Diesels come to Pendon! Form an orderly queue!

[caradoc]

All

 

Let me turn this around why should we D&E modellers spend a single cent on this venture to a museum which has until now had a very anti D&E policy also if its a true one off then none of the funds raised will do anything to further D&E modelling on a wider scale.

 

In addition maybe many are suffering from Pendon fatigue as the amount of articles in the model railway magazines is ridiculous some of them may as well be *New Track pins put on The Vale* here's a six page special this is to the detriment of all modellers as other articles are pushed out for something that has been covered a thousand times.

 

Dave

 

That's very unfair; Pendon is intended to reproduce rural England in the 1930s so quite naturally does not feature diesel locos; Not an 'anti D&E policy', that is simply not what the museum is about. Although a diesel enthusiast myself I have been visiting Pendon since the early 1970s and thoroughly enjoy it every single time, even though all I see is steam locos; I marvel at the quality of the modelling, both of the railway and the surrounding area, and the operation of trains which I am far too young to have ever seen in real life. And I also enjoy seeing Pendon in magazines, although there is no substitute for the real thing in the flesh. 

[Enterprisingwestern]

I don't know what a 153 is. I don't have one and I have no wish to have one. If I had one, I wouldn't put it on LB!

 

We do have guests appearing from time to time but why anybody would want to replace a bunch of superb hand built locos and stock with modern RTR mass produced models is something I don't really understand. If they were all kit or scratchbuilt 1960s items,that would be more in keeping and worth seeing.

 

Still, if it gets Pendon talked about and a few more people through the door, I won't knock it. Buckingham doesn't need either more people talking about it or people through the door. It is quite content as it is.

 

I love a challenge.

Watch your back at Scaleforum!

 

Mike.

[Andy Y]

 a museum which has until now had a very anti D&E policy 

 

Please state your evidence for this.

[PMP]

Only one of the tenses ! I've corrected yours too

 

I don't think any of the modellers at Pendon assemble and paint kits. So far as I know it is all scratchbuilt.

.

There is some kit built stock on Pendon, Finney, Malcolm Mitchell, and coach kits such as Slaters toplights are also in the mix. Those that are there are all built to ‘Pendon Museum Standard’ and gauge.

[Jonboy]

I must admit I haven’t been for several years, simply because despite being a fantastic model, it has little new to see and there are other things to do in life.

 

I live less than 4 miles away.....a diesel day will see me hand over the readies...

[PMP]

All

Let me turn this around why should we D&E modellers spend a single cent on this venture to a museum which has until now had a very anti D&E policy also if its a true one off then none of the funds raised will do anything to further D&E modelling on a wider scale

Dave

Pendon’s running policy covers items that were seen and in use through the vale of the white horse in the 1930’s, so any Great Western diesels appropriate to that era would potentially be included.

 

Pendon has no remit or reason to further D&E modelling on a limited scale, never mind a wider one. If D&E modellers want a similar museum then it’s up to them to buy a building, decide which region and era they’re going to set the museum in, and crack on with it. It’s a bit pointless moaning that a museum dedicated to representing the Oxfordshire and Wiltshire countryside during the inter war years, aren’t fund raising for D&E modellers. Surely the D&E community should be doing that first?

[Horsetan]

Blasphemy!

Maybe one of the diesels could run with the headcode 1S15 to give a more, er, fundamentalist atmosphere... Edited August 19, 2018 by Andy Y

[DavidB]

a museum dedicated to representing the Oxfordshire.....countryside during the inter war years

I'll thank you not to use bad language in polite company Mr PMP - the Vale was part of Berkshire in the inter war years and has been part of Occupied Berkshire since 1974.

 

David ("Berkshire born and Berkshire bred, strong in the arm and thick in the 'ead" - still living in the Vale and loving the fact that I can see outstanding models of the buildings in my village at Pendon)

[bécasse]

Only one of the tenses ! I've corrected yours too

 

I don't think any of the modellers at Pendon assemble and paint kits. So far as I know it is all scratchbuilt.

I do think this needs to be kept apart from the normal sequence. Having this deliberately anachronistic display as a special event should work but i wouldn't want to see it becoming a regular part of the display (any more than I'd want to see one of the villagers with a chain saw).as it would risk turning the incredibly well researched 1930s Village Scene into a mere generic backdrop for a  display of trains. There is a place for layouts that run a sequence of trains "through the ages" in a deliberately slightly vague setting but it's not the Village Scene at Pendon.

