Why are preserved railways so unpopular as layout subjects

[The Johnster]

18 hours ago, Northmoor said:

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.

The supply of decent coal for use in steam locomotive fireboxes has been problematic since the war, and while the post 1968 demand is minimal, so is the post 1980s supply...  If coal cannot be supplied, the heritage railways will have to adapt or die, and the obvious solution is to convert to oil firing.

[The Johnster]

1 hour 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?

I would equate the running of stock that had never been preserved in reality on a heritage model with running stock that never appeared in the area or period you are modelling if you are doing 'ordinary' modelling.  So, as  examples, if you were modelling the South Wales main line or the GW in Cornwall in the 1930s, you would not be running Kings or 47xx.  We all have our own interpretation of Rule 1, which is of course the purpose of Rule 1, and I am not religious about it myself; my South Wales 1950s BLT features Hornby Collett suburbans and other coaches that never ran in South Wales but look a bit like some that did, but an overtly incorrect locomotive is too much for me!  

 

My own layout, Cwmdimbath, is an imaginary South Wales mining BLT but set in a real location, a small valley that is in reality farmland in it's lower reaches and afforested in the upper reaches, which are very remote and wildernessy.  It never hosted a real mining village because it is literally undermined by pits from the valleys on each side of it.  But I like the sense of real geography that this imparts to the layout; my locos are all correctly numbered as Tondu allocations between 1948 and 1958, and I will not countenance any others as they would be incorrect.

 

If you are modelling a prototypical location at a specified period, you should surely at least try to model the stock, especially the locos and passenger stock, running on it as correctly as you can, and concentrate on the stock that ran in the normal course of events rather than occasional appearances.  If, like me and probably I suspect most of us, you model an imaginary location at a specified period, then it similarly surely behooves (isn't that something to do with horses?) you to model the stock that would have most likely run there had it ever existed in reality.  But the boundaries of this are blurred; common user freight and NPCC stock dispersed itself everywhere fairly quickly after nationalisation for example, 'foreign' locos worked through to places they'd never been seen in before, and the South Wales seaside branches saw all sorts of exotica on Bank Holiday weekends.  

 

This, I think, strikes to the heart of the problem with modelling a preserved railway, especially an imaginary one that does not exist in reality.  Modelling actual lines in actual locations is of course subject to the same discipline as any other prototype modelling, but is no doubt enlivened by the real appearance of visiting locos and the withdrawal of favourites for overhaul.  It is a boon to those of us who have too many locos for our timetables (who, me?), though!  Locos masquerading as other locos for charters or filming are another reason for 2 models of the same prototype, or different numbers and names on each side; you see how the boundaries become less distinct...

 

But if you model an imaginary heritage railway, the boundaries are not so much indistinct as invisible; they are IMHO still there, though, if you want to present something believable.  There are fundamental questions ignored at your peril in the concept stage; do you model locos actually preserved, but which are in reality on other heritage lines that actually exist, and claim they are all visiting attractions, do you restrict yourself to types actually preserved but class members that were in reality scrapped, or do you run everything and anything?  It is never really going to cut the believable mustard IMHO if you adopt the last scenario, and you'll end up with a train set and an LMS Beyer Garratt.

 

I think the 'Museum of Transport' layout is a clever, but only moderately successful, attempt to deal with this.  It works, but only when you suspend disbelief to a degree I have to confess to feeling uncomfortable with.  Once I get over this, the layout is extremely enjoyable, and actually overtly employs the continuous run aspect of a train set rather than attempting to disguise it; things go round and round and it has an almost hypnotic, fairground, surreality, as well as some good modelling especially of the museum's interiors.

[PhilJ W]

7 hours ago, Edge said:

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

What about all the patrons? Just imagine painting about 1,000 figures.

[Northmoor]

I take your points Johnster but for me what makes most "preserved railways" in model form unbelievable isn't the rolling stock being operated, right or otherwise.  It's everything else; the cleanliness (too clean, the coach sides might be but a real roof is usually very weathered), heritage track layouts are usually unlike the original station layout, the way unused rolling stock is stored in sidings, the mix of buildings old and new, the enormous numbers of people around compared to how a branch line station used to be and where those people will be standing.

As others have pointed out, modelling a preserved railway properly - even an imaginary one - requires just the same study of the prototype as if you going to model the same branch line as it was in the 1930s and to do it properly.

[friscopete]

A preserved line is a bit like a re enactment group .Its OK to enjoy it and have fun but its never going to capture the urgency and workings of most  lines or indeed battles  .They are working museums and most of our models are indeed preserved lines as there is only about three people on here who actually run rather than say they run an operating  exact in actions and detail scale model railway .Come on admit you scallywags .Admit  it that a Big Boy runs over your Southern branch terminal sometimes and a LBSCR Terrier in full livery pulls a few BR wagons  and GWR  coach as a brake van.My own Southern Pacific switching layout often has a few British visitors .In the interest of accuracy I do fit Kadees first .My Hornby Terrier in Southern livery pulls quite a few  box cars as well as some  tank cars and a caboose but only on the level .The bit of track at Appalling  baseboard joint gulch   taxes it greatly.

