Why are preserved railways so unpopular as layout subjects

[Reorte]

52 minutes ago, Zomboid said:

Heritage railways are tourist attractions in the here and now that trade in nostalgia, but they do not actually operate in the past.

 

Going off on a bit of a tangent, can you be nostalgic for something that finished before you were born (I was born after 1968)? And is it nostalgia if it's something you happen to like that merely happens to be mostly in the past? Where I would say there's some nostalgia for me personally it's with BR blue - this sort of thing is always a controversial statement because liveries always are, but I never actually liked it much, wouldn't want it back as the one and only colour of trains, but it's the colour of the railway of my childhood and I've definitely got some nostalgia for it, and it raises a smile when I see it now.

[johnarcher]

3 minutes ago, Reorte said:

 

I understand where you're coming from and I largely agree but you could rule out the modern railway for the same reasons, at least to a degree (which might be one of the reasons some people don't want to model it I suppose). From that perspective though a preserved railway is still however a part of the community - like any other railway it moves people around who want to pay to be moved around, even if those peoples' motives are different. Which raises the question about non-preserved railways that get a significant proportion of traffic from people who just want to travel on them. There must be some in the more scenic parts of the country.

I suppose in a way you could rule out much of the modern railway for that reason, certainly I feel less interest in it personally, especially as the very local, rural, lines that have always most interested me have mostly gone.

Certainly the preserved lines do move people around, it just seems to make a difference to me that those people are from elsewhere and there just for the experience rather than using the line as part of the normal life of the local community.

I suppose it's part of my preference for the railway in its setting, rather than in isolation, I don't find models that are all railway and no setting very inspiring. I used to live near the Looe branch, now live near where the Presteign branch used to be. So much of the character of each comes from landscape, and the specific place and area served.

Usual caveat, all just personal opinion. Preserved lines are great, just don't inspire me (and presumably some others) as models.

 

[DavidB-AU]

Hmmm... no freight. If your preserved line (real or fictional) has a main line connection it's not hard to invent a reason to run freight under Rule 1. There are real world examples like stone trains to Minehead, MoD trains to Redmire or countless test trains on the Great Central. Weed spraying and RHTT have run onto a few preserved lines. Not quite freight but even the NMT has run on the Great Central.

 

If you can't think of a reason, you're not thinking hard enough.

 

Many NR lines never see much (or any) any freight but that doesn't seem to be a problem for modern image layouts.

 

Cheers

David

Edited July 17, 2019 by DavidB-AU

[Zomboid]

49 minutes ago, Reorte said:

Going off on a bit of a tangent, can you be nostalgic for something that finished before you were born (I was born after 1968)? And is it nostalgia if it's something you happen to like that merely happens to be mostly in the past? 

I think it's entirely possible to be nostalgic for things that never actually existed. I think it's an emotional response rather than anything rational.

Liking stuff from the past is probably something different, but even then I'm not sure it's real. I like steam engines, but that's solely based on my personal experiences of them (it cannot be any other way really), and I have basically no memories at all of anything before 1990. I know stuff happened before that, and I'd quite like to have memories of it, but the fact is I don't and never will.

[Reorte]

10 minutes ago, Zomboid said:

I think it's entirely possible to be nostalgic for things that never actually existed. I think it's an emotional response rather than anything rational.

Liking stuff from the past is probably something different, but even then I'm not sure it's real. I like steam engines, but that's solely based on my personal experiences of them (it cannot be any other way really), and I have basically no memories at all of anything before 1990. I know stuff happened before that, and I'd quite like to have memories of it, but the fact is I don't and never will.

 

Hah, don't get me started on the emotional vs rational! I have a bad habit of going philosophical on that subject. It boils down to a view that there's really no such thing as an unemotional rational response because any opinion of better or worse is, ultimately, an emotional one, and therefore the role of the rational is to work out how to get what the emotional says is desirable, there's no concept of desirable without emotion. I'd heard (and would like to see the actual information, rather than just the equivalent of "what a bloke in the pub said") that there have been examples of brain injuries that destroy most of the ability to have any emotions and the person became practically catatonic, hard to even motivate yourself to do the basic necessities of survival when that happens.