 

It's a bit more than the odd charter. The small team who look after and, on a few days each year, operate the MVR do use appropriate RTR locomotives on operating days to augment and conserve John Ahern's original equipment. 

The dilemma with the Madder Valley has always been whether to conserve it as a purely static display or to recognise that John Ahern didn't intend it to be a mere diorama and so maintain it as a working model railway. The first option was more or less how it was displayed for many years with no changes beyond those required to make it viewable (mainly turnrng it from a U into an L) but with visitors, except on very rare occasions, only able to imagine it with trains running.

 

As with any piece of working machinery from automata to aeroplanes and of course steam locomotives, having it as a working model has required some compromises with strict conservation. The layout has been rewired and I understand that some work has had to take place on the track. Augmenting the original locomotives with a small number of RTR ones appropriate to the MVR on the limited number of operating days is not though a compromise in terms of conservation as they don't affect the original models. They enable visitors to see trains running up and down the Madder Valley fairly reliably and when the operating day is over they can be returned to their boxes.

 

Personally I find being able to see it running as a working layout really brings Ahern's work to life and my own visits to Pendon normally coincide with MVR operating days.

 

I remember Roye telling me in 1964 (so not long after Madder Valley had come to Long Wittenham) that they hadn't been able to find anyone who had actually seen it being operated as a model railway, including JHA's wife, and certainly it wasn't then capable of anything like reliable operation even over short stretches at that date. I had been a member of The Model Railway Club since 1960 at a period when it had upwards of 600 members and I never found anyone there who had seen it operating either. I have always suspected that JHA was one of those people who was a builder rather than an operator of model railways and that building the MVR, rather than operating it, satisfied his ambition.

Edited August 20, 2018 by bécasse

[Pacific231G]

I remember Roye telling me in 1964 (so not long after Madder Valley had come to Long Wittenham) that they hadn't been able to find anyone who had actually seen it being operated as a model railway, including JHA's wife, and certainly it wasn't been capable of anything like reliable operation even over short stretches at that date. I had been a member of The Model Railway Club since 1960 at a period when it had upwards of 600 members and I never found anyone there who had seen it operating either. I have always suspected that JHA was one of those people who was a builder rather than an operator of model railways and that building the MVR, rather than operating it, satisfied his ambition.

That's interesting. I've heard similar rumours over the years, sometimes in the past to justify it remaining as a static model, but the layout clearly was designed for operation. Operationally it is a good plan. Madderport and Gammon Magna are well balanced against one another but with different operating patterns and the basic Gammon End plan would have been a good palce for a new operator to start*  If John Ahern really couldn't get it to work properly that is a bit sad but his locomotives and the original track and wiring certainly did work. If true I suppose it means that the MVR team at Pendon  are fulfilling Ahern's work as well as preserving it.

It also directly inspired several other layouts. Philip Hancock's original Craig (Craig and Mertonford) had an almost identical layout to Madderport and at least two other layouts followed the pattern of the whole Madder Valley. 

 

*The Gammon End plan- a run round loop with two sidings coming off it in opposite directions-  was used by Peter Denny twice for the "twig" termini Stony Stratford and the first Leighton Buzzard which, like its successor.  was  designed to also be used as a stand alone exhibition layout with a small fiddle yard .

 

 

Edited August 19, 2018 by Pacific231G

[royaloak]

Total heresy!

Whats that old saying, adapt or die!

 

Maybe the footfall has been dropping and they see this as a way of increasing attendance, if it works all well and good and they could look at doing it occasionally,if it doesnt they have lost a weekend when attendances are normally lower than the summer.

 

Even the Bluebell Railway has conceded that diesels running diesels can be profitable, why cant a model railway do the same.

[royaloak]

I must admit I haven’t been for several years, simply because despite being a fantastic model, it has little new to see and there are other things to do in life.

 

I live less than 4 miles away.....a diesel day will see me hand over the readies...

Which I presume is why they are doing this.

 

I wonder if all the doom merchants are regular (paying) visitors to Pendon?

[LBRJ]

All

 

Let me turn this around why should we D&E modellers spend a single cent on this venture to a museum which has until now had a very anti D&E policy also if its a true one off then none of the funds raised will do anything to further D&E modelling on a wider scale.

 

In addition maybe many are suffering from Pendon fatigue as the amount of articles in the model railway magazines is ridiculous some of them may as well be *New Track pins put on The Vale* here's a six page special this is to the detriment of all modellers as other articles are pushed out for something that has been covered a thousand times.

