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Why is this so rarely modelled?


Guest jim s-w
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On a positive note, this era can be very interesting: steam, diesel and electric traction working with a mixture of Big 4 and BR rolling stock in all the various combinations of liveries.

 

If you were on the Southern, you could see pre-war, Bulleid and BR design EMUs running alongside each other.

 

Moreover there was still steam age infrastructure around, if not already rationalised, and outside the railway fence, many local municipal and company buses still carried their traditional liveries (the National Bus Company was only established in 1969)

 

It's unfortunate that this time period isn't as popular as it could have been because of the negativity by enthusiasts about the loss of regular BR mainline steam.

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I think I can suggest a reason.

 

At the end of steam there was a very strong revulsion against BR, the new order, and "the powers-that-be" , driven by the twin traumas of the Beeching Axe and the end of steam. I can just remember from the 1970s that railway enthusiasts would put you very firmly in your place if you said anything positive or even neutral about the contemporary rail scene . It was generally held that railway managers were corporate creatures intent on advancing their careers by destroying as much of the system as fast as possible, that the new ways were at best misguided and counterproductive, and didn't work, and at worst deliberate sabotage etc etc etc

 

The general attitude was "the glories of steam - and the least said about what came after, the better" . Photographers in the 60s apparently frequently made a point of putting down the camera and turning away when non-steam traction appeared . Essentially most enthusiasts were determinedly "editing out" the new era and Corporate image - and it's not surprising that these kind of scenes and contrasts were only recorded by accident and deliberately forgotten afterwards.

 

I suspect that the photographer - at the time - only wanted the steam engine in that shot: the blue/grey coach and colourlights were an unwelcome and undesirable intrusion into the phot, unescapable in recording the "real" (ie steam) subject

 

 

To go off at a slight tangent (sorry). If you fast forward to the late 90s/early 00s, wasn't there something similar, perhaps not quite as drastic though, going on?

The old BR many had come to love was being broken up into lots of little businesses, loco haulage was being discontinued as quickly as possible. 47s on Cross Country services replaced with Voyagers, 37s in North Wales replaced with 175s, units everywhere you look. The old order (20s, 37s 47s, etc) in freight haulage being displaced by the 'Red death' class 66s.

I was around at the end of steam, it was a very sad time, I lost interest in railways for several years, but came back. I followed the last couple of years on the North Wales Coast with 37s, then 47s as the units simply weren't reliable enough. Put in a few trips to South Wales as well, 37s, then 50s, a type I'd never bothered with before.

I think that a lot of the apparent resistance is down to a dislike of change, which is mostly, if not exclusively, driven by financial factors.

The next big change to come, and come it will, is the replacement of the HSTs and older DMUs. IEP anyone? The last true loco operated service (GE main line) may well I suspect be unitised fairly quickly when the new (long) franchise starts. Who, in 1975 or 76 would have expected people to be getting nostalgic for the HSTs, it was bad enough replacing the Valentas with MTUS!!

That will provoke similar reactions to all the previous changes, but it'll go ahead because most of the fare paying passengers don't give a rats*ss what kind of train they're on. So long as they get where they want, when they want it's OK.

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On a positive note, this era can be very interesting: steam, diesel and electric traction working with a mixture of Big 4 and BR rolling stock in all the various combinations of liveries.

 

If you were on the Southern, you could see pre-war, Bulleid and BR design EMUs running alongside each other.

 

Moreover there was still steam age infrastructure around, if not already rationalised, and outside the railway fence, many local municipal and company buses still carried their traditional liveries (the National Bus Company was only established in 1969)

 

It's unfortunate that this time period isn't as popular as it could have been because of the negativity by enthusiasts about the loss of regular BR mainline steam.

You've made the case for modelling the era so why arent you? Using negativity by enthusiast about the loss of regular BR steam as an excuse for not modelling the era is weard. No one is under anyones elses control....Go for it!

 

Folk have a wide choice of eras to model. If an all-time low in British railway history is not being modelled, who are we to say modellers are mistaken, right or wrong?

Edited by coachmann
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That is a bit harsh. I dont see any sign of control freakery in this thread. The OP asked a very genuine question and I think we have attempted to answer it truthfully, and with a bit of nostalgia thrown in.

