Wright writes.....

[Chamby]

 

Thoughts, please. 

 

 

There is no definitive view, Tony.  You can exclude a model like Pendon from your top ten, because you have set parameters that others... well, they don't draw the same distinction.  Unless we all agree a universal definition of layouts that fit the criteria, there will always be disparate views. 

 

Problems arise when you try to compare apples with pears, as the saying goes.  

 

Not a problem for me though... metaphorically speaking, my own layout is developing into more of a mango, but it works for me!

 

Phil.

[grahame]

. . .  my own layout is developing into more of a mango, but it works for me!

 

 

Mmmm, I like mangoes.

 

G

[Clive Mortimore]

I forgot to add to my post from earlier today.

 

No matter if you can build the whole of Tinsley yard to P4 standards or you have a make believe modern image branch terminus which still has a loco hauled service as long as you are having fun then your layout is the top layout of them all.

[polybear]

The big disadvantage of modelling a real location in the sort of space that many modellers have is that more often than not the track layout is very limited, which in turn severely restricts the operational interest (put simply, it looks really nice, but is boring to operate)

[t-b-g]

I forgot to add to my post from earlier today.

 

No matter if you can build the whole of Tinsley yard to P4 standards or you have a make believe modern image branch terminus which still has a loco hauled service as long as you are having fun then your layout is the top layout of them all.

Spot on! If we all liked the same things the hobby would be very one dimensional and dull. We can all have our likes and dislikes and hopefully compare notes and discuss what they are and why we have them on here without ever dismissing what others do that doesn't match what we prefer. Edited December 3, 2018 by t-b-g

[Lecorbusier]

 

Thoughts, please. 

Perhaps we are straying a little from the original subject .... the word iconic.

 

Iconic by my understanding is really not about an individuals personal tastes and preferences (however sophisticated and honed) but rather a collective labelling through consensus. I suggested the Beetle as being an iconic car not because it is without fault but because it has demonstrably become so despite many loathing the vehicle.

 

In model railway terms this is why I would tend towards the view that the Offerings of Pendon are iconic even if they do not make the top 10 under selective criteria governed by personal preference.

 

Whether one would want one's layout to be iconic is another question entirely.

[Chamby]

I was sorting through some boxes of old stuff this weekend, and came across my first ever kit-build project, I must have been about nineteen when I built it.  I wanted something small and easy to build without specialised equipment, and painted it in Great Central green with a great big GC crest on the side.  Nothing like the real Y8's ever wore, but it pleased me at the time.  It ran backwards because I wired the polarity the wrong way round, but it worked, pulled wagons and gave me a real sense of achievement.

 

I have posed it next to my current project, one of the GC A3's from 1949, because I find the contrast fascinating.  This is a Hornby model, (Sorry, Tony) in the process of modification to become a reasonably accurate representation of 60049 Galtee More as in her Leicester days.  Although this model is a straightforward modification of R3518 Gay Crusader I have four in total going through the works at the moment, including 111 Enterprise; 60054 Prince of Wales and 60061 Pretty Polly.  Blue liveried versions of Sir Frederick Banbury and Prince Palatine will follow.  All are subtly different to accurately portray the class member in 1949, including boiler dome shape, tender version, some require the donors to be modified by reducing the cab cut-out and converting to right hand drive.  Still to do on Galtee More:  Add coal, wiggly wires, weathering, crew and working lamps.  I'm also still mulling over whether swopping the front bogie wheels to Markits ones is worthwhile.

 

 

The reason for prattling on about this is that it highlights the contrast of my modelling between then and now.  In my late teens, I was very naive about details such as liveries, locations and detail accuracy in general, mostly I just made stuff as I liked.  Fifty years on and I am much more concerned about accuracy, and research is at least as important as the modelling itself.   Sure, my modelling is much more accurate as a result... but with that comes a much more critical eye.   Rediscovering the little Y8 has reminded me that it is important to not lose sight of the simple joy of modelling, as I pursue ever increasing accuracy!

 

Incidentally, the recent comments about background clutter remind me of why I painted the walls of my railway room sky-blue, it has made a big difference!

 

Phil 

[Forester]

It is rather like the difference between a photo and a painting. The photographer records a scene. The painter can paint a real scene or they can create one from their imagination or they can go somewhere inbetween, using real items in an imagined composition.

 

To me this absoutely nails it!

