Diesels come to Pendon! Form an orderly queue!

[MarkSG]

I must try to get to this event.

The interesting thing about the teaser is that, though there are bound to be anachronisms between the 1930s and the early 1960s, none of them stand out sufficiently to make the scene look "wrong".with diesels in it.(though i'm sure experts on farming methods would see a few). 

 

The biggest differences on the farms would be a significant increase in mechanisation and a lot of new (but low quality) buildings. 

 

WWII had a massive impact on Britain's agricultural landscape. On the one hand there was a huge imperative to increase productivity, but on the other hand a lot of the work had to be done by those with no experience of farming (because so many farm labourers were called up). Mechanisation, both new and modernised, was a solution to both of those issues; you could do more with fewer people, and the people you did have could use relatively easy to acquire skills, such as tractor driving, rather than the years of experience necessary to be good at handling farm horses or steam powered traction engines. Farms had already started moving away from horse and steam power during the 1920s and 1930s, but WWII considerably accelerated that process.

 

Increases in productivity also meant a need for more, and upgraded, storage, so a lot of barns were built quickly and cheaply. WWII was also the time when a lot of rural roads were paved for the first time rather than being dirt tracks - again, the need to shift large quantities of food meant that reliable road surfaces capable of handling tractors and lorries were necessary.

 

Also, there would be plenty of evidence of military activity. Pillboxes would be the most obvious, but an area like that portrayed in the Vale scene might also have had a training camp, a barracks or even a grass airstrip. Post-war, a lot of military buildings were themselves converted for industrial and agricultural use. It would be a rare farm that didn't have a few Nissen huts dotted around.

 

So yes, someone familiar with the rural landscape will find it easy to spot anachronisms with diesels running through the Vale scene. But it's also plausible enough to apply some modeller's licence and say that most of those changes were off-scene. There were still pockets of pre-war style agriculture around for several decades after it ended.

Edited November 22, 2018 by MarkSG

[Andy Y]

I must try to get to this event.

The interesting thing about the teaser is that, though there are bound to be anachronisms between the 1930s and the early 1960s, none of them stand out sufficiently to make the scene look "wrong".with diesels in it.

 

Mark's comments are spot on but I did try to film from certain positions where there were less visual cues to the era. If I'd filmed across the station yard or with figures in the foreground it may have been more obvious.

[Pacific231G]

Mark's comments are spot on but I did try to film from certain positions where there were less visual cues to the era. If I'd filmed across the station yard or with figures in the foreground it may have been more obvious.

Apart from anything else, you might have seen the vast array of enamel advertising signs that the station is festooned with. In that respect the GWR was far more visually "noisy" than the pre-Beeching WR and very happy to take money from advertisers even if it hid the company's elegant designs.  Many people (including me) have a mental image of the GWR which is really far closer to BR (W)

 

It's a bit like the image of the CIWL.Restaurant cars. Whether on the VSOE or in museums or even in films such as Murder on the Orient Express they are lovingly restored or recreated with all the wonderful marquetry and Lalique designs looking pristine and, naturally enough, that's also how they look in official photos. However, in the far fewer photos taken of them in daily service, the diners often seem to be surrounded by advertising.  

Edited November 25, 2018 by Pacific231G

[The Stationmaster]

A short tease of some things you may get to see on the day.

 

 

Very nice but they really need to do something about those white window frames on the Hymek - the thing everybody seems to carry on getting wrong alas.

 

I must try to get to this event.

The interesting thing about the teaser is that, though there are bound to be anachronisms between the 1930s and the early 1960s, none of them stand out sufficiently to make the scene look "wrong".with diesels in it.(though i'm sure experts on farming methods would see a few). Rolling stock aside, it's notable how little fundamental change there was between the immediate pre-war railway and B.R. before Beeching apart from the later railway looking rather more run down. Since then that tradtional railway  has largely disappeared apart from some buildings and in odd corners. (like the bullhead double track junction I pass over every time I used the Greenford branch) .  

 

On the railway before Beeching, definitely the WR railway, many buildings were still repainted as frequently as they had been in GWR days and the track and lineside receib ved just as much attention as it did in GWR days.  And that was very much the case through the Vale where lpcal PerWay gangs were still put and about tending their own patch, complete with measured shovel packing, and cutting back the klineside with sct ythes where controlled burning hadn't taken place in the late spring.