[rockershovel]

This is quite an interesting topic! 

 

I made one if my occasional visits to Portmadoc a while ago, and was struck by how little it resembled the pictures in “Little Wonder” . The Blaenau terminus bears no relation to the original, apart from its location and of course, no part of the Welsh Highland survives other than the alignment and Russell. 

 

So a preserved railway is indeed, a topic in its own right. 

[Edge]

1 hour ago, rockershovel said:

This is quite an interesting topic! 

 

I made one if my occasional visits to Portmadoc a while ago, and was struck by how little it resembled the pictures in “Little Wonder” . The Blaenau terminus bears no relation to the original, apart from its location and of course, no part of the Welsh Highland survives other than the alignment and Russell. 

 

So a preserved railway is indeed, a topic in its own right. 

Well in fact even the location for Bleneau isn’t entirely original, the exchange platform between the FR and GWR was at the back of what is now the mainline platform, leading on to the FR official terminus at Duffws just slightly further along (even though that wasn’t actually the end of the line) in the town (the station building is now public loos).The FR actually divided the LNWR Conwy Valley line and the GWR Bala line well into the preservation era - BR had to ask their permission to build the ‘through’ line which now exists.

 

But your point is well taken  the railway has changed a great deal in its preservation period with very few of the original stations/buildings left (from recollection, Penhryn is actually pretty authentic, Minfford is mostly the same and the main building of Harbour Station is original as well as the nucleus of Boston Lodge) but everything else has been extensively rebuilt over the years.

 

This overall is one of the things which I think stops a great many preserved layouts from looking too authentic. It’s frequently used as an excuse to plonk down metcalfe buildings, fill sidings with 1960s triang wagons with those gigantic couplings and gaudy liveries, and generally tip a collection of items from the ‘unused’ box onto a baseboard. As demonstrated with the FR, the preservation history alone of most railways could fill a decent sized book, and this air of authentic evolution is very rarely captured. As I said before, Museum of Transport does it nicely with some cracking modelling and there is an N Gauge model of a preserved railway who’s name I cannot recall, but that’s good too

Edited July 20, 2019 by Edge

[The Johnster]

The N gauge one is of Ropley, isn't it, and very good it is as well if the photos are anything to go by.

 

The Ffestiniog side of Harbour station is pretty original, within the railway boundary fence anyway, but very different in appearance since the building was rendered, but the surroundings are very different to my volunteering days on the railway in the late 60s and early 70s; the post industrial dereliction of the harbour area still featured sidings hidden in undergrowth and the remains of slate wagons too far gone for recovery, and the harbour itself was home to a couple of fishing boats and a few sailing cruisers.  It was ripe for development, an overgrown eyesore to anybody without my finely tuned sensibilities for such things, and the marina/housing was inevitable.  

[Pacific231G]

On 17/07/2019 at 18:05, 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.

Far more than two. One of the weaknesses of many SG heritage operations in France was that they were based on running at weekends on lines (often d'Interet local) used for goods in the week. When that traffic ceased many of them simply didn't have the resources or volunteers to take on the maintenance of the often quite long running lines as well as the running of trains touristiques. 

One that was particularly interesting was the TVT (Train a Vapeur de Tourraine) that ran trains on the local authority owned line from Chinon to Richelieu (to be strictly accurate, the non SNCF line was actually from Ligre Riviere to Richelieu  but for some years they had running rights into Chinon station. They ran a steam hauled train on Weekends and holidays but, until 1993 they ran the goods trains on their own line with at least one ex SNCF DB060 "sous marin " (a particularly interesting early diesel loco) and, on a contract basis, on the adjoining goods only SNCF branches. around Loudon .  The first time I encountered this railway at Richelieu  was in the 1980s on a Wednesday and a diesel loco with TVT emblazoned on the side- I  think it was A1A-A1A 62032- was shunting cereal hoppers around the medium sized silo in the goods yard.  Sadly, some years after the goods operation ceased there was some kind of falling out with the lcoal mayor and they were gradually cut back and eventually forbidden to operate because a newly built roundabout close to a level crossing didn't meet the regulations for level crossings. The line was lifted three years ago for conversion to a cycleway (a danger facing several heritage lines in France)   I'm not aware of the TVT operating passenger trains on the same days as their goods operation but it's no impossible.

ISTR that until the early noughties AGRIVAP also operated a train for a local paper mill on top of their  passenger actvities.

