Nether Madder and Green Soudley Rly

[Schooner]

47 minutes ago, Regularity said:

You are toying with the idea of becoming a removable load?

It's been that kind of day!

[Edwardian]

21 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Anyway, what I don't quite understand is why one would want removeable loads. There's no realistic way of unloading them in the open on the layout. 

 

 

 

This is one of many areas where the model cannot satisfactorily represent prototype action. Lack of steam, lack of sound (other than DCC), frozen people and vehicles (save for the odd Faller system), lack of horse shunting etc, etc.

 

Fish gotta swim and birds gotta fly, but not on a model railway.

 

There is, it seems to me, no right answer; each has to find a mode of doing things that suits them best.

 

Any layout, even if not OO gauge, is always reliant upon a good deal of compromise, and it is often a personal preference where such compromises are made and what is or is not important.  For you, the lack of realism represented by the inability to unload a wagon at its destination might be the priority.  

 

My personal preference, and here I suspect I'm closer to Stephen's idea of doing things than yours, Martin, is to prioritise realism in rolling stock appearance over 'playability' in terms of actually moving goods in and out of wagons.  

 

It seems likely, then, that, for me, a representation of a sheeted load, tied down with ropes, will have to be permanent. Likewise a load on a machinery or implement wagon, which has to be chained and shackled. Removeable loads, in such cases, tend to compromise realism. 

 

For Castle Aching, then, I suspect I must accept that sheeted loads are removed while I'm not looking and replaced by another sheeted load.  Any empty wagons leaving the station will coincidentally have been those arriving with unsheeted loads.  Alternatively they may have been re-loaded with different or similar (!) unsheeted load.

 

A watched wagon never unloads, as they say, but I suspect my little people will happily sort it all out for me as soon as my back is turned.  

 

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, Edwardian said:

birds gotta fly, but not on a model railway.

 

I'm pretty sure I've seen that done. Certainly seagull-on-a-stick, which falls fowl of Rice's law. A circling raptor ought to be do-able, suspended on a fine thread attached to a slowly-roating disc in the sky.

 

Swimming fish I've not seen, but there is a most convincingly-done gliding swan on the fabulous Dutch layout De Graafstroom, which I saw at the Uckfield show in 2019:

 

 

 

Edited May 26, 2021 by Compound2632

[Tom Burnham]

Isn't that wonderful? I do like the steam tram being reflected in the canal. Mind you, that swan must have been paddling pretty fast under the surface to move at that speed!

 

Edited May 26, 2021 by Tom Burnham
Typo corrected

[Tom Burnham]

21 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

The infamous Triang giraffe car was based on their O-gauge version, I believe:

Which does raise the question of how giraffes were transported. Elephants and camels went by horsebox, generally.

Don't know what may have happened pre-1923, but the Southern Railway fitted one of its bogie theatrical scenery vans (4584 of 1929) for tethering elephants.  When van 4584 was withdrawn around 1960, three of the remaining vans of the type were fitted for tethering elephants, so there must have been a pretty regular traffic in pachyderms.  Possibly theatrical parties - which formed an important component of special traffic on Sundays at one time - were using rail less by then.

[Edwardian]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

 

I'm pretty sure I've seen that done. Certainly seagull-on-a-stick, which falls fowl of Rice's law. A circling raptor ought to be do-able, suspended on a fine thread attached to a slowly-roating disc in the sky.

 

Swimming fish I've not seen, but there is a most convincingly-done gliding swan on the fabulous Dutch layout De Graafstroom, which I saw at the Uckfield show in 2019:

 

 

 

 

Oh, the tension and excitement.  For the longest time I was biting my knuckles because the swan looked to be on a collision course with the barge, and then a train came alongside and I worried that the dog might choose that moment to run across the track.

 

More than one thing moving at once; it's an insane adrenaline rush ... I had to stop watching (in case a bird flew over as well).

[St Enodoc]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

 

I'm pretty sure I've seen that done. Certainly seagull-on-a-stick, which falls fowl of Rice's law. A circling raptor ought to be do-able, suspended on a fine thread attached to a slowly-roating disc in the sky.

 

Swimming fish I've not seen, but there is a most convincingly-done gliding swan on the fabulous Dutch layout De Graafstroom, which I saw at the Uckfield show in 2019:

 

 

 

I like what you did in your second sentence there, Stephen.