 

Dave

 

I'm guessing you are actually trying to be serious here? My ghast is truly flabbered!

 

You are applying some rather extreme railway enthusiast thought processes to what is probably the finest example of landscape modelling art in this country, if not the world - yet because the almost incidental trains that do run through the scene do not represent the ones you want to see you basically call it crap?

OK that's entirely your prerogative but please don't expect anyone else to share it much.

Edited August 20, 2018 by LBRJ

[Metr0Land]

Can anyone recall a truly remarkable landscape model anywhere in the UK that pulls in large numbers of visitors without having a model railway or some kind of active interest?

[Andy Kirkham]

Can anyone recall a truly remarkable landscape model anywhere in the UK that pulls in large numbers of visitors without having a model railway or some kind of active interest?

I wonder if this might be the closest approach https://collection.nam.ac.uk/detail.php?acc=1975-05-56-1  I don't expect it pulls in a large number of visitors, though. But it's definitely on my to-do list.

Edited August 20, 2018 by Andy Kirkham

[Peter Kazmierczak]

Probably the first (and only) museum I ever visited as a child was Derby Museum & Art Gallery to see their O-gauge "Kirtley" layout.

It used to operate on Saturdays, so we'd get the trolleybus into town and walk up to The Strand.

 

Let's not underestimate the influence places like Pendon have on young enquiring minds. Even if it's something that can't be directly measured,

our country will be poorer without such places. I imagine their visitors are not a very diverse cross-section of society though. That's where

school visits are important, but they seem to be on the decline due to cost and time constraints of the curriculum.

Edited August 20, 2018 by Peter Kazmierczak

[Edwardian]

I wonder if this might be the closest approach https://collection.nam.ac.uk/detail.php?acc=1975-05-56-1  I don't expect it pulls in a large number of visitors, though. But it's definitely on my to-do list.

 

The Siborne model is a very valuable historical document and well-worth seeing, but, of course, it was built and visited because it shows a moment in time in one of the greatest battles ever fought and a source, at the time, of considerable national pride, not because anyone was interested in the preserving the appearance of the Belgian countryside of the early Nineteenth Century.

 

Trains do animate the scene, and connects it, visually, I mean, not simply in the prototype sense of connecting places.

 

However, a model of the Waterloo scene later in the century could easily be combined with a model railway!

 

What does Pendon do to remain "relevant", the imperative that is the curse of everyone from theatre directors to museum curators?

 

A difficult question. 

 

Do you focus on the modelling techniques and standards?

 

Do you focus on history of rural England? 

 

Do you focus on the history of railways in the area - the traffic, the part in daily life etc of the railway in the 1930s?

 

You cannot modify the period the model represents in order to accommodate the majority taste of the present generation of modellers without throwing the baby out with the bath water, so diesel days can only be events, not permanent re-calibrations of the historic period portrayed.  But, if one-off events help numbers and interests, they might be part of the solution, in the short term at least.

 

In the long-term, surely you will only have the support you need for an exhibit featuring the historic railway scene if you manage to interest enough people in the historic railway scene? Giving some more history, context and explanation here may assist; when I visited, the front of house chap on the Dartmoor Scene did this very well, but we were left to drift uncomprehendingly through the Vale Scene.  

 

Do you diversify?

 

Logically, as the Vale Scene nears completion, a further scene representing some more modern, diesel period, would be built so that the 'Moderns' can be satisfied and there is something more than kettles for them to look at; Pendon Parkway, a Corporate Image 'bus shelter station, miles from bl00dy anywhere?  However, even with the resources, real estate and sufficient capacity of sufficiently skilled modellers, on Pendon timescales by the time even a BR blue diesel scene is finished, there will be no-one alive who remembers them!

 

My suggestion, therefore, to exhibit BCB was, thus, only half in jest. 

 

As for Madder Valley, my suspicion is that Ahern's preference would have been not to treat his models as sacred objects for which death is preferred to defilement. Place the defunct hand-wound motor in a cabinet as an example of pioneering skill and ingenuity if you must, but replace the worn parts and keep the locos running.  Alternatively, build a replica.  The fact that the expedient of "appropriate" (a some what flexible term where the MVR is concerned) RTR motive power is used may simply be a reflect the possibility that Pendon lacks the resources and capacity to rebuild or recreate MVR's original motive power.  If so, that is hardly the Pendon team's fault, but, again, points to some underlying difficulties facing the museum.

 

How can we help?