 

Just as a painting masterpiece way surpasses the original scene that inspired it, so a masterpiece model railway should do more than copy grain for grain the image on a photograph.

 

The imagination should come into play to express something above a mere collection of metal formed into shapes, or bricks piled up into buildings.

 

There should be an attempt to portray, say, the feelings of excitement of a journey, the power of a loco, the activity of a station, the people necessary to keep the railway running, or maybe the grime of steam - something that adds an emotional wow factor that stimulates thought and memories, not just a flat rivet-correct copy of something.

 

Just my view.

[The Stationmaster]

Agreed almost totally, however the Midland did just disable the GC in the east midlands (especially in Notts and Leicestershire), and south Yorkshire just because they wanted to. It was a slow death by not very well disguised stealth (that seems a strange description but you may get what I'm saying there?) Stuffing the LNER/?GC loco fleet and dropping in a lot of LMS loco's, the Scots for example were knackered, ensured the GC/ER staff decided to call it a day in many cases. The 'eight freights' were ok, the inherited 9Fs were tolerated and the few Black 5s proved their worth on the final London Branch passenger turns.

I know little about op's but can't quite understand why the almost flat and crossingless (apart from one) GC route was not the preferred freight route to the smoke and not the Midland where Sharnbrook was a PITA and created timing issues. They even lost the 'strategic route' to the west' from Woodford H. Bonkers decisions.

 

Hey ho as they say in the Boys' Brigade.

Phil (the other one)

 

I have long been convinced that these various cutbacks such as the GC and the 'Withered Arm' were actually helped along by changing Regional ownerships and it was done on purpose for that very reason.   Would the SR have willingly rationalised the L&SW mainline to Exeter - I doubt it, but the WR with three potential routes as far as Exeter to the south west would inevitably have had to concentrate its efforts on what it saw as the most logical and would therefore be the instrument to rationalise the L&SW route.  Similarly giving the LMR the GC at a time of overall declining coal traffic would mean that as traffic was inevitably concentrated onto one route its management would chose the route they knew so because a decision was made at high level to rundown and close the GC it was given to the folk who would starve it of money and stock it with rundown engines to help the process along.  Similarly the Cambrian lost out by being transferred from the WR to the LMR as the WR's dieselisation plans were cast aside in the same way that the Wr cast aside the SR's dieselisation plans for the branches in the south west.

[Tony Wright]

Spot on! If we all liked the same things the hobby would be very one dimensional and dull. We can all have our likes and dislikes and hopefully compare notes and discuss what they are and why we have them on here without ever dismissing what others do that doesn't match what we prefer.

I hope you don't count me among those who dismiss what other do because it doesn't fit into what I prefer, Tony.

 

As many have already said, to model a real (main line) location takes a great deal of space. Far more than most modellers can ever dream of. In the case of Buckingham, it's astonishing what Peter Denny managed to fit into quite a confined area, and still give a 'reasonable' distance between stations, and the influence on others of Peter's modelling should never be underestimated. Yet, in the same way that what I do doesn't 'float your boat', made-up layouts, however seminal and influential, don't 'float mine'. 

 

And, where a prototype is so compressed because of space restrictions that it loses that essential sprawl in model form, I feel the builder(s) would be better making a location up. 

 

The word 'impressionistic' has been mentioned, and LB is certainly that. It (I hope) creates an impression of a real place as a miniature 'snapshot in time', 60 years ago. What I find so appealing about modelling an actual place (with lots and lots of help, of course) is it's so liberating. If anything, making a model railway of a made-up location is far more difficult. Since I'm all for the easier route, then that's why I choose to model a prototype. 

 

And, if one takes it to a separate level: how many folk make models of made-up locos, made-up carriages, made-up wagons, made-up structures and so on? Taken to its conclusion, it's really freelance modelling, which, as is to be expected, holds little interest to me.

 

Regards,

 

Tony.  

Edited December 3, 2018 by Tony Wright

[TrevorP1]

On the subject of layouts 'worthy of note', does anybody know what happened to David Jenkinson's Garsdale Road? Dad and I would go regularly to the Central Hall exhibition each Easter and this is the only layout I can remember from those days. It was 1970 I think. Even at 15 I began to realise that layouts based on a particular place would always come high up my list of priorities. Garsdale Road certainly inspired me to visit the real Dent station and take my old Mk1 Cortina over the 'coal road' which in those days was just a 3 ply track for most of it's length. If anyone could post photos of the layout it would make my day.