[Chris M]

If I built a model of a preserved line I might set it a few years in the future. I could then legitimately run a class 22, an An Ivatt diesel, a GWR county, a Marsh Atlantic etc etc.

 

Preserved railways are very much part of the UK railway scene and so I see them as a perfectly good thing to model.  I drew up a track plan for an N gauge Bodmin and the old exchange sidings which I think would have been nice but it is not currently planned to be an actual project.

 

 

[Chris M]

On 19/07/2019 at 22:53, friscopete said:

They are working museums and most of our models are indeed preserved lines as there is only about three people on here who actually run rather than say they run an operating  exact in actions and detail scale model railway .Come on admit you scallywags .Admit  it that a Big Boy runs over your Southern branch terminal sometimes and a LBSCR Terrier in full livery pulls a few BR wagons  and GWR  coach as a brake van.

I only own stock which is appropriate to the era and location of my layouts so I don’t run anything which is incorrect for the layout. Well except for a few visiting locos owned by others....

[Chris M]

 

I have run my late 50s/ early 60s branch line as a preserved railway which made a nice change. All the locos shown in these photos Are preserved although I’m pretty sure there weren’t all in the liveries I have at the same time. They probably have never even all been in working order at the same time. To do the job seriously a lot of changes to buildings and land use would be required.

 

I find there is something satisfying about the deliberate mixture of liveries in the second photo. Possibly because I see preserved railways all the time whereas railways of the 60s are a memory from a long time ago.

 

Edited July 21, 2019 by Chris M

[Pacific231G]

ISTR that the preserved Middleton Railway handled a certain amount of goods traffic using exchange sidings just off its main route.  Like the French examples of TVT and AGRIVAP, these freight  services disappeared when the "big railway" decide that the traffic they represented for the  main line wasn't worth having, I also know of a an embryonic train touristique run by an enthusiasts' group (Labouheyre-Mimizan in Landes) that came to nothing when the local paper mill's traffic on a non-SNCF line was transferred to road for the same reason.

[chriscleveland]

You can have some great fun building locos under restoration 

[greatcoleswoodhalt]

On 19/07/2019 at 12:44, HonestTom said:

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.

 

Absolutely.

 

A visit to the Spa Valley Railway generally offers an eclectic mix of locomotives and rolling stock - on Saturday, the 10:30 'steam' service from Tunbridge Wells West was hauled by an industrial locomotive with a Class 33 at the rear.  Rolling stock consisted solely of MK1s, the majority in BR green and one in BR blue/grey!

 

This isn't a reenactment group, it's a heritage railway.

Edited December 16, 2020 by jafcreasey

[HonestTom]

With the question of locos that were never preserved, I think you can get away with it to some extent, provided it's reasonably plausible. There have been an awful lot of near-misses in preservation history - the Bluebell looked at acquiring a LBSC K and Captain Bill Smith was originally interested in a GNR C12. And there are plenty of pre-grouping engines only survive because they happened to be sold into industry. But I don't think you could realistically justify, say, a Leader or an original P2, because all examples were scrapped long before the preservation movement and they weren't the kind of everyday workhorses that might have been sold on.

 

I can imagine a parallel universe where the Bluebell Railway didn't exist and there's some modeller being told off for modelling a heritage railway with an H, an E4, an Adams Radial, a Dukedog and a North London Railway 0-6-0. And two Ps? Ridiculous!

[Pacific231G]

I've been thinking about the OP's question again and I'm wondering whether it's something to do with our layouts setting out to represent the full size railway carrying out its work in some form or another and a preserved railway doing much the same.   That maybe makes a model of a preserved railway-real or imagined- an extra step away from the "real thing".   When I run a goods train on my layout I am, in my imagination, running a real goods train that collects and delivers real goods to its locality but if I run my layout as a preserved line and operate a goods train - which preserved lines often do as "demonstrations" is that a representation of a representation. 

 

There is of course nothing to stop you doing both. A beautiful model of say Ashburton in GWR days,  accepting the strict limitations on stock and services that can authentically run on it, could easily double up as a model of Ashburton beautifully preserved- as it should have been! - but now seeing a greater variety of trains and a far more intense service.  That could equally be applied to an imaginary branch line layout.  A preserved line also allow you to authentically do things like run express passenger locos tender first at the head of four coach trains that include a restaurant car and even a Pullman. It is definitely though not "anything goes"- a heritage line is if anything run even more strictly by the book than its steam age "prototype" and the challenges of say timetabling a far more intensive service, complete with light engine moves,  than an equivalent single track branch would have ever seen when in commercial service.

 

I suspect this applies in other branches of modelling. Unless to serve a specific purpose such as promotion, I've not seen many models of Clyde Puffers or VICs converted to carry passengers, sail training ships as opposed to their commercial predecessors or even narrow boats as they are now, in rather larger numbers, than as they were when canals were freight highways.