[Nearholmer]

On my old H0 waterfront layout, I had a seagull on a long, horizontal, piece of piano wire. This was normally in "frozen motion" mode, but people seemed to like it. When I got bored at exhibitions (it happens), I would twang the wire so that the seagull oscillated gently, up and down, which people seemed to like even more.

 

Mind you, I always used to enjoy the flea circus under the prom at Brighton, so you can understand how easily amused I am. Even the dictionary definition of 'flea circus' seems to me highly entertaining: "a novelty show of performing fleas.". Put that on a sign outside a tent and you'd have a queue in two minutes.

 

 

Edited May 26, 2021 by Nearholmer

[St Enodoc]

14 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

Mind you, I always used to enjoy the flea circus under the prom at Brighton

I preferred Sammy the Shunter.

[Nearholmer]

I think he'd hit the buffers for the last time by the time I got to go to Brighton.

[St Enodoc]

4 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

I think he'd hit the buffers for the last time by the time I got to go to Brighton.

I was very young...

[Martin S-C]

4 hours ago, Edwardian said:

 

This is one of many areas where the model cannot satisfactorily represent prototype action. Lack of steam, lack of sound (other than DCC), frozen people and vehicles (save for the odd Faller system), lack of horse shunting etc, etc.

 

Fish gotta swim and birds gotta fly, but not on a model railway.

 

There is, it seems to me, no right answer; each has to find a mode of doing things that suits them best.

 

Any layout, even if not OO gauge, is always reliant upon a good deal of compromise, and it is often a personal preference where such compromises are made and what is or is not important.  For you, the lack of realism represented by the inability to unload a wagon at its destination might be the priority.  

 

My personal preference, and here I suspect I'm closer to Stephen's idea of doing things than yours, Martin, is to prioritise realism in rolling stock appearance over 'playability' in terms of actually moving goods in and out of wagons.  

 

It seems likely, then, that, for me, a representation of a sheeted load, tied down with ropes, will have to be permanent. Likewise a load on a machinery or implement wagon, which has to be chained and shackled. Removeable loads, in such cases, tend to compromise realism. 

 

For Castle Aching, then, I suspect I must accept that sheeted loads are removed while I'm not looking and replaced by another sheeted load.  Any empty wagons leaving the station will coincidentally have been those arriving with unsheeted loads.  Alternatively they may have been re-loaded with different or similar (!) unsheeted load.

 

A watched wagon never unloads, as they say, but I suspect my little people will happily sort it all out for me as soon as my back is turned.

Yes, thanks for all of that James, a well thought-out post. We do all compromise somewhere, and we do all bring our own foibles to the hobby and I like that there is so much choice in what you do and how you do it. With my own hand loaded/unloaded arrangement this involves a need for a certain lack of detail and realism (e.g. no lines over sheets) and some handling of stock so therefore I have compromised with a tendency towards a more train-setty approach. I do have my LOWMAC wagon duplicated empty and carrying a traction engine as there was no way to depict a loose load with that and make it functional as a piece of rolling stock that had to run on the layout, but that is my only duplicated wagon and the loaded and empty versions will never be seen at the same time.

As an aside I've never been a fan of wagons or coaches or even locos used in cameos at exhibitions such as the coal wagon with its doors dropped and a workman shovelling it out because I know for the whole two days I'm at that exhibition it will never move and that compromises to some extent what can be shunted into that siding. To me dioramas are distinct from operating model railways and I'd never want to mix the two.

For me there are a variety of choices and criteria all modellers make and these vary depending on personal priorities and preferences. I classify these into two broad groups; "historical" and "technical". Historical choices are about where is my model supposed to be? When? And operated by which company(ies)? Those choices then bring with them others such as what the scenery around the layout should be like - Welsh hills, Derbyshire dales, Scottish highlands, Cornish coast or East Anglian fens, etc? And that brings with it the associated subjects of architecture, road vehicles, people's clothing, farming and industrial activity - even types of trees - and so on.

Then the technical choices revolve around constraints on the model such as how much space do I have? What scale and gauge? RTR or kits? (aka what are my modelling skills?) Does the space available impact other choices due to limiting curve radii? Will it be a temporary layout or permanent? How do I control it? Steam/DC/DCC, etc. What couplings do I use? Will I place signals and if so, will they work or be dummies? And so on and so on.