 

Secondly - and I'm sorry to be slow but we have a house full of builders and the resultant distractions - a question for Tony. When you run your sequence I understand that the stock is in fixed sets but what about the engines? In other words, do they have 'return working' later in the sequence?

[Tony Wright]

To me this absoutely nails it!

 

Just as a painting masterpiece way surpasses the original scene that inspired it, so a masterpiece model railway should do more than copy grain for grain the image on a photograph.

 

The imagination should come into play to express something above a mere collection of metal formed into shapes, or bricks piled up into buildings.

 

There should be an attempt to portray, say, the feelings of excitement of a journey, the power of a loco, the activity of a station, the people necessary to keep the railway running, or maybe the grime of steam - something that adds an emotional wow factor that stimulates thought and memories, not just a flat rivet-correct copy of something.

 

Just my view.

An interesting series of observation,

 

My thanks for posting.

 

Could not all you describe be achieved on a model of an actual prototype as well? 

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

[Headstock]

Its quite clear that it should have been the Midland mainline that was run down, a hotch potch of badly engineered speed restrictions and bottlenecks, that hadn't the capacity to deal with any diverted traffic from the GC, it went instead to the motorways. The fastest and most direct route between the North East and the South and West was destroyed, leaving a service that today worse than that of a third world country. The Midland mainline was slow and heavily subsidized by the tax payer. The GC was fast, beautifully engineered and despite attempts to wreck it, it turned a healthy profit up until the day it was closed.

The Annesley Woodford runners provided the most efficient freight service in the country, a service not copied or matched by BR generally until the 1970s. Unfortunately, the GC was always a thorn in the side of the Midland, it was Midland men that took over the LMS and then BR. They were never going to chose the superior route over their own. Ironically, after the Eastern were ousted it was the Western and Southern regions, with a mind to their own loss of traffic, that were amongst the chief opponents of the Midland regions detestable and cowadly plans.

[jamie92208]

On the subject of layouts 'worthy of note', does anybody know what happened to David Jenkinson's Garsdale Road? Dad and I would go regularly to the Central Hall exhibition each Easter and this is the only layout I can remember from those days. It was 1970 I think. Even at 15 I began to realise that layouts based on a particular place would always come high up my list of priorities. Garsdale Road certainly inspired me to visit the real Dent station and take my old Mk1 Cortina over the 'coal road' which in those days was just a 3 ply track for most of it's length. If anyone could post photos of the layout it would make my day.

 

Secondly - and I'm sorry to be slow but we have a house full of builders and the resultant distractions - a question for Tony. When you run your sequence I understand that the stock is in fixed sets but what about the engines? In other words, do they have 'return working' later in the sequence?

 

I can't help with Garsdale Road unfortunately but Marthwaite and Kendal Castle were dismantled after David's death as his widow needed to sell the house.  I knew the people who dismantled it.   The stock was sold, mainly at Christies and the track and some scenic items were sold on the Wakefield Club secondhand stall. I was lucky enough to buy some of the wagons, some track and some of the platform fittings, all of which have been re-used on Lancaster Green Ayre.

 

Jamie

[Tony Wright]

On the subject of layouts 'worthy of note', does anybody know what happened to David Jenkinson's Garsdale Road? Dad and I would go regularly to the Central Hall exhibition each Easter and this is the only layout I can remember from those days. It was 1970 I think. Even at 15 I began to realise that layouts based on a particular place would always come high up my list of priorities. Garsdale Road certainly inspired me to visit the real Dent station and take my old Mk1 Cortina over the 'coal road' which in those days was just a 3 ply track for most of it's length. If anyone could post photos of the layout it would make my day.

 

Secondly - and I'm sorry to be slow but we have a house full of builders and the resultant distractions - a question for Tony. When you run your sequence I understand that the stock is in fixed sets but what about the engines? In other words, do they have 'return working' later in the sequence?

Good evening Trevor,

 

I have no idea what happened to Garsdale Road after the 'Little Long Drag' was abandoned by Jenks, and he turned to O Gauge.

 

As for the locos on LB, at the start of the 51 train-movement sequence, all the necessary locos are in their places. They remain so until the sequence ends, and then most of them are changed in a like-for-like operation. 48 locos (not including those on the M&GNR) are needed to run the sequence, and there are over 150 to choose from. 

 

It's just possible that there might be a return working (one of the Leeds trains, for instance), but I don't factor that in.

