MRJ 280

[clarkea1]

On 18/10/2020 at 15:46, CF MRC said:

I believe the originator of the idea was actually Dennis Moor, with the DeHavilland club layouts. It’s a fairly obvious idea really, so has probably been invented many times. 
 

Tim

 

Tim,

 

You learn something every day....I'd presumed it originated with Dave Doe.

 

Thanks

 

Alastair 

[brightspark]

CF- the scenic areas are too tidy?

 

I fear that the correspondent is looking at CF and comparing it to the London of today.

 

As a reminder, in the period CF is set in, there were less people. The streets were also clean because there were street cleaners. That and people didn't produce as much rubbish as they do today.  And what waste there was was reused were ever possible.  

I also wouldn't expect to see much dung there either. My late Father, raised in the East End before the war and so in the period of CF, would earn money by going out to collect it and sell it to neighbors for their gardens. He said that the collection was so competitive that "No horse dare flick its tail, let alone raise it, for fear of 'aving a bucket shoved up its arse!"

 

If I could add a small critic, it would be nice to see some more variety of trains passing across the scene, instead of seeing the same ones continually circuiting.

 

On a positive note, the running is superb.

 

[Bernard Lamb]

The "letter" seems to have aroused a great deal of comment.  I recently came across this slide taken by Frank Derrett in the 1970s. Whidbourne Street is the location, not a place that I know. Later than the period depicted in CF but not a lot had changed. I think it illustrates the points made by brightspark  and something of the atmosphere of CF.  

Bernard

[Compound2632]

And that's the dreary, impoverished 70s - the land of the three day week, the IMF loan, and mass-produced pee-water Bass-Charrington beer. 

[Ravenser]

Having now got a copy of MRJ 280 and read the letter, I note that the fire is directed repeatedly at "MRC" rather than the Copenhagen Fields team : 4 pointed references to "MRC" in one paragraph . Technically that should be "the MRC" , but I do detect an axe being ground against the club, rather than one author or layout group, especially in the odd formulation "Mr Watson's introduction to MRC's Copenhagen Fields article". I assume Tim Watson wrote the whole thing, and if we are to be pedantically formal he is Prof. Watson. I suspect the core of the letter is in fact the last sentence of the first paragraph.

 

I am not (as my blogs make abundantly clear) a finescale modeller. And I found myself nodding in agreement with a number of points in the introduction to the article. " perpetuating formulaic concepts that are frankly boring to look at and not representative of the real railway.. " The words "TMD layout" float to the front of my mind - and these are usually also guilty of dark "fist in the eye" strong colours that are just not right. Pastel shades, keep it pastel shades. Reality is not like a rock band T-shirt. (One mistake CF does not make). I am still waiting to see a model of a DMU depot - moderate-sized DMU depots such as LN and CA did in fact exist, unlike the "small diesel loco TMD shared by 4 train operators" so common at shows - in the days when we had shows

 

It is also true that - to judge by magazine articles - a lot of exhibition layouts do have a rather short life, with much gestation and a relatively short public life , which suggests that the finished product somehow did not really satisfy its builders. 

 

The "loop and two sidings" cameo layout is a practical formula for doing 4mm finescale in a modest space with modest operational interest. Unfortunately such tiny twigs (not branches) are pretty unrepresentative of the actual steam age railway. I grew up in Lincolnshire - the Mablethorpe loop and the Louth-Bardney line both had basic services of 4 passenger trains a day each way. Mablethorpe and Bardney were both vastly bigger places than the "loop and two sidings" formula, and they weren't located in a meadow in open country.

 

Martin Neild's Eccleston in the same issue is a very sharp reminder of just how substantial an awful lot of branch lines actually were. (And it's striking that this is a layout with substantial operational interest, and the project has kept him interested over nearly 4 decades. Also just how small the station building is compared with everything else).

 

Likewise Stephen William's Farringdon which I've had the pleasure of seeing in the flesh , is a very fine model - but it's most certainly not small, or surrounded by meadows . In fact one of the striking features of that - and another fine, and very large,  rural branchline in P4, Sidmouth - is the presence of reasonably modern houses, done to a high standard. The "steam age branch" has tended to degenerate a little into an artificial "modelling formula" over the last 60 years and one element of the formula seems to be that buildings stopped being built in Britain in 1914...