 

The question gets even more interesting when you consider some modern steam railways that are very much a thing unto themselves.  I remember seeing an excellent layout based on the RHDR. which still does what it  has always done but the Welsh Highland Railway is now doing with success what it was originally built for and failed at while the Vale of Rheidol is still doing what it's always done.

 

[newbryford]

On ‎17‎/‎07‎/‎2019 at 19:37, 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.

 

Meldon Quarry hasn't seen ballast trains for many years now.

Don't know how long ago it was mothballed, but I have a feeling it was about 2010/2011.

 

Cheers,

Mick

[Steamport Southport]

On 20/07/2019 at 07:52, rockershovel said:

This is quite an interesting topic! 

 

I made one if my occasional visits to Portmadoc a while ago, and was struck by how little it resembled the pictures in “Little Wonder” . The Blaenau terminus bears no relation to the original, apart from its location and of course, no part of the Welsh Highland survives other than the alignment and Russell. 

 

So a preserved railway is indeed, a topic in its own right. 

 

Is the Ffestiniog a preserved railway though? It's run as a proper railway company even being called the Festiniog Railway Company.

 

Even the staff are unionised. I remember them going on strike during the 1980s.

 

 

 

Jason

[Zomboid]

5 minutes ago, Steamport Southport said:

 

Is the Ffestiniog a preserved railway though? It's run as a proper railway company even being called the Festiniog Railway Company.

 

Even the staff are unionised. I remember them going on strike during the 1980s.

 

 

 

Jason

Many of them are mainly businesses now. For me the idea of a "preserved railway" isn't really relevant any longer. Mostly they're "heritage railways", which are players in the leisure & tourism market, just like trampoline parks and slide-based swimming pools. And that's without asking to what degree they're "preserved", since most of them share little more than some civil engineering with the railway that was there before the heritage movement showed up.

 

On many there are those of us who are willing to give our time for free to help support them - myself included to a fairly small degree. But even then that's not out of the goodness of my heart, that's because I enjoy it and choose to spend some of my leisure time in that fashion.

[woodenhead]

What I find interesting in threads like this is that people need to ask other's permission almost to do their own thing - it's like a model railway has to be fixed in some sort of reality that everyone will buy into.

 

I include myself in this and it's part of the reason I find modelling stressful as I cannot create what I see in my minds eye.

 

Any model railway is a compromise of sorts even the really finely detailed one so really running what you like, where you like and when you like should be your mantra - if you choose to run only GW locomotives in 1930 liveries on a small branchline then that is fine as is running un-preserved locomotives on your own model railway.

 

I am currently at a crossroads again, got a new larger modelling space - do i continue with Cornwall in 00 or break out my N stock and build my own preserved line (bit of NYMR, bit of WSR).  The N gauge option can have long running lines, can represent both ends of the line, doesn't need a massive fiddleyard (if at all), I can run 6+ coach trains, can run any loco I want and no need to turn my tender engines.   The N gauge option is rather appealing, the OO option less so as it will be simply be a Boscarne Junction-esce type layout with maybe a single passenger platform somewhere and cramped fiddleyard.

[rockershovel]

1 hour ago, Steamport Southport said:

 

Is the Ffestiniog a preserved railway though? It's run as a proper railway company even being called the Festiniog Railway Company.

 

Even the staff are unionised. I remember them going on strike during the 1980s.

 

 

 

Jason

 

I seem to recall that the Festiniog and Talyllyn both started as reincarnations of the previous dispensation. There’s a big difference between that, and an amputated stump of a former network. 

 

 

Edited July 22, 2019 by rockershovel

[Edge]

30 minutes ago, rockershovel said:

 

I seem to recall that the Festiniog and Talyllyn both started as reincarnations of the previous dispensation. There’s a big difference between that, and an amputated stump of a former network. 

 

 

 

With the condition of either railway when they were saved, I find it hard to argue that either has not been ‘preserved’ in the traditional sense of the word, regardless of ownership status (I do know that the FR is certainly as outlines, no idea about the TR myself) as both lines needed almost total reconstruction of infrastructure, rolling stock and also became the home for a number of ‘foreign’ engines/coaches etc.

[rockershovel]

1 hour ago, Edge said:

 

With the condition of either railway when they were saved, I find it hard to argue that either has not been ‘preserved’ in the traditional sense of the word, regardless of ownership status (I do know that the FR is certainly as outlines, no idea about the TR myself) as both lines needed almost total reconstruction of infrastructure, rolling stock and also became the home for a number of ‘foreign’ engines/coaches etc.

 

I think that’s all rather metaphysical.. both lines were revived and continued, whereas they would otherwise not have done so 

[john new]

If/when I get space I will consider doing a heritage/preserved line as my interest in rolling stock is too eclectic to be constrained by an exact period. However, to get it to look right I anticipate being harder than doing a more orthodox line.