Cake Box Round 3 - Voting

[Phil Parker]

I've set up all the Cake Box entries in this RMweb post, in alphabetical order. It's a little bit unwieldy, but hopefully better than setting up separate RMweb topics for each one.

 

Hopefully, these are all the entries. If you wish you have submitted one and it's not here, PM me and I'll send you an alternative e-mail address.

 

 

 

Andy’s Seaside Memory

Builder: Andy Brooks

 

I love the idea of this challenge brings back fond memories of the coast both as a child and to this present day. I decided that I wanted to try and teach myself to use the Realistic water and water effects for the waves.

 

I always remember the Donkey’s on the beaches and having a ride on them. I have visited and at my favourite Seaside Village Hemsby, There was always an Ice Cream van down on the beach. You haven’t been to the beach if you haven’t had an Ice Cream.

 

 

So I built a little bit of my memories from the Seaside with Donkey’s, Ice Cream van, Beach huts and everyone so happy and enjoying themselves.

 

I find when you are down on the beach whether on your own or with people and you have things on your mind the beach and sea just seems to make them disappear and relax. I love the sound of the waves.

 

For my items of Railway, there is an old Carriage with Graffiti all over it. An old water crane with an old platelayers hut. The steps down to the beach are old signal box steps.

 

 

 

By the Shore of Lake Brienz – A Swiss Adventure in the 1960s

Builder: Marlyn Price

 

 

A memorable Easter school holiday, based at Brienz Youth Hostel in Switzerland, is the inspiration for this N scale model. The youth hostel is on the shore of Lake Brienz, where we swam after low level walks in the mountains, or days spent exploring by train. 

We all enjoyed our daily ration of Swiss chocolate from the platform machine at Brienz Station. The spectacular mountains rise steeply behind the village, with a road and railway line running past the entrance to the hostel. 

 

 

 Brienz is served by the Brünig railway line - a Swiss narrow gauge line that links Lucerne, in central Switzerland, with Interlaken, in the Bernese Oberland. The line runs via Alpnachstad, Giswil, Meiringen and Brienz, and passes over the Brünig Pass, using sections of rack railway to overcome the gradients, but with most of the line operated by normal adhesion methods. 

 

 The two railway items for the model are a length of Peco track and the Del Prado static model of the Swiss electric locomotive Re 4/4 ii. All other materials for the model are scrap hardboard, timber batten for the base & backboard, recycled paper and card, cheap unpainted figures plus sundry scenic materials. 

 

Details of the model on my RMweb build thread.

 

 

 

 

Camping Carriage

Builder: Chris Evans

 

 

Heacham Station in North West Norfolk was allocated its first Camping Coach in 1960.  Later in the decade when passenger traffic on the branch line towards Wells Next The Sea was decreased a second coach was allocated. 

 

With the end of passenger services on the branch line, the turntable was filled in and the camping carriages used the former turntable spur.  When the Kings Lynn to Hunstanton line finally closed in 1969, it appears that BR forgot there were camping coaches here and they were left for several years after the lines were lifted. Eventually, the coaches Montana and Maid of Kent II were removed by road.  As they had both survived past the major scrapping period, both coaches have survived into preservation.

 

 

This is a family arriving for a holiday at Heacham after the line by the Wells platform had been lifted in the mid-60s  The beach is only a couple of hundred yards down the road.  The pub is next door and the fish and chippy half way to the beach. 

 

Like earlier challenges, this has been an excellent opportunity to try out and learn new techniques, plasti-card, brass etching and station lighting.  The most enjoyable was the fitting out of the furniture in the coach and the building of the kit with no proper instructions. 

 

Pictures of the prototype can be seen on RMweb

 

 

 

City Breaks in London and Paris

Builder: Richard Gawler

 

On a sunny morning in 1959, the down ‘Night Ferry’ is running late and arrives at Paris Gare du Nord when the up train reaches London Victoria. A couple from Paris will be seeing the sights of London, and a couple from London are staying with friends in Paris.

Both couples have alighted from the first coach of their respective trains. In front of their coach is a fourgon for passengers’ luggage, and behind their coach are several more sleeper coaches.

The corridor connection behind the fourgon is in its retracted position. The heating boiler is at this end of the coach, so we can deduce that this coach had its own attendant. If the boiler was next to another sleeper, the two coaches could have shared an attendant. The coach has movable steps below the doors, retracted at Victoria and deployed at Gare du Nord.

 

The track at the two stations would be of different designs (flat bottom and bullhead rail), so I have modelled the track in an unspecific way.

The taxis are state of the art. The Citroen DS19 (Series 1) was sold from 1955, and the Austin FX4 from 1958.

 

You can read the build thread here.