 

While a very large group exhibition layout in 2mm wouldn't suit me personally as the solution to these issues - for a number of reasons - it's certainly a very valid answer to them. The fact that CF has repaid multiple viewings for very many people strongly suggests their approach works 

 

The article on the MMRS's mill building is also well worth reading

 

It's unfortunate that high quality structure modelling can be a touch sterile .

 

This must have been one of the first  really big structural models ever built in styrene sheet, in the late 1950s , and it has stood up to time pretty well . I think the scale is 3mm , and it demonstrates that a major medieval monastery was awfully big ....

 

The prototype is Fountains Abbey, and no doubt the letter writer would complain the rendition is sterile and unconvincing..

 

And here is Notre Dame et environs, , no doubt also "totally sterile and unconvincing" as a representation of part of 18th century Paris...

Edited October 23, 2020 by Ravenser

[Compound2632]

A point about those two ecclesiastical models: they are very much "architect's models", largely lacking in the subtle coloration we would expect of a model railway building. The MMRS layout is clearly under construction; no doubt their monster mill will settle down and acquire some subtle grime. Compare the LNWR hotel on the Lime Street layout.

[Ravenser]

41 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

A point about those two ecclesiastical models: they are very much "architect's models", largely lacking in the subtle coloration we would expect of a model railway building. The MMRS layout is clearly under construction; no doubt their monster mill will settle down and acquire some subtle grime. Compare the LNWR hotel on the Lime Street layout.

 

I thought that when weathered , on the lead photo to the article , the mill looked excellent 

 

I believe Fountains Abbey took two professional modelmakers 3 years in their spare time. Doing the stonework would have made it a lot longer

Edited October 23, 2020 by Ravenser

[Bernard Lamb]

2 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

And that's the dreary, impoverished 70s - the land of the three day week, the IMF loan, and mass-produced pee-water Bass-Charrington beer. 

As I said- not much different from the mid 1930s. The quality of main stream beer went into decline in the 14/18 war

Ironically the dull yellow bricks are now very valuable.

Even to the extent of people crashing lorries into garden walls and making off with the bricks.

Bernard

[Jol Wilkinson]

To quote Ravenser

 

"It is also true that - to judge by magazine articles - a lot of exhibition layouts do have a rather short life, with much gestation and a relatively short public life , which suggests that the finished product somehow did not really satisfy its builders."

 

I have long believed that serial layout building is what railway modelling is about for some people. Where layouts employ RTR locos and stock, then the modelling is largely confined to architectural and scenic modelling. Once a layout is finished and unless it has operational interest for the builder(s) then it loses its appeal and the answer is to start again. 

 

For those that enjoy building locos, carriages, etc. and detailing a layout to a greater degree (point rodding, small infrastructure items, etc.) and are continually occupied, then there is perhaps less need or desire to start again.

 

[Compound2632]

I suppose from the exhibition manager's perspective, booking the same old layouts time and again isn't a good idea but booking a new layout from a proven group is. There was a period when it seemed that the same old pre-Grouping layout was turning up at every exhibition I went to (probably because I chose to go only to the sort of exhibitions it was likely to be at). It wasn't even Midland but nevertheless it held my interest not least because there was always some new and interesting items of rolling stock.

Edited October 24, 2020 by Compound2632

[Siberian Snooper]

I would agree, an exhibition layout only has a short life expectancy, unless there is enough room to store it, or you can get invited to new shows. The downside to that is new shows tend to be further away and exhibition mangers tend to have a finite budget, which precludes them from a great distance on the grounds of costs. There are a few good layouts down here that may get as far as Somerset or Dorset, but that's about the limit.  When I visit shows up the line there are good layouts that we wouldlove to invite down here, but the costs are simply too prohibitive.

 

 

[t-b-g]

I may be wrong but when I read the article in 279 I did wonder if Tim was deliberately being a tad provocative and was setting a little bait to see who nibbled.

 

To me, there is a great deal of appeal in embarking on a project that can be built in a reasonable timescale. I did that for quite a few years, building a layout and exhibiting it for a year or two while constructing the next one.

 

I don't have the staying power to work for all those years on a layout, to have it still not finished and I certainly wouldn't want a layout that is as big as CF and yet pretty much lacking in any interesting operation. It makes for a great exhibition layout but does it ever get set up and run because it is fun to do just that? I doubt it. So I can admire the bravado, the scale and the sheer quality of work on it yet never want something similar for myself.

 

The hobby (especially exhibitions) should have room for all sorts of levels of complexity, skill and build times. I can't see many people coming to a show, seeing CF and going home thinking "I will build something like that for my lad over the next 40 years". Yet these easily built, almost disposable layouts, may have exactly that impact. If showing people what can be done quickly by somebody with an average or limited skill level is considered "wrong" in some way, that is a sad day.