[Steamport Southport]

40 minutes ago, DavidB-AU said:

Hmmm... no freight. If your preserved line (real or fictional) has a main line connection it's not hard to invent a reason to run freight under Rule 1. There are real world examples like stone trains to Minehead, MoD trains to Redmire or countless test trains on the Great Central. Weed spraying and RHTT have run onto a few preserved lines. Not quite freight but even the NMT has run on the Great Central.

 

If you can't think of a reason, you're not thinking hard enough.

 

Many NR lines never see much (or any) any freight but that doesn't seem to be a problem for modern image layouts.

 

Cheers

David

 

You don't even have to invent freight trains. The Ribble Steam Railway has regular freight trains.

 

Photo from Wiki

 

Also worth pointing out that most of my local stations and many in major cities didn't have a freight service. They were kept totally separate.

 

 

Jason

[The Johnster]

Yes, but my requirement on a model is for believable freight and mineral WTT workings on a daily basis, and I would therefore probably not build a Minories layout.  No heritage railway has such services; once in a blue moon or a few weeks contract work doesn't cut the mustard for me!

[Nick Holliday]

2 hours ago, The Johnster said:

Yes, but my requirement on a model is for believable freight and mineral WTT workings on a daily basis, and I would therefore probably not build a Minories layout.  No heritage railway has such services; once in a blue moon or a few weeks contract work doesn't cut the mustard for me!

I thought that freight trains were run on the Bodmin and Nene Valley lines for many years after they started as preserved railways,  where existing factories along the way used rail, although I think the traffic has all but died. I also have an inkling that the Peak Rail line near Matlock carried a service to stone quarries further along the line to Buxton.

[tomparryharry]

After all of discussion, and the pros & cons, I stood back a little, and had a bit of a semi-serious thought:- "What's missing?" Then it struck me; the people. When people do everyday things as part of their work, they take on a certain charisma or persona. It's what they bring to the workplace. It could be anything; being the ticket collector, guard, toilet cleaner, whatever. 

 

But! here's the thing, come the weekend, you get to change from being Person xxxx in corporation Y. You get to be the hero of the hour, driving the train, taking tickets and all of the 1,001 jobs that go to make up a great day out for the customers. Professional? Certainly. Conscientious? Certainly. I've seen them all. But, come Sunday night, off with the ovvies, and back to being Mr Williams from accounts. It's the attitude from the preserved Railway that doesn't translate from the grimy, dirty world of real life, to the sparkly Disney-esque world we mostly yearn for. 

 

If you're in a fight, you're Sylvester Stallone, the suave person is Hugh Grant. Who are you when you're washing your socks at 2am in the morning?

 

 

Edited July 22, 2019 by tomparryharry
SCHpellinge Mistake....

[Joseph_Pestell]

I guess that people here are only thinking in terms of UK prototype. In France, there have been at least two preservation operations run on tracks that are used during the week for SNCF freight.

[Northmoor]

1 hour ago, Nick Holliday said:

I thought that freight trains were run on the Bodmin and Nene Valley lines for many years after they started as preserved railways,  where existing factories along the way used rail, although I think the traffic has all but died. I also have an inkling that the Peak Rail line near Matlock carried a service to stone quarries further along the line to Buxton.

Bodmin did carry freight from Fitzgerald Lighting for a while - the MD was also on the Board of the railway IIRC - but I think the Nene Valley was linked to the main line via Fletton Brickworks, but didn't actually carry that traffic.  The surviving freight to the quarry West of Yarwell ceased, allowing the preservationists to take over, so they didn't run at the same time. but the track remained in place for them.  This applies to many preserved railways; the Severn Valley took over most of its route which had survived to serve Alveley Colliery and the British Sugar factory at Kidderminster.  But very few have continued to run commercial freight once operating as a preserved railway.

Peak Rail has never carried freight; the stone trains from Peak Forest which reverse at Buxton are running over part of the route Peak Rail eventually want to reopen to passengers.

[Zomboid]

1 hour ago, Joseph_Pestell said:

I guess that people here are only thinking in terms of UK prototype. In France, there have been at least two preservation operations run on tracks that are used during the week for SNCF freight.