A lot of these choices are easily made or even unconsciously made but one of the processes I went through over the last year while agonising over why my enthusiasm for the NM&GSR had failed was listing out a lot of items that displeased me and more importantly why they displeased me.

You could probably write a thesis on the psychology of railway modelling, though I'll leave that for someone else to do.

[Edwardian]

12 minutes ago, Martin S-C said:

Yes, thanks for all of that James, a well thought-out post. We do all compromise somewhere, and we do all bring our own foibles to the hobby and I like that there is so much choice in what you do and how you do it. With my own hand loaded/unloaded arrangement this involves a need for a certain lack of detail and realism (e.g. no lines over sheets) and some handling of stock so therefore I have compromised with a tendency towards a more train-setty approach. I do have my LOWMAC wagon duplicated empty and carrying a traction engine as there was no way to depict a loose load with that and make it functional as a piece of rolling stock that had to run on the layout, but that is my only duplicated wagon and the loaded and empty versions will never be seen at the same time.

As an aside I've never been a fan of wagons or coaches or even locos used in cameos at exhibitions such as the coal wagon with its doors dropped and a workman shovelling it out because I know for the whole two days I'm at that exhibition it will never move and that compromises to some extent what can be shunted into that siding. To me dioramas are distinct from operating model railways and I'd never want to mix the two.

For me there are a variety of choices and criteria all modellers make and these vary depending on personal priorities and preferences. I classify these into two broad groups; "historical" and "technical". Historical choices are about where is my model supposed to be? When? And operated by which company(ies)? Those choices then bring with them others such as what the scenery around the layout should be like - Welsh hills, Derbyshire dales, Scottish highlands, Cornish coast or East Anglian fens, etc? And that brings with it the associated subjects of architecture, road vehicles, people's clothing, farming and industrial activity - even types of trees - and so on.

Then the technical choices revolve around constraints on the model such as how much space do I have? What scale and gauge? RTR or kits? (aka what are my modelling skills?) Does the space available impact other choices due to limiting curve radii? Will it be a temporary layout or permanent? How do I control it? Steam/DC/DCC, etc. What couplings do I use? Will I place signals and if so, will they work or be dummies? And so on and so on.

A lot of these choices are easily made or even unconsciously made but one of the processes I went through over the last year while agonising over why my enthusiasm for the NM&GSR had failed was listing out a lot of items that displeased me and more importantly why they displeased me.

You could probably write a thesis on the psychology of railway modelling, though I'll leave that for someone else to do.

 

And a very well thought-out response, Martin.

 

I suspect I will be more of an 'observer of the scene' than an operator in due course, which also lends a bias to the issue in question. 

 

I do take your point about the unloading coal wagon cameo.  I had been tempted to do that, but, eventually, I suspect the fact that it never, ever, moved would become annoying and, in its way, detract from realism.  

[Caley Jim]

3 hours ago, Edwardian said:

More than one thing moving at once; it's an insane adrenaline rush ... I had to stop watching (in case a bird flew over as well).

The only thing that spoilt it for me was the lack of a bow wave or wake from the boat or ripples from the swan.

 

On loaded/unloaded wagons, as far as coal wagons are concerned, I have arranged Kirkallanmuir so that the colliery branch and the direction in which coal trains leave and empties arrive are at the same end of the layout.  Loaded wagons arrive from the colliery, pass through the weighbridge and then go into the sidings.  Once a train of empties have arrived and been put in the sidings, the brake van having been attached to a train of loaded wagons, the loco from that picks up the loadeds, pulls it into the departure road, runs round and departs.  The empties are then propelled to the (hidden) colliery whereupon the cassettes of loaded and empties are exchanged.  I will have at least two trains of each and there are 4 sidings, so it will not be a case of the same trains constantly reappearing.

 

Other wagons will simply stay loaded or empty!

 

Jim

[Harlequin]

1 hour ago, Martin S-C said:

You could probably write a thesis on the psychology of railway modelling, though I'll leave that for someone else to do.

 

It's been done! It's online and there are references to it from RMWeb, if you can educe the correct search term...

 

[Sandhole]

4 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

I preferred Sammy the Shunter.

I remember Sammy. I saw him at home in Brighton, a great train set in three rail O gauge.
On one side of the hall under the promanade there was a working hump yard in Hornby Dublo 3 rail. It was superb, the only other working hump yard I'd seen up to then, was on the Manchester Model Railway Club's Wheatstone Bridge layout at the Corn Exchange exhibition.
Sammy's 'Dad', George Elliott came to Manchester with his book stall and sales techniques. A true showman. I still have some of the books my Dad bought for me off George.