 

My layout is deconstructed (sorry, watched too many cookery programmes) at the moment awaiting funds for a full scale loft conversion, but it is set in the steam/diesel transition era, although in the East of England this came rather sooner than 1967/8. By the time BR blue came along, steam had gone (although maybe the XP64 just scrapes in, with a bit of licence).

 

I have a decent number of mainly pilot scheme diesels alongside steam locos, and I know quite a few others who have chosen this period. I couldn't really do the Rose Grove or Lostock Hall area justice because I don't know enough about the area.

Edited by jonny777
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Ok I've not taken any photos, but I can muster just enough stock to run something circa 1967-69, here are some examples that spring to mind:

 

1. Class 33 D6520 in blue on a parcels train with blue Thompson BG, maroon Hawksworth BG, green Southern BY van, lined maroon LMS Stanier 50' BG and blue BR 57' GUV,

 

with a 4CEP in blue/grey and Bulleid style 2EPB in all over blue on local passenger service,

 

accompanied outside the railway fence by a Southdown PD3 Queen Mary bus in traditional green/cream and a Portsmouth Corporation Atlantean in traditional maroon with yellow lining and white window bands and roof.

 

2. If I want to represent Wirral/Cheshire ca. 1967 with steam I can substitute the 33 for an Ivatt 4MT 43106 or a weathered Black 5 45377 on the same parcels train, or freight,

 

with a class 101 DMU in all over blue,

 

accompanied by a Crosville Bristol FLF green double-decker. Birkenhead Corporation blue/cream Leyland PD2, Wallasey Leyland Atlantean and a Midland Red coach with destination "New Brighton"

 

(I don't own a class 503 EMU to complete the trinity of steam, diesel and electric traction)

 

This shows the variety that's possible ... however the late steam era is only one area of my interest and I can only do so much with the space I have at my disposal.

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Personally, the period falls between two stools: slightly earlier allows broadly the same diesel interest, but wider variety of steam on its last legs (eg. '63-'65 on the ScR, my favoured period) and the slightly later period where the green stuff is getting tatty and disfigured while the Corporate Image starts to take over, and the later diesels have started to appear, like the D400s on the WCML.

 

I can't really define what it is about these very-last-days of steam which doesn't appeal to me - I can only think it's due to the fact the steam selection (would be Kingmoor, for my subject locations) is just too limited as to be not worth having. Being born 20yrs later, and having never been a prototype rail enthusiast I don't think I have any particular grievance about the loss of steam.

 

Interesting question in the OP right enough.

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My layout is set around 1960-63, but I run the odd steam + blue /grey set occasionally just for nostalgia. BTW the layout "January 68" really depicts this year. There is a you tube vid, and it featured a while ago in the Hornby mag.

 

 

I remember the end of steam in Lancashire quite well. Springs Branch closed to steam in late 67, as with many other local sheds, only a few in Manchester / Liverpool / Preston areas at the end, sheds shutting almost weekly in 68. I was at Carnforth, Rose Grove & Lostock Hall on the last week in Aug 68, a Lancashire runabout rover ticket. Wonderful & sad week.

 

It was not all gloom and despair by any means. Many new diesels replaced steam, lots of new / repainted stock & stations also. I remember a Liverpool Exchange to Preston express (Glasgow) had a Clean Black 5 and full blue / Grey rake one day in late '67. Yes, there was lots of tat and decay around as well. Some places had tat and new (you name it) side by side for many a year!!

 

The West Riding also had lots to offer till around October 1967. Lots of steam there with blue / grey also (and B1's on Grey/Blue Pullmans Bradford-Leeds). They had a bit more variety at the end than us in Lancashire, WD's, B1's, Stanier tanks etc.

 

Wonderfull "era" - and no excuse for not modelling it for nearly everything is availiable RTR.

 

Brit15

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To go off at a slight tangent (sorry). If you fast forward to the late 90s/early 00s, wasn't there something similar, perhaps not quite as drastic though, going on?

The old BR many had come to love was being broken up into lots of little businesses, loco haulage was being discontinued as quickly as possible. 47s on Cross Country services replaced with Voyagers, 37s in North Wales replaced with 175s, units everywhere you look. The old order (20s, 37s 47s, etc) in freight haulage being displaced by the 'Red death' class 66s.

