Guest Natalie Graham Posted February 27, 2012 Share Posted February 27, 2012 Going a little off topic but still concerning the early years of 2mm; July 1956 Model Railway News carries a review of H B Whall's catalogue of 000 gauge products. Items included 'vertical drive motors with gears from £3 17s 6d' 'spoked driving wheels 4 ft to 4 ft 6 with cast in crank pins ranging from 4s 6d to 6s a pair' 'Right- and left-hand turnouts (24-in radius) in kit form at 9s 6d each' while track kits for straight and curved sections of track of 9-in length were priced at 1s 10d and 2s 1d respectively. A range of coach underframes is listed with bodies made to order, 'due to the large variety of prototype designs'. Wagon underframes along with bodies in both wood and plastic are listed along with a number of loco components and scenic items. The review tells us that all items are for 2-rail operation There seems to have been a number of gauges in use for 000 at that time as the standards quoted for Mr Whall's products were 9.5mm while in the letters page of the same issue Stewart Hine is advocating 9.42mm as part of an ongoing correspondence on the gauge with others advocating 8mm and 9mm gauge. Earlier issues of the same year included articles on building an 0-4-0 tank loco and a very ingenious method of making track, both used 8mm gauge. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Armchair Modeller Posted February 28, 2012 Author Share Posted February 28, 2012 From the July 1952 Railway Modeller article RWG Bryant describes how he made everything himself for the fiddle yard and talks of the I&D as his layout. In the February 1954 article, he credits several people for helping or supplying parts. Mr Pochin of Manchester MRS arranged for etchings to be made of Highland signal drawings prepared by Mr Bryant. The finials were turned by a friend of Mr Bryant. Dornoch, the Highland 0-6-0T was built by Mr C W A Mitchell. The NER 0-4-4T was presented by Mr J W Charlton of Gateshead. This was originally 3-rail. The chassis was rebuilt as an 0-6-4T, along with a new body, by Mr Whall. For scratchbuilt coaching stock, Mr Bryant appears to have made the bodywork, but not the chassis. The underframes for coaches were built by Mr J J Langridge. There were a few tinplate LNWR items too, adapted with new underframes. Some wagons had underframes cast by Mr Langridge, others by Mr Whall. Buildings and scenery were by Mr Bryant. He does not mention who made the trackwork, except for the fiddle yard, where the article kind of implies it was by himself. So, even in the 1940s and early 1950s there was a real cottage industry for 2mm parts. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Armchair Modeller Posted February 29, 2012 Author Share Posted February 29, 2012 Following the tip-off about the Scale trains magazine article mentioned above, I have now obtained a copy. This does seem to be the authoritative article on the I&D, written by RWG Bryant himself. The photos seem to be pretty much the ones seen elsewhere, but there is a good plan of the layout (fiddle yard excepted). Scanning the various photos I have found, there do seem to have been a few changes made to the scenery. The most obvious is the station building at Inversnecky Harbour. In what i assume to be the original, there was a building at first floor level, presumably a booking office. In the more recent state there is just a representation of a staircase. maybe the building got damaged or lost at some time. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
shortliner Posted February 29, 2012 Share Posted February 29, 2012 Armchair Modeller - following a link on another thread I noticed the first line of this http://www.scalefour.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=1711 - whether he is refering to the same gent I know not, but it seemed co-incidental. It may be worth contacting the OP on there who may know some more about the I&D and its fate Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chrislock Posted March 3, 2012 Share Posted March 3, 2012 As I said on page 1, this layout seems to have been a cooperative effort using the skills of several groundbreaking 2mm modellers. Here is the photo of Drambuie : Editor please feel free to remove if you are feeling jittery about copyright. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Armchair Modeller Posted March 3, 2012 Author Share Posted March 3, 2012 Thanks for that Chris. The same photo appears in one of the magazine articles I mentioned, but not in the collection on the 2mm Scale Association site. The siding in the background seems to climb very steeply. I assume it was intended for loco coal wagons. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Armchair Modeller Posted March 8, 2012 Author Share Posted March 8, 2012 I have now managed to get hold of a copy of Modelling the old-time railways, Edward Beal. The I&D is mentioned several times, including a plan and description of Inversnecky Harbour at the very back. Thanks for mentioning the book, Chris! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Natalie Graham Posted March 14, 2012 Share Posted March 14, 2012 I can add a little more to this history of the layout. I just (in the post in the last hour) acquired a copy of the May 1949 Model Railway News. As well as a splendid cover photo of a large white cat sat in the middle of the town on John Ahern's Madder Valley layout, the issue contains an article about the Inversnecky and Drambuie by Mr. Bryant. At this point the layout was just the Inversnecky Pier board. he describes how the Stroudley tank was built for him by Mr. C.W.A. Mitchell in return for the buildings he had constructed for Mr Mitchell's layout. Apparently it originally had a Jones style chimney and was finished in the earlier Jones livery but was due a repaint into the later dark green livery and a Drummond chimney as he had realised that the extended tanks were only correct post-1917. The little loco is described as being capable of pulling seven coaches on the level (that would have put Hugh Bryant's patriot to shame) and climbimg a 1 in 3 gradient by itself. The layout was constructed around a surplus track formation built for, but not used on, Mr. Mitchell's layout. The article confirms the NER 0-4-4T was built by Mr. Charlton and that he fitted bogies to the Bing tinplate LNWR coaches which were orginally five in number including one brake carriage. The idea of the freelance North Caledonian Railway was used to accomodate these vehicles and the NER tank loco. At the time he says he had two goods wagons, a PO wagon and a CR pig iron wagon built on underframes given to him by J.J. Langridge. He writes that he had several others under construction. Unfortunately, although the article has a track plan, there are no photographs. I wonder if anything more is known about the layout of Mr. Mitchell which sounds as if it might have been quite an extensive model. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Armchair Modeller Posted March 14, 2012 Author Share Posted March 14, 2012 Mitchell is mentioned briefly in the Scale Trains article mentioned previously. He had a Southern layout with a Schools class and an H class loco. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pacific231G Posted March 15, 2012 Share Posted March 15, 2012 I've got most of the articles mentioned so must dig them out. It's a fascinating layout. Does anyone know whether building the layout to fit in various instrument cases was whimsey by Mike Bryant or a practical solution to transporting the layout by public transport? Also was this the same Mike Bryant who wrote several books about railway modelling (for Ian Allen I think) including Modelling in TT3 and built a very nice 4x2 project layout in that scale that appeared as a series of how to articles Large Quart in a Small Pint Pot in MRC in about 1958? . Update. They were of course two different Bryants and were cousins. In the first of his Pint Pot articles in MRC in 1958 Mike Bryant refers to his cousin R.W.G. "Dormouse" Bryant's shadow dogging his footsteps when he was experimenting with TT-3 with remarks like "Coo ain't it tiny but you won't get that into a fiddle case Mike Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Donw Posted March 15, 2012 RMweb Gold Share Posted March 15, 2012 I've got most of the articles mentioned so must dig them out. It's a fascinating layout. Does anyone know whether building the layout to fit in various instrument cases was whimsey by Mike Bryant or a practical solution to transporting the layout by public transport? Also was this the same Mike Bryant who wrote several books about railway modelling (for Ian Allen I think) including Modelling in TT3 and built a very nice 4x2 project layout in that scale that appeared as a series of how to articles Large Quart in a Small Pint Pot in MRC in about 1958? . At the time of building the layout practically anything useful was rationed. Wood was difficult to obtain and recycling ( of the proper sort!) was the order of the day. So if an instrument case was available it would have been pressed into service. That being said it was probably also a bit of a gimmick. Don edit The two Bryants were related see earlier posts for details. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Armchair Modeller Posted March 15, 2012 Author Share Posted March 15, 2012 RWG Bryant mentioned that he lived in digs when the I&D was being built. The cases would have provided a good means of storage, safe from the landlady's duster. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Natalie Graham Posted March 15, 2012 Share Posted March 15, 2012 At the time of building the layout practically anything useful was rationed. The edition of MRN with the layout article in is reduced to a small landscape format magazine of very few pages due to the shortages at that time. In the previous edition there is a letter from someone who has found a source of insulation board for baseboard building which is available without the need for the licence normally required to purchase it. Over 60 years later and modellers are still looking for a source of insulation board for baseboards. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Long Line Posted March 29, 2012 Share Posted March 29, 2012 As secretary of Macclesfield some years back I presented the other part of the layout to the NRM along with some documents , the attached pic shows such, i don't regularly attend the NRM so cannot confirm if it has yet been attached to the other sections on display? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Armchair Modeller Posted March 29, 2012 Author Share Posted March 29, 2012 Many thanks for confirming what happened to the Drambuie section. I have not seen it on display, but would be grateful to hear if the situation has changed in the last 2 or so years since my last visit. Seeing all the photos, the overall concept for the I&D was a very good one - though Mr Bryant admitted to struggling a bit with the concept for his junction station at Drambuie. It is so tempting to have a go at an up-to-date version using modern materials and parts. The layout was started in 1948 and represented the Highland Railway around the turn of the century, 50 or so years previously, a new model looking back a similar period of time would represent the period around 1960-65, with the end of steam and the introduction of early diesels. Class 21s, 26s and 27s, class 20s, plus railcars or DMUs would be the order of the day. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chrislock Posted March 30, 2012 Share Posted March 30, 2012 I can envisage a blue diesel version rather than that end of steam period. It would be an interesting concept for 3 modellers to each build a different section - with some careful planning - so that the three sections could be brought together at a 2mm event sometime... One spec would be that each section would have to fit into some kind of musical case, which could be carried on public transport! The boards could sit and connect on trestle tables to keep things simple. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Natalie Graham Posted March 30, 2012 Share Posted March 30, 2012 One spec would be that each section would have to fit into some kind of musical case, Would this do? http://gkrates.servi...pping-piano.jpg Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium CF MRC Posted March 30, 2012 RMweb Premium Share Posted March 30, 2012 Would this do? http://gkrates.servi...pping-piano.jpg Could we use the big black boxes - music mixer desk boxes - containing CF, named Titanic & Carpathia? Tim Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chrislock Posted April 1, 2012 Share Posted April 1, 2012 Well i guess that would bring the concept up to date in another way Tim. Nah, maybe the I & D idea is best left in a museum after all... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Armchair Modeller Posted April 1, 2012 Author Share Posted April 1, 2012 Could we use the big black boxes - music mixer desk boxes - containing CF, named Titanic & Carpathia? Tim Well i guess that would bring the concept up to date in another way Tim. Nah, maybe the I & D idea is best left in a museum after all... Well, that kills that idea stone dead then! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chrislock Posted April 2, 2012 Share Posted April 2, 2012 Well I do have a decent sized guitar case but, unfortunately for this idea, it's occupied by a rather nice acoustic which I brought back from the USA a few years ago! Isn't Barcelona Pete's Kyle of Lochalsh in a boxfile really a similar idea in modern guise ? Well its 2FS and Scottish anyway! But,having considered the idea further,surely the modern equivalent would surely be to scratchbuild it in Z gauge in violin/viola/banjo cases? I would really like to see all parts of the original I&D reassembled and operating somewhere though. That would be something. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold bcnPete Posted April 2, 2012 RMweb Gold Share Posted April 2, 2012 Isn't Barcelona Pete's Kyle of Lochalsh in a boxfile really a similar idea in modern guise ? Well its 2FS and Scottish anyway! All credit should go to Anthony Yeates on that one...his superb Inverneuk layout inspired me... Great to see that last colour photo of I+D... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
2mm Andy Posted April 15, 2012 Share Posted April 15, 2012 As secretary of Macclesfield some years back I presented the other part of the layout to the NRM along with some documents , the attached pic shows such, i don't regularly attend the NRM so cannot confirm if it has yet been attached to the other sections on display? I popped into the NRM on Friday to take a few photos of 'City of Truro' for a friend, and whilst I was there, wandered over to the 'Warehouse' section. Both sections of the I&D are now on display together in a glass case. I did take a few photos, but the case made it very difficult to get a decent shot (and I was using my phone as well!). I'll try and improve them and post them here. Andy Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Long Line Posted April 16, 2012 Share Posted April 16, 2012 To clarify Andy when I went they already had two sections in the case, they should now have four pieces of model? Attached shows what was there then, its the two sections on the left side. Would be nice if it were all on display now, Cheers mark Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
2mm Andy Posted April 17, 2012 Share Posted April 17, 2012 Hi Mark, Just downloaded my photos - apologies for the quality, but they show the two ex-Macclesfield sections in a larger case alongside the ones in your photo. Andy Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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