If the Embsay railway gets back to Skipton (as I'm sure they'd like to), it'll surely be by sharing tracks with the regular freight to the quarry. And I'm not sure how "heritage" the Dartmoor railway is, but Meldon still sees trains to/ from the quarry as well, doesn't it?

 

It's certainly plausible for such operations to exist since the NYMR got to Whitby. And there's the aspirations of the Swanage railway to offer another possibility. All without leaving England. Heritage operations in 2019+ allow for all kinds of possibilities.

[Joseph_Pestell]

13 hours ago, Zomboid said:

If the Embsay railway gets back to Skipton (as I'm sure they'd like to), it'll surely be by sharing tracks with the regular freight to the quarry. And I'm not sure how "heritage" the Dartmoor railway is, but Meldon still sees trains to/ from the quarry as well, doesn't it?

 

It's certainly plausible for such operations to exist since the NYMR got to Whitby. And there's the aspirations of the Swanage railway to offer another possibility. All without leaving England. Heritage operations in 2019+ allow for all kinds of possibilities.

 

It seems to be the removal of freight (oil) from the remains of the Swanage branch which has made it possible for Swanage Railway trains to operate to Wareham.

[Zomboid]

I think that's incidental. It was the resignalling of the Dorset coast line (or possibly when it was recontrolled to Basingstoke) that enabled the NR signalling to be properly interfaced with the Swanage railway at Corfe Castle, which enables regular trains to run on and off the branch. Previously the connection had double-locked ground frames and the a gate, and it was probably a big faff to get anything to run over it. Now it's plain line and I guess Basingstoke just offers a train to Corfe Castle and vice versa in much the same way that any other MAS system interfaces with absolute block.

 

The oil traffic wouldn't have prevented other trains from running on the branch. A "what if" at Furzebrook could be quite an interesting layout.

[john new]

4 minutes ago, Zomboid said:

I think that's incidental. It was the resignalling of the Dorset coast line (or possibly when it was recontrolled to Basingstoke) that enabled the NR signalling to be properly interfaced with the Swanage railway at Corfe Castle, which enables regular trains to run on and off the branch. Previously the connection had double-locked ground frames and the a gate, and it was probably a big faff to get anything to run over it. Now it's plain line and I guess Basingstoke just offers a train to Corfe Castle and vice versa in much the same way that any other MAS system interfaces with absolute block.

 

The oil traffic wouldn't have prevented other trains from running on the branch. A "what if" at Furzebrook could be quite an interesting layout.

Concur, and as a consequence there are current, timetabled, SO, service trains to Corfe Castle. (Strike days and train availability permitting!)

Edited July 18, 2019 by john new

[DavidB-AU]

16 hours ago, Joseph_Pestell said:

I guess that people here are only thinking in terms of UK prototype. In France, there have been at least two preservation operations run on tracks that are used during the week for SNCF freight.

 

And on the other side of the pond it's almost the opposite. A few short lines run mainly freight but have some heritage equipment (including steam) for tourists. 

 

And occasionally they mix the two just for the fun of it!

 

 

Cheers

David

[PhilJ W]

51 minutes ago, DavidB-AU said:

 

And on the other side of the pond it's almost the opposite. A few short lines run mainly freight but have some heritage equipment (including steam) for tourists. 

 

And occasionally they mix the two just for the fun of it!

 

 

Cheers

David

Notice the lack of graffitti on the freight cars?

[grahame]

Seems like modelling steam preserved lines/heritage railways might have to be from memory and as part of nostalgia if this happens:

 

 

From todays Times newspaper.

 

G

 

 

 

[Ian Morgan]

The Brohltalbahn by the Rhine in Germany is a preserved meter-gauge railway that is still hauling regular freight; vulcanic phonolite mined in the Eifel used in cement production, and as an aggregate.

 

The line was taken over by enthusiasts to run as a tourist attraction in 1987, but revenue from continuing freight haulage was important for its survival. However, in 1995, the Trade Inspectorate banned the transhipment of phonolite to barges on the river because of the dust it caused. It took 4 years, and a switch from open wagons to intermodal container tanks before freight haulage on the railway could resume, and it continues to this day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited June 27, 2023 by Ian Morgan
re-loaded images

[Ian J.]