I was around at the end of steam, it was a very sad time, I lost interest in railways for several years, but came back. I followed the last couple of years on the North Wales Coast with 37s, then 47s as the units simply weren't reliable enough. Put in a few trips to South Wales as well, 37s, then 50s, a type I'd never bothered with before.

I think that a lot of the apparent resistance is down to a dislike of change, which is mostly, if not exclusively, driven by financial factors.

The next big change to come, and come it will, is the replacement of the HSTs and older DMUs. IEP anyone? The last true loco operated service (GE main line) may well I suspect be unitised fairly quickly when the new (long) franchise starts. Who, in 1975 or 76 would have expected people to be getting nostalgic for the HSTs, it was bad enough replacing the Valentas with MTUS!!

That will provoke similar reactions to all the previous changes, but it'll go ahead because most of the fare paying passengers don't give a rats*ss what kind of train they're on. So long as they get where they want, when they want it's OK.

 

The late 90s/early 00s were hardly on the same scale , which I think is why there's such a difference in attitude. For starters - and crucially - there was no closure programme at the turn of the Millenium. Agreed new railways and new stations more or less stopped being built in England , but the network itself remained unchanged and services remained very similar - unlike the late 60s where a third of the network was axed in short order and much of the rest severely rationalised. There was also a vast continuity in traction and stock. By late 1968 almost every loco in traffic in 1957 had been scrapped. So had the majority of the coaching stock

 

Privatisation can be compared to Grouping or Nationalisation - but the scale of the trauma of the late 60s was orders of magnitude greater

 

It is very striking to look at railway modelling magazines from the late 60s early 70s. Modelling became, very suddenly, 100% historic - the contemporary prototype simply vanishes

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B4 bogied stock behind a kettle steam loco in the mid/late 60's isn't totally alien - some of the first Mk2's were delivered in maroon or SR green. There was a layout at Stafford exhibition a couple of weeks back that had Bulleids and green Mk2's.

 

I'd also like to put forward another reason why the particular subject above is rarely modelled - IMO of course.

 

The subject matter in the OP was over a relatively short period of time - 3 years or so, and also relatively a small geographical area of north west England. How many modellers really model a very specific time and place? I freely admit that they are out there - Jim's BNS and John Holden's LLS are very good examples - but they are in the minority.

 

As a comparison, let's take a similar limited geographic/timescale limitation - who models North Wales in 1950-1953 for example? Or East Anglia in 1935-1938?

 

Despite photos of the era being evocative to me, [*] I choose to be one of the minority when it comes to not modelling what I grew up with.

 

[*]My formative railway years were with the end of steam. Rose Grove, Lostock Hall and Lower Darwen were within 20 miles and Carnforth wasn't much further. I still feel privileged to have seen The Fifteen Guinea Special - 1T57 - on both north and south workings. I spent many hours watching 8F's and BR Standards shunting Clitheroe goods yard from our front bedroom window as well as being hauled around the above mentioned sheds on what seemed like a weekly pilgrimage. They were soon replaced by double-headed D400's (Class 50's to the younger generation) on WCML diversions.

 

Cheers,

Mick

Edited by newbryford
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In response to the OP I'll give just some of my reasons.

 

That AWFUL colour. Described as "woad-like" blue in an article I read. Tatty green diesels having freshly painted enormous yellow ends/noses. The fact that the upstart diesels didn't even have to carry a "D" to make them recognise the senior motive power.

 

The stations and infrastructure were at their shabbiest and most unwelcoming. There wasn't anything positive going on, just more decline and closures.

 

Mk II coaches and B4 bogies. Nuff said. Goods trains started to lose their brake vans and look just wrong.

 

Did I mention the colour? Oh, yes, the fact that there was no more freedom given to the Regions. Apart from the best liveries ever of green loco's and maroon coaches we lost the distinctive green coaches of the Southern, the (G)WR brown and cream, the red loco's-diesel and steam, and some of the really nice schemes applied to some diesels (Deltics and Brush 4's to name just two)

 

I still have my Ian Allan ABC of BR steam loco's for 1967 IIRC, and a sad thin little volume it is . I've probably got more steamers than they did!

 

And finally, the colour. The final degrading insult of all in painting the VoR trains. I suppose they felt it was important to make them look as though they belonged to BR to distinguish them from the amateur efforts elsewhere.

