Railway Modeller London Underground April Fool

[RJS1977]

53 minutes ago, DLT said:

Wasn't there one about making trees sway to portray windy weather? 

Branches were loose and attached to a thread that went down through the trunk and had a weight on the end below the baseboard.  You jiggled the weight and the branches "swayed"

 

I think in Modelling Railways Illustrated, there was an article about the European Union starting to look at the model railway hobby, with a view to harmonising standards accross Europe. 

This of course meant that British manufacturers would have to convert all their products to H0.  EM and P4 were to be banned, and modellers would be given two years in which to convert their 00 layouts to H0.

 

Or something like that.

 

Yes, "Making heavy weather" - not just trees moving but also things like theatrical fog machines and fitting a shower head over the layout to make it rain, as well as having a rising and setting sun on a curved track. I credit that article as being some of the inspiration behind my micro layout 'Where Seagulls Dare' (see profile pic) which has moving clouds, sun, and swaying trees on the backscene.

 

i don't remember the Morill EU spoof but I do seem to remember one about the EU banning wooden baseboards on fire safety grounds....

 

[stewartingram]

Anyone remember the spoof in the local Cambridge newspaper about the local underground system (!) closing down? They showed the Market Square steps leading down to the toilets underground, (still there but now for market traders only) as the entrance to an underground station!

I'd love to find a copy of the original article.

 

Stewart

[Steamport Southport]

Remember those ones in the Railway Modeller from the 1960s (or 1950s) called Ortogo Gimmicks?

 

Cartoons of mechanical devices which meant to signify movements. Probably buildable if you had the skill.

 

I always liked the one of the workmen sitting down drinking their tea and looking up when the train went past.

 

 

 

Jason

[F-UnitMad]

45 minutes ago, RJS1977 said:

Yes, "Making heavy weather" - not just trees moving but also things like theatrical fog machines and fitting a shower head over the layout to make it rain,.....

Beat me to it. Mid1980s RM; took me ages to work out it was a spoof.

 

I recall an article entitled "Lirpa Loof" - a title which I thought wouldn't fool anyone at all - but I thought it was in something like "Model Trains", albeit a 'late' issue of the magazine, after Airfix had pulled out, and Chris Ellis was no longer the editor, so circa 1983. At that time it really fell apart as a magazine & didn't last much longer. I recall thinking the whole mag was a Lirpa Loof, not just the spoof article!! I also remember one 'letter to the Editor' ridiculing it's proof reading, and calling it "Moled Tinars".

Chris Ellis produced his own "Scale Trains" at that time, which went through a few incarnations until it was finally "Model Trains International", which recreated the look of the original Airfix-produced "Model Trains" of 1980/81.

Edited July 4, 2020 by F-UnitMad

[PatB]

9 hours ago, DLT said:

Wasn't there one about making trees sway to portray windy weather? 

Branches were loose and attached to a thread that went down through the trunk and had a weight on the end below the baseboard.  You jiggled the weight and the branches "swayed"

 

I remember that one. It was years before it occurred to me that it wasn't a serious suggestion.

Edited July 5, 2020 by PatB

[t-b-g]

10 hours ago, Steamport Southport said:

Remember those ones in the Railway Modeller from the 1960s (or 1950s) called Ortogo Gimmicks?

 

Cartoons of mechanical devices which meant to signify movements. Probably buildable if you had the skill.

 

I always liked the one of the workmen sitting down drinking their tea and looking up when the train went past.

 

 

 

Jason

 

Ortogo was a real layout or if my memory is right there may have been more than one, built by the late Jack Dugdale. I recall seeing photos of it at exhibitions. All those little gimmicks like rabbits bobbing back down their burrows automatically when a train went by were quite real. I remember seeing massively complex diagrams of the circuitry in RM and thinking that I wonder how many people would look at the drawings and think "I must build something like that".

[kevinlms]

On 04/07/2020 at 07:16, johnb said:

Oh yes, that was great fun!  Also the one about locos being given giant bar codes but no numbers. There were whinges about spotters having to buy bar code readers if I recall correctly!

But most US railroads did start putting barcodes on freight stock. The scheme fell down because they couldn't keep the barcode readable. Dirt, rust and vandalism killed the idea off.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KarTrak

[kevinlms]

11 hours ago, Steamport Southport said:

Remember those ones in the Railway Modeller from the 1960s (or 1950s) called Ortogo Gimmicks?

 

Cartoons of mechanical devices which meant to signify movements. Probably buildable if you had the skill.

 

I always liked the one of the workmen sitting down drinking their tea and looking up when the train went past.

 

 

 

Jason

Similarly, there was the Living Lineside series, by Dax.

[kevinlms]

13 hours ago, DLT said:

 

I think in Modelling Railways Illustrated, there was an article about the European Union starting to look at the model railway hobby, with a view to harmonising standards across Europe. 

This of course meant that British manufacturers would have to convert all their products to H0.  EM and P4 were to be banned, and modellers would be given two years in which to convert their 00 layouts to H0.

 

Or something like that.

That was Volume 2, number 8. The idea was to protect the German giants from the British 'cottage industry'.

[steve1]

5 hours ago, kevinlms said:

That was Volume 2, number 8. The idea was to protect the German giants from the British 'cottage industry'.

 

Thank you. You have saved me the trouble of going through my set to find it as I too remembered the piece.

 

steve 

[melmoth]

20 hours ago, stewartingram said:

Anyone remember the spoof in the local Cambridge newspaper about the local underground system (!) closing down? They showed the Market Square steps leading down to the toilets underground, (still there but now for market traders only) as the entrance to an underground station!