 

No one type of layout is ever going to please everybody. I just see that there is very little to be gained by dismissing what others do as being "not right" because it doesn't match what we do ourselves.

 

 

 

 

 

[grahame]

On 22/10/2020 at 21:13, brightspark said:

 

I also wouldn't expect to see much dung there either. My late Father, raised in the East End before the war and so in the period of CF, would earn money by going out to collect it and sell it to neighbors for their gardens. He said that the collection was so competitive that "No horse dare flick its tail, let alone raise it, for fear of 'aving a bucket shoved up its arse!"

O

 

It wasn't horse crap that was a problem but the urine. It either run off and contaminated water courses or soaked in to roads paved with wooden blocks causing damage and a very unpleasant stink.

 

[CF MRC]

16 hours ago, grahame said:

 

It wasn't horse crap that was a problem but the urine. It either run off and contaminated water courses or soaked in to roads paved with wooden blocks causing damage and a very unpleasant stink.

 

We have a horse having a pee on CF. 
 

Tim

[grahame]

13 minutes ago, CF MRC said:

We have a horse having a pee on CF. 
 

Tim

 

Nice, and perhaps an appropriate smell for that extra bit of sensory realism? And maybe the smoke, smut and smog contamination from coal fires and steam engines that blackened and polluted everything wafting across the layout, although that might prevent people seeing much . . . 

(the animated and sensory equivalent of modern flashing light cameos on layouts?)

;-)

 

 

 

 

[CF MRC]

The horse (?W&T origin) that is doing a pee is in such an unnatural stance that the only thing it could be doing is just that - so I added a willy and a puddle draining into the gutter. 
We have tried a volatile tar derivative through a vapouriser thingy that makes a smell similar to old coal sacks. It is lost in an exhibition hall and, frankly, most people didn’t know what the smell represented, even if they noticed. 
When John Dornom did smoke effects with stage smoke, we tried that too. It stopped the trains running almost immediately. People also thought the layout was on fire. 
To bring in ‘smell-surround’ for CF would probably clear the local exhibition audience: slaughter houses, glue factories, leather tanning, soap works. We haven’t tried those effects...

 

Tim

Edited October 25, 2020 by CF MRC
Adding more info.

[corneliuslundie]

Smells may going be a bit far but I am considering fairly quiet ambient sound to set the scene. I have made the recordings.

Back in Welwyn Garden club days we did seriously consider a smoke generator just inside a tunnel mouth - but the club closed before we finished the layout.

Jonathan

[Torper]

 I must say that I was initially a bit surprised that MRJ published Mr Bennett's letter, but on reflection hats off to them for doing so. Everyone is entitled to an opinion and in many respects the obviously angry Mr Bennett raised some valid points.

 

I thought that Tim Watson's comments about modellers "pepetuating formulaic concepts that are, frankly, boring to look at and not representative of the real railway" were reallya bit insulting and a backlash was only to be expected. Something like CF may be fine if you have the premises, time, skills (in fact a multitude of skills), finances and knowledge to create such a thing. Most of us don't and for us the "researched extensively and exquisitely observed....two sidings two buffer stops and long grass layouts" are all we can really hope to achieve, done as best as we can which does often involve taking inspiration and ideas from other layouts. I've seen quite a lot of such layouts, or ones of not dissimilar size, and certainly they haven't all been limited to look at not operationally unspectacular, whatever that may mean.  All you have to do is look at some of the layouts featured in the recent Virtual Scaleforum to see what I mean - Obbekaer, De Graafstoom and Boston Frodsham are perhaps prime examples of layouts that I found particularly inspiring - but there again I'm a sole modeller working with only a limited space available. And if something's formulaic, maybe that's because the formula works?

 

I haven't seem CF, but it's obviously an impressive undertaking. But looking at it solely through the MRJ article and pictures, doesn't Mr Bennett have some valid points? IMO, it's a fine model but could never be mistaken for the real thing because it is too tide,  sterile and clean, and I don't much like the colouration either, but that may be down to photographic reproduction rather than the real thing.

 

DT

[Compound2632]

46 minutes ago, Torper said:

it is too tide,  sterile and clean,

 

But I think the discussion above has demonstrated that this criticism has more to do with how CF measures up to your assumptions of what the past looked like than what the past actually looked like. A good, well researched model will challenge those assumptions. A model railway purporting to represent a certain place (or to be typical of a certain type of place) at a certain time should inform and educate as well as entertain.