 

Ed

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colour lights

 

Preston No.4 down platform homes combined with Preston No.5 down distants, dating from the early 1950s iirc.possibly even late LMS certainly not that unusual for steam period, the Southern had used colour lights for 30-40 years by this time, plenty of other locations also had them, but the style is the important differentiator, they are not the more conventional heads which most modellers use.

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...The fact that the upstart diesels didn't even have to carry a "D" to make them recognise the senior motive power.

 

... Goods trains started to lose their brake vans and look just wrong.

 

Bit of blurring in the chronology here Ed. Painting out/omitting 'D' prefixes and abandonment of brake vans are both measures which only came in after the end of steam.

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Preston No.4 down platform homes combined with Preston No.5 down distants, dating from the early 1950s iirc.possibly even late LMS certainly not that unusual for steam period, the Southern had used colour lights for 30-40 years by this time, plenty of other locations also had them, but the style is the important differentiator, they are not the more conventional heads which most modellers use.

For Jim s-w, there were even colour lights at Birmingham New St in early LMS days. My Grandfather was involved in putting up the first following an accident c1924/5. He was also there for putting up the last one during the rebuilding in 1964-67.

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Jim's point is interesting - the degree of heavy weathering I seem to see on many model late-era BR steam locos led me to believe that this was exactly the period being modelled!

 

As far as the BR culture of the era was concerned, there was a huge drive to cut costs. Dr Beeching had been employed by HM Government to reduce the burden on the taxpayer, and he was doing that very effectively, as we all know. Productivity or Work Study teams - aka The Razor Gangs - had been looking up and down the system at bits that didn't pay their way. The "Social Railway" was still some years in the future, while the burgeoning of the road-haulage industry in the motorway era meant that wagonload trafic was dropping like a stone. Could the facilities really be expected to be left in place - just in case?

 

I joined BR in 1966, but by being in a busy commuter Region, was never touched by the worst effects of all this.

 

Very true Ian - being there (I too started in '66) was a bit different from being on the outside looking in. There was still a lot of positive attitude in the late '60s with many folk keen to get the railway out of the pit into which it was sinking as road competition got worse and worse. But the more brutal cost cutting and heavy rationalisation on lines which weren't closed didn't start to bite nationally until the '70s although the Western had got underway with it, and then some, in the '60s.

 

The late '60s were a period of interesting change in that a lot of 'traditional railway' was still there and as Jim said it is a period which is overlooked although I agree with the comment that the level of filth applied to many model steam locos is more typical of that period than a few years earlier. I prefer the late'50s/very early '60s because that was when the Western went through the first period of great change - geography is an important feature when modelling that decade.

 

As for colour light signals and steam - well that goes back to the 1920s and the colour lights at Preston of course mainly dated from the 1950s as did flat bottom rail pointwork (flat bottom rail would again by 1930s). Oddly the only thing which hangs a late date on the linked pic is the colour scheme of the coach and the B4 bogie - for everything else it could as easily have been taken 10 years earlier - but that would lose the 'crossover' of periods element of course!

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The late '60s were a period of interesting change in that a lot of 'traditional railway' was still there and as Jim said it is a period which is overlooked although I agree with the comment that the level of filth applied to many model steam locos is more typical of that period than a few years earlier. I prefer the late'50s/very early '60s because that was when the Western went through the first period of great change - geography is an important feature when modelling that decade.

 

 

I was another 1966 starter. As SM says, many of the cuts did not really start to bite deeply until the end of the 1960s and early 1970s. This was partly due to the 'Surplus Capacity' grants in the 1968 Act, which forced BR to get rid of a lot of track capacity by the end of 1973.

 

As for the condition of locos, looking back through my own magazine and photo archives there were a lot of very presentable steam locos about in the early and mid 1960s. What struck me looking through my own photos was the amount of grime on the green diesels before carriage washers came in. Many of these were no cleaner than the steam locos after a few months in service.

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I agree with the historical summaries.

 

When I worked on the Rail Passengers' Committee I met quite a few ex BR managers.

 

They all were enthusiastic about privatisation. They had long memories of government interference in the 70's and 80's. Perhaps we have forgotten how anti rail governments of all colours were in this period.

 

They recalled many many stories but their role was really to manage decline. Hardly inspiring to anyone really. As Nigel Harris of Rail said it was a period when intitiative was discouraged in his words " many people with a get up and go attitude simply did just that - they got up and left".

 

Jack

Edited by GC Jack
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