 

Well, that's for Pendon to tell us, but remaining positive would be one thing.  "Ha", I hear the binary-thinkers cry "but you've spread doom and gloom!".  No, the challenge of Pendon's future has been put publically - I referenced the recent Model Rail article and there is a BRM video raising some of the issues - I am simply suggesting that turning a Panglossian blind-eye to these issues will not ultimately help Pendon to resolve them.

 

Visit, is the obvious one.  I live a goodly distance.  My family took me there about 5 years ago.  I am desperate to go back, but time, resources and, most of all, family life, make this difficult.  So far, I have managed to gain understanding that there is a legitimate reason to return to see something already seen in the past!  So, I am still confident I'll get back.  All we can do is make the effort where possible.

 

Most of us, I suspect, lack the skill to model for Pendon, or the ability to volunteer there, and can only wish the museum luck in finding the people it needs.

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

The Siborne model is a very valuable historical document and well-worth seeing, but, of course, it was built and visited because it shows a moment in time in one of the greatest battles ever fought and a source, at the time, of considerable national pride, not because anyone was interested in the preserving the appearance of the Belgian countryside of the early Nineteenth Century...

 It would be very strange if it did.  The Netherlands (forever!).

 

...Logically, as the Vale Scene nears completion, a further scene representing some more modern, diesel period, would be built so that the 'Moderns' can be satisfied and there is something more than kettles for them to look at; Pendon Parkway, a Corporate Image 'bus shelter station, miles from bl00dy anywhere?  However, even with the resources, real estate and sufficient capacity of sufficiently skilled modellers, on Pendon timescales by the time even a BR blue diesel scene is finished, there will be no-one alive who remembers them

 There's ten years until 2028 for the fundraising and construction necessary to house the centenary vale scene, built to best current standards, to amaze the C22nd folk with the weirdly messed up ideas of C21st. Built of course to the finest standards now attainable by the D+E folk, and under no circumstances to ever display a kettle on a charter.

[Edwardian]

 It would be very strange if it did.  The Netherlands (forever!).

 

 There's ten years until 2028 for the fundraising and construction necessary to house the centenary vale scene, built to best current standards, to amaze the C22nd folk with the weirdly messed up ideas of C21st. Built of course to the finest standards now attainable by the D+E folk, and under no circumstances to ever display a kettle on a charter.

 

Yes, sorry, part of the Kingdom of the United Netherlands until 1830!

 

There go my pre-Grouping credentials!

 

Anyway, the new National Army Museum-Pendon joint venture, the Waterloo Scene:

[stewartingram]

My first encounter with Pendon was many years ago via the pages of Railway Modeller, and I do remember the aims stated of the period and location as built, with trains of the GWR as well. However, and I've never seen it quoted again, was an aspiration to do other regions as well, starting I believe with the LNER.

 

Stewart

[The Stationmaster]

A note on possible diesel traction: The WR took its first allocation of an EE Type 3 on 24th April 1963 when D6837 transferred to Landore. This was subsequently followed by numerous other examples and as such most people associate the type's WR allocation with South Wales. However, some were trialled elsewhere on the system, with a few making it across to Swindon (and possibly further). For example, 16th August 1964 saw D6828, D6896 and D6915 at Swindon and there's little to say these didn't make trips into the Vale around that time...

 

I don't think many Drivers who knew the road east of Swindon at that time also knew EE Type 3s.  Sorry to go OT - as it really is OT - but EE Type3s in their early days did work to Swindon but mainly (if not exclusively) on banana trains and i'm pretty sure that back then the chances of seeing a South Wales allocated one east of Swindon was unlikely.  however once the multi pairs took over various passenger working they did of course become a common sight east of Swindon and some of us even travelled behind such a pair during their short-lived period on that work.

 

 

Edited to turn 'ales' into 'Wales'

 

Edited August 20, 2018 by The Stationmaster

[The Stationmaster]

But no, it isn't. The railway on the Vale is really just ancillary to the portrayal of the countryside. Pendon's importance is allowing people to see a past way of English rural life. In Roye England's day, no one would have predicted the creation of whole museums of the past such as Ironbridge and the like at 1:1 scale. But they can only do so much. Having it at 1:76 scale enables a wider view.