 

Farming change only gradually with only the larger famers and contractors moving on to combine harvesters and pick-up balers - my grandfather was still using a binder until the late 1950s although I am prepared to admit to not exactly legally driving a combine harvester to cut a field which was within a few hundred yards of the main line through the Vale in a year when new 'Warship' diesel were appearing in gradually increasing numbers on Bristol/West of England trains although South Wales trains were still 100% steam worked.

 

Incidentally although my grandparents got a new milking parlour, cattle shed and pig sty after getting electricity in the farmhouse in time for the 1953 Coronation the two barns both predated quite a lot of wars (Waterloo in one case)) although teh tractor shed was an ex-military large type of Nissen hut structure.  My grandfather kept a pair of heavy horses as long as he could - well into the '50s - although the farm also had a tractor and he wasn't alone in keeping horses.   Wartime had made little difference to the appearance of much of the Vale as far as the 'near railway' scene was concerned with the biggest impacts coming at Lockinge (east of Wantage Road) and Grove (between Wantage Road and Wantage), I think the nearest airfield was probably Shellingford (near Stanford-In-The-Vale).  But various 'war surplus' 'kit built' buildings made it into all sorts of uses after the war and army surplus uniform clothing was cheap and hard wearing hence both of my uncles regularly supported various ex army items of clothing as part of their everyday workwear.

 

The biggest change was the increasing elimination of thatched roofs and the arrival of more private cars (albeit in small numbers compared with today) plus many older cars still to be seen in pre MoT Test times.

Edited November 25, 2018 by The Stationmaster

[Rugd1022]

Very nice but they really need to do something about those white window frames on the Hymek - the thing everybody seems to carry on getting wrong alas.

 

 

 

 

Yes Mike, they should really be a lot closer to the shade of 'off white' used on the window pillars of all of the maroon Westerns (apart from D1001's which were stark white).

[DavidB]

Wartime had made little difference to the appearance of much of the Vale as far as the 'near railway' scene was concerned with the biggest impacts coming at Lockinge (east of Wantage Road) and Grove (between Wantage Road and Wantage)

Hi Mike

 

I'd be really interested to know more about what changed at Lockinge, and whether this is what the railway calls 'Lockinge' or the actual village. Christopher Loyd's decision to dismantle the Big House stone-by-stone just after the war was certainly dramatic, but the location of Lockinge church by the site of the old house remains one of my all-time favourite locations anywhere, and especially on a summer evening as the shadows lengthen on the lake. Interested to know more.

 

David

[The Stationmaster]

Hi Mike

 

I'd be really interested to know more about what changed at Lockinge, and whether this is what the railway calls 'Lockinge' or the actual village. Christopher Loyd's decision to dismantle the Big House stone-by-stone just after the war was certainly dramatic, but the location of Lockinge church by the site of the old house remains one of my all-time favourite locations anywhere, and especially on a summer evening as the shadows lengthen on the lake. Interested to know more.

 

David

 

David, information seems pretty scanty.  according to Vaughan ("Railways Through the Vale of The White Horse') the original war Dept depot opened in 1915 and it would appear to have been considerably expanded during WWII.  the depot was not rail connected until 1940 when new signalboxes were opened at Lockinge East (57m55ch according to Cooke) and Lockinge West (58m18ch according to the same source). To help locate them in relation to other features Causeway Crossing is 56m72ch and Wantage Road station was at 60m32ch.

 

Lockinge East 'box (and associated connections into the depot at that end) was closed in August 1950 and the connections into the depot at Lockinge West were removed in June 1960 although the 'box itself was not closed until 1963 (according to Vaughan) but it is unlikely that it was regularly open by then except on the busiest days.

 

Quite why the railway called the location Lockinge is unfathomable (to me at any rate!) although there was originally a 'break section signalbox a bit further west which could possibly be linked to land owned by somebody in Lockinge.  the depot lat y immediately south of the road from Steventon to Hanney (hence, no doubt, its original name of Hanney Depot which might never have changed - it would be just like the GWR to name its signalboxes after somewhere completely different and further from them than various other settlements in the area!