 

 

Goodrington Sands

Builder: Chris Chewter

 

 

The sound of waves caressing the South Devon sands.  Only the raucous calls of the gulls and the squeak of Punch break the calm.  Then you hear the sharp whistle followed by the bark of a western engine.  Could it be a Castle at the head of a seaside express? Or perhaps today you’ll cop a King!  You look up expectantly over the colourful beach huts and wait.

 

 

When I read the description for this round of the Cakebox challenge, I immediately thought of the classic view at Goodrington Sands.  Eye catching beach huts, steam and sand.  What’s not to like? After finishing my family holiday in Weymouth where my children were entertained by the local Punch and Judy, I also wanted to add the Langley miniatures kit to this colourful scene.  The first railway item is the line of track, but couldn’t really count my two railway items as the sleepers and rails.  I decided to also add in a speed restriction to enhance to the scene.

 

Whilst the autumn rain rattles the windows, and the leaves on the trees start to turn brown, at least I can be taken back to some fond summer memories in this cakebox diorama.  I do like to be beside the seaside, and when there’s steam, it’s even better!

 

 

 

Taxi Rank Corner at Waverley Station - Summer of 1957

Builder: Marlyn Price

 

 

A photograph in an old ‘Scotsman’ newspaper article, of queues at Waverley Station, reminded me of school summer holiday journeys, travelling North to stay with grandparents in the Highlands. An old taxi cab was booked to transport us and our luggage to Waverley Station. The first stop before joining the queue for the train, was the John Menzies news-stand to buy our favourite comics for the journey. 

 

 

The diorama is based on the road ramp down to the station, where the taxi rank was located down one side, with a corner of the bookstall/newspaper stand, and lots of cheap hand-painted figures waiting for the station staff to allow them to board the train North.

 

Modelled in 4mm Scale/00 Gauge with a small section of Peco track, platform, newspaper stand using internal elements from a paper kit by Wordsworth Model Railway, Model Railway Scenery railings, W&T white-metal taxi kits, Woodland Scenics ballast and various model figures, including passengers and railway staff. Platform, balustrades and news-stand are all scratch built using paper and card.

 

Details of the build can be found in my build thread.]

 

 

 

 

The Train Now Standing at Platform Two

Builder: Richard Rycroft

 

 

I thought it might be fun to try and recreate a typical miniature railway as found on the promenade of almost any seaside resort around the British Coast.  So take a cheap static N gauge loco or two, cut away the back of the cab roof to make room for an O gauge driver on a nice comfy Blutack cushion and we have a 15” gauge railway which we can then surround with typical O gauge holidaymakers, an ice cream van and anything else that crops up on eBay at a sensible price.  Seagulls would be essential.

 

 

Packing a 7mm scale diorama into a cake box gave less effective space in which to tell a story and made the people far more important than they would be in smaller scales.  It also meant that they could become characters in their own right.  The teddy boy has luminous yellow socks and blue suede shoes and the little girl has been scared by a squawking seagull and dropped her ice cream.  Her distress has upset her little brother, so their mother is trying to comfort him while a friendly (or opportunistic?) dog trots over to help clean up.

 

 

 

 

The Port Eden Miniature Railway

Builder: Ben Bucki

 

 

"The Port Eden Miniature Railway" is an attempt to model a somewhat run-down and neglected seaside line, set loosely in the early 1990’s.  I decided to imagine that this was the last season on a miniature railway somewhere on the Cumbrian Coast, inspired by the traditional seaside resort town of Silloth, near Carlisle- as the fictional town of Port Eden struggles to attract tourists and investment, the traditional attractions of a bucket-and-spade holiday are struggling to stay relevant, and the infrastructure of the old miniature railway is gradually becoming buried in drifting sand, the wood is left unpainted, the metal rusting in the sea air, and the locomotives and stock looking worn-out.

 

 

I decided to try and make the whole diorama out of scraps or upcycled pieces from other projects, which decided the scale of 1/32nd; the trains and track are customised from cheap battery-powered toy sets, the figures are mainly ex-Britains Farm items repainted or remodelled, and details are scrounged or upcycled from odds and ends of model kits.

 

Though being planned back in July, for various reasons I ended up starting the physical build right at the end of the time, and in fact constructed the whole thing in around four days- despite the rush, it was great fun being able to work on such a contained project, different to my normal model-making.

 

 

Voting has now closed

 

[Andy Brooks]

Its going to be a hard one. They are all really really good.

Andy

Edited October 10, 2019 by Andy Brooks

[Kevin Johnson]

I agree Andy there is some excellent railway modelling.

[Phil Parker]

Voting closes at 5pm today

 

We've had plenty of responses, but if you want your vote to count, do it now.