[CF MRC]

 

Tim

[Siberian Snooper]

4 hours ago, Torper said:

 I must say that I was initially a bit surprised that MRJ published Mr Bennett's letter, but on reflection hats off to them for doing so. Everyone is entitled to an opinion and in many respects the obviously angry Mr Bennett raised some valid points.

 

I thought that Tim Watson's comments about modellers "pepetuating formulaic concepts that are, frankly, boring to look at and not representative of the real railway" were reallya bit insulting and a backlash was only to be expected. Something like CF may be fine if you have the premises, time, skills (in fact a multitude of skills), finances and knowledge to create such a thing. Most of us don't and for us the "researched extensively and exquisitely observed....two sidings two buffer stops and long grass layouts" are all we can really hope to achieve, done as best as we can which does often involve taking inspiration and ideas from other layouts. I've seen quite a lot of such layouts, or ones of not dissimilar size, and certainly they haven't all been limited to look at not operationally unspectacular, whatever that may mean.  All you have to do is look at some of the layouts featured in the recent Virtual Scaleforum to see what I mean - Obbekaer, De Graafstoom and Boston Frodsham are perhaps prime examples of layouts that I found particularly inspiring - but there again I'm a sole modeller working with only a limited space available. And if something's formulaic, maybe that's because the formula works?

 

I haven't seem CF, but it's obviously an impressive undertaking. But looking at it solely through the MRJ article and pictures, doesn't Mr Bennett have some valid points? IMO, it's a fine model but could never be mistaken for the real thing because it is too tide,  sterile and clean, and I don't much like the colouration either, but that may be down to photographic reproduction rather than the real thing.

 

DT

 

 

Don't forget that this layout is still work in progress, I have seen the layout at a number of different venues over the years and it never fails to impress. I suggest that you try to make at least one trip to see this excellent piece of modelling, the craftsmanship is outstanding, obviously this will have to wait until a near normal service, resumes.

 

 

[GlenPudzeoch]

Its all up to personal taste and what is felt appropriate for the situation.

 

CF looks great, I've never seen it in the flesh and would love to.  I used to model in N and was very impressed with 2mm, but prefer O gauge now.

 

I recall a  feature in an early MRJ of a two tracvk and crosssover "half a station" based on a Brecon and Merthyr terminus, and was impressed.  I love the work of Steve Fay of dioramas/planks.  These are wonderful to admire, but different to CF or any of the big layouts, different - not better, not less good, but different and appropriate in their place.

 

Space for many modellers is limited, time is limited too.  We all have to use what we have within the limits we have.

 

Getting our panties in a bunch does not help.

[Compound2632]

39 minutes ago, GlenPudzeoch said:

I recall a  feature in an early MRJ of a two tracvk and crosssover "half a station" based on a Brecon and Merthyr terminus, and was impressed.  I love the work of Steve Fay of dioramas/planks.  These are wonderful to admire, but different to CF or any of the big layouts, different - not better, not less good, but different and appropriate in their place.

 

That layout, Llanastr by Rodney Hall (MRJ No. 4, 1985), was at ExpoEM last year (2019). I thought I recognised it but was still somewhat astounded when my suspicions were confirmed!

[corneliuslundie]

Llanastr really inspired me when I first read the article. But so did many other layouts in completely different styles: Buckingham, Luton Hoo, Chee Tor, Marthwaite, Aylesbury etc. Also Childs Ercal when I helped operate it at shows.

I am afraid that the ones which do not tick many boxes for me are the diesel depots which currently seem very popular. I can understand that if you like building diesels, are strapped for space and want somewhere to show them off that is a good format. I am sure my current layout  (Sarn) wouldn't appeal to many people but for me it has been a good opportunity to try all sorts of new scenic techniques. I doubt if I shall operate it very much, even when I have finished a suitable loco (wagons are no problem and it is freight only!).

Jonathan

 

[t-b-g]

Comparing Llanastr and Copenhagen Fields is an interesting one.

 

Both inspire me in different ways but it is Llanastr that makes my think "I could build something like that myself".

 

Unusual stock but not needing so much that the thought of building it would make think twice. Portable, exhibitable by two people using a car. It ticked many boxes for me and still does. The only thing I wasn't keen on was the constant use of the fiddle yard to complete the run round and for shunting but a small increase in length gets around that.