 

The depot passed to the Ministry of Supply after the war (date unknown) and remained in Govt hands until, probably, the 1990s being the home of all sorts of bits and pieces including a fleet of 'Green Goddess' fire engines which, so i'm told, were kept fully maintained and regularly repainted by the depot staff.  The site was sold off but can still be seen quite clearly on Google Maps on the north side of the main line west of Steventon

[Andy Y]

My favourite corner of the vale scene.

 

[caradoc]

Imagine sitting in that field alongside the main line with cheese and pickle sandwiches and a can of Idris ginger beer. Paradise !

[queensquare]

My favourite corner of the vale scene.

Just stunning, both the modelling and photographic composition.

 

Jerry

[andy stroud]

I was a bit surprised to see some re-bodied 21t hoppers  in the Hymek hauled coal train. They had tops lettering as well. Not a critisism in any way, just surprised.

[big jim]

Has hell froze over and pendon fallen into the pit of oblivion today yet?

 

Old mother shipton predicted the end of the world once a diesel ran on there apparently

 

“Where there normally be steam, a Hymek must not be seen, or rivers of fire will flow from Didcot to the vale and not a scale down person will be saved”

[David Bigcheeseplant]

I was at Pendon today and it was quite busy, interesting to see the BR period but no Westerns.

 

I think it will change the feel of Pendon once they install the overhead catenary

[caradoc]

I was at Pendon today and it was quite busy, interesting to see the BR period but no Westerns.

 

I think it will change the feel of Pendon once they install the overhead catenary

 

Especially if it is the so-called 'over-engineered' type used on the GWML !

[Coach bogie]

I am curious that the MSJ line works for diesels, but whenever I visit for the traditional displays, the public get told it is not working yet.

 

Mike Wiltshire

[Andy Y]

I am curious that the MSJ line works for diesels, but whenever I visit for the traditional displays, the public get told it is not working yet.Mike Wiltshire

That may have been due to works on that route in the upper levels of the scene.

[Miss Prism]

 

 

[tanatvalley]

I was at Pendon today and it was quite busy, interesting to see the BR period but no Westerns.

Apologies for quality.

[bodmin16]

Went along today, thoroughly enjoyable day and I have to say that I don't think I have had so many conversations, everybody seemed more talkative than ever. Was a great day, and we did stay pretty much all day! Didnt realise that this was extra weekend above the normal opening weekends. Don't panic normal (steam)service will be resumed next year. For the record prefer the correct trains for the period but today was fun.

Edited December 1, 2018 by bodmin16

[caradoc]

I am curious that the MSJ line works for diesels, but whenever I visit for the traditional displays, the public get told it is not working yet.

 

Mike Wiltshire

 

I visited Pendon in April and on talking to one of the volunteers about the M&SWJ, he ran a train along it just for me ! (Although he did say more work was required).

[Jonboy]

Well that was a nice pleasant couple of hours, busy but not unpleasantly so, and friendly volunteers talking though the movements.

[Ian J.]

I thought my visit this time made more sense to me than last (when I was just in my teens at school, I think, in the early/mid eighties). Very impressive modelling, of course, and I very much like the way it's a landscape with a railway in it, rather than a railway with a landscape around it. Seeing the diesels didn't seem out of place at all, to me, though obviously they are, technically.

Edited December 2, 2018 by Ian J.

[chrisf]

Just got back from my visit.  The diesels did not look at all out of place and I got the distinct impression that those responsible for them were enjoying themselves.  My first reaction when I heard about it was that it was a crazy idea.  Maybe it was but it worked!

 

Chris

[stewartingram]

Heavns above, if this sort of thing carries on, the next thing you know is that the Bluebell Railway will forgo being an all-steam railway!

oh....just a minute....

 

Stewart

[CME and Bottlewasher]

I purchased that book when it first came out - atmospheric and inspirational. I also like Mike Artlett's DVD of diesels on the S&D, on Pt Way/track lifting trains, 08s, 22s, 35s and, iirc, DMUs on rail tours. For some poignant, for me a fascinating juxtaposition, what I'm striving for in my own model making..