[Phil Parker]

And the winner is:

Camping Carriage built by Chris Evans

[Marly51]

Well done, Chris!

[Andy Brooks]

Well Done Chris Well deserved

[Dufus]

Thank you all.  Really pleased as there was some very tough competition.  Chris

[Kevin Johnson]

Well done Chris a lovely cakebox entry. Well done to all the members who have produced some lovely cakebox railway themed models.

[47137]

Chris, this looks like a nicely-proportioned model, easy on the eye, and a good amount of original model-making in the space allowed.

 

Well done!

 

- Richard. 

[Keith Addenbrooke]

Worth noting perhaps: of the 8 excellent final models submitted, I think 5 are of identifiable prototype locations - when I first came across cakeboxes I didn't see this as an exercise in prototype modelling - more a chance to experiment, but these models show how realistic it can be. The other three models are all also highly plausible and certainly reminded me of my childhood. Well done to all 8.

Edited October 24, 2019 by Keith Addenbrooke

[Colin_McLeod]

Has a winner been announced yet.

[Phil Parker]

5 minutes ago, Colin_McLeod said:

Has a winner been announced yet.

 

Yes: https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/148129-cake-box-round-3-voting/&do=findComment&comment=3707071

[Colin_McLeod]

16 hours ago, Phil Parker said:

 

Yes: https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/148129-cake-box-round-3-voting/&do=findComment&comment=3707071

 

Thanks Phil

Don't know how I couldn't find  that.

Dohh!!!!!

Congratulations to Chris, the winner and all other entrants for very good entries.

[47137]

Phil,

 

Can we have the list of the placings and the numbers of votes cast? I doubt anyone will be much embarrassed by coming last or last but one - there were only eight entries, there is a good variety of subjects and techniques, and the consensus here is they all have merits for one thing or another. Then we can see what people like the most in models when they are voting for them.

 

- Richard.

[Phil Parker]

41 minutes ago, 47137 said:

Can we have the list of the placings and the numbers of votes cast?

 

No.

 

41 minutes ago, 47137 said:

I doubt anyone will be much embarrassed by coming last or last but one

 

Possibly, but I'd have to ask everyone.

 

41 minutes ago, 47137 said:

there were only eight entries, there is a good variety of subjects and techniques, and the consensus here is they all have merits for one thing or another. Then we can see what people like the most in models when they are voting for them. 

 

Which would mean you couldn't really analyse them for any useful effect. How would you decide if random, anonymous person A had voted because they like the scale, colour, subject or just overall effect of a specific model?

 

More to the point, the Cake Box is about modelling and imagination, not trying to build a model specifically to garner the most votes.

[47137]

1 hour ago, Phil Parker said:

 

No.

 

 

Possibly, but I'd have to ask everyone.

 

 

Which would mean you couldn't really analyse them for any useful effect. How would you decide if random, anonymous person A had voted because they like the scale, colour, subject or just overall effect of a specific model?

 

More to the point, the Cake Box is about modelling and imagination, not trying to build a model specifically to garner the most votes.

 

Fair enough.

 

A friend asked me where I came, and I had to say I don't know. Can you tell me in a PM? I also doubt the knowledge will give me much scope for analysis, but at least I could tell them.

 

- Richard.

[Dufus]

Thanks every one for your comments. 

 

Phil,

 

Just to let you know a package arrived yesterday from Hornby/Humbrol with a selection of goodies.  All will come in very handy.  Thank You

 

Chris

 

 

[Colin_McLeod]

I've heard of secret ballots. Now we have secret results.

 

 

Well done everyone wherever you came. in the results.

[Keith Addenbrooke]

48 minutes ago, Colin_McLeod said:

I've heard of secret ballots. Now we have secret results.

 

 

Well done everyone wherever you came. in the results.

 

Some years ago, in a different context (work), I undertook what was called a 360 degree appraisal - my boss, some peers and my team all filled in a questionnaire about my work style.  Only problem was, all bar one person were happy to add their names to their forms, so I had to gently tell the one person who opted for anonymity that it was him (it was only fair). As it happened, his feedback was all positive, but the point is that not everyone wants to share everything publicly (a lot of RMweb users choose not to reveal their names of course), so I'm happy that Phil chooses discretion here.

Where there is a consensus seems to be that all the entrants were very good: there may have been a winner, but no losers.

Edited November 5, 2019 by Keith Addenbrooke

[southern42]

Well done, Chris.

Well done everyone.

____________

Best wishes

Polly

[Phil Parker]

 

 

 

 

On 05/11/2019 at 21:14, Keith Addenbrooke said:

Where there is a consensus seems to be that all the entrants were very good: there may have been a winner, but no losers.

 

That pretty much sums it all up. Everyone won votes, Chris just got a few more.