 

As for 'enjoyable' operation, two friends came today and we had a great time just running trains. The sequence was not even contemplated, and we just ran whatever took our fancies - several times round in most cases. It certainly wasn't prototypical, but it was huge fun. And, we almost had 'perfect running', until I forgot to set a road (wind-bagging, as usual), sending The Talisman into quite the wrong place! 

 

Thanks Tony and Arun for a wonderful day! 

Edited December 3, 2018 by Tony Wright

[Clive Mortimore]

I have long been convinced that these various cutbacks such as the GC and the 'Withered Arm' were actually helped along by changing Regional ownerships and it was done on purpose for that very reason.   Would the SR have willingly rationalised the L&SW mainline to Exeter - I doubt it, but the WR with three potential routes as far as Exeter to the south west would inevitably have had to concentrate its efforts on what it saw as the most logical and would therefore be the instrument to rationalise the L&SW route.  Similarly giving the LMR the GC at a time of overall declining coal traffic would mean that as traffic was inevitably concentrated onto one route its management would chose the route they knew so because a decision was made at high level to rundown and close the GC it was given to the folk who would starve it of money and stock it with rundown engines to help the process along.  Similarly the Cambrian lost out by being transferred from the WR to the LMR as the WR's dieselisation plans were cast aside in the same way that the Wr cast aside the SR's dieselisation plans for the branches in the south west.

Hi Mike

 

The Midland mainline was split up between 4 regions (LMR, WR, ER, and NER) and lost a lot of its services on "home territory", those to Manchester so why wasn't that completely closed not the GCR? I think because south of Leicester it served towns that no other railway provided a direct link to London. The Great Central being the new comer, the major towns it served already had links with London.

 

Andy mentioned the GCR provided the best North East to South West link. I would argue, not going through Birmingham might be seen as a negative to the GCR being the best route. 

 

Earlier on Phil said that the GCR in Nottinghamshire was devastated. Many of the collieries and mining towns were also served by the MR and GNR, did every mine need three railway connections on lines that ran parallel with each other along the same valley?  

 

As for the WR taking over the SR lines west of Salisbury, what if the SR had taken over the ex GWR lines in Dorset, Devon and Cornwall. I am sure they would have looked at the expense of repairing that sea wall and said "Even in winter Oakhampton looks nice" on their adverts.

[TrevorP1]

Good evening Trevor,

 

I have no idea what happened to Garsdale Road after the 'Little Long Drag' was abandoned by Jenks, and he turned to O Gauge.

 

As for the locos on LB, at the start of the 51 train-movement sequence, all the necessary locos are in their places. They remain so until the sequence ends, and then most of them are changed in a like-for-like operation. 48 locos (not including those on the M&GNR) are needed to run the sequence, and there are over 150 to choose from. 

 

It's just possible that there might be a return working (one of the Leeds trains, for instance), but I don't factor that in.

 

 

 

Thank you Tony.

[richard i]

Hi Mike

 

The Midland mainline was split up between 4 regions (LMR, WR, ER, and NER) and lost a lot of its services on "home territory", those to Manchester so why wasn't that completely closed not the GCR? I think because south of Leicester it served towns that no other railway provided a direct link to London. The Great Central being the new comer, the major towns it served already had links with London.

 

Andy mentioned the GCR provided the best North East to South West link. I would argue, not going through Birmingham might be seen as a negative to the GCR being the best route. 

 

Earlier on Phil said that the GCR in Nottinghamshire was devastated. Many of the collieries and mining towns were also served by the MR and GNR, did every mine need three railway connections on lines that ran parallel with each other along the same valley?  

 

As for the WR taking over the SR lines west of Salisbury, what if the SR had taken over the ex GWR lines in Dorset, Devon and Cornwall. I am sure they would have looked at the expense of repairing that sea wall and said "Even in winter Oakhampton looks nice" on their adverts.

Clive you do say some wicked things.

Also I have to contest having gone Exeter to York across country I can assure you going through Birmingham is a pain and the rest of the route is slow.

Richard

[Clive Mortimore]

Clive you do say some wicked things.

Also I have to contest having gone Exeter to York across country I can assure you going through Birmingham is a pain and the rest of the route is slow.

Richard

Hi Richard

 

Saying Oakhampton looks nice in the winter is wicked?

 

Seriously the GCR as a North East to South West route misses out a lot of important towns, is that in the interest of those communities and business?