5 hours ago, grahame said:

Seems like modelling steam preserved lines/heritage railways might have to be from memory and as part of nostalgia if this happens:

 

 

From todays Times newspaper.

 

G

 

 

 

 

A case for a single suitable pit to remain open? Maybe there's a business case for a good quality Welsh steam coal pit, with the possibility of exports as well?

[Northmoor]

7 minutes ago, Ian J. said:

 

A case for a single suitable pit to remain open? Maybe there's a business case for a good quality Welsh steam coal pit, with the possibility of exports as well?

It is quite possible that a single pit will survive to supply the heritage market - and the industry would do well to act collectively here - but Welsh Coal doesn't suit all locomotives.  The article is over-simplistic to suggest that it's just down to the closure of collieries supplying power-stations; the output from many of those was unsuitable for steam locos anyway (too fine).

With the exchange rate only likely to get worse for the foreseeable future, imported coal costs for preserved railways are going to rise steeply.

[greatcoleswoodhalt]

On 16/07/2019 at 13:50, The Johnster said:

Modelling a preserved railway, prototypical or freelance, requires the same discipline, presentation, attention to detail, and general realism as modelling any other sort of railway does if it is to be 'convincing'.  A problem arises when an inexperienced modeller, using the format to run 'anything and everything' but not wanting it to be perceived as a train set, gets it wrong; steam engines haul air braked stock, locos never actually preserved appear, electrics claw uselessly at the air with pantographs or uselessly at non existent 3rd rails with shoes, and in fact it's a train set.

 

I agree with the sentiment that modelling a heritage railway requires the same discipline and there are examples as to why it doesn't always work, but to have "locos never actually preserved" seems a little harsh!  We're all in the hobby for various reasons (with differing recollections and aims) so beyond Rule 1 I don't think it's too much of an issue if done sympathetically.

 

Not the point I'm making, but there are occurrences where one locomotive masquerades as another for photoshoots, etc?

[Edge]

I do find that on occasion the ‘it’s a preserved railway’ is used as an excuse for shoddy modelling. None of it looks believable, and so doesn’t exactly inspire.

 

That being said, there are some truly marvellous ones out there - The Museum of Transport layout is a truly wonderful that leaps to mind immediately.

 

as regards to non-surviving locos being used, again, it needs to look right to be right - so naturally I shall be running 4472 in wartime black, ‘Bude’ with a stained tender, GT3 and a new Build GWR ‘City’ when I finally get around to making my preservation layout. Think I’ll have to base it around a big gala

[Northmoor]

12 minutes ago, jafcreasey said:

 

I agree with the sentiment that modelling a heritage railway requires the same discipline and there are examples as to why it doesn't always work, but to have "locos never actually preserved" seems a little harsh!  We're all in the hobby for various reasons (with differing recollections and aims) so beyond Rule 1 I don't think it's too much of an issue if done sympathetically.

 

Not the point I'm making, but there are occurrences where one locomotive masquerades as another for photoshoots, etc?

To me there is no difference between, "modelling a line that may/may not have been planned but was never built" and "modelling a locomotive that wasn't preserved, as if it had been".

 

What if Stanier hadn't instructed locomotives to be scrapped at Swindon and Derby....?

[HonestTom]

I've seen some pretty neat layouts based on real preserved lines. This one springs to mind, where the challenge is still to model something real. I do feel a little sorry for the guy, having put so much work in to recreate the Bluebell's loco roster, only to have so many of them released RTR in the interim.

 

Personally, I've often thought you could do a great layout based on the early days of a preserved line. Say, a Peckett and a Barclay with a couple of mismatched Mk 1s or a non-working first gen DMU, some derelict wagons on a siding, a dilapidated and overgrown station and a Barry hulk with a fundraising appeal sign. Fire engine deputising for a water tower under restoration. One track and a space where the other used to be. Old coach functioning as society HQ. Or set it in the 60s, when preserved lines were still trying to figure out how this heritage railway thing was supposed to work, applying their own liveries to rolling stock etc.