[Regularity]

Peter Denny didn’t swap the bodies over during an operating session, but at the end of the working day. To him, having loaded coal wagons arriving was fine, but it looked odd when they departed. He was looking for verisimilitude in the operation on his layout, which was historical with an operational focus. Never been fortunate enough to have seen it myself, but I know someone who operated a couple of times, and the whole experience was very immersive and totally engaging.

These considerations largely apply to layouts involving one of more terminals - with a through station, or just plain line, then other than maybe a few deliveries to the local coal merchant, most of this would be apparent from the nature of trains circulating in opposite directions.

The point is, you can have some empties and some loaded, mixed in together going both ways; you can have removable dummy loads; you can have swappable wagon bodies; you can have genuine loose loads; or you could simply swap whole wagons (loaded and empty) over between sessions. One of these involves loaded (and empty) wagons returning whence they came, the rest involve a degree of handling between sessions. Viewed as theatre, these present the operation of a railway more accurately from both a technical and historical perspective, but at the risk of some damage to the stock and indeed visual disturbance to the layout during the period of manual intervention.

 

But other than it being visible for the few moments it happens (and I have seen plenty of plays where set changes happen in front of the audience), how is this different to what most of use: a fiddle yard?

[Nearholmer]

All this is part of the "willing suspension of disbelief" business, by which we attempt to draw a line between A Toy Train Set, which is a thing for children, and A Model Railway, which is a thing for earnest grown ups.

 

The problem I have with it all is that, even with the very finest model-making, I can't suspend disbelief far enough to forget that what I'm looking at is what it is; I never succeed in kidding myself that its real. With that spell never cast, I have no shame, and a great deal of delight, in approaching things from the opposite direction, by shamelessly playing trains, flinging great dollops of imagination in all over the place. As anyone who has seen it will attest, my current layout really doesn't look the slightest bit like the real thing, but that doesn't matter, because even if it did, I'd still know it wasn't, and so would everyone else.

[Compound2632]

1 minute ago, Nearholmer said:

As anyone who has seen it will attest, my current layout really doesn't look the slightest bit like the real thing, but that doesn't matter, because even if it did, I'd still know it wasn't, and so would everyone else.

 

But there are different ways in which a model railway can be like the real thing. It can be a dead scale model, indistinguishable for the real thing in a photograph. It can be operationally accurate, with all the bells and whistles (and lever frames and track circuits) - an achievable end in tinplate, except perhaps for the track circuits. Or, hardest of all, it can indefinably evoke railwayness.

[Nearholmer]

You might be on to something there.

 

The secret might be not to build a model railway at all, but to build a railway that just happens to be very small.

[ian]

 

[Martin S-C]

2 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

But there are different ways in which a model railway can be like the real thing. It can be a dead scale model, indistinguishable for the real thing in a photograph.

This has never happened to me. Even looking at Pendon photographed by an expert and with every digital or mechanical post-production tool available I have never been convinced that what I'm looking at is anything but a miniature scene. People often remark that they thought it was the real thing but I think those are compliments - they didn't really think it was the real thing.

Though this isn't actually the issue, we can all attempt to achieve as much or as little realism as we wish. We will never attain it but we can do things that leave others in awe or spellbound and attaining that result must be a real joy.

[St Enodoc]

7 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

You might be on to something there.

 

The secret might be not to build a model railway at all, but to build a railway that just happens to be very small.

When I operated the signal box on Thame (nearly 40 years ago - crikey!), after a few minutes the fact that the railway was 1/64 the size of the ones we travel on became totally irrelevant.

[Nearholmer]

At risk of hogging your thread, Martin, some of the best ‘very small real railways’ that I’ve seen have been 16mm/ft garden railways. Quite a few go wildly OTT, full-on Missmarpleshire, but some are very understated, very ‘naturalised’ (well grown-in), with simple track plans, and simple trains, and they are very definitely real railways, just very small. They give the impression that when your back is turned, the train still runs, staffed by unusually tiny people. Not necessarily photo-realistic or ‘finescale’ though.

[St Enodoc]

53 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

staffed by unusually tiny people

Ray Pope's "The Model Railway Men".