Edited December 3, 2018 by Clive Mortimore

[Headstock]

Birmingham was one of the most catastrophic bottlenecks on the Midland. After the closure of the GC, a Quoted time for a thousand ton steel train leaving Midesborough would be three days to get it to the south coast by the Midland route, via the GC it would be on board ship on the same day. The loss of these export channels was a serious blow to the North East steel industry.

 

The GC coal operation in the Nottingham and South Yorkshire coalfields was highly efficient, the GN lines were effectively under the same control, while the midland persisted with the same slow moving mixed goods trains from the last century. The GC specialized in moving bulk freight as quickly as possible, a lesson the rest of the rail network took decades to catch on to.

[Clive Mortimore]

Birmingham was one of the most catastrophic bottlenecks on the Midland. After the closure of the GC, a Quoted time for a thousand ton steel train leaving Midesborough would be three days to get it to the south coast by the Midland route, via the GC it would be on board ship on the same day. The loss of these export channels was a serious blow to the North East steel industry.

 

The GC coal operation in the Nottingham and South Yorkshire coalfields was highly efficient, the GN lines were effectively under the same control, while the midland persisted with the same slow moving mixed goods trains from the last century. The GC specialized in moving bulk freight as quickly as possible, a lesson the rest of the rail network took decades to catch on to.

I am now a little confused. So steel couldn't be exported from the ports in the north east? Railway lines from the North East not going to Birmingham, a major manufacturing city that used loads of steel, would that help British industry?

 

The transport of coal was not highly efficient on any of our railways until the development of MGR trains by BR, using the lines, GCR, GNR and MR which were the most suitable for pit to power station routing. Remarshaling of trains in a village in Northamptonshire was not an efficient means of transporting coal, nor was it at Wellingborough or Peterborough or March.

 

The Midland Railway was also good at handling bulk freight, the banana trains from Bristol to London via the SMJR were faster than Burnel's direct route.

[jrg1]

I was amazed when Nottingham Victoria was closed in favour of the Midland station-a fast, segregated route through the city obliterated in favour of a lousy layout and a station that faced the wrong way, with inconvenient workings.  The GCR frieghts were fast, profitable and reliable, with the Windcutters years ahead of their time.

[Forester]

An interesting series of observation,

 

My thanks for posting.

 

Could not all you describe be achieved on a model of an actual prototype as well? 

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

 

It could indeed.

 

But it rarely is because the modeller has often become so tunnel-visioned by obsession for accuracy that the need to add that little extra flourishes gets easily forgotten.

 

Perhaps It's no coincidence that many of the world's greatest paintings are impressionist, as there the wow-factor often gets painted first and the rest of the scene painted only to the extent needed to explain the subject.

[Northmoor]

Just as a painting masterpiece way surpasses the original scene that inspired it, so a masterpiece model railway should do more than copy grain for grain the image on a photograph.

 

The imagination should come into play to express something above a mere collection of metal formed into shapes, or bricks piled up into buildings.

 

There should be an attempt to portray, say, the feelings of excitement of a journey, the power of a loco, the activity of a station, the people necessary to keep the railway running, or maybe the grime of steam - something that adds an emotional wow factor that stimulates thought and memories, not just a flat rivet-correct copy of something.

I wish there was an "Agree 100%" button.

 

I have seen (admittedly only one or two) superb recreations of real locations that leave me cold; somehow the layouts are lifeless.  The best layouts - often helped by excellent photography in magazines - are the ones where I can see the picture in the builder's eye and imagine my 4mm/ft scale self walking off the edge of the baseboard into the wider landscape.  Wibdenshaw is just one recent example that works this way for me (thanks Wibble).

[rowanj]

Tony posted..

And, where a prototype is so compressed because of space restrictions that it loses that essential sprawl in model form, I feel the builder(s) would be better making a location up.

 

I don't agree with that,Tony. My own layout, which will almost certainly be my last, is of a real location where I did most of my spotting. However, even with a loft, I have been barely able to make a reasonable representation of the south but only a rough facsimile of the north. It is a one man show, so I suppose the running is "boring". But being a real location, even in a fairly flexible 1955_63 period, has obliged me to build locos which had a good chance of actually passing there, and a representative rake of stock for them to haul. So I relive my childhood, visit old haunts,do research and try to build things which were there when I was a kid.

So for all the compromises,I find it much more satisfying than a fictional location. Of course, each to his own.

 

John

Edited December 3, 2018 by rowanj