I'd love to find a copy of the original article.

 

Stewart

 

Don't know about Cambridge, but there's this...

 

http://simonknott.co.uk/ipswichunderground.htm

[RJS1977]

14 hours ago, t-b-g said:

 

Ortogo was a real layout or if my memory is right there may have been more than one, built by the late Jack Dugdale. I recall seeing photos of it at exhibitions. All those little gimmicks like rabbits bobbing back down their burrows automatically when a train went by were quite real. I remember seeing massively complex diagrams of the circuitry in RM and thinking that I wonder how many people would look at the drawings and think "I must build something like that".

 

There were however a series of cartoons in the Modeller in the 60s (not called Ortogo) which made light-hearted suggestions for animated features on layouts, which may be what Jason is thinking of.

 

Edit - just noticed Kevin LMS has already identified these as 'Living Lineside' by Dax.

Edited July 5, 2020 by RJS1977

[t-b-g]

2 minutes ago, RJS1977 said:

 

There were however a series of cartoons in the Modeller in the 60s (not called Ortogo) which made light-hearted suggestions for animated features on layouts, which may be what Jason is thinking of.

 

Edit - just noticed Kevin LMS has already identified these as 'Living Lineside' by Dax.

 

I do remember the cartoons. there were the "Living Lineside" plus the "Little People" by "Joe". I was referring specifically to the mention of the layout. The circuit diagrams of some of the gadgets seemed to take up whole pages! I am too young to remember seeing the layout but there are accounts I have read of it being surrounded by huge crowds, so it must have been quite spectacular, although the quality of the actual model railway was very much "of its time".

[37114]

The Taurus article by Monty Wells had me convinced for a while, I had only just got into Diesels and was reading whatever books I could find in Bristol Central Library and was aware that some of the early diesel prototypes were not a success. If I recall Monty also numbered it D0270 so it fitted neatly between Lion and Falcon in the numbering range.

[Regularity]

Back to the OP, I knew the people featured in the photos, and (a) didn't recognise them and (b) didn't twig.

[kevinlms]

On 04/07/2020 at 08:56, Steamport Southport said:

Wasn't the MRC ones at Christmas rather than April Fool though? Things like the Destructors Reviews spring to mind.

 

Anyone remember the layout here at the bottom of the page? 

 

 

https://sidetracked2017blog.wordpress.com/2017/07/28/first-blog-post/

 

The Pendonkin and Tuppensoff Railway - A fantasy railway in 4mm scale by David Carter & Colin Bean. A slightly weird layout with things like Dumpling Mines and Dougals from the Magic Roundabout. Loved it when i was a kid.

 

No idea on copyright so linked from someone else's website.

 

 

 

Jason

Yes, the MRC ones were in the December issues.

 

Another good one was entitled 'Make your own HST', for under 435 pounds'.

Using a lot of 2nd hand materials from the authors' scrap builders supply house, IIRC. It was obviously a fake.

 

December 1975

 

 

[18B]

On ‎28‎/‎01‎/‎2019 at 23:25, Dungrange said:

I'd imagine that it was the April issue and I think it was 1983 (or possibly 1984).  That was one of the first issues of Railway Modeller that I bought in my teenage years.  It was many years later before I realised that it was an April Fools joke.  When reading it at the time, I'd just thought that this hobby has some right weirdos!!!!

 

indeed it does

[Stephenwolsten]

Thanks for reminding me about the Underground feature.   It was some time before I realised, in my youth, that it was a hoax.   I remember one of the pictures showed a very serious looking young man in the fashion of the day.

 

[Keith J]

On 05/07/2020 at 16:39, melmoth said:

 

Don't know about Cambridge, but there's this...

 

http://simonknott.co.uk/ipswichunderground.htm

I remember that, is was very well done and even fooled the local TOC, One Anglia as it was then, who included an article about it in their on board magazine.

[BR Blue]

On 03/07/2020 at 21:06, steve1 said:

There was the one in Rail magazine by a certain Mr P Sutton about Class 31s being given silly names like The Magic Roundabout in the late 1980s (or was early 1990s?).

 

Anyone else remember that?

 

steve

I remember that. I think there was also one to be called Boy George. The locos were to have appropriate liveries for the name including a pink My Little Pony. The funny thing was that the national press picked up on it a few weeks later without realising it was a spoof. There was an article berating BR a few weeks later. Possibly in Mirror but it could have been the Mail or the Sun.

[PhilJ W]

On 27/08/2020 at 19:14, BR Blue said:

I remember that. I think there was also one to be called Boy George. The locos were to have appropriate liveries for the name including a pink My Little Pony. The funny thing was that the national press picked up on it a few weeks later without realising it was a spoof. There was an article berating BR a few weeks later. Possibly in Mirror but it could have been the Mail or the Sun.

It was in the Daily Wail.

[Nearholmer]

On 28/01/2019 at 23:25, Dungrange said:

I'd imagine that it was the April issue and I think it was 1983 (or possibly 1984).  That was one of the first issues of Railway Modeller that I bought in my teenage years.  It was many years later before I realised that it was an April Fools joke.  When reading it at the time, I'd just thought that this hobby has some right weirdos!!!!

 

TBH, I'm not sure even now that it wasn't genuine, as per your final sentence.

[Edwin_m]

2 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

 

TBH, I'm not sure even now that it wasn't genuine, as per your final sentence.

I think I twigged when I realised one of the photos was the 1980s equivalent of a Photoshop showing a real Underground train.