 

Exactly so and that was how Roye envisaged it because he also wanted to recreate the railway scene which would fit in with his recreation of a Vale like scene in which various buildings taken from places all over the Vale would be brought together at Pendon Parva, which is largely set out exactly as Roye planned.  Thus to me - who knew parts of the Vale longer ago than I can remember and who grew to know most of it by my late teens in the early-mid 1960s - it does exactly what he hoped it would do, it recreates a rural scene with a railway running though it as it would have looked in the 1930s.  One of my favourite childhood memories was standing in a newly cut wheat, or even better 'mixture', field on a nice sunny day looking down from the side of the Vale at the railway getting on for a couple of miles away and watching the trails of smoke and exhaust steam which added the railway flavour and motion to a still largely rural scene.  'Going trainspotting' meant a 2.5 mile walk to Challow station with my dad - the railway was part of the landscape and part of the life of the Vale.

 

Railway wise there have always been two concessions to a wider background by including the junction for Oxford plus the M&SWJtR and no doubt another concession - to practicality more than anything else - is the inclusion of a very non Vale of the White Horse tunnel on the mainline railway but for obvious modelling related reasons.  While some have commented on it adversely I find nothing at all peculiar in the relative placing of various buildings but then I can remember that sort of thing from a couple of villages in the area from my childhood.  Do not forget that the motor car was a comparative stranger in the area even in the 1920s (when my then child mother used to walk from Uffington, where her family lived, out to nearby Baulking Common in the hope that a car would come along and she could earn a penny for opening the gates that guarded the Common).   Cars weren't too common even into the 1950s so most people walked for anything local and that only needed a footpath or possibly a track which could take a cart - not a road.  And of course not everywhere was laid out to some master plan but had 'just grown' - something Roye really planned for Pendon Parva in his masterplan of the village - which I think it largely follows.

 

Pendon's original title, as quoted by 'Enterprising Western' really sums it all up for me - it is all about a railway in a rural landscape which draws on the Vale of the White Horse for its inspiration and detail.  And while many folk visit Pendon because of information from the model railway world there used to be as many who were there to learn a bit about history and I hope there are still many who visit for that reason.

[Edwardian]

There is, of course, another reason why a modern traction Vale Scene might not be a good idea.  It might lack one or two railway features, like, err, stations .... 

[Pacific231G]

I don't think the original intention was to develop the Dartmoor scene beyond the viaduct but it has of course become an almost equal feature to the Vale Scene. It was originally just a "quickie" (in Pendon terms) diorama to enable the trains to be shown long before the Vale Scene was complete enough to include them.

 

When I first visited Pendon, as a youngster who was into model ralways, you were shown various trains passing over the viaduct and marvelled at the interior detail of carriages when the lights were lowered. You were then shown individual cottages and other buildings, some of them assembled into small groups, and marvelled at the modelling, especially the detailed interiors including the famous missing knob on the dresser. I don't think I really believed then that the whole Vale Scene would ever actually materialise. I have to admit though to being totally entranced by the Madder Valley when it first appeared and I still am. Even when it's not operating I tend to spend longer looking at the MVR than either of the other scenes. 

 

I wouldn't worry too much about the landscape and its trains having to be "relevant" to modern visitors in order to attract them  People are generally fascinated by models and miniatures and the steam locomotive will probably remain intrinsically attractive long after any living memory of them as the motive power of our railways. In that they're probably a bit like sailing ships. Apart from the odd Thames barge and its equivalents, sailing ships disappeared from commercial operation in European waters long before most of us were born. That doesn't stop tall ships festivals from attracting vast crowds.

 

I've also never seen any suggestion that Beckonscott in Beaconsfield needs to be updated. It is  very much an idealised 1930s world and always attracts large numbers of visitors even though its three coach coarse scale trains are hardly realistic.

 

I think the real challenge facing Pendon is and always has been its location. Even as a Friend that makes going there more pilgrimage than casual outing but it is where it is. It does mean that most visitors have made a definite effort to go there so tend to appreciate it more than the casual - where can we take the kids today?-visitor who may be disappointed by (authentically)  not seeing constant processions of trains.   

Edited August 20, 2018 by Pacific231G

[Nearholmer]

A big difference from Beckonscott is that pendon doesn’t really work for many children, at least not for long, so doesnt get onto the high-footfall ‘how do we keep ‘em out of mischief this weekend?’ circuit.

 

Some kids are entranced by it for sure, but it’s a bit too ‘glass case’ and ‘pensionary’ for many, especially the important <5 market. One <5 often brings in with them to a venue two parents, a sibling or two, and even grandparents ....... several adult tickets sold.

 

This isn’t to knock Pendon, merely to compare likely ‘catchments’.