rich people, had tumble dryers and washing lines were an essential.  Ours was a quite tall double deck affair.  Houses like these in the photo with back lane entrances would have their coal delivered that way, and the 'coal shed' is probably at the rear of the house accessed from outside.  Inside, next to it and accessed from the kitchen, is the pantry, and on the other side of the coal was the outside loo.  A middle class house built in 1898 did not have an inside loo, and my grandfather had had this put in upstairs along with a bathroom in the 30s.  The electric, as it was called, was put in at the same time.

Edited June 18, 2019 by The Johnster

[Martin S-C]

That was exactly what I was going to suggest. It depends on what class of person you think lives in the row of cottages behind the station, Kevin. I often reference Pendon but that represents the deepest sort of rural inter-war community where everyone had little (use for) money and lived in each others pockets. A self-help community. As The Johnster says, it would have been entirely different in Metroland.

 

Post-war of course there was a general social trend to be upwardly mobile and one of the badges of improving your class was to get rid of the vegetable patch and lay a back lawn. In effect many had aspirations of sitting on a terrace, lord and lady of their own miniature estate.

Edited June 18, 2019 by Martin S-C

[KNP]

Sheds clear!

 

 

Edited March 23 by KNP

[Mick Bonwick]

Now, that one I really do like!

[cessfordalan]

I read interest the discussion on back gardens. My paternal grandparents lived some 15 miles south of Stockton on Tees and passed away in the early 1960's, they had a back garden Prety much as discriped ,the only difference being a path connecting the rear of the premises with the outside road wide enough to allow a night soil vehicle to do it's weekly collection. The said vehicle also left a couple of sacks of quick lime for the next week collection. 

 

regards 

 

Alan   

[The Johnster]

Quite a lot of stuff was delivered/collected in urban areas; as well as the coal, we had a regular weekly laundry pick up/drop off, milk was of course delivered to doorsteps, sometimes with cream and eggs, and a rag;n'bone man came to the back entrance once a week.  As well as taking anything you wanted rid of for scrap, he had a millstone on the wagon for sharpening your cutlery and tools, and bundles of firewood.  Fire ash was collected with the rubbish collection, but my mum used a good bit of it as fertiliser; she was a dab hand with a flower border!  This sort of thing was not restricted to the middle classes (well, perhaps the laundry was), but was fairly universal.  On top of this, pools coupons were delivered door to door and money collected, and insurance money was done in the same way.  

 

The local pub delivered a bottle of whisky and one of rum for my grandfather (found dead in bed with his hand clenched around the neck of an empty rum bottle, how rock and roll is that!) and collected the empties, along with a crate of Mackeson stout for gran I am told (she'd gone before I arrived on the scene).  Most of this trade was done on credit, with bills presented perhaps quarterly or monthly.

 

'Mummy, the laundry man's come for his money, can we pay him or do you want me to go out and play again'...

 

 

[BWsTrains]

14 hours ago, KNP said:

 

Most of my basic ideas for the layout come from a site called Britain from Above which is home to a huge collection of aerial pictures taken between 1919 to 2006 by a company called Aerofilms.

 

Great idea Kevin, had used the site before but never thought of that application.

 

Sadly not even one solitary photo over my AOI the Qantocks, will have to make do with the Mendips instead,

 

Colin

[The Johnster]

Mendips are very different geologically to the Carboniferous Limestone Quantocks, which are very typical of British limestone uplands, and are more akin to the Devonian Old Red Sandstone hills of South Devon.  The underlying rock not only has an effect on the topography, but on the types of plants and trees that predominate; the area looks very different to the Mendips.  

[Limpley Stoker]

Living in the Mendips I have found the website www.somersetheritage.org.uk   useful. The RAF postwar aerial survey can be accessed through the map section of the website ( I see my garden as it was in 1946 . but sadly not in as high definition as the squadron leaders efforts.) It covers the Quantocks, obviously.

 

Edited June 19, 2019 by Limpley Stoker

[Stoker]

On 17/06/2019 at 14:48, Martin S-C said:

Back gardens with LAWNS in the 1930s. That's bold, sir!

Actually a lot more common than people realise. By 1930 lawns had been commonplace among the middle class for 100 years, since Edwin Beard Budding introduced the reel mower in 1830. Prior to this, lawns were painstakingly cut with a scythe, and then rolled into nice lines with a roller. Only the "formal" lawn though, the rest of the grounds of a stately house was more likely tended to by a flock of sheep. It wasn't until the war rationing of the 1940s that many began to turn their gardens back to vegetable plots as a